Breakfast time

Returned to the everyday humdrum of life, this skipper would like to pay homage to my crew members, on what was surely a wonderful odyssey.  With my memories already beginning to fade a little, as a function of my ageing brain rather than the clarity of the many incredible experiences, I wish to share my reflections of our trip. Hopefully in doing so, I can convey to you all the love I feel for you for putting your trust, and your lives, in my hands, and I thank you all for the inspiration you provided to an old tar who thought his best days were behind him.

Prady is doing an excellent job of recording the incredible landscapes and seascapes we enjoyed for those two weeks, so I thought with love, humor, and honesty, I would reflect on the unlikely mix of men that were drawn together for those few days on the Aegean Sea, and some other aspects of our journey. It may sound like a roast at times, but you all get to respond!

Bo the raconteur.

Raconteur – a person who excels in telling anecdotes.

So it appears that I had a totally incorrect understanding of how Bo became known as “Threefingers” Sorrentino!  I was under the impression that he had lost a digit in a shoot out with a rival “family” in an argument over pasta importation rights at the Miami docks. Turns out that is nowhere near the truth. Apparently it refers to the measured depth of liquor, wine, Uzo, or Grappa, that Bo can consume in one gulp from a regular highball glass. Who knew!

Bo, you never disappointed. Your stories were always relevant and interesting, at least for the first week! After that I felt I had met the same guy, in a different airport, working on a different deal, driving a different car, in a previous story. I put it down to my wine soaked brain at the time, but on reflection, I think it was your wine soaked brain that was on “shuffle”.

I am glad to hear that you are seeking help for the sleep apnea, I was getting a little tired of the mouth to mouth resuscitation every 12 minutes! I wish you well with that, we want you around in the future.

Thank you for your wonderful meals, your thoughtfulness in bringing your own personal spice rack from the U.S., your tireless efforts to keep things shipshape, and all the heavy lifting you did launching the dinghy and during our dismal anchoring experiences.

I promise NEVER to deal out of turn ever again, even if the card game is purely for fun and of no consequence to anybody involved!!

“Prarie Dog”  Prady

Prady will forever be remembered for his uncanny ability to “pop up” on every occasion, camera in hand. His frequent appearances through the salon hatch earned him this moniker. All I can say is thank God for digital technology, without it Prady would bankrupt his family with film and development expenses.

However, as much as l enjoyed ferrying Prady to shore in the dinghy at the break of sparrows fart (dawn), to capture that certain light over the horizon, it is not for this peculiar obsession with color and form, especially if the form happened to be a naked sunbathing lady, (did you show those to Reena), that I will remember him.

Prady is the most genuinely enthusiastic person I have ever met. One cannot fail to be elevated to certain things by his infectious fury. And don’t insinuate, ever, that he cannot accomplish any task, you will eat your words.

I think the image I will retain, and will always make me chuckle, is the memory of Prady helming the boat in 30 mile an hour winds, with  6 foot following seas.  Initially hanging on for dear life, he quickly transitioned to a steady course, until you engaged him in any conversation. Suddenly we were thirty degrees of course, and “holy sh-t, something happened”

Prady, thank you for all your support in putting the trip together, thank you for your level head and your infectious enjoyment of natures wonders. And, the folks at Alimos Marina send special thanks to you for your parting gift!

Mario

What does one say about a guy who had never heard of The Moody Blues, The Hollies, or Pink Floyd!! We took this young man waaay out of his comfort zone, and he never blinked!! The Mario music evening was sheer nostalgia for the old guys, and it made up for the lack of live guitar music.

Son, I missed you when you left! You were a constant source of good humor and cheerfulness. I enjoyed seeing you change from a sailing novice to a well oiled sailing machine. One more week and I would have turned the boat over to you. The evening sail to Ios was quality time, I was amazed that you were able to helm in those conditions.

But son, you have got to come up with a better way of entertaining yourself than letting half naked women beat you over the head with a milk crate. I never considered that you would need a baseline concussion test before joining the cruise! Get a life! Maybe you could join me at the senior shuffle board contest at the home next Thursday.

I have your black shorts which I will return to you at the reunion, and the chick with the painted hand at the night club would like to go around again next year. You must have shown her something to impress her!

Good luck at the new job, you gave up an awesome week to make it to the office in time. Perhaps you should start now, to position yourself for a full vacation allowance next year. If we go to Croatia you are on the crew list.

Steph

Difficult to come up with a nickname for you. I apologize for the rumor that you are really a greeter at Wall-Mart, I admit I did start that, and feel ashamed that I could not come up with something better. We are grateful that you interrupted your pursuit of the world’s bad guys to come sail with us, and you were the easiest of people to have aboard, not to mention by far the most rigorous of us in daily ablutions!

I will say this however, if the safety of this country is in your hands, we are in trouble! You are way too nice to strangers! Nobody is stranger than Chris Gerrard but you alone had the inclination, intellect, and patience to engage the amazing mind in conversation. In fact, if Jeopardy ever hold a two man tag team competition, you guys are favorites. There are not many sailing days left this year, but you are welcome on the Chesapeake any time

Chris Gerrard

Wow, what a complicated soul. You were a veritable mine of largely useless information, an incredible workhorse on the crew, a loner at times, and a team player at others. I saw so many sides of you. I can’t say I enjoyed all of them, but you held up the mirror for me on occasion, not something that often happens.

I would never have believed it possible to buy enough cheese, salami, pepperoni, and hard sausage to feed a five man crew for seven days, for the princely sum of thirty Euros, but then again, I would never have thought of it. Our money was certainly in the hands of talented bursar.

Thank you for being the guy that did all the tasks that nobody else really wanted to do. I hope you find all that you are looking for, good luck at Swiss finishing school!!

The Rest

So, now that I look back, what would I change? Well really very little. Perhaps a better boat is all. Anything else, and it would not have been the same experience. We had an incredible cruise for a ridiculously inexpensive price. Great sailing at times, good camaraderie for the most part, and awesome scenery. Thank you all for being part of it.

I will say that next year I am considering going to Croatia, with an all female crew!!!

I will also avoid Frankfurt airport at all costs in the future, it has to be the most inconvenient transition point between Europe and the U.S.  Hardly the model of German efficiency one would expect, but Lufthansa do their best to make up for it with an old fashioned flight experience, free booze, food, good entertainment system, but the ugliest flight attendants in the air!

See you all at the reunion.  Bo, your not invited until you pay your half of the hotel room in Athens. (Threefingers, get your backside up here next spring)

Every single day during our voyage was different than the other. And most of us felt the experience was better and overwhelming than the previous one. As we were coming close to end of the journey, there wasn’t much to left in our wishlist. Some of us were talking about the marine life — we had not seen much of  the sea creatures, except few dolphins, and small (very small) fish (but absolutely no sea monster).

This day will mark with something we talked about but could not expect that it will happen. Chris was the one to notice that there were lots of Dolphins who were jumping around and playing close to the Bow of the boat. We went to the bow and sat there with camera ready to grab any action. And there they were. I have been to seaworld and many cool aquariums, but this was something much spectacular – Dolphins were all about getting our attention. During the whole course of motoring (i.e. no wind, no sailing) to Sounion, we witness atleast 3 cohorts of dolphins — at least 100s of them. Words won’t summarize the feelings, but pictures may give you the feel. enjoy.

One would think that taking pictures of wild creatures is easy and same goes for Dolphins. Those who have never been in this setting may picture dolpins jumping out of the water will be usual occuring, so I thought too. But Dolphins as I witnessed were more about running around under the surface and racing with the boat close to the bow. I was keeping my camera at burst mode, and too approximately 500 shots, but it was almost impossible to capture them out of the water, jumping into the water. There are few of those shots,, which will decorate my desktop for years to come.

       This was among those rarest of shots when I was able to focus camera at the right directions at the right time. Folks, it’s not easy — hats off to those pros who spend days taking one of those rare shots.

Some of the best events during our sailing trip involved sailing to a beautiful, secluded beach and have a good time. We did this plenty of times, but this beach at Serifos (called “Ganema”) stands out — it was not only beautiful, but it was secluded and was far away from any town closest to our reach by boat or walking. And there were no public transportation available.

We had very less money for eating outside, so cooking on the boat and jumping in the water was on the only fun we could have had. We never realized that we had no wine or liqueur left onboard either, and we were ok with it for a change, till we reached on the beach. We all swam to the beach and had a great feeling walking around. There were two more boats, and about 3 couples in around the 2-3 km of the shoreline. That’s when we got the idea of doing a campfire on the beach. We weren’t sure if that was even legal, but we did not care.

The big problem was not collecting the wood fire — that was easy. The question was what is a campfire without some liquor?. That was when we decided to try anything to get the wine on the beach. We found out the nearest town was 10 kms. away from where we were standing. The walking was impossible because it was hot afternoon, the road was quite a climb beside the town being 20 kms. a round trip.

We had to wait 2 hours, ask few folks on the beach before one couple game us the ride to the town. It was quite a ride and very humbling experience. I along with skipper Peter were given the ride in the car which is probably good for two people and a dog to be max. The couple did not know english, but they tried understanding what we needed. They pulled their seats so that we can accommodate on the tiny back seats on their coup. The best past — dog sat with the driven on drivers lap all the way

This story may not reflect too much of the great experience we derived in the end, but for me it was a learning to shed inhibition, be loose, carefree to gain the little bit more fun when I needed.

On this day, we had no specific plans for any specific place. We were heading west because that’s where the wind could take us. And we reached a small Island called Kimolos, NE of Milos. This was a great surprise, and very unique place to anchor than other places we had been.

The place where we finally anchored was a tiny fishermen’s town called Goupa Kara. This is just north of port Psathi, both share the same town of Kimolos. This place is untouched by the boat traffic, offers a rocky coast, and it very different beauty than any other places we visited.

We visited Sifnos Island for the second time. We were here on Day 4 at Faros, on the other end of the Island.

By this time in our trip, we were overwhelmed by the Greek Island aesthetics. Any place we go makes us think that we have seen all — blue & white houses, crystal water, narrow stone streets, view from top of the whole island — all seems nothing unique. Yet, to many of us (and Peter in particular), this place – Kamares Marina, in Sifnos, seemed to be the best place we visited.

To me Kimolou is a great place to come when you are tired of all the Island aesthetics and wants to lay around and chillax. The restaurants are amazingly along the beach that can make hours go by without worring. Food is good and the water is amazingly shallow and clear as long as you your eye can travel.

I also will remember this place for going to their town – Appolonia for iPhone cable and ended up almost loosing my iPhone in the cab. The story is long, but the experience was great. All the time I have spent on Islands, and with those little experiences, my belief is that Island folks are very honest — they never take advantage of you and are the best people to trust.

Kamares is Sifnos’ main port and you can easily use it as base to explore the rest of Sifnos. It has a great, calm, longish, sandy beach, and just the right number of intimate bars and tavernas right on the water.   

Sifnos is famous throughout Greece for its clay and has been heavily involved in ceramics since ancient times. Now there are only two or so pottery shops in Kamares. However, pottery is still the most common locally produced type of gift item available from Sifnos. The two shops in Kamares specialize in glazed chimney pots.  

The view of the Marina – this is where we slept.

This was start of our second leg of the sailing trip. We had to change the plan and to go back to Ios Island (same place again) due to electrical problem with the boat. That was the place we knew we can get an electrician to diagnose the problem. Untimately we didn’t need the help, but coming back again to Ios wasn’t regretted at all. At least, this time it was Steph who was visiting for the first time.

This time we climbed all the way up to Chora and to the highest peak of the Island. The view of the Island and the wind at this place was amazing — can’t be summarized by the pictures.

Santorini was our final destination — we had to come here because this is the most majestic of all Greek Islands (at least in the Cyclades) — from the point of view of it’s unique beauty, geology or the per-historic civilization. We were also bound to visit this place because Steph, who could not come to join us on Athens, was arriving Santorini on 20th. Also, as was planned Mario had to leave us back home from Santorini. All in all, we stayed here for 3 full days, visited all over the island, tasted some of the best food, and took tons of beautiful pictures.

Ios is an Island exactly north of our final point on Cyclades – Santorini. We came here after overnight sailing and stayed the whole day and night, filled the gas, water and electricity before hitting out to Santorini the next day. The Island was great and walk to the Chora and have dinner and drinks was one of the most memorable moment for all.

Ios or Nios (as it is called by the locals) is a very beautiful and picturesque Greek Island with excellent sandy beaches and hundreds chapels. Its pretty Chora (capital), is a dazzling mix of white washed houses and blue domed churches. Ios Island is well know for its nightlife with sounds from every corner of the planet and offer all kind of entertainment. They say, Ios is heaven for folks to come here for beaches and all night parties and it competes with Mykonos head on to grab the attention.

After the last night of storm, we planned to move on to our next Island – Sifnos. We picked a very small beach town called Faros at the southern part of the Island.

We started the day by moving the boat to Finikos Marina to get water, electricity and power our electronics. We visited the town spent sometime at a beautiful cafe and bought provisions for rest of the day.

As you will see, the Island of Sifnos and Faros in particular torns out to be very beautiful. We walked around the place, and hit the restaurants. We topped off our budget for the bars – we almost visited all those places serving beer on that beach.

After consuming tons to beer, and having a great time with music someone came up with the udea of sailing under the moon light. It was almost full moon and we had never done this before. Guess what – no one countered the idea and we all decided to sail at night under the moon light to the Island of Ios.

The experience was great because we did it for the first time. But it was hard on the crew — no one could sleep because the sea was turbulent, we had to sit our side the Island and wait for the morning light for hours and when we reached it was a tricky maneuver to pull the boat on the marina.

The day when storm came — there were no predictions about the winds, but we received the text from Marcos that a wind up to 35-40 knots (nautical miles) can hit the Cyclades. 40 knots is serious wind and we did not want to take any chance. We reached Finikas Marina way ahead of night but did not get any place in the marina. So we had to anchor is another safe place near Finikas.

Leaving Sounion

Busy sea

Time for breakfast

Fresh and very authentic Greek food.

Approaching winds

Crowded Marina

Hunt for a new place to anchor

Heavy Storm