Skiathos 7, September 2016

Wednesday 21st September. 

The jeep is no longer with us. The weather view when we looked this morning was quite poor, solid clouds and a noticeable breeze. However, we bravely made our way to the beach, where we found a breeze, but quite calm gently moving sea. We had a huge shoal of baitfish skitter across the bay towards us. 

Back at the villa, we timed our business to catch a bus to Koukounaries, to have another go at that fast boat to town. This time I hoped to video it and whilst I did indeed do so, I'm not sure how good viewing it will make - poor suspension and smackety waves lead to camera shake with a vengeance. I have been trying to upload it to somewhere, so far without success. The Apple iMovie film is 15 minutes long and YouTube does not seem to appreciate it. Coupled with the very sluggish upload speed of the so-say broadband out here, I don't have enough hours left to upload it before we go home on Friday! As I did it with my cheap dashcam, hand held, it produced three AVI files for me to consider some other method than iMovie. 

We ate at Vareli for our penultimate meal out, both having their excellent lamb kleftiko. With tzatziki, water and beer, €32.50. 

Perhaps it is an opportune moment to comment on the weather this month. It can be variable at this time of year, but we've had it very good, mid to high 20 degrees all holiday with one day to go, except for today when we've lost a few degrees. It has been warm enough for sleeping just under a sheet and not caring about a draught on a bare patch behind my back or shoulders. It rained on Monday, which we were expecting because it always rains when I hire a jeep. Briefly in the morning and a decent bit in the early evening. Apart from walking away from the big puddle in the road that night, we were not at all inconvenienced by it. So we've had one of those good Septembers this year. 

Actually Dave I think it works equally well with the n or the h! 😄
Bob

Well, here we are, it's tomorrow, our last day. At 5am there was a super long heavy rolling peal of thunder and my App at long last showed a bit of accuracy. It's still raining on our parade and we can't go for our morning swim - grrrr, that's busted our track record. 

All I can do for the moment is continue trying to upload this video, but I'm feeling this latest work around isn't going to work around, so it will still have to wait until I get home - it has just started to show progress and it says 4% after half an hour, so that's it, giving up now for the time being. You'd think Woody would offer guru stuff on how to do it - an MP4 of just under 2gb, shouldn't be beyond his brilliance. 

We're going to put on our pacamacs and wander into town to see if there's anywhere with rain-defying awnings for window shopping and gyros/sandwiches. 

No sooner did I say "pacamacs" than it stopped raining and the sun came out - until we arrived at the bus stop without pacamacs!

In town we decided that discretion was the better course and bought two €5 umbrellas. We didn't even go look at the Bourtzi because we know they have absolutely no cover and shut up shop when it rains. The sandwich shop does have one table inside and we commandeered that for our final sandwich of the holiday, warning him as we left that we'll be back next July.

Back at Villa Maria I have set in motion yet another try to upload the video, once again more in hope than expectation.

Dennis, 2Gb is a very large file to upload, especially when the upload speed on Skiathos is probably quite low. Even here with hard wired BT Super Duper Broadband, my upload speed is only 8.4 Mb/sec, that works out at 62 mins for a 2Gb file. From a mobile/tablet of Apple origin via Wifi in Skiathos I would expect it to be a much lower upload speed.

Have you tried to do a broadband speed check from Villa Maria. It would be interesting to know what the upload speed is?

Woody

And so to bed on our last night. It's been quite , even cold tonight after the rain, we both wore a bit of extra clothing for our meal in Salt and Pepper - kalamari for Vera, sea bass for me, beer, €29.50. 

Thats it then, all that remains is to fly home. Even that will be a misery as I will not be having any alcohol with a two hour drive home after we leave Birmingham airport. 

On that sad note I'll say goodnight and start looking forward to 30th June 2017. 

Dennis and Vera, here's wishing you a hassle free transition through the airport, a pleasant flight and a speedy onward journey home. Thanks very much for all your reports. Not long until your next trip now!
Bob