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Sailor, do you come to Gythion… or: the Greek registration system

After we had successfully completed our little odyssey through this beautiful town, we thought maybe Kafka was Greek after all………
But one after the other: We came to Gythion and couldn't find a berth in the harbour itself, because it was so crowded that we had to moor outside, at the ferry pier, a 100 x 100 metres concrete slab - very romantic, but as it turned out, a very good, very safe place.
Hardly arrived and moored, two friendly officers of the Hellenic Coastguard came in a pickup SUV and asked for the papers. We handed over everything we needed: boat licence, Tepai (Cruising Tax), insurance policy. They kindly pointed out to us that before we leave, over there - they pointed to a house opposite the harbour - we had to pay the mooring fee.
The next day, in the afternoon, another pickup SUV of the Coast Guard arrived, with two other officers. They asked for our papers…….we said they could have them, but yesterday there were already two colleagues here who had already done all this. Ah, all right then, have a nice day……..
In the meantime we were already discussing whether we should really sign off.
So after five days - Gythion and the surrounding area are really nice - we went to this office after we decided to pay after all. The officer looked at us in astonishment and said that this was the city police and we had to go to the Coastguard, pointing to the other end of the city. There we arrived after a 1.5km walk (35 degrees Celsius). There was a copy of our papers, after all. No, here we were completely wrong, they said. We would have to go to the city administration, they would collect the demurrage fees. That would be back there, the friendly officer pointed to the area we had just come from. So a little longer back to the other end, two buildings with Greek flags in front of them looked quite awe-inspiring. At the first one we were kindly told that this was a school. That we definitely wanted to go to the house next door. And indeed - that was the municipal administration. Everywhere the typical Greek offices: very cramped, very warm, a lot of officials per office for the square metres, shelves with files up to the rather high ceiling. But in the corridors and in the building dignified furnishings, antique figures and even a columned hall.
We had to go to Dimitra, we were told, after we had asked a lot of questions. Dimitra sat behind a glass wall and made a phone call. Quite long. Sometimes she tapped energetically with her hair clip on the desk.
When she had finished the conversation, she turned to us and was very friendly. She took a closely printed, shrink-wrapped DIN A4 sheet (looked like the small print in the insurance contract) and wrote various numbers among themselves in very precisely legible writing. Then she added them up with the help of a pocket calculator, which looked as if it could do the four basic arithmetic operations - but not any more, and that with rather large keys. The result: 18.04 € for five days. Not much, but there was no supply (electricity, water, showers…).
Then we made a crucial mistake: Dimitra asked if she should print out the receipt or if she should send it to us by e-mail. To this day we still don't know why we decided to use the mail variant. After a friendly farewell we went back to the boat.
The next day we received the mail from Dimitra with the receipt, but she apologised, she had made a calculation error and the amount would not be 18,04€, but 42,60. We should pay the difference to the account at the National Bank of Greece anyway, thank you very much.
We'll see when they sehe sends us a reminder.

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