Hydra Town harbor at sunset with storm clouds passing by. A Dianne Lima photo.
February 12
I got up to turn on the hot water at 5:30 a.m. Instead of the early morning quiet that I’d enjoyed the past few days, I heard (and felt) a sharp wind blowing down the hills, through the town, and out to the sea. It wasn’t raining, but the wind was clear evidence that a storm had been through the area. It had churned up the water enough that I could hear the boats in the harbor slapping up against their docks.
The plan for the day was to catch the boat back to Pireaus and then take a taxi to Athens. We would spend the remainder of day shopping for souvenirs. We had then planned to take a day-trip to Corinth to view the ruins of its ancient city on February 13th. Then, we’d leave Athens very early in the morning on the 14th for London. Unfortunately, it was beginning to look like our plans might have to change because of the weather.
We got dressed and headed downstairs to pay off our bill. Dina told us that the morning Flying Dolphin was not running, and that there might be a boat in the afternoon. She told us to go to the Minoan Lines office to see if we could switch our tickets. We took her advice and headed down to the office at the dock. Sure enough, the morning boat had been cancelled. The ticket agent wasn’t too optimistic that the afternoon boat would be running either. However, she told us to come back around 1 P.M. to see if there would be a late departure.
Since it was a short walk away, we headed over to the ferry office to see if the ferry was sailing. The ferry was a bigger boat than the Flying Dolphins, so we thought there would be a better chance that it would be sailing because it could handle the waves that the Flying Dolphins couldn’t. Instead, the ticket agent told us that the ferry also wouldn’t be running that day.
We headed back upstairs to the Hotel Dina. Dina was at the front door on her way out to do some business. She already knew that the ferry had been cancelled and that it didn’t look good for the Dolphins in the afternoon. For a moment, I was amazed that she would know this information before we mentioned it to her. Then I realized that news probably traveled very fast in a small town like Hydra Town, where everyone knew everyone else.
I received another reminder of the Hydra Town’s close knit-ness when we went to Il Forno for breakfast. We had ordered our usual pastries, when the owner asked us if we had moved into town to do some work. We laughed and said that we were just visiting and that we hoped to be leaving that afternoon. Still, his question cemented an impression that we had been building during our stay: Hydra Town’s natives had started seeing us as one of their own. We had noticed people smiling at us and an occasional wave as we passed by a shop we had previously visited. But, we passed it off as the natives being friendly. I don’t know if it was because we came in off-season, or because of the length of our stay. But, it was clear that we were starting to be recognized as potential new residents of the island by those who already lived there. We weren’t put off by that sentiment. Instead, we felt more of a connection to this wonderful place that would embrace a pair of strangers so quickly into their community.
We ate breakfast again on our favorite harbor bench (and were joined again by the usual harbor cat). It was interesting to note that most of the harbor’s shops were closed. Since there were no boats coming in that morning, the shop owners figured they didn’t need to open during an off-season storm. We looked for some signs that the winds were dying down and the waves were subsiding. But, all we could hear was the crashing of waves against the dock and all we could see were rows and rows of whitecaps marching to the shore. After finishing breakfast, we trudged back around the harbor and to the Minoan Lines office. As we suspected, the afternoon Flying Dolphin had been cancelled. We were stuck on Hydra for another night.
The first thing to do was to make some calls to clear up matters in Athens. We headed over to the Telephone office, where we bought a calling card. I then called Key Tours to tell them that I’d be in the next day to get my sunglasses. They said that it was no problem and that the glasses were waiting for me. Next, I called the Adrian Hotel to cancel our reservation for that night. The Adrian’s staff was very gracious and cancelled the reservation without charging me a penalty or the room’s cost. I was quite surprised by this action, but chalked it up to traveling in off-season.
With the Athens matters cleared up, we went back to the Hotel Dina to see if she would let us stay another night. Dina already knew that the boats had been cancelled. She also said that she had plenty of room, so it would be no problem to extend our stay.
After a short rest out of the elements, we decided to go get some lunch. We didn’t want to walk too far in the winds, so we settled on the first place we found. It was a small, smoky bar called the Café Politi. The café was located right on Kiose about 100 feet from the harbor. We ordered a pizza for 1,400 drachma, which turned out to be as good as any pizza made by an Italian. We finished our meal off with some yogurt and honey for 600 drachma. It was a surprising find, but the food and service were excellent at the Café Politi.
We wondered the streets of Hydra Town doing some window shopping, and some actual grocery shopping. We also stopped at a bakery on Miaouli, right next to Strofilia, for some cookies and pastries. With our purchases, we started off to the hotel to hunker down for the rest of the day. However, we thought we’d make one more stop at the Minoan Lines office to see about changing our tickets to the next day’s ferries. The ticket agent told us that we needed to be at the office at 6:30 a.m. to see if the boats were running. However, she didn’t hold out much hope that they would run.
We went back to our room to read, pack, and eat. We kept waiting to hear the wind die down, but it seemed to never subside throughout the evening. We went to sleep hoping that the weather would be better in the morning.
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