I have just been playing with a cool web site which has actually been of value to me during this busy time of meeting arriving guests.

MarineTraffic.com tracks a great many sea-going vessels around the world, including all of the Greek island ferries.

Features include:

Location and speed of ships

Live web cams of ports, showing ships in sight

Photo gallery of ships, yachts and the like

Ability to search boats by name

Browse around; its fun. 

Since I live about 20 minutes from the ferry port I use it to make sure the ferry has left its previous port.  The only drawback is the ferry speeds are given in knots while the Google map is scaled in miles and kilometres.

The photo is of the Rodanthi which I am meeting about 4 A.M. tomorrow.  When I first came to Paros 9 years ago this was a standard ferry.  Now it is one of only two or three old and slow boats still in service.  Very hard to judge it’s arrival time.

Hmm, maybe this is the excuse I have been looking for to buy a Blackberry, Palm or what have you to track the boats live from the port as well as at home.