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Published: June 13th 2015
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Overnight we cruised 185 nautical miles at an average speed of 15 knots and this morning found us anchored off the Greek island of Chios. Yes, anchored, rather than berthed, so that meant being taken ashore in small tender boats to one of Greece's largest islands. Chios is known for its citrus orchards, mediaeval villages and groves of mastic trees.
Well, yes, the island does have lots of interesting things to see but, being one of the largest islands, they are located all around the island and ... we didn't book the shore excursion. This was one destination that probably would have benefitted from a little bit more forward planning?! We could have looked into hiring a taxi to run us around the island, or been really adventurous and attempted the local bus network, but we've just about reached UNESCO site overload on this holiday so decided to take it pretty easy today rather than rush helter skelter around the island seeing the villages of Pyrgi and Mesta and the NeaMoni Monastery built by Emperor Constantine in the 11th century.
The 'Cruise News' and the ships announcements indicated that the peak time for going ashore is between 9.30am and
11.00am and suggested planning to go ashore outside those times. We headed off at about 11.30am and after a very short wait we were able to board the next tender when it returned to the ship. We were ferried ashore in just a few minutes.
We walked around the harbour ... and then we walked back again. There's not much - not really anything! - of note in Chios Town itself. We stopped at a bar/cafe for our daily beer and iced coffee fix ... and some free wi-fi access. Bernie was excited that Richmond was beating Fremantle in the first quarter. I said that we could stay at the cafe until further into the game, but Bernie was worried about having to wait ages to return to the boat if we stayed in Chios until the game ended. He settled for sending his brother a text asking him to let him know the outcome.
We caught the tender back to the ship and found some sun beds to relax on for the rest of the afternoon. As requested Mick sent a text on the outcome of the game. And it was very good news, Richmond actually beat
Freo ... in Perth no less!!
During dinner Kath and Albert told us that they had been talking to one of the ship's officers earlier in the day and he told them that the Thomson Spirit will be going into dry dock at the end of this season for refurbishments. This did not come as a huge surprise because she does look a bit old and tired!! There's nothing really wrong with the ship, but some of the finishes are definitely a bit dated. We all ordered the Ricotta Cheese Strudel for dessert thinking that this sounded interesting. About half way through our meal Larry came to tell us that he could offer us a special dessert tonight - Crepes Suzette. Hmm, OK we all changed to the Crepes Suzette which were delicious, but was it really a special dessert or did they run out of the Ricotta Cheese Strudel that we had all originally ordered?!
Tonight's show was a comedy act - Rudi West. He was quite funny, which is a good thing since he was billed as a comedian!! We followed the show with another game of cards. Bernie won at 'Jo' while I had one of the worst runs EVER at 'Jo' and followed this up with an even worse run of 'Blobs'. Albert won 'Blobs' tonight ... he's on a roll.
Steps for the day 9,015 (6.14 kms)
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Tot: 0.075s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 13; qc: 31; dbt: 0.0457s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
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