#3: [20-Jul-22]

#1: [03-Apr-02] (incomplete)

19-Aug-2006 --

This confluence lies in the sea, the Messenian bay, just 1.5 km offshore the famous Bouka beach. Nearest town is Messini (NNE 5 km) the agricultural center of the area, Petalidi (SW 8 km) tourist resort with new harbor and marina, Koroni (SSE 23 km) tourist resort with it’s old but still inhabited castle and beautiful harbor, historical Pilos (SSW 28 km) and last but not least Kalamata (W 10 km) the jewel of the Messenian bay, homeland of the olive tree and general Aristomenes the mythical king of Messenia, the only one that survived after he was thrown down the notorious Kaeadas cliff by the Spartans.

August usually is quite warm down there but the weather forecast for the 19th was quite hot for a day and the sea was to be calm, perfect conditions for an early start. The trip from Athens to Bouka beach was good, no traffic on the road and here we are, on the same pier where Donald Staal and Monique Van der Hulst had come sometime ago. This pier protects the mouth of a river which flows into the bay and beside it is the sandy beach with hundreds of people having fun in the sun.

Next thought was to find a decent boat to navigate to the spot. There was no luck to find one as regards the beach facilities and was forced to try the nearest harbor, in Petalidi. A little search revealed that there were no boats for rent, a fisherman only with a small motor boat was willing to haul me there. So I had my gear and myself on top of the freshly stacked piles of fish-stinking net.

The sea was almost flat as a mirror and soon we reached the spot. Visibility was bad because of the high temp, humidity and almost no wind. That’s why the surrounding mountains in the photos are hardly shown. Everything else went OK, the “birds” were dispersed evenly on the sky, conditions for the stake-out were fine and we got as close as possible to the spot (EPE 3m, total 4m). We celebrated on-board with a couple of beers and sailed back to the harbor and then home.

This is my first confluence visit and is a tribute to my father as Messenia was his homeland.

2 km offshore in the Gulf of Messinia.