Extreme travellers

 Max arrived a few days after Chloe. He had been in Laos, and she had been in Croatia. They soon had itchy feet, and announced their intention to go to the Island of Gavdos. We insisted that they go soon as best advice is to plan a return at least five days before any deadline.
The going was straightforward. New this year is a very fast boat - the Gavdos Express. (90 minutes on a good day!)We saw them off - and on the boat was also a vast amount of cheap wine and a bicycle strapped to the back.

There has been an issue with the ferries to Gavdos. A Russian company was awarded the contract for granting seaworthiness certificates to numerous Greek inter-island ferries. It was then declared to be incompetent, so the boats were grounded. This meant the Samaria was accompanied back round to the commercial port, leaving people stuck in Sougia, and the mayor of Hora Sfakion seized control of the Daskolagiannis to get up to 700 walkers from the gorge back to his town. So for a few weeks thare have been no car-carrying ferries:- just the charming but small Neptune. (100 cars - including hired ones - were stranded on Gavdos as a result, and schedules for foot passengers have been very uncertain

The most southerly point in Europe

Chloe and Max stayed four days, camping with or without tent on several different beaches. We got regular texts, and thus were there to meet them off the Neptune on the Monday evening. During the day we had seen the wind increase and the sea roughen, so were not surprised by the stories of the six hour voyage (via Agia Roumeli and Sougia). Even the dog was sick, apparently! Max - as an experienced sailor - had been fine. Chloe was not! There was also one of those "small world" encounters on the boat, with Max's mum's oldest friend, who is a new Gavdos resident! Furthermore the captain - Dimitri - recognised Chloe (and us) from visits to the Oriental Bay over twenty-two years, as he was a waiter there.