A Greek medical relief ship bound for Gaza was turned back by Israeli ships, the International Herald Tribune reports. The ship was supposedly in international waters at the time; the Greek Foreign Ministry expressed concern over the endangerment of the passengers, many of them Greeks, on board the vessel.

In a very different incident, a Turkish frigate broke away from an agreed-upon military exercise in the Aegean and was stopped by a Greek vessel just four kilometers from Cape Sounion, far from the exercise area. Greece is seeing the incident as a deliberate escalation of tensions between itself and Turkey.

1906 - Aristotle Onassis is born in Smyrna. He will later become one of the world's richest shipping magnates, and will marry Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of US President John F. Kennedy in a controversial marriage. The saying "If women didn’t exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning." is credited to him. He also founded (and gave to Greece as a gift) Olympic Airways.

In what could be a good omen for Greek tourism this year, Greek island photography workshop leader Glenn Steiner wrote to me to say that his sailboat-based Greek Island photography workshop "Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea" scheduled for June 14th-20th, which he just announced, had filled up completely and he was now adding another week-long session from June 21st-June 27th. Participants will be visiting Kos, Kalymnos, Leros, Lipsi and Marathi on the trip.

He is also offering spring and fall photography workshops in Santorini and its island sister of Thirasia.

If you're in Athens this weekend, you have a unique chance to visit Russian ships docked in Piraeus on January 11th and 13th. The Russians are joining with Greece in joint military exercises, and the ships will be open to the public. They include the oiler "Sergey Osipov" and the "Nikolay Chiker" salvage tug. The "Admiral Levchenko" torpedo boat will also be in Piraeus from January 12 to 15. They are all part of the support ships for the aircraft carrier "Admiral Kuznetsov".

If you do go to Piraeus to take a peek at these ships, you probably love nautical history and you won't want to miss the Nautical Museum of Piraeus. The very fine and usually overlooked Archaeological Museum of Piraeus, with its outstanding collection of massive ancient bronze statues is of more general interest and is also well worth a visit.

By the way, the Greek and Russian military exercises will take place in waters off of the Greek islands of Crete and Rhodes, so if you're staying on one of these Greek islands and you see something unusual going on offshore, don't panic.