Slow motion
The weather has been rather hairy here the last few days with Thursday being so windy there were no boats running, so choosing to go to Volos on the Friday probably wasn’t a good idea. Somehow I got talked into it which is how I found myself sitting on the ferry at 5.30pm on Friday with a stinking cold feeling generally rotten. The ferry was due 3 hours’ earlier but hadn’t been able to leave Volos because of the rough seas around the Sporades and also couldn’t dock in Skopelos Town but had to go in at Agnondas. I’m not a great sailor, not even a good sailor and I felt awful anyway with blocked sinuses and a headache, so I just lay down on the seats and tried to sleep. It didn’t work and yet I still let Sean drag me off to eat once we’d docked in Volos when all I really wanted to do was lie down. I suppose the thought of him moaning about how hungry he was all night outweighed the discomfort I was in! So we ate, went back to the apartment and I slept until early next morning when I awoke with the same stinking headache and 5 mosquito bites – nice!
We had lots to do shopping wise, with the most important task being getting junior’s bicycle (most important to her anyway). She was thrilled with the bike and her helmet but not so happy when they told her they had to check the tyres over etc before letting her take it away. She was placated by a trip to Zara where she got a new coat, some tops and leggings and then to Starbucks for a warm soya milk. On collecting her bike later she wanted to cycle it around Volos but with the narrow pavements and the traffic she had to wait until we’d wheeled it down to the port where she was let loose to terrorise pedestrians.
We got on the Flying Cat to go back to Skopelos which I wasn’t happy about as you certainly feel more of the sea through it than you do on the ferry but it’s the boat that runs in the afternoon so we had no choice. It wasn’t too bad at first although it’s always rather warm which didn’t help my blocked sinuses and banging head but I consoled myself with the fact that the journey would be a lot quicker than on the ferry. This feeling wasn’t to last however as approximately halfway between Volos and Skiathos there was an almighty grinding noise and the boat shuddered to a halt. After the initial shock, people began looking out of the windows to see if we’d hit anything but it eventually became apparent that we’d broken down and that the sea wasn’t the calmest it could have been. Oh joy, sitting on board a stationary boat as it rocks back and forth, back and forth, as my stomach goes back and forth, back and forth. After a while the boat began to chug it’s way along slowly and we assumed they were limping it to Skiathos where we’d all have to get off – not ideal, but better than being stuck in the middle of the sea being tossed around by the waves, but then it stopped again and the rocking back and forth started. I wasn’t feeling too great by this time and was consuming a lot of mints whereas junior was standing up, swaying from side to side and saying “look how I can rock with the boat”, not the best thing to stop my motion sickness! Eventually after quite a bit of the stopping, starting and swaying, they managed to fix the engine and we set off at full pelt to Skiathos. To say I was rather relieved would be an understatement and when they announced we were heading for Agnondas and not Skopelos, I was even more relieved as it would be a shorter journey and our friends car was there which is bigger than ours and therefore could quite easily fit junior’s bike in without a problem.
After that eventful journey I was more than happy to reach (fairly) dry land and have now decided that it has to be ferries all the way in future.
