i believe that "vardiani" island near the peinsula of paliki in the middle of the sea is the island of asteris.
Why?

1.the shape feets perfectly(asteris= means "star shape")
2.it has two harbors
3. it is exposed to the (NW) winds
4.it is rocky without any trees
5.it is actually between paliki peninsula and kefalonia island but not in the channel that is formed
6.it is placed in such way that has many possitives for setting an ambous like:
very good visibility
NW winds
sun light it is not blocked by paliki's peninsula
it is not in the channel so the attack could not be noticed easily by others

finally the word "vardini" meas " guards " like the suitors who were watching about telemachos arrival[/b]

Thank you for this suggestion. The possibility has always appeared initially plausible but unfortunately it contains some major difficulties, described on page 144 of Odysseus Unbound: "However attractive it may be to reconsider this matter of the word ‘island’, we should remember that Vardianoi could never be the site of the ambush for three reasons: it has no windy heights, it does not lie between Ithaca and Samos and, crucially, it is too far away from Telemachos’ supposed course home to be a credible place for an ambush."

Vardianoi island is only a few metres above sea level today and the late Holocene history of tectonic uplift means that 3,000 years ago it would have been little more than a reef. By contrast, the 'windy heights' are described at Odyssey 16.365 with the word 'akris' which is used by the poet elsewhere with the quite specific meaning of a 'hill-top'. For example at Od. 9.400 the Cyclops dwell in caves among the 'windy heights' and at Od. 14.2 Odysseus ascends from Phorcys Bay en route to Eumaios' pigfarm via the 'heights' of today's Atheras village (about 260m above sea level).

There is also a crucial objection at Strabo's Geography 10.2.16 "Between Ithaca and Cephallenia is the small island Asteria (the poet calls it Asteris), which the Scepsian [Demetris of Scepsis] says no longer remains such as the poet describes it, but in it are harbours safe for anchorage with entrances on either side; Apollodorus, however, says that it still remains so to this day, and mentions a town Alalcomenae upon it, situated on the isthmus itself." Unfortunately it is not credible to imagine that there could ever have been a town on the barren islet of Vardianoi.

I agree.
I went to Kefalonia and Paliki twice in the last two years and I am more and more convinced that Vardianoi is the homeric Asteris Island. The town reported in the poem could have been either on Xi bay or Argostoli peninsula.
Vardianoi fits more than any other point for an ambush, from a strategic point of view (a very good military option), as the suitors well hidden in its bay could watch over all the routes leading to both Ithaca's Harbours (the main one and the one in Athera's Bay).
I think the the "razor of Occam" principle always works.
If so, the route taken by Telemachus back to home from Nestor's Palace in Pylos can be just one, accordingly to the sailing knowledges of that time:
1. sailing along the Peloponese up to the modern Vartholomio;
2. to cross the straits between the Peloponnese and Zakynthos;
3. following Zakynthos' coast to its northern point (close to Korithi);
4. crossing the straits between Zakynthos and Kefallonia, heading for Skala;
5. sailing along the eastern coast of Kefallonia, in the channel between this Island and Dulichion, up to Antipata;
6. heading for Atheras' Bay.
In this way the suitors should have done everything they could to make a perfect ambush, but Telemachus on Athena's advise caught the only and one option to avoid it.
What do you think about this hypothesis?

Note the position of the Isla Guardiani at the charming chart of the island of Cephalonia, showing town and harbour plans, with soundings, anchorages, rocks, shoals, fortifications, lighthouses. Joseph Roux (1725-1793). The island is in the middle of the bay!

Also another islet is shown on that map; it much more fits the ideas of the Author! It even has an anchorage; it looks promising. Was the Author aware of this island?
Also note that on the map the classic Ithaca is named Cefalunia Piccolo; small Cephalonia. So maybe the name Ithaca has not been so long in use on that Island…
For Isla Guardiana; the limited height of the island makes it even more suitable for an ambush; when rowing and manoeuvring they usually took the mast down, (All lay hands to tackle! They sprang to orders, hoisting the pinewood mast, they stepped it firm. 2.418-34) and the remaining height of the boat was not more than 6 or 8 feet.
When rowing, you take your ambush position up-wind so that you can attack at full speed and have the advantage of surprise.

Hard to find a better name for an ambush island than Isla Guardiana and the map shows anchorages on either side...
And why not consult the Turkish sea captain Piri Reis, who had access to the pre-Columbus maps of the Mediterranean? He studied the Muslim and Phoenician charts when we were still in the dark ages. Knew that those guys sailed the area with triangular sails, tacking against the wind, while the Greece where still using rectangular sails? In Northwest Europe it took till the sixteenth century before we learned this trick.

I hope to have given some more "clues".

Marinus

The Joseph Roux map is delightful and congratulations are due to Marinus for researching it. However in common with most maps of that period, it is very inaccurate compared to the satellite image below.

The possibility that Vardianoi = Asteris was considered in depth while the research for Odysseus Unbound was taking place, but the evidence against it seemed conclusive, as discussed in Chapter 15 of the book and summarised in the post above dated 10 Jan 2010:

(a) Vardianoi has no windy heights and prior to tectonic uplift would have been little more than a reef
(b) It does not lie between Ithaca and Samos
(c) It is too far away from Telemachos’ supposed course home to be a credible place for an ambush
(d) It could not have been the site of the town of Alalcomenae
(e) It does not contain a harbour on each side, just a few very small coves

Fig 5.4 below from OU demonstrates points (b) and (c) above - the grid is 20km and the distance to Telemachos' course (retracing his outgoing course shown here) is about 4.5km.

We cannot really have it both ways: if we are to say that the 3.5km distance from Dascalion to Polis Bay is a crucial objection to the conventional view that Dascalion = Asteris, we can hardly then claim that the 4.5km distance from Vardianoi to the Argostoli peninsula can be ignored.

By contrast, once we appreciate that at that time the Greek word 'nesos' described a peninsula as well as an island, all five of the above objections are immediately overcome.

Dear members of this forum,

I found your discoveries and discussions inspiring and hope to give a contribution by asking your attention for the cartographic representations of the islands of Zakynthos, Kefalonia and Lefkada in the Ionian Sea at URL http://art.thewalters.org/viewchild.asp ... ldid=79744

The origin of these maps is dated late 11th century AD with updates being made in the 16th century. The origin of these charts is Egyptian, which makes that the sources are much older than you may expect from European chart makers as Joseph Roux.

The maps show a lot of interesting details:
• A small river at the location where the author suggests the South entrance to Strabo’s channel.
• Anchorages on each side of the envisaged Strabo’s channel.
• Deep and shallow harbours and anchorages in Argostoli Bay.
• Early topography of cape Argostoli's coastline itself.
• An unidentified island between the classic Ithaca and Kefalonia.
• Just a narrow strip of land connecting mainland Kefalonia and nesos Paliki on one chart.
• A well pronounced presence of both Isla Guardiana and Dascalion.
• Small inhabited islets off the promontory of Argostoli.
• No indication of harbours or anchorages on the modern Ithaca’s west coast.
• An island in the middle of a flooded Acarnania.
• Stilt houses in the Ambracian Gulf, representing a floating island?
• In general much more land seems submerged then nowadays.

Clearly a lot "no longer remains such as the poet described it". Poseidon rocked and rolled the whole area.

The early sea charts are not "unreliable", but they should be looked at through the eyes of the composers. These were seamen that circumnavigated the islands with a great knowledge of what endangered them and of what could offer them safe refuge. However, the knowledge of projections and scale was not there. When they sailed around an island they described the coast line accurately and when they arrived at the same point again... they knotted the two ends of the coastline together... Who wants to say that the famous painting of Vincent van Gogh is an unreliable presentation of a sunflower? Instead the painting learns you to look at a sunflower with different eyes and more meaning.

Further research could be the translation of some of the Arabic words and texts on the maps into English. Also I would eat my hat if after spending a week in the maps department of the library of Alexandria I would not have a map of Schizocephalonia.

I look forward to your comments

SOME MORE CLUES
400 sq.meters
19m elevation

I fully agree with Talos. As I wrote in my previous post Vardianoi does represent not only a strategical point, but THE strategical point for the perfect ambush in the gulf between Kefallonia and Paliki.
What if the windy heights are referred to the fact the waves hit heavily this island when the sea is stormy?
And with reference to the course of Telemachus to Pylos, as I posted, it could be different from the one considered even in the book. If we take it for granted that Vardianoi is Asteris, as 3.000 years ago the only way to sailing was following the coastline, Telemachus had just one course to approaching the land of his father Ulysses avoiding the ambush: the one I tried to explain in my previous post[color=#400000], accordingly to the sailing knowledges of that time,
1. sailing along the Peloponese up to the modern Vartholomio;
2. to cross the straits between the Peloponnese and Zakynthos;
3. following Zakynthos' coast to its northern point (close to Korithi);
4. crossing the straits between Zakynthos and Kefallonia, heading for Skala;
5. sailing along the eastern coast of Kefallonia, in the channel between this Island and Dulichion, up to Antipata;
6. heading for Atheras' Bay.[/color]In this way, even if the suitors had arranged the perfect ambush, Telemachos would have dodged them.

correction: asteris island covers an area of 40000 sqr meters \ elevation is correct