The fall of Anatoli

Once upon a time there were two sisters who came from Molyvos. When they got old they moved to Athens. Two or three months a year they went back to their birthplace, where they had a house in Eftalou. They rebuilt the old house into a brand new white villa where they could hide for the summer, never opening the shutters. When the house was finished they did their garden. All the trees and the beautiful reed beds were destroyed. The result was an empty garden and they kept it like that.

Maybe they now had a better view of the sea, but also a better view of their neighbours who suddenly seemed very close. One neighbour was a woman with some studios besides the main building. It seems that this lady illegally built a new kitchen, which became an eyesore in the eyes of the sisters, even though you barely saw the difference between the old and the new building. And think that maybe that widow (the neighbour) is making some money from tourism.

However, the other neighbours were worse. For 20 years they had one of the two restaurants in Eftalou, the terrace by the sea was roofed 15 years ago. This was no problem and this neighbour was always there to give the sisters a helping hand with any problems. They even phoned him in the middle of the night because two youngsters were trying to make love on their doorstep.

But still this neighbour was not good enough. His business probably did too well. He built a mini golf and beautified his terrace. The sisters did not like these things, so they started complaining, first about the smoke coming their way when the neighbour was cooking tasty dishes for his clients. Then suddenly there was a Greek night for children. The sisters had to endure 3 hours of Greek live-music until nine oclock at night. They also imagined that the mini golf course was operating 24 hours a day. Those sisters who come here for only two months a year have no idea how really quiet it can be in Eftalou. I can assure you that after the donkey safaris make their way home between 9 and 10 PM and the weekly Greek night turns off the live-music at 9 oclock, you only hear the crickets sing.

The sisters were thinking the neighbour had to go. They complained to the authorities and they could only say that indeed the building for the inside restaurant was illegal, and had been for 15 years. It is a beautiful spot where you enjoy the sea view during dinner all year round. But in Molyvos it is not allowed to build so close to the sea. And that is what the sisters thought: law is law.

These sisters who shut themselves in for two months in their house on the Eftalou Boulevard and only go out for a swim, managed to close down one of the two restaurants in Eftalou. Anatoli, also known by the name Angelos, who is the owner and cook of the restaurant, has to go, because these two ladies want peace in Eftalou.

They do not mind that Eftalou is quiet enough, except for the months they are staying there. They have no appreciation of the fact that in winter also one can eat at the seaside. They do not know how many people in the off season like to hike up to Molyvos and have lunch in Anatoli, one of the very few restaurants in the north open in the winter. The two sisters do not care for Eftalou, this beautiful green area next to Molyvos which is a peaceful place for everybody. These sisters, who made a desert of their garden and in doing so, made a hole in the line of greenery bordering the Eftalou Boulevard, maybe want to go back 50 years in time.

But the sisters have the law on their side. The Anatoli restaurant is an illegal building, where nearly everybody enjoyed a good meal and never complained. Now the sisters got irritated. Their boring house without any flowers or other welcoming ornament is how they are thinking: the neighbours restaurant has to go and the other neighbour will very much regret that she built an illegal kitchen.

They didnt leave the Molyvos authorities alone until they got what they wanted: Anatoli and its hard working chef had to close down and the other neighbour has to pay a lot of money. So the two sisters not only destroy a familys life, but also close down a restaurant where you could have a lovely time the whole year round, not only islanders, but tourists as well.

The municipality seems to do nothing. They do not see the importance of a livable and attractive Eftalou. They only keep themselves busy with the elections for a new mayor in October. No candidate sees any votes in it. The same fate is to befall Anatoli as the Hotel Arion, which after only one year was already doomed to become a Greek ruin. Everybody complains that there is nothing to do here in the winter. Well, no wonder... Sisters only staying here two months a year can pull the strings. And nobody is going to stick his neck out.

Is there no clause in this law that after 15 years, theres no way anymore to complain? It is sad to know that this famous restaurant has to close its doors at the end of August because these two sisters suddenly have complaints about a building where nobody has complained for 15 years. Everybody works for a good image so that lots of tourists will visit Molyvos and its surroundings. Nobody realizes that Anatoli is also one of the attractions in the region, not only for tourists but for all the people of Lesvos and for all year round. Please, give these sisters, who only stick their noses out of their garden for a swim and probably make no contribution at all to the welfare of Eftalou, what they deserve. It is typical Greek politics to complain about not enough tourists, but have no view at all how they can change that.

So if you agree with me and if you want Anatoli to stay open, please send me a mail so that I can forward this mail to the municipality, together with our petition. Those sisters should be ashamed. We are for a livable Eftalou!

Copyright © Smitaki 2006

Wailing Wind

According to a Dutch newspaper today, the weather in Holland is stuck in a so-called 'Omega-blockade', which means that the hot weather in the west of Europe will remain. They even predict a big chance on a hot August, after the record breaking temperatures of July.

I am happy for everybody, for all that good and hot weather in July which in other years regularly spoilt a lot of summer fun. But I am not happy with it myself. I already written about the Communicating Weather Barrels: it is good weather in Greece, in the west of Europe they have bad weather and vice versa. In the middle of summer the weather cannot become that bad in Greece when summer is playing a hot game in Western Europe, but this July the weather is not quite normal here.

I never was that cold in July in Eftalou. For the whole month now a nasty north east wind plays around the Aegean Sea. When we drove to Lapsarna last week it was even too cold to stay on the beach, jumping into the high waves of the sea was impossible. In Gavathas it was that cold that we were forced to have lunch in the blazing sun.

It is not the wind is that cold all the time, but it can be that strong that you get crazy because of the strong draughts and the banging doors. Temperatures here are pretty high, so it feels nice to open doors and windows for a little air. With this wind you have the choice to be in the middle of a tornado or in a hot oven. A little draught does not harm your house, but this draught blowing everything to pieces makes me crazy! You have to bind all the tomato plants in order to save them from breaking, flowers bend that low that they break. No way to secure your table cloths, you have to secure everything. The seawater was lovely in June but now feels like an ice cold ouzo.

No warm Greek nights anymore. Eating with a screaming wind around your ears is no fun, so we eat inside. At night I sleep under my cover like in winter. This is July! So if I must believe the Dutch weather predictions and the Communicating Weather Barrels, this 'Omega- blockade' will take care that this north east wind will not cease...

Do not picture me in a thick coat shivering with the cold. The temperatures here are around 30°C, so especially in daytime it is warm. People staying in places out of the wind do not know what I am talking about. They love the little air that is blowing some coolness into their days. This wind however has other dangers.

Last week some 250 people and many planes were fighting a fire that raged south of Mytilini, close to Agias Ermogenis. Hundreds of hectares of woodland and cultivated land and at least 5 houses were destroyed by the flames. The strong winds helped the flames to become a roaring fire. It was a wonder that more houses, a hotel and some shops got spared. It was the worst fire in years on the island.

We should be happy here in Eftalou, because in Thessaloniki and in Athens some garbage dumps 'caught' fire. For the first time I read that they were concerned about the air pollution caused by these fires. Believe me, with such a fire in Holland, the whole of Thessaloniki should have been evacuated! The mayor of Thessaloniki accused the government of 15 years neglect of the problem with garbage dumps and garbage fires. Is there hope that something will change...

Two days ago smoke was also seen above the garbage dump up from Eftalou. A firefighter truck was seen speeding to the fire. I did not notice it, because of the wind coming from the north east. This same wind I will be thanking on my knees, if this garbage fire above us really breaks out. Then the smoke does not get blown into our house. That always happens 'by accident' in the autumn. When we have a southern wind...

Copyright © Smitaki 2006

Myths

Can you believe that there are tourists on Lesvos who get bored? There are people who phone their travel agent saying: "Madam, I am so bored, I want to go home. When is the next flight home?" It was a German family who were the worst. Man, wife and child arrived at the airport, got the transfer to their hotel in Skala Eressos and after 5 minutes in their room, they immediately wanted to go home! They left the island that same evening...

Well, Lesvos is an island that doesn't have something for all tastes. We don't have miles of golden yellow sandy beaches where you can sip colourful cocktails the whole day long and lounnge in fancy restaurants. Lesvos has many small family beaches, beaches where peace rules and where no fashionable music blasts out of mega-speakers.

Neither does Lesvos have famous antiquities, like the Acropole in Athens, the Palace of Knossos on Crete or the white village of Lindos with its temple on Rhodes. Lesvos has Molyvos and the petrified forest. And besides that it has natural beauty and many real Greek villages. It is no wonder that Lesvos was popular in Roman times, thanks to its forests and idyllic fields.

Lesvos is also not highly rated for mythology. Achilles is said to have buried his friend and old fighter Palamedos here on the island after he died on the field of Troy. They also say that Achilles once stood at the gates of Molyvos. Then the daughter of the king fell in love with him. She opened the gates and her reward was that she was killed because of treachery.

Another myth of the island is that of Orpheus. After he was killed by jealous nymphs, because he could not get over the death of his wife, the head of Orpheus washed ashore at Old Andissa, together with his famous lyre. His music is still to be heard on Lesvos.

Lesvos is close to Troy. Maybe when they were fighting that city you could, standing in Molyvos, wave to the beautiful Helen, wife of Menelaos who got taken by Paris to his home. That is why for many years Troy was besieged by many angry Greek warriors. If you used your imagination you would think that it was very busy here at sea at that time. If the wind was from the southeast you could smell the pigs they roasted on their fires. And believe me, many more than one warrior came to Lesvos to buy food and take women.

Around 750 B.C. Homer described part of the battle of Troy in the Iliad. Not in words accessible to everyone. Recently the Italian writer Alessandro Barrico rewrote the Iliad in his own words so that the Iliad has become a real page turner. Especially reading it on the beach. Nothing better than reading stories about this battle where mythical heroes, gods and half gods quarreled and fought, while looking at the same sea where once they sailed their ships and looking at the mountains on whose slopes they camped.

'The Songs for the Kings' by Barry Unsworth is about some Greek kings with their army that tried to reach the battle of Troy, but were prevented by the gods of the wind. This book is even more humorous. I suppose Barrico could not go that far, without hurting Homer's writing.

International editors worldwide devised a project where writers are invited to tell their version of a myth. The English writer Karen Armstrong started the series in her own way with 'A Short History of Myth'. She is called the runaway nun, because she once spent time in a nunnery but is now known for her books about religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam. She is specially known as a person trying to build bridges between those religions.

If you prefer a less serious book in this series, there is the 'Penelopiad' by Margaret Atwood. This well known Canadian writer wrote the story of the wife of Odysseus. Penelope waited at home for her husband, while being besieged by all kinds of men who wanted to marry her. Nobody believed Odysseus would ever return home after the years he fought in the battle of Troy after which the Gods prevented him from going home with all kinds of adventures.

And who remembers why it was that Atlas had to carry the world? This pretty story with her interpretations about Atlas was written by the English writer Jeanette Winterson called 'Weight'.

Getting bored on this island? Besides visiting Molyvos, Skala Sykaminia, Agiasos, Plomari, going to the petrified forest, riding on a donkey, driving a safari, enjoying the hot springs, meandering through the mountains, eating sardines or whatever, you can spend your days reading and muse on history. Israel started a war because some soldiers were kidnapped. Just like the abduction of Helen, which caused the ten years battle of Troy. So you see, nothing is new in the world. Yes, there is. People get bored on this island, which really is incredible...

Copyright © Smitaki 2006

Heroes

Was I glad these last few days I was not in Holland. Everything there seems to be orange and everybody is crazy about football. Here in Greece everything is blue-white. And Lesvos also has some green, because of its abundant nature. Blue-white sea, when some waves curl around, blue-white sky when some clouds are floating above the green trees. In Greece they do not have to paint their country in national colours for the football. Just like the Greek flag the main colours in Greece are always blue and white. And then they are not so crazy because they are not in the World Cup, even though they are the European Champions.

Molyvos is just a little crazy. More than one café has a big screen on their terrace so that groups of people can follow the ball. Whenever Germany, England or Holland scores a goal, just like in Amsterdam you hear shouts coming from every corner. Not when Ghana, Korea or Portugal scores. There are no tourists from those countries here.

I rediscovered the radio. I am not good at following a football game. It is too boring for me. I always do other things when a game is on. Otherwise I will be bored and make stupid remarks about the football. But I like to follow the game, especially on the radio. Those reporters are crazy and do not know how quick they talk and should make sure that you understand what they see. I think it is fun hearing their excited talk.

Yesterday night I was persuaded to come to the village because many friends were gathering together in Resalto, the café of Josif just above the harbour to watch the game between Holland and Portugal. Besides Josif, some Greek customers and our German friends were all dressed in orange t-shirts. The orange army suddenly went quiet when Portugal scored the first goal.

And there you sit with a big party just under the stars. Colourful lights from the village were blinking cheerfully, while the people watched the screen, too afraid to miss anything. In the beginning there was hope, which slowly disappeared into the beautiful night.

I was lucky to have found somebody who like me did not like football that much. We whispered together and enjoyed the twittering lights of the harbour. For the first time in her life Doro had seen a shooting star. I do see them now and then, but I always forget to make a wish.

I could have told her: "When you look at the screen", where they were busy waving yellow and red cards, "you will also see stars falling. 22 and the referee. Because if that is sport at a high level, I will gladly see football disappear as a sport". But I did not say so, the faces around me were too grim.

More and more the crowd was yelling when a Portugese player took a dive on the field. There were even people starting to giggle, thinking the whole game had turned into a slapstick movie. Slowly an excited mood started to appear because everybody wanted so much for Holland to win. And because at the end Holland did try to make something out of it.

Today I read the Iliad of Homer. Put into new words by the Italian writer Alessandro Baricco. On the battlefield of Troy there were also two opposing parties assembled. All those Greek heroes were butchering each other. While reading and imagening that battle in front of me I had to think about the football game from yesterday night. Had the players been in an arena or before the gates of Troy, they would have killed each other with love.

In the early times there was no television, so stories were told. The battle of Troy was never recorded on celluloid. What images would that have given if there had been cameras. Who knows how many red and yellow cards had to be distributed. Maybe then there would not have been Greek heroes. Now we only have the oral stories. Told by people who made their own interpretation of the story. That is how the stories of the Greek Heroes were made. About Achilles, about Ajax or about Odysseus. They were not all nice ones, that is what the storytellers made of them. The football games do not have to be told. Everybody saw them. So all those dirty tricks cannot be changed anymore into the deeds of heroes.

Yesterday many a Dutch was ashamed because of the dirty game. There are players who become a hero, like Cruijff or Maradonna. Yesterday night there was no one who might possibly become a hero. They should have lived in the early times. Then we could have turned their dirty game into a splendid game. Now everybody saw what they were doing and they were caught red-handed.

The next time I will listen to the radio. Even when the reporters try to relate as best as they can the game they are seeing, I can make my own images during their report or close my ears when they give too many coloured cards away. Then I should not feel ashamed when a team plays such a foul game in the name of Orange.

In the village now there is a vacuum. Nobody wants to cheer for the eternal champions of Germany, England, Brazil or Italy. Some Greeks wanted to cheer for Australia because they have lived there or still have family there. But the Australians like the Dutch are out of the game. I am wondering who will be cheered next on all those terraces of Molyvos under the stars...

Copyright © Smitaki 2006

Tales of a kitchen maid

Last week I told you my story about preserving pistachios in molasses. A pretty difficult job that went wrong from the start. This week everything was a little bit easier. Last week we went gathering capers. There are plenty of them at the moment. Besides the flower buds and the beautiful flowers, the caper fruit are also hanging from the plants. If you want to know more about where and how to gather them, you should read last years News for 30 May and 21 June.

Picking capers is a difficult task. They are so small, so gathering them takes a bit of time and the plants are pretty thorny. But they are easy to preserve. Besides sterilizing the pots, no cooking or making molasses is involved. You put the capers in a big bowl of water for two days. Refresh the water every day. Then put them in the pots and fill up the pots with a mixture of 1 cup of water to 2 cups of vinegar, a splash of white wine, 1 spoon of salt for each cup, in each pot some grains of pepper and a clove. That's it.

The weather seems upside down at the moment. In West Europe it's nice and warm, while here in Greece it is cold for the time of the year. Today it even looks like a grey day in Holland. No wonder we thought about making some cough syrup.

You make this not with capers but with mulberries, which are not so well known in Holland. The fruit looks like long blueberries but coloured white, red and black. Most mulberries are found in South Eastern Europe, China, warm regions of Russia and the Middle East. Red mulberries are loved for their flavour but hated for their stains. When you go picking red mulberries be sure to wear old clothes because the juice gets everywhere and cannot be removed.

I knew these stories but until last year I never saw a mulberry. I knew that Vangelis' restaurant in Skala Sykaminia is under a large mulberry tree. I wondered what the fruit would look like, but it is without fruit because it is a male tree. I thought what is the use of a tree without fruit. But now I know better. Only a fool would have a restaurant under a fruiting mulberry tree. Otherwise for one month your clients will have mulberries in their coffee, ouzo, calamaria or with their tzatziki. The name Sykaminia comes from one of the Greek words for mulberry: Skamnia. The other popular word is Mouria.

Last year when I came home from an expedition looking for mulberries and I took a shower outside to cool off I suddenly stood eye to eye with a mulberry. The branch growing out of a tree next to the shower appeared to be a mulberry tree, a white one. I didn't have to go so far to find them! I strongly recommend a mulberry tree next to your outside shower, because picking the fruit from the tree and having the sweet somewhat foul taste from the mulberries in your mouth while enjoying your shower is a unique experience.

The white mulberry tree in China is known as the silk tree. The leaves of this tree are the unique food of silkworms. I never saw any sign of even one silkworm in the tree. The leaves are still all there and so far I have no projects to start any business with silkworms. But maybe I could start spinning here... That might be something for when I really get bored, but I don't think I will in the next few years on this interesting island.

The herb books say that mulberries are good for a sore throat. You have to cook the juice until it becomes a kind of honey. Afterwards you can mix it with some water or you can make a compress with it to put on your throat. In one of the countries on the silk route, Azerbaijan, it is said that the mulberry is good for diseases of the liver, gal bladder and the heart.

In China they have other medicinal uses for the mulberry. There they are good for anaemia, tiredness, dizziness and early greying of the hairs. So it is no wonder that in China, Korea and Japan a healthy drink of mulberry became very popular.

Especially in Arabic countries sweet mulberry syrup mixed with water is a welcome drink to cool off. Furthermore you can make tasty ice cream with it and combined with apricots or figs mulberries are used to flavour cakes. So, it is a fruit with many possibilities.

The Greeks do not use the mulberry a lot in their kitchen. The fruit hangs from the tree like strawberries and when their time has come they mess up the streets. While I'm writing this I'm already thinking what to make next with them, besides the throat syrup for the winter.

However the fruit is ripe at the same time as the cherries. We make lots of jams with the cherries. Then the plums and apricots are nearly ready to be harvested. Even with the unusually cool weather for Greece the fruit just goes on ripening. This means that it is going to be a busy time in the kitchen. Greek nature makes sure that you never have to spin silk, you never get bored!

Copyright © Smitaki 2006

Tears of a kitchen maid

Greeks love sweets. Probably from childhood they learn to love sweets. Many a Greek child is too fat and if you were to see the amount of candy they leave the shop with, you'd be horrified.

The most popular sweet for adults is baklava. The consumption of baklava here is probably as high as over the water in Turkey. Tourists complain that baklava is too sweet. And this honey-nuts-pie is pretty sweet. But that sweetness should be a healthy sweetness, because of the honey.

Another traditional sweet is the 'Spoon Sweet', glika koutaliou. When you visit a Greek for the first time, you will get these sweets presented on a little plate besides your coffee and a glass of water. They are made of fruits or vegetables preserved in sugar. Figs, pistachio, walnuts and apricots as well as tomatoes, lemons or pieces of pumpkin find their way to the pot of sugar.

The best I ever ate were preserved lemons. The fresh sour taste of the lemon marrying with the sugar made an impression on my tongue I will not forget. But you only find a few preserved lemons. The most popular 'Spoon Sweets' are made from green tomatoes, figs, pumpkin and pistachio. The last one is my favourite.

When I discovered a pistachio tree close to our house I was very happy. First I would make Spoon Sweet with the fruit and later I would make them into the wonderful nuts to accompany a cooling drink. However it was too soon to be happy.

First of all the tree was wild and did not have that much fruit. Last year in May I picked three quarters of the fruit when they were still green. For making 'glika koutaliou' the fruit or vegetables have to be unripe. They should already be strong, have their natural shape and taste. Last year the result was a little pot with my favourite candy and it tasted very good. In September I picked all the other fruit. They are ready when the outside skins burst open and the nut comes peeping out. I dried the peeled fruit in the sun, hoping they would turn into the pistachio nuts you buy ready prepared at the shop. Then they have an opened hard shell with the green nut peeping out.

While it was easy to peel off the outside skin, the hard shells around the nuts stayed closed. I roasted them, put them back into the sun, roasted them again and back into the sun, but without any edible result. I am still trying to find the right way to turn them into those lovely nuts you eat while having a drink.

This year I discovered a complete orchard of pistachio trees. I like them so much that I picked a whole plastic bag full of them to turn into my favourite candy. However I forgot how I did it last year. So I got the recipe from a Greek friend. But I wondered why I did not recognize any of the things she had written down. I had to prick them and cook them in water until the skin turned loose. Skin? I never saw a skin on the outside of a green pistachio.

It was on one of those days when a heatwave struck the island. I was busy with three big cooking pans. In one pan were the pistachios on which I could not find any outer skin. In another one was the sugar happily partying with the water and in the third were the pots where I wanted to put my beloved Spoon Sweets. I burned my fingers looking for a skin on a still boiling pistachio. I burned my nose looking into the boiling pan with sugar in order to see if it would turn into molasses. But I stayed happy. Water was streaming down my body. After what seemed like an eternity and when I nearly wanted to stop, I discovered a tiny white skin coming loose from the pistachio fruit.

I was already standing in a pool of water and because I was so occupied with the cooking it never crossed my mind that the water would come from anywhere other than water spilt while cooling down my burned fingers and nose. So I happily put the pistachio fruit with their little skins into a strainer and I turned off the heat under the pan with sugar because it looked like the molasses was ready. Then I looked around and discovered that there was water all over the kitchen! I did not understand until I looked into the pan with the pots. They were nearly burnt. All water had disappeared. I took out the boiling hot pots and put new water into the pan. Drip, drip, drip, there was a hole in the pan!

So in this roaring heat I had to mop the kitchen. And this was just the beginning. Because how was I to get rid of those little skins on all of the pistachio fruit? That was the kind of work which made the perspiration run down my body as quickly as the water streamed out through the hole in the pan. I'd had it. I would have to very gently rub each pistachio fruit in order to get the skin off! When I had managed to fill the smallest pot, my patience was totally gone. I opened the pan of sugar and discovered there was no molasses anymore but only sugar. I probably cooked the sugar and water that much that it turned into one big lump of sugar. So I gave up. I threw the lids on the pans and fled to friends to cry my disappointment.

The next day when our thermometer in the shade reached 37°C I angrilly peeled off those nasty little skins, which took me hours of perspiring in the heat. Then I took all the sugar I could find in the house and cooked it into a molasses. Then I sterilized three pots in another pan and filled them with the pistachios. When I tasted them they were still pretty hard, so I probably picked them too late. I let the pots cool off and then I put them as far away as I could. I do not want to see them for a good while. Maybe they will to surprise me after a few months by softening the fruit, because I cried so many tears over them.

I am sure that last year when I made my perfect first pot of Sweet Spoon Pistachio I used another recipe. Because if I remembered that I had to peel off those skins I would have never started preserving such a big bag full of pistachio fruit. Now that the temperatures have become normal and my tears have dried up I will look for that other recipe. In September I will attack the pistachios again and with new knowledge I will turn them into those tasty nuts to accompany a drink. Life is hard in the Greek kitchen. Especially when there is a heatwave going on...

Copyright © Smitaki 2006

Shiver

The West of Europe is suffering from cold and rain, while on Lesvos the summer has arrived. Days with temperatures above 30°C are normal. Also the sea is suddenly a lot warmer. So the daily swimming parties have started again.

However, a few days ago we got a nasty shock when we tried to take off into the water, there was a jellyfish. I grew up in a Dutch seaside village (Zandvoort) and when the weather was warm and the wind was from the east you could bet on there being jellyfish. Then nobody could get me into the water, especially not into that muddy North Sea.

Greece also has jellyfish. Although I must admit that I've only seen them once on this island. Three years ago early in spring there were some huge very blue jellyfish sunning on the beach of Skala Kaloni. Brrr, no way would you have wanted to swim then. A long time ago I saw an invasion of jellyfish on the island of Mykonos and on Samos more than once I had to stay clear of the water because those slithery things occupied the sea.

So the second time I saw them here on Lesvos was a few days ago. And I think, when there is one, there are surely more of them. We took a good look in the water and yes, plenty of those red brownish jelly creatures were floating along the coast. But they did not look like they usually do. They were like oval balls and had some kind of stripes with merry coloured running lights! I never saw this before. It looked like an underwater fair.

It gave me the jim jams and I was reminded of the book 'The Swarm' by Frank Schätzing. In this fascinating book the world is attacked. Not by Martians or other alien creatures, but by all kinds of disasters from the sea. Strange worms which eat the sea bottom, creating underwater landslides, dolphins that go crazy and start attacking ships, tsunamis destroying parts of Europe, crabs which crawl onto the land in millions and enormous jelly plagues. A very interesting book which besides being a good story gives information about underwater life. It is the perfect book for the beach.

Unless you are confronted by such a strange sea creature. Like all the plagues in the book this jelly thing seemed to come right from the deepest darkness of the oceans. Thanks to it's coloured moving lights it seemed to give out strange signals. Brrrr. It made me shiver but part of me was fascinated. So we didn't go in for a swim and since then I always watch out for them before I dive into the water.

Since then I never saw another jelly. Except for on the internet. I was so curious about what creature had kept me out of the water that day. Well, jellies are creeps! I even saw a picture of a giant jelly in Japan the size of a human being. If ever I meet such a monster in the sea here I will definitely not go in the water for at least three years.

I did not find our mysterious lightning jelly on all the jelly sites I visited. After some more studying I found that there are other jelly-like families. And there I found it. Under the ctenophores. It was a comb jelly. Which is not a real jelly because it does not have tentacles metres long with which it can prick/sting or whatever a jelly does to you. Although it is a kind of cannibal because it feeds on other comb jellies.

There would have been no danger if we had swum amongst them. But when you do not know this, you'd better keep your distance. And I certainly don't want to touch such a slimey creature. That would immediately remind me of the times I accidentally touched a jelly.

While surfing the internet I also found a story about a group of Belgians who went to Greece to study reptiles, including snakes. They had beautiful pictures which gave me the shivers as well. Years ago I was surprised by an enormous bright green snake about 2 metres long right behind my computer. He slid through the open back door, so I could not help but looked around me every minute. Is there a snake under my desk, is a snake trying to sneak in behind my back?

The aesculapian snake was as thick as a fist and was not after all dangerous, but for one second (the other second I was out of the house) I thought I was faced by at least a constrictor. Greeks are very afraid of snakes, but now I am getting used to the idea that there are plenty of them around. They are more afraid of you than you of them, so usually they run first. And then most of the species living in Greece are not dangerous. The only thing you have to take care of is that you don't step on them while they are sunbathing or sleeping. Worse still is to step on them with flipflops (open shoes). When I walk in the fields I take care to have long trousers and closed shoes and even then if I'm not sure I carry a stick which I beat on the ground so that the snakes hear and have plenty of time to disappear. And certainly I never leave a door open anymore. I learned my lesson pretty well.

I do not want to scare you, but the Dutch saying is that one warned person is worth two. Just watch where you put your feet and whenever you walk in a field, wear closed shoes. The same goes for swimming where there are stones or rocks in the sea. Use water shoes. They will not help against jellies but they will protect you from sea urchins which do not step aside from you.

There is no remedy against jellies. But I will comfort you by saying that here on the island they are pretty rare. As are the comb jellies. Tell yourself it is an honour when you meet such a lightning ball of jelly. On the internet they describe them as one of the most beautiful creatures of the sea.

Copyright © Smitaki 2006