A Lefkada private tour is a trip kept for one party on Lefkada, an island in the Ionian Sea. It is one of the Greece tours on this site. These notes on a Lefkada private tour start with the idea of a private island, then look at Skorpios, Meganisi, the nautical chart, the dinghy and the words port and starboard, and end with four sailing terms. Each term is explained in plain words, and the facts come from reference articles.
What does a Lefkada private tour mean?
A Lefkada private tour is a trip set up for a single party on Lefkada. Lefkada is one of the Ionian Sea islands. A private island is a disconnected body of land wholly owned by a private citizen or corporation. A corporation is a company.
Weddell Island, one of the largest private islands in the world, covers 265.8 square kilometres. Swains Island has been owned by the family of Eli Hutchinson Jennings since 1856. In 1925, Swains Island was administratively joined with American Samoa. Administratively means in the way a place is governed.
Real estate millionaire Michael Oliver tried to build a city-state called the Republic of Minerva. A city-state is a self-ruling city that acts as a country. Private islands in the United Kingdom, Brazil and Chile are not always legally entirely private. A Lefkada private tour is a trip, not an island.
In Nordic countries, only a house’s yard and the immediate vicinity is legally protected against trespassing. Trespassing means entering land without leave. Commercial development of uninhabited islands can raise ecological concerns. Ecological means linked to nature and living things. A Lefkada private tour is a different idea from owning an island.
- China: Islands off the coast of China cannot be bought outright, only leased for up to 50 years.
- Sweden: The count of islands in Sweden stands at 221,831.
- Cruise lines: Since 1992, cruise lines have acquired private islands to offer exclusive beach experiences.
A private island is land held by one owner. A Lefkada private tour is a trip kept for one party. The shared word is private. The next section moves from the general idea to Skorpios, a real private island close to Lefkada.
On a Lefkada private tour, what does Skorpios add?
A Lefkada private tour brings up Skorpios. It is a private island of the Ionian Sea, set just east of Lefkada. The 2011 census reported a population of five inhabitants. A census is a head count of everyone living in an area.
The island spans 83.2 hectares, which is about 205 acres. Forest covers the island heavily from south to north. Administratively, Skorpios is part of the municipality of Meganisi in the Lefkada regional unit. A regional unit means a Greek district, much like a county. A hectare is 10,000 square metres.
Skorpios is known as the private island of the late Greek shipping billionaire Aristotle Onassis. A Lefkada private tour meets this famous name. Upon his death, the island passed to his daughter Christina. The island passed next to Athina Onassis, Christina’s daughter and the only surviving heir. An heir is a person who inherits property.
Onassis stated in his will that the island stays in the family while they can afford its upkeep. No more than 5% of the island is to be developed. A Lefkada private tour meets a story of land, family and law. Upkeep means the cost of keeping a place in good order.
- Trees: More than 200 kinds of trees were brought to the once nearly barren island by Aristotle Onassis.
- Lease: A company sale in April 2013 included a long-term lease of Skorpios and its islet, Sparti.
- Resort: A 10,000 square metre luxury resort began to be developed on Skorpios in October 2018.
Skorpios joins a famous owner, a family will and a forest of imported trees. A Lefkada private tour gives a reason to read about this private island. Barren means bare, without plants. The next section turns to Meganisi, the island beside it.
On a Lefkada private tour, what does Meganisi bring?
A Lefkada private tour brings up Meganisi. It is a Greek island and municipality lying just east-southeast of Lefkada. Meganisi is Greek for big island, and it lies in the Ionian Sea. A municipality is an area under its own elected council.
Meganisi counts three villages. Katomeri sits in the middle, while Vathy and Spartochori are ports. The municipality has an area of 22.356 square kilometres. Skorpios and Sparti are offshore islands within the municipality. Offshore means lying out at sea. A Lefkada private tour belongs to the same sea.
The island offers a school, a lyceum, a cash machine, churches and village squares called plateies. A lyceum is a middle school, and a cash machine is also called an ATM. Pupils go to the nearby school in Nydri, on Lefkada, because the island lacks a secondary school.
Wilhelm Dörpfeld set Odysseus’ palace to the west of Nydri, on Lefkada’s south coast. His digs also turned up Mycenaean tombs, walls, ruins and artefacts that supported his hypothesis. A hypothesis is an idea that is tested for proof. A Lefkada private tour meets a place with this scholarly past.
- Krocylea: Wilhelm Dörpfeld and other researchers identify Meganisi with Krocylea, a Homeric island.
- Rachi: Rachi is a small village within the Nydri community.
- Harbour: Fishing boats are the main users of the harbour at Atheni Bay.
Meganisi is a small island with three villages, a school and a link to the stories of Odysseus. A Lefkada private tour meets this part of the Ionian Sea through its names and its past. The next section turns from islands to a tool of the sea, the nautical chart.
On a Lefkada private tour, what does the nautical chart add?
A Lefkada private tour brings up the nautical chart. A nautical chart is a graphic representation of a sea region or water body and adjacent coasts. Charting can take the form of paper raster charts or computerized electronic charts. A raster chart is a flat picture.
Historically, depths were measured with the sounding line. A sounding line is a weighted rope used to test the depth of the water. Depths on charts are measured with respect to a datum or reference level. A datum is a fixed level used as a zero point. Depth means how far down the seabed lies.
A Chart 1 explains the symbols, terms and abbreviations used on a country’s charts. Charts from national hydrographic offices are considered official, unlike commercial charts. The International Hydrographic Organization coordinates a worldwide chart system, the INT series. A hydrographic office is a state body that surveys and maps the sea.
Every producer of nautical charts provides a system to inform mariners of changes. Mariners are people who sail ships. A projection is a way to draw the round earth on a flat sheet. A Lefkada private tour shares the sea with the charts that map it. Charts are kept up to date.
- Echo sounding: In modern times, echo sounding measures the seabed in the open sea.
- Ptolemy: Marinus of Tyre invented the first projection around AD 100, according to Ptolemy.
- Printing: Paper charts can be printed on demand with data downloaded the night before.
The nautical chart turns the sea into a flat picture of depths, coasts and symbols. A Lefkada private tour sits beside a tool that rests on old and new methods. The next section turns from a chart to a small boat, the dinghy.
On a Lefkada private tour, what does the dinghy bring?
A Lefkada private tour brings up the dinghy. It is a small boat that a larger vessel carries or tows as a tender. A tender is a little boat kept to serve a larger ship. The word dinghy is a loanword from Bengali, Urdu and Hindi.
Dinghies can be propelled by oars, sail or an outboard motor. A dinghy has no cabin and no fixed hydrodynamic or ballast keel. A ballast keel is a heavy fixed fin under a boat that keeps it upright. Dinghies under 12 feet are powered by rowing with one set of oars.
Prams are short boats with flat ends, called transoms, at both bow and stern. Racing dinghies can have a daggerboard or centreboard to sail better upwind. A daggerboard is a board that slides down through the hull. A gunter rig uses a shorter mast that fits inside the hull when unstepped.
Transfers from larger boats are a dinghy’s main use, especially when those boats cannot dock. To dock means to tie up at a pier or quay. Before mass production, a passenger tender was the main way to board a large liner. A Lefkada private tour shares the sea with small craft of this kind.
- Sprit rig: A sprit rig has no boom, and its sail can be brailed up against the mast.
- Size: The upper size limit of a dinghy is stated as 20 feet, or 6.1 metres.
- Hull: A rigid-hulled dinghy can be made of wood, fibreglass or moulded polypropylene.
The dinghy is a small open boat with a long working life as a tender. A Lefkada private tour shares the sea with such rowed and sailed boats. The next section turns to the words for the two sides of a boat, port and starboard.
On a Lefkada private tour, what does port and starboard add?
A Lefkada private tour brings up port and starboard. They are nautical terms for the left and right sides of a vessel. The port side is the left side of a vessel for someone aboard, facing the bow. The bow is the front of the vessel.
The convention lets orders be communicated unambiguously, without knowing which way a crew member faces. Unambiguously means in a way that has only one meaning. Starboard derives from Old English steorbord, where steor means steer and bord means side. Ships without rudders were steered with an oar on the right-hand side.
The left side was also called port, because it was the docking side. Docking means tying a boat up at a quay or pier. In 1844, the Royal Navy ordered that port be used instead of larboard. The United States Navy followed suit in 1846. Larboard was the older word for the left side.
Lewis Carroll rhymed larboard and starboard in his 1876 poem The Hunting of the Snark. Navigation lights mark a vessel’s starboard side with green and its port side with red. Navigation lights are lamps on a vessel. A Lefkada private tour shares this language of the sea.
- Craft: Port and starboard are nautical terms for watercraft, aircraft and spacecraft.
- Whalers: Whalers kept using the word larboard well into the 1850s.
- Crews: Port and starboard are also used to divide crews into two teams.
Port and starboard give every crew member the same map of a vessel, whichever way they face. A Lefkada private tour shares words that came from steering oars and navy orders. The last section answers four short questions about knots, winches, booms and jibs.
Before a Lefkada private tour starts, which questions arise?
A Lefkada private tour raises four plain sea questions. A knot is a unit of speed, and a winch pulls a rope in tight. A boom holds the foot of a sail, and a jib is a small front sail. Each reply uses three facts.
On a Lefkada private tour, which unit measures speed at sea?
The knot is a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile per hour. The ISO standard symbol for the knot is kn. Until the mid-19th century, vessel speed at sea was measured using a chip log. A nautical mile is the sea measure behind the knot.
Which device pulls a rope in tight behind a Lefkada private tour?
A winch is a mechanical device that pulls in, lets out or adjusts the tension of a rope. In its simplest form a winch has a spool, or drum, attached to a hand crank. Herodotus described winches that tightened the cables of a pontoon bridge in 480 BCE.
Which pole holds the foot of a sail behind a Lefkada private tour?
In sailing, a boom is a pole along the foot of a fore and aft rigged sail. The front end of the boom attaches to the mast with a joint called the gooseneck. The outhaul runs from the back corner of the sail to the free end of the boom.
Which small front sail is named behind a Lefkada private tour?
A jib is a three-sided sail placed ahead of the foremast of a sailing vessel. Jibs and spinnakers are the two main types of headsails on a modern boat. An overlapping jib is called a genoa jib or a genoa. A headsail is a sail set at the front.