Kastellorizo Diary |
FEATURE
BY Mavis Manus (In the early 1980s, my husband and I decided to spend part of the summer in the flyspeck Greek island of Kastellorizo, located in a far corner of the eastern Aegean. It proved to be a surprisingly rich and fascinating experience. Here are some excerpts from the diary I kept at the time.) |
August 2. The ferry-boat Kalymnos, which was supposed to leave Rhodes at 3pm, departed at 4.15pm. Calm journey. At 8pm I walked out (slept fitfully most of the journey) to the fore deck. A school of dolphins was sighted, adults and pups, leaping and playing. Arrived at Kastellorizo at 9.30pm, found a ghastly rathole for the night and decided to leave on the next boat. At breakfast at the International we met Christifina, a Greek-Australian, and a Dutch girl who introduced us to Damian, whose family owned the Mavros Pension. We moved in that afternoon and stayed therein one room, toilet in the hall-- for the next six weeks. Once we were settled, Will got out his spear gun and dove in Kastellorizos long, deep harbor looking for fish (half dozen wild oysters was his only catch) while I swam from the quay of the Hotel Megisti. That evening Christifina invited us to a party at Kostas, a fellow Greek-Australian, to celebrate the completion of his kitchen (after two years work). It was a daiquiri party, very pleasant. |
Lefteris Boyatzis, another Greek-Australian Kazzie (Kastellorizan descent), had an interesting story. During WW II, when the British army temporarily liberated Kastellorizo from Italian occupation, everyone on the impoverished island was evacuated. The inhabitants were sent to a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, then put aboard a ship bound for Australia. Sixty miles at sea, the ship was attacked by German aircraft. The bombardment was so severe that the islanders realized the ship would be sunk. Each family was told to appoint one member to be tossed overboard in a life-jacket in hope that he or she would be picked up by a passing vessel. Lefteris was selected by his family. He was only three years old at the time and remembered being tossed over the side into a blazing sea. But thats all I remember, he said. The horror and the shock was so great that I have buried the memory of being rescued and what followed. * * * Sunday Aug. 4. Although there was an announcement that a caique would go to the Blue Grotto (local tourist attraction) at 8.30 a.m., no one showed up. Another fisherman, Yorgo, said his rubber dinghy could fit six people. The grotto is impressive, as blue as a periwinkle and as high as a cathedral. Later that day a tour boat from the nearby Turkish port town of Kas arrived. Much slapping on the back, yassou, habibi and breaking out of Johnny Walker. Later we discovered that an internecine battle was being fought on Kastellorizo over the tour boats. Varvara, a middle-aged woman with a powerful bass voice and body to match, wanted a monopoly on the day trips to Turkey and made such a fuss that the police closed down the business altogether. |
I attended
a fund-raising tea at the Mavros Pension, where there were many varieties
of local pastries, cakes, scones and quiches. Eva, The Nightingale
of Kastellorizo, lip-synched to the songs on her cassette. |
Varvara wasnt finished. Because her husband hadnt cleaned the pension they owned, she confronted him on the waterfront and, with the whole town watching, threw a broom at him, screaming, Sweep or die, you masturbator! |