July 20 – 23, 2015
Land ho! Seeing the Greek islands as we approached was stunning. There are many islands, all high and green with a few scattered villages. The water is clear and warm. We anchored in the small bay of Sivota on the south coast of Nisos Levkas. We entered among a parade of boats heading in toward the end of the day. We wondered whether there could possibly be room for such a large number of boats. To our surprise the bay holds far more boats than we could have guessed, between yachts med moored at all the docks and quays, two marinas, and an anchorage in the middle of the bay. We anchored, went for a swim, and grilled aboard.
The following day we ventured ashore to put our feet on Greek soil. The bay has a small waterfront of tavernas, grocery stores, tourist shops and a small fishing fleet. 
After monitoring the news on Greece and their potential bailout, it was going to be interesting to experience the country first hand. 
We went to our first taverna for an official Greek salad. Bob spent time talking with the waiter there, who said that life in Greece is back to business as usual. Last week they could only take cash from customers and had to pay their own venders in cash. Now they are back to accepting credit cards and using bank checks. They noted that tourism is down from last year as many people changed plans with Greece in a questionable situation. 
Our observation, just within this bay, is that the yacht charter business is very much alive and well. That is good for Greece as it brings people to restaurants, and all the tourism and boat related industries. The new VAT tax may have an impact next week as the tax increases go into place which will force up prices to end users but not increase income to vendors. We will watch and see.
An additional challenge in our Greek adventure will be the language. For all of the travel we have done we realized that this is our first time with a different alphabet. And we thought we were getting pretty good at charades in other countries! In these areas of high volume charters, most of the signs are in both Greek and English with many Greeks speaking at least some English. It will be interesting to experience interactions once we are off the beaten path.