During the winter, there is usually no rain, the temperature goes down to zero, rarely below. The average temperature during the winter months is about 10 degrees. If by any chance drops below zero, schools and shops are closing, and you can rarely see someone on the streets. The days are mostly sunny during the winter, and the sky is cloudless. That is in the south of the island. On the north is different.

North of the island, both Limenas and Skala Potamia are located at the foot of the mountain Ipsarion. During summer days, there is always fresher, which can be very good. The number of hours of sunshine during the day is much lower, the sun goes down faster (about 5-6 pm) and evenings and nights are very pleasant and the summer heat bearable. At the same time, in the north the rains are more often throughout the year, the humidity is higher, the winters are gloomy and gray, foggy days often. In the north of the island, the sleep is better, but it only applies to those that do not plague gout and breathing problems.

For tourists the north could be a better choice for fresher climate during summer, less need for air conditioning, fresh nights and evenings, but also the worse the stronger the wind, and therefore more frequent waves, more rain and higher humidity. All these differences between the north and south are insignificant in the summer so it should not even affect your choice of destinations for summer, but during winter are more pronounced in favor of Potos and Limenaria.

Greek words that I learned on the first arrival to the island, were “notiades” and “voriades”. These are the southern and northern winds. People from the land much less talk about time in relation to coastal dwellers, which is logical. Islanders’ daily life depends on the wind and weather, and usually, those short, random meetings of two neighbors and friends are reduced to a brief overview of the weather, and the wind and its change, speed and temperature.

The south wind is causing waves around Limenaria and Potos and is usually mild and always warmer than the north wind. It comes from Africa and several times during the year brings the sand and dust from African deserts. If you see someone t-shirt with horizontal red stripes, you’ll know that his wife does not respect the rule number one when spreading clean clothes: remove “African” dust off the wire. Once we were in Crete, we were completely astonished by the amount of sand that local wind brings. Sometimes all the tavernas and shops are closed because of it, and stay in the open is almost impossible. On Thassos island is not so extreme and dust is most clearly seen after the rain.

Voriades are the winds that come from the western hemisphere, bringing low temperatures and raise the question about wind strength (usually expressed in Beaufort), because ferry departures depend on them. Voriades cause rough seas in the north of the island, and often traffic of ferries may be affected. If the wind speed reaches 6 or 7 Beaufort (which is somewhere between 45-55km/h) departures are suspended. A few years ago, between Keramoti and Thassos started runs closed ferries and there is no danger of the passengers when the wind reaches a volume of 8 Beaufort (65km/h). Eight Beaufort is rare during the winter and in the summer it almost never happens.

Fishermen in Potos and Limenaria wish the wind from the south, more than calm seas. Fish have developed a sense of the coming storm and are preparing for it by searching more intensively for food, and so the best time for fishermen to sail off on the open sea with fishing tackle is this. The day after the storm is also fruitful and months, where the most fish is in the sea, are November and March.

These days my friends hooked the fish which the Greeks called “skorpiomana”. It is a poisonous fish, whose poison is in the dorsal fin, and if put into the human bloodstream when removing the hook, the consequences can be very difficult, starting with a strong and long-lasting pain that spreads from the injection site on the entire body to dangerous infections. In the photo, you can see this fish on my plate right before it jumped into a pot of boiling water ready for a good fish soup, perfect for lunch on this cold, winter days. This delicious fish almost exclusively is prepared in fish soup.

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