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Next on our plans was to sail to the island of Rhodes. It has been on our list for quite some time due to the long history with a number of rulers over the centuries. This has resulted in an interesting combination of architectural styles based on the party/country in power at the time of construction or renovation. You can see the influence of the Romans, the Christians, the Ottomans (Turks), Gothic, Renaissance, the Italians and more modern renovations since damage from WWII.
The Order of St. John was also very active here and we had learned some of their activities when we traveled through Malta a few years ago so wish to learn more about their time here.
The weather prediction looked good for a pleasant 4 ½ hour sail from Symi to Rhodes. Unfortunately, once we got out of Pedi Bay, we found that the forecast was not as they say, “spot on”, but instead quite the opposite. We figured it wouldn’t be too bad and that we would carry on as planned. The winds were coming from a direction that instead made for a very “rocking and rolling” trip. The winds weren’t exceptionally strong, but the
waves were 4-6 foot and they were hitting us on a not so pleasant angle. We put up some sail, but also had the engine on to keep us on track as we decided to make the trip as quickly as possible. Definitely not dangerous at all, just not a day when you wanted to be down below for long as you were being tossed from side to side – thank goodness for those very handy hand holds all throughout the boat. We saw that there was rain ahead of us so we actually took in some sail and cut down on the engine rpms so that we wouldn’t catch up to the storm. Fortunately, that plan worked as we saw it move across in front of us and could see a little blue sky behind it. By the time we were getting closer to the approach to the city of Rhodes, we actually saw a little bit of sunshine, but still heavy wave action.
We knew we planned on staying in the city of Rhodes for a few days to see the sights, but also to work some on unfinished projects as well as a couple of new
things to work on so made reservations to stay in the Rhodes Marina. Fortunately, we are members of the Cruising Association and as such we are entitled to a 15% discount which is a nice plus so it wound up being 40 euros ($43) per night. The marina is about a 20-minute walk from the Medieval old town of Rhodes and is working out very nicely. There is supposed to be a bus that stops close to the marina, but we found out the other night that it didn’t seem to come after waiting 20 minutes past the scheduled time. When we asked at the office about it the next morning, we were told that we shouldn’t depend on the buses out this way and that either walking or taking a taxi are the preferred methods from here into town – not a problem, but the bus just would have been handy. We also wonder if that is the result of it not being full blown tourist season yet here. The people in the office are very pleasant and helpful and they have excellent free wi-fi here – what a bonus that is as it is quite rare to have
A Beautiful View for Our Early Start, A Cup of Tea
and after 4 1/2 hours we see medieval Rhodes ahead it this good in any other marina, we have been in.
One thing we have been talking about for some time is our dinghy. It is definitely old and has been patched more than a few times. It has been doing OK, but now every time we use it, we definitely have to pump air into it as it keeps losing air. Bob has patched one particular spot a number of times and it still leaks air shortly after. With the price of a dinghy, we have been putting it off as Bob says a few pumps each time isn’t too bad. Well, we decided maybe while in Rhodes we would ask if we could have someone else look at it. The office sent someone to us the first day here and they said they could check it out and repair with no long-term guarantee. They gave us a price for a dinghy that was quite a bit less than we have been thinking so decided to get serious about replacing it. The next morning, we researched a couple of other dinghies, but decided on Thursday to go with the first quote we received. We decided the price was
reasonable enough and we were promised that we could get it either on Saturday or Monday at the latest which was important. What is a few more boat units (some of you may remember from previous blog postings that a boat unit is a $1,000) – we will have a brand-new family car!
The one we have been using is the one we got when we bought the boat back in 1997 as the previous owners used it as well. It definitely has served us well, but time to go. It will be nice to have a dinghy (our family car) that is more reliable – let’s just hope no one finds it is one they’d like to steal as we were never worried about that with our old patched one!
We arrived at the marina just after noon with quite a bit of wind blowing so we were happy to have marina staff on the dock to help with our lines. After getting settled in after our “sail” we decided to walk that evening into the old town to have dinner and take our first look around. Always good to use your legs walking after a sail.
There were 3 cruise ships here when we first arrived, but fortunately by the time we went into town there was only one left, so town was still somewhat busy. Fortunately for us they seem to gravitate to all the shops, while we wanted to wander through some of the alleyways away from the crowds as much as we could. We stopped for dinner at a place that was a little off the main street which usually works out better for us. It was definitely at US type prices and the food was OK, but not our best meal out however, Bob did get lamb which he was happy about. We can’t complain too much as we didn’t have to cook or clean up tonight!
The next day, Thursday, we finished up with a few things that needed to be done. One important one was working on the markings on our anchor for depths. We had bought new anchor chain when in Marmaris and the person we worked with there had marked the chain for us so we know how much we are putting out when anchoring. We have it color coded every 20 feet, but noticed that it
wasn’t matching up with what it should be, making it difficult the last couple of times we anchored to know exactly how much chain was out. With fixing this here in Rhodes while at the marina we were able to make the changes that were needed so we are now set for the next time we anchor. One more project done.
We have only been in Rhodes 1 ½ days and we are already enjoying our time here. Looking forward to exploring more. We found out that were not going to be any cruise ships in town on Friday so picked that day to go to the Palace. With so many photos and information about that I figure I’ll put that into a different blog entry to keep this one shorter and at least give me time to post it before we leave the marina tomorrow morning.
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