Some van people I've met a few weeks ago had told me about that mysterious shipwreck that is laying on some beach here in the South of Greece and that had become some kind of attraction.
So when we saw it on our route to the next city we want to play music at, of course I was eager to stop and go take a look at it.
A mysterious old ship?
And it's free to visit?
Sounds great!
And there are quite a few mysteries surrounding the "Dimitrios". The most important being the question of WHO IS THE HOBOGANG?
But I'll get to that later.
First, a bit of history.
I know I won't find the truth on wikipedia, but I like to read it sometimes to first learn the official narrative and then wonder about it ^^
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimitrios_(shipwreck)
So there they tell us that the "Dimitrios" got stranded on that sandy beach near the small town of Gythio in 1981 after a series of strange events. It was a cargo ship and they had to stop at the port of Gythio because the captain was in need for medical assistance due to a severe illness.
As soon as the poor captain had left his ship certain problems showed up, financial issues among the crew and even the very mechanics of the ship wouldn't work anymore.
Shortly after they declared the good old lady as not being safe to use anymore.
To top it all there came a storm, so violent that the ship got swept out of the harbor and into the bay where it floated around aimlessly for a while until it got stranded on a lonely beach a few kilometres South.
And this is where you can still find it today.
Pretty wild story!
Even wikipedia tells us that there are certain things unclear about the history of this ship.
There are rumors that it was actually been used for smuggling tobacco from Turkey and that they had even set it on fire after it got stranded to burn all the evidence!
I hope they didn't burn the tobacco ...
The ship itself was actually much less interesting than I thought ^^
Basically a rusty old ship on the beach, that looks as if it doesn't belong there.
What I found more interesting was that the beach didn't look as if it had always been just a beach.
I could see unnatural structures all over under the shallow water. Things like concrete platforms and metal objects that for me indicate that this beach had been some kind of harbor at some point.
Another mystery??
It was hard to take a good picture, but maybe you can see what I mean.
But the most interesting part for me (as an artist) was all the intriguing artwork and writing on the hull of the old lady!
Of course Antifa was here (not the best artists though ^^).
And the HOBOGANG too!! (I read this as "Hologang" at first, which was funny)
I loved all those bright graffiti colors combined with the earthy red of the rust! Beautiful!
So I took a lot of close-up's of the different textures. Maybe I'll use them as backgrounds for paintings someday :)
Will we ever find out what really happened on the "Dimitrios"?
Why got that old harbor abandoned and is it a kind of cosmic hint that the Dimotrios got stranded there?
What do they hide from us?
And most of all, what has the Hobogang to do with all this??
Greece indeed is a country full of mysteries...
I thank you very much for reading <3
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All photos taken by me