Celebration of Life Tour
Byzantine church in Mystras, Greece
Gythio
Gythio is a small port city about 200 miles south and a little west of Athens. The original plan was to visit the archeological sites in the Olympic region. The previous cruise met with severe weather difficulties and ultimately was unable to get passengers ashore. A last minute change was made and we anchored in the harbor at Gythio instead. The port was very small and again we dropped anchor and tendered in, this time using the ship's lifeboats. The attraction here was the Byzantine village of 'Mystras', abandoned in the 19th centry and now a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The spring weather was beautiful, with a light morning mist lifting to reveal the green vinyards and olive groves in the region where Myzithera cheese comes from.
Conditions were windy and as the winds increased in the afternoon it became necessary for the crew to manouver the ship to provide shelter from the rising surf by using the thrusters to keep it at 90 degrees to the wind, rather than letting it swing freely on the anchor. I set up my phone out on the veranda and took this timelapse as the wind fought the efforts of the crew.
Blowing in the wind - Gythio is a small port with no place to park our huge ship. So we dropped anchor and tendered in. Later in the afternoon a fairly stiff wind developed, making for rather rough conditions. The ship's thrusters were used to keep the ship perpendicular to the wind to provide protection for the tenders as they unloaded passengers. I figured it would be rather difficult to keep the ship stationary with the variability of the wind and all, so I set up and recorded time-lapse video of a half hour of the struggle.
Sailing on to Corfu
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