THE TOURIST industry in Greece is suffering badly this year, with bookings from the main sources of tourism, Britain and Germany, down by 20 to 30 per cent so far.
The pinch is being felt throughout Greece, particularly in popular islands like Rhodes and Crete. But one island that sees few tourists, year in year out, is Gavdos, the southernmost island of Greece and of Europe.
Ironically, Gavdos may have been one of the first islands to attract tourists. According to tradition this island, off the south coast of Crete and lodged in the Libyan sea between Europe and North Africa, is Homer's island of Ogygia, the home of the nymph Kalypso, who seduced Odysseus.
In classical times the island was known to Plutarch as Kavdos and to the Romans as Clauda. St Paul was blown past the island in the storm that carried him off from Crete to eventual shipwreck on Malta.
Under Byzantine rule, it was so heavily populated it was a diocese with its own bishop. The Venetians who occupied Crete for four centuries named the island Gozo di Candia, and feared it as the hideout of pirates. The Turks who captured Crete in 1669 knew Gavdos as Bougadoz under Ottoman rule; the now abandoned Pharos or lighthouse on the north west tip was built by a French company in 1880.
In 1912 as part of the province of Sfakion, Gavdos was integrated along with the rest of Crete into the modern Greek state. But today it is still cut off from the rest of the world during extended periods in the winter; during the summer the weekly ferries from Paleohora and Hora Sfokion, as regularly as not, fail to make the three hour, 45 km journey due to strong winds. The expensive fares and unpredictable sailings deter any tourist who is ailing at heart or weak in pocket.
The problems facing the tourist in summer are a bitter taste of the perennial problems haunting, the residents in winter. Electricity only arrived with solar cells and generators in the 1980s, there are only 15 telephones and fewer cars. Visitors are warned not to contaminate the limited fresh water supply with soap. The police station and school are dilapidated and forlorn the need to preserve law and order and to provide education have long passed.
There are no package holidays to Gavdos. But for the few tourists - mainly Germans - who manage the three hour trip from Paleohora, there are two tavernas and 19 rooms to rent, spread through the "capital" Kastri, and the hamlets of Karabe, Sarakinikos and Korfos.
But the triangular island has fine cedar, pine, olive, carob and fig trees, crystal clear, sparkling torquoise waters and golden stretches of sand. The local honey is wonderful and the local wine comes with strong recommendations.
The island, home to 8,000 people in the Middle Ages has fewer than 120 permanent residents today. The majority of houses in Kastri are crumbling away. Only two families in Ambelos, once famed for its vineyards. In Vatsiana, the southernmost settlement of Europe, isolation and irregular human contact have made the few inhabitants the most hospitable in Greece. At Cape Tripiti, the southernmost tip of Europe, the abandoned country houses of stone and cedarwood now shelter livestock. Beyond, there is only sea separating Greece from Libya, Europe from Africa.
On Thursday last Gavdos had more visitors in a day than it might have had in the whole holiday season. The island was invaded by media eager to hear the islanders express their fears, not of mass tourism, but of a military invasion. Earlier in the week, hours before his resignation, the Turkish prime minister, Mr Mesut Yilmaz, repeated his claim that there were "grey areas" - including Gavdos - in the Aegean that needed to be negotiated with Athens.
Last January, Turkey and Greece came close to war over the Dodecanese islets of Imia. Now for the first time, Ankara has staked a claim to a part of Greece abandoned by the Ottoman Empire in the last century and hundreds of miles from the Turkish coast.
"The Turkish claims are absolutely ridiculous," said Mr Michalis Pandelakis, the deputy chairman of Gavdos Community Council. "Someone has to put things in their right place."
"If need be, we will give our answer with shotguns and pistols," one angry resident told the daily Ethnos. "No Turk has ever set foot here. We want the international community to condemn the troublemakers."
But the new focus on Gavdos has brought mixed blessings. The island looks like getting a new wind driven generator system courtesy of the European Union.
The island has long been demanding infrastructural investment and a regular ferry service with the south of Crete. Now the positive response of the Energy Commissioner, Mr Christos Papoutsis, a member Mr Simitis's party, Pasok, and the four day visit to Crete by the Prime Minister, Mr Costas Simitis, looks like meeting some of the demands of Gavdos community council.