20 nautical miles further south to Poros

It was getting dark before we were ready to leave. We stayed in the dock. The night was calm. Yet we still had a restless sleep. Because we were awakened every time the large ships stern waves reached the shore and into the small dock, causing Heron to sway threatingly in its short moorings.

As the yard was about to wake up, we started the engine, took the moorings and waved to a morning fresh Panagiotis as we sailed out. When we were well clear of the coast, we sailed along the northern part of Aegina and then changed course and headed for Poros just under 20 nautical miles to the south. 

Half an hour later we passed Aegina Marina. There were many boats at anchor outside the marina. Perhaps it meant that all the spots in the marina were occupied? Good thing we had rigged up and spent the night in the small dock with Asprakis.

Moni right ahead?

Straight ahead was the small island of Moni, where mountain goats, roe deer, peacocks and squirrels live in the rich and varied vegetation. It is unknown how the animals got to the island. Some believe that an islander brought the peacocks there when the island was inhabited, while the deer are said to have been introduced by a foreigner who didn't know what else to do with the deer he - for unknown reasons - had decided to find a new home for. 

We had been to that island.

The day after Thijs & Sarah's wedding, we sailed out there with the bride and groom and the other guests. Curious deer and peacocks met us when we approached the wooden bridge in the small tour boat and we had been swimming from a small beach with crystal clear water colored turquoise by the light sandy bottom, before at the end of the day we were sailed the short trip back to Perdika on Aegina. 

Now, seven months later, the island seemed bigger and the mountain peak higher than we remembered. But the navigational instruments, which we had turned on, although we knew the waters, were not in doubt. Moni was right ahead. 

Geothermal, health and bankruptcy 

We sailed into the narrow strait between Aegina and Moni and from there reached the southern tip of Aegina. To port was the open Aegean Sea. On the horizon we could see some of the islands of the Cyclades. After a few nautical miles we reached the northern tip of the Methana Peninsula on Peloponnese and now got the coast close to starboard.

Methana is known for its underground volcanic activity from which hot springs emerge.

The springs were known in ancient Greece. Pausanias, the Roman geographer who made travelogues, writes two thousand years ago about them and the geothermal activity in the work "Description of Greece"

When healing thermal baths became common in modern times, in 1917 a large spa resort was built at one of the three springs on the peninsula. 

The resort was designed by the German professor and architect Ernst Ziller, who has restored and designed a large number of buildings in Greece.  

At one time it was one of the most used spa resorts in Greece, but slowly it lost its visitors. 

Immediately before the debt crisis, the state privatized the resortt. Two brothers took it over on a 50-year lease. However breathing life into a detoriating former state enterprise was not an easy task. Ten years later, the resort went bankrupt. Now the beautiful neoclassical building with the large pool with the healing sulphurous water lies deserted. In sixth year. Almost like it's waiting for someone to come by and open it. 

Poros 

On entering Poros, you immediately see the many white houses with red roofs. The houses wind up two hills. Like the stands in an amphitheater with the waterfront as a stage. At the top of one you can see the city's landmarks. An observation tower in white and blue and a clockwork with a carillon, which has given it the name ClockTower. 

The bay is busy. Pleasure boats and regular and tourist ferries sail here. To port, you pass a couple of sheltered bays, where yachts are anchored outside taverns with bathers under umbrellas in deckchairs by the beach. 

Traffic is picking up. A car ferry from Galatas in the Peloponnese comes on a transverse course and to starboard you discover the opening into a strait. Here it seems almost a little chaotic when small taxi boats pass across, while a noisy hydrofoil catamaran insists on staying on course and sends deafening sound signals until the two yachts finally get the message and give way. 

The strait is narrow. No more than a few hundred meters. But the navigable channel, which sneaks up close to the city quay with its busy and surprisingly also relaxed life, is even narrower. Only half a hundred meters. This must be what it's like to sail on a canal in Venice. 

Two islands one name 

Poros is not only the capital but also the only town on the island of Sphairia. Residences and a few businesses have spread to the much larger but more sparsely populated island of Kavalvria, which is landlocked with Sphairia via a road across a narrow channel. In everyday speech, the islands, which are actually just one, are called the more colloquial Poros. The Greek word for port and passage. 

Capital 

The rebellion against the Ottomans and the struggle for an independent Greece started in the Peloponnese. 

The port or passage – Poros – thus gained strategic importance and came to function as a base for the Greek fleet. 

It was here ambassadors from France, England and Russia met and established the borders of the new nation. 

Poros became the seat of the provisional government, but when the National Assembly assembled, it was decided to make Nafplion in the Peloponnese the capital.

But the new Greece was more than the Peloponnese. It was also a large land area on the mainland. After a few years, the capital was moved to Athens, which at that time in 1834, with just 7.000 inhabitants, was far from its glory in ancient Greece.  

Several years later, the naval port was also moved to the mainland near Athens. 

The best place

The town quay in Poros is long. The western side can be unsettled when the wind blows from the west. The southern on the other hand, is well protected against wind and waves from all directions. But there are also nightclubs here, where loud voices mix with monotonously pounding digital music late into the night.  

"They have to make a Living too" as Katharina, one of the harbor guards, had explained to us in a smoothingly manner. 

But further on, roughly from the church is, it is quiet. 

It was late in the morning. The breeze blowing coolly across the quay would come later and make docking difficult. But right now there was neither wind nor current and only a few boats on the quay. We dropped anchor a good distance from the church. Then we put the engine in reverse gear. When the propeller got a good grip after a while, we steered perpendicularly towards the quay. 

Here we were received with a hearty  "That went well and welcome" by Jytte and Aage. They had come to Poros a few days earlier and know our somewhat strained relationship with docking the Mediterranean way. Now they were on their way back to the Ionian Islands, where we had met three years ago. 

A little later we got a neighbor on the port side. A large motorboat that would stay for a while. A few hours later we also got a neighbor to starboard. Now the sea breeze had come and was blowing across the quay. But that wasn't a problem for our new neighbor, who dropped his anchor a few meters to starboard of ours and safely backed perpendicular into the berth next to us. 

"A while," they answered when we asked how long they planned to stay.

Cool. 

Now we didn't have to worry about being hit by new neighbors with perhaps an even more strained relationship to dock in the Mediterranean way.

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Ernst Ziller

The Mediterranean way