Crews Letter #2003 12 A Sour Note

Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen:

There is a disappointment as we cruise around Greece that is hard to explain. The islands are beautiful. The people are lovely. History and culture are both rich and deep. The sailing conditions are exceptional. No rain April to November. Good winds most days. Too much wind some days. Fog is virtually unheard of. BUT and it is a big but: There are a few, really very few, marinas that are working. There are a lot of marinas started and due for completion in two years.

A real marina must have physical plant, viable procedures and competent staff. Gouvia on Corfu or Kos on Kos are good examples of “real” marinas.

The facility includes all of the essentials: protection form wind and wave, pontoons or quays with sufficient depth and anchoring to be secure, electricity, water, showers and toilettes, laundry, restaurant and bar, market, chandlery, fuel, and yacht maintenance.

The procedures must be understood and practiced: on arrival boats must be placed in some rational order. The visiting yacht must be able to understand who does what, when and how. It doesn’t have to be the same from marina to marina. It doesn’t even have to be logical. But is does need to be understandable.

The staff makes the marina. The one on one people contact is where success or failure is defined. An informed, knowledgeable and concerned staff can make up for short comings in facility and procedure. The other side of this coin is equally strong. A bad staff can negate the benefits of a good physical plant. A really good staff can make up for a less than complete Physical plant.

Case in point: The marina at Agios Nicholas is a well designed and implemented marina on the water side and almost nothing on the shore side. It is well protected from the sea with pontoons, laid lines, electricity and water. The staff is there to direct you to a place and help you get your boat secured. It ends when you step a shore. The toilettes and shower are temporary buildings along the lines of a port-a-potty. There are only one each. They stink and induce claustrophobia. The offices are also in portable buildings. The office staff is friendly and helpful.

When there was a misunderstanding, they called our home in Texas. Via email, Julia straightened us out. They believed that we had left Perception’s papers and were gone. They were genuinely concerned and took action to help us out. We were only out for a day sail and had to come back to get the email.

There are no other facilities. We were there for nearly two weeks and loved the place. We will go back.

The initial investment, it would seem, is the greatest single cost in having a good marina. Management and staff is the magic that makes the return on investment profitable.

The annoying part is that in Greece finishing marinas is not accomplished very often. We have not been everywhere in Greece but we have seen a lot of marinas started and not finished. To name a few: Trisonia, Lefkas, Prevasa, Vahti on Ithaki, Monamavasia, Thira, Fry, Rodos, Samos, and Pythagorion. Each of these are listed in the 1998 pilot with a 2000 completion. Now, the completion estimate is 2005 for most. For the one in Rodos we were told, “It will take a miracle.” They don’t finish buildings in Greece either. Everywhere you see concrete structures partially finished and abandoned. Who has so much money to start so many projects but then not take them to the payback phase?

Of course, in the US we have a similar problem. How is it practical to abandon our inner cities and continue to develop more remote suburbs? How many of our shopping centers last less than ten years and are then displaced by a new one not far away? Why are new office buildings being built when there is a glut of vacant space?

Maybe tax laws and special accounting practices make this waste profitable. What legislature would enact such laws? One that shares in the profit.

Corruption isn’t corruption if practiced by a lobbyist and a politician seeking re-election. And with the new found source of EU money, is it any wonder that that so many entrepreneurs have started projects in Greece with no intention of finishing them. How many times have the politicians bragged that more Federal money comes in to your state than goes out?

The problem is Greece is too much like Texas.

Keep a Tight Luff,

Phyl & Fred

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