By Professor John Robertson

From the Daily Mail today:

A tourist has issued a warning after being caught off-guard when visiting the Greek Islands for the first time. 

Audrey, from Canada, went on a birthday trip with her sister last May to the picturesque destination but didn’t expect the ferry rides between islands to be so chaotic.

‘Once you get on, you have to take about an hour to recover from the chaos,’ one commented.

‘This is the part they don’t tell you about,’ another said.

‘I’m really nervous about the suitcase situation,’ a third added.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/travel/article-13282419/TikTok-traveller-grim-reality-Greek-islands.html

From the Guardian in September 2023:

Outrage over the drowning of a passenger who was pushed from the ramp of a Greek ferry has mounted after leaked recordings of radio conversations appeared to reveal racist attitudes among the crew.

In one extract, the ship’s master is apparently heard saying that he thought the passenger, subsequently identified as a Greek, was a foreigner.

“I thought he didn’t have a ticket,” he said. “I thought he was black, a Pakistani … He was sitting there outside, going round and round, but he didn’t show me any ticket. The only thing he told me was, ‘I am going to travel.’”

Footage shows Karyotis running on to the gangplank just as the Crete-bound vessel is about to leave the country’s main port of Pireaus. Crew members can be seen trying to stop him, before one shoves the 36-year-old three times and he slips, dangles momentarily from the ships’ ramp, and falls into the sea. It later emerged that Karyotis had bought a ticket.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/13/greece-ferry-passenger-sea-death-crew-radio-recordings-conversations-leaked

Also, in September 2023, from the Greek Reporter:

The disaster involving the sinking of the ferry boat Express Samina on September 26, 2000, off the coast of Paros which claimed the lives of eighty-one people still haunts Greece.

https://greekreporter.com/2023/09/26/samina-ferry-sinking-greece/

Might the Arran Ferry Action Group, or the one from Mull, or the one from South Uist, consider a Summer fact-finding trip to the Greek islands once, of course, the smaller islands start to get any service at, all after the winter break?