Mesolonghi is a dusty little town in the southwest corner of central Greece that makes its living from agriculture and fishing. Right now it is not so dusty because it is raining. Friday and Saturday are forecast to be wet and ultimately quite windy. So far the “wet” part of the forecast is pretty accurate. We will see what develops. Along with other yachts we have decided to stay put herefor a day or so in a slightly scruffy little marina that nevertheless offers good services at reasonable prices.
Mesolonghi has a couple of claims to fame. It is known as the Sacred Town of Greece because of the 1825-26 siege of the town by Turks who occupied Greece at the time. The uprising failed with many thousands of people being slaughtered and the town has been honored since. The siege raised sympathy in Europe for the Greek cause and one of the results was the seat battle at Navarino (Pylos) which was our original landfall in Greece after our trip to Malta.
The famous British poet Lord Byron (who supported the Greek independence cause) died here in 1824.
One of the most interesting features of the area is that the town sits at the head of a shallow lagoon which is part salt-marsh. Along the channel that has been cut through the marsh to allow boat to reach Mesolonghi are fascinating little fisherman’s cottages. These very basic structures are still in some cases occupied by fishermen.
Most people are quite dismissive of the town as it has a lot of charmless modern houses around the outskirts. But yesterday we walked into the town from the marina and ended up in the largely pedestrian center. The narrow walkways are the old streets and every now and then you come across a cluster of original buildings probably 200 - 250 years old and you get a very strong sense of what things looked like back then. The building material looks to be some kind of limestone and the blocks have a rough-hewn character and charm.
It’s been stormy so far this morning with strong winds first from the east and now from, the more common, west. It’s raining quite hard (as forecast) and it looks like we’ll have to hunker down for a while. We added extra lines to secure the boat. It’s always difficult when a) you come in when the weather is calm and b) the rougher weather subsequently hits the boat side on (as it is now). What seemed tight before needs some adjustment and tuning. Another unusual phenomenon is that, under the appropriate wind conditions (today), the boat gets covered with a light yellowish-orange dust. This is sand from the Sahara which is over 600 miles away!
One problem with this part of central Greece is that there is not much in it for the sailor. Mesolonghi is about the only major stopping-off point if you don’t want to make a very long sail from the Gulf of Corinth to the Ionian islands. Even with the stopover our next sailing day will either be a long leg across to Ithaca or a slightly shorter dogleg to a remote bay on the mainland north of here. We will see how things develop.