The Holzkirchner globetrotter Hermann Engl is stuck. The pandemic has captured the skipper in Greece. His yacht has been lying in front of the city of Aegina for two weeks.
Aegina / Holzkirchen - Lonely, the sailing ship Lorea anchors on the promenade of Aegina, the city on the island of the same name in the Saronic Gulf. It is a two-master, a ketch, as sailors call it. Owner and skipper: Hermann Engl from Holzkirchen. Aegina became the end point of his latest sailing trip, which began four weeks ago in Samos, in the far east of the Aegean. Engl is stuck here.
As the skipper says, he set off with two friends on board in Pytagorion harbor to sail west across the entire Aegean. Lavrion in Attica was the destination because of the proximity to Athens Airport.
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Because of Corona: Holzkirchner skipper Hermann Engl is stuck in Aegina
Already in Samos, like on the other east Greek islands, there were travel restrictions, but not because of Corona, but because of the refugee crisis between Turkey and Greece. The harbor master of the Samos Marina urgently recommended Engl to visit the Coastguard. "The officials there were under a lot of tension, you could feel it," says Engl. The Turkish coast is only two kilometers away. And a cruiser of the German coast guard has been stationed in the port of Samos on the north side of the island for four years.
The head of the Greek coast guard there in Pytagorion gave the German skipper permission to sail west.
"It was actually planned to hop on the island," Engl recalls. But the weather forecast suggested a quick jump through the night to Siros. There, in the beautiful marble city of Ermoupolis, the sailors had to wait two days for a hip north storm. "It was the last few days with open taverns, cafes and bars in Greece," Engl says. In order to avoid another storm, he moved the destination of the trip from Lavrion to Aegina in the Saronic Gulf. There you are better protected than in the Aegean outside in the east.
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But then there was talk of a planned traffic ban in Greek waters. Therefore Engl did not bring his friends, whose vacation was coming to an end, to the mainland. "Being stuck in a mainland harbor would have been quite expensive and probably more dangerous when it comes to infections," explains Engl.
The fast ferry, a hydrofoil Flying Dolphin, brought the two friends to Piraeus. From there they reached one of the last flight connections from Athens to Munich. The Lorea had to stay in Aegina. "There is a strict ban on going out here," explains Engl. A small supermarket, the baker, the fishmonger, a specialty food store, a liquor store and the butcher are still open. But leaving the ship is prohibited and threatened with a fine of 5,000 euros and two years in prison.
The Lorea lies on the bow anchor and is attached to the quay with three lines. "The anchor seems to hold quite well on eighty meters of chain," says the skipper. He now has time to think about other book projects.
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Engl's latest release fits in well with Easter. It says: "Goodbye myth! - The New Testament considered criminalistically. "
The Holzkirchner journalist has been living on his sailing ship since April 2007. In the meantime he has crossed the North Atlantic six times, crossed the Caribbean several times to Mexico, visited Philadelphia, New York and Halifax as well as Narvik in Norway, St. Petersburg in Russia and Tel Aviv in Israel.
According to Engl's information, the travel restrictions in Greece will continue until April 27th: "Then I would like to sail east again and catch up on the cozy island hopping."