Gruff Greeks

June 2023

The Greek people are a pretty friendly bunch once you get to know them and break through their seemingly gruff exterior.  They do tend to talk quite loudly to one and other though and it often seems like they are having heated arguments!  Perhaps they are? I have witnessed one side of many phone calls that have become quite shouty and involved lots of hand gesturing! 

I get a bit anxious when I’m having a conversation with them in English and they start speaking in Greek over my head to another Greek, the conversation then becoming louder and faster, with others also chiming in.  This happened on our visit to the Port Authorities in Kalamata when our boat registration came through and we were trying to obtain a transit log – we visited the customs office and stated what we were after, showing them our paperwork.  All seemed to be going smoothly when the nice man went off to photocopy our documents but then he came back through muttering our boat name (‘Kawai’) and shaking our papers towards a colleague.  Eeek! This did not seem good.  The mood appeared to have taken a turn. 

It turned out that they didn’t like the fact that although the boat was not registered in Greece nor was a single Greek party involved in the selling or buying process (Aussie owners to Kiwi owners) because the boat was in Greece at the time the sale took place they seemed to think that the paperwork should be authenticated by the Greek Embassy, in Australia, by the previous owner!  What a palaver!!! Four people from the customs office were all heatedly discussing it over our heads, in Greek, with much passing around of our paperwork.  Questions were being fired at us, in Greek and English, with partial translations being attempted by a nice lady that had been roped in from the reception desk. Phone calls were made to the Port Authority and the gruff Greek shouty voice came out – another nice lady was roped in from some other department and she then tried to translate to us that we possibly needed to get certain documents translated into Greek and that the previous owners would need to get their signatures witnessed also… it was all a bit baffling as the sale had already well and truly gone through  - the boat was now owned by us and newly registered in New Zealand and we’d been happily living aboard for weeks! 
The Customs man also seemed a little baffled by what the Port Authorities were requesting and the translator seemed apologetic as she relayed details back and forth.  She eventually gave up and went off to lunch, leaving us wondering what on earth was going on and where it left us! 
A suited and booted Port Police officer then turned up and loud, terse conversations continued in Greek, the 4 of us sitting bewildered at a large table in the middle of a stark and echoey Customs office.  Our poor kids were wondering what on earth was going on!

Naturally, the 2 dogs* had followed us from the Marina so amidst all of this we would often hear the shouts of ‘Ela, ela!’ (come) filter up from the ground floor doorman as no doubt Spot was trying to make his way up to us.

After about an hour and a half most of the customs staff had gone to lunch and the one remaining ‘nice man’ gathered up our papers, gave them back to us and said it was up to the Port Authorities to do what they wished with us.  We were to go see them to find out exactly what they wanted from us, whether it be some translated documents or something further.  With that he shrugged his shoulders, smiled apologetically and handed us a stamped transit log. 
The entire scenario was all totally perplexing as a stamped transit log was all we were after in the first place!  By this time I was on my own as Stewart had taken the kids back to the boat as he had a work call to dial in on so I decided to just let it all sit for a bit.  I figured the Port Authorities would most likely all have gone to lunch as well and I didn’t fancy coming across the suited and booted officer from earlier.  I called it a day and decided to try my luck the following morning.

Anyway, a long story made slightly shorter… we visited the Port Authority office the next morning, smiled sweetly at the door, proffered our paperwork and advised we were just there to get our crew list stamped (which was the next step in the process).  We were ushered down the hall to an office where of course, it was the very same gruff man from yesterday.  Inwardly my stomach was in a bit of a knot but my smile didn’t waver, I gently nudged the children forward to take a seat by his desk (Greeks love children so we quickly learned to use them to charm & disarm), all sweetness and light, best smiles showing and lovely Kiwi accents on.  But wouldn’t you know it - bish, bash, bosh, a stamp here and a signature there, copies made, job done! 
“Efharisto!” (thanks) and off we went with a smile!

Perhaps he just needed a good nights sleep?

*Two stray dogs we semi adopted while we lived in Kalamata. Buddy & Spot, they followed us everywhere - more on them later.