Everything that has a Beginning has an Ending.

 

NASA said that its InSight Mars mission has ended.  The robotic spacecraft after a more than six-month journey landed on Mars, Nov. 26, 2018. Since then, InSight has been studying the planet's interior and seismic activity.  It detected more than 1,300 quakes with a 4.7 quake that shook the planet for six hours. On De. 21, 2022 NASA announced that two attempts to contact the spacecraft failed, likely because its batteries had lost power after dust accumulated on its solar panels and the rover fell silent thus its mission has ended.

This blog was a byproduct of a mission to transport the car of my friend the late Milos from Florida to his son in San Francisco.  My son John decided that it was risky to me to drive alone so we drove the three thousand miles together.  From San Francisco we returned to Chicago ( 2000 miles) by train and then by bus (400 miles) to Columbus, Ohio for a total of 5,000 miles.  My intend at that time was to stop posting but on advice of a friend, I continue posting mostly on my travels.

The most memorable posts were from an epic journey when together with my brother and two friends brought a sailboat from Spain to Greece a 1,400 nautical miles journey. It was our Odyssey and I described it as such on posts from Aug.15, 2015 to July 16, 2016. 

In the past 10 years, I uploaded 228 posts in my blog Cross Country Chronicles but as Jack Kornfield said in his Buddha book "everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well" 

There are many individuals from my immediate family, and those who love and care about me who encouraged and inspired me to write.  I want to thank and express my gratitude to seventy thousand plus individuals who followed my musings. I wish them all a good a pleasant trip in their lives. 

Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo commemorates Mexico's victory at the battle of the Puebla on May 5, 1862.   The victory of the smaller Mexican army against the larger French forces was a boost to the morale of the Mexicans. The city of Puebla marks the event with an arts festival,  with exhibits of local cuisine and with re-enactments of the battle.

The day is mostly celebrated in the United States and is associated with Mexican culture.

Cinco de Mayo celebrations began in California where have been observed annually since 1863.

Cinco de Mayo is often mistaken for Mexico's Independence Day which is celebrated on September 16th.   It was in 1810 Miguel Hildago, a Spanish Catholic priest gave his famous speech Grito de Dolores and initiated Mexico's revolt that lasted till 1821 when Mexico obtained its independence from Spain.

2013-2021; a Travelogue

In the past 7 years, I uploaded 202 posts in my blog Cross Country Chronicles.  As this is the first post of 2021 and maybe the final of this series that started with a trip, I took with my son John, from Orlando to San Francisco to Chicago and on to our starting point Columbus, Ohio.  Also, it included among others the remarkable crossing from Spain to Greece on my brother Nikos 29-foot sailboat Okyrhoe.  The trip from Florida to California and back to Ohio is described in 55 posts in January and February 2014.

The trip from Spain to Greece is described in 23 posts from August 2015 to July 2016.  There are many individuals from my immediate family, and those who love and care about me, to friends I love dearly, to professional associates at places where I lived and worked, and all those who encouraged and inspired me to write.  I want to thank and express my gratitude to all and wish them a good a pleasant trip in their lives.  The pictures in this post are from Porto Rafti, the beautiful little bay, I have made my domicile while in Greece.

                                                                       The three pictures in this post were taken by my brother-in-law Kostas Fotos.

Epic Journeys

In Ernest Shackleton’s epic journey to the Antarctica after their boat Endurance was trapped, he and five of his crew set sail on a 22-foot boat from Elephant island to South Georgia 800 miles away. Alfred Lansing in his novel Endurance p 278 writes that the sea is a different kind of enemy.  Unlike the land, where courage and the simple will can often see a man, through, the struggle against the sea is an act of physical combat, and there is no escape.  It is a battle against a tireless enemy in which man never actually wins; the most he can hope for is not to be defeated.  Their struggle to survive became a testament of the human spirit and how much adversity humans can endure.

We did our sailboat crossing from Spain to Greece, one hundred years after Shackleton's epic voyage.  Although we use the word Epic when we refer to our journey it was in the Mediterranean a benign Sea comparing to South Atlantic.  We battled storms after we left the strait of Bonifacio heading south in the Tyrrhenian Sea and later in the Ionian Sea. Because of my fellow mariners' skill and tenacity against the elements we were able to complete our crossing in the summer of 2015. 

Medicanes

Mediterranean cyclones are called Medicanes from the words Mediterranean and Hurricanes.  They usually form in the sea between Spain, Sardinia and Corsica or in the Ionian Sea. Medicanes usually happen in the fall and winter and move from west to east.  

Medicanes are rare phenomena and are similar with the tropical cyclones but are weaker because the Mediterranean Sea is smaller comparing to the oceans and her waters are not as warm. 

Although not as ferocious as their tropical cousins Medicanes have a center, have very strong winds in their periphery, causing huge waves and torrential rainfalls. 

Medicanes frequency is 1-2 per year.  Greece’s last Medicane was in 1995. This time the cyclone skirted the south coast of Peloponnese and reached Athens on Saturday September 29, 2018.

The strong winds uproot trees and down power lines and cause all kind of property destruction. 

Swollen rivers take cars parked near their banks in their turbulent waters downstream.  

The strong winds and waves result in sinking of boats even in harbors.

Although the advice to people in regions involved by hurricanes to move inland and away from the coasts some elect to ignore such warnings and go to the shore to see the large waves and feel the strong winds.

Tourists in the vicinity of the Acropolis of Athens look happy even if the gusty winds will destroy their umbrellas.

Tiresias and the Underworld

We decided against searching for Tiresias, the blind prophet, somewhere at Oceanus which was beyond the Pillars of Hercules, todays Gibraltar, as it required changing our southern course towards the Aeolian Islands.   

Odysseus though reached the Underworld, met Tiresias, and performed the rite Circe taught him, pouring fresh ram's blood on the ground. Tiresias the blind prophet was not the only shade Odysseus encountered in the Underworld, as he spoke to the ghosts of his fallen comrades, including Achilles and Agamemnon.  He also saw Minos, the great king, dispensing judgment; and Tantalus, forever hungering for food just out of reach; and Sisyphus, pushing a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down again.

Two sets of myths revolve around the cause of Tiresias blindness. The most prevalent one was that the goddess Athena blinded him when he saw her bathing naked.  The other myth states that Zeus called up Tiresias, to mediate on an argument he had with Hera about who was most pleasured during an erotic act - a man or a woman. Tiresias, a man who also lived as a woman for seven years, stated that women experience more pleasure agreeing with Zeus. This angered Hera, who in return blinded him.  Zeus felt badly and gave Tiresias the gifts to prophesize and that of a long life that lasted seven generations. 

While in the Underworld the ghost of Tiresias revealed to Ulysses that Poseidon was angry with him but gave him advice and directions on how to get home to Ithaca safely.  As we did not meet Tiresias we had to rely on ancient and modern navigation methods to find our way and reach our destinations, which I will describe in a future post.  But first we had to sail by the Sirens!