by Andy W » 15 Jun 2009, 17:13
Wednesday evenings are a bit of a no-win situation for ANES because charter flight arrivals from the UK are spread out over the whole afternoon. If the boat leaves too late, earlier arriving people worry about where to leave their luggage, if it is too early it fails to connect with some flights altogether and some passengers bite their nails if there are flight delays, baggage delays, or transfer coaches that stop en route or don't know which harbour to go to because they have only just enough time at best.
In past years the ferry often went at 18:30 because it had to arrive from a day trip run to Symi, unload and reload. Now they use the Proteus because of the increasing demand for vehicle movements and erratic calls by "big boats" on their way to Athens, which helps to keep the island's food and drink supplies topped up for the new arrivals. Proteus goes to Kastellorizo on Wednesdays, it isn't back till 18:40, explaining the 19:15 departure.
This is actually helpful to people who have arrived on the 18:00 scheduled flight arrival from Athens, which has connections from all over Europe. With faster baggage reclaim from domestic flights, and a taxi to the port, the connection works.