Sailing Greece

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With few exceptions, this journey was undertaken without specifics in mind. Advanced planning consisted of defining the route--most countries we had heard a little bit about and wanted to explore, a few we knew next to nothing about and were included to remedy our ignorance. One of the exceptions was returning to Greece. After our first visit in 1996, returning to sail the Greek Islands was always high on our 'to-do' list and was one of the few destinations fixed in our itinerary from the early planning stages. Initially we had chartered our own yacht, and six of our friends had planned to join us. After September 11, though, our friends quickly and unanimously developed a severe case of 'cold feet' and bailed out. This forced us to cancel our original booking--a 51' yacht is a little bit excessive for a party of two--and search for a means to sail Greece without chartering our own yacht. We found a company which specialized in just that: SeaScape Sailing (www.seascape-sail.com/). No longer constrained by our friends' schedules and intrigued by the description of the Turkish coast, we opted for a two-week Greece/Turkey itinerary and booked in late September. As the past several months have been a continual sensory overload, with little time to look back on what we have done and even less to ponder what was ahead, we really never gave our sailing adventure another thought until we boarded the hydrofoil which took us from Rhodes to Leros.

We arrived at Agmar Marina and easily identified the SeaScape yachts--all three of them. Fortunatly we were expected as we did not even know which of the three was ours. We were directed to the Angelina where we stowed our packs and met the captain (Ray) and our fellow crew members (Peter and Trisha, Tom and Sue) who were all aboard for the two-week Greece/Turkey itinerary. Any apprehension about sharing close quarters for two weeks with a group of total strangers soon evaporated. Even knowing that this type of sailing experience appeals to fun-loving individuals, we learned over the next two weeks how fortunate we were to have great people to share the experience with. Getting acquainted did not take too long. Our 49-foot yacht was comfortable, but living quarters were close, and fostered a close, family-like environment. We also met briefly the captain (Diane)and crew (a group of eight guys from New York) of the Vassilis who would sail with us for the first week.

We had already been 'island-hopping' for a couple of weeks now, visiting the classic postcard destinations that even those who have never been to Greece would recognize: the windmills of Mykonos, blue-domed white churches perched on the cliffs of Santorini, the old town of Rhodes. We were looking forward to our sailing experience primarily as a means to see some of the smaller, less visited Dodecanese islands. What we had not anticipated was the sailing experience itself. Not that we didn't enjoy visiting Marathi (a VERY small island with only two tavernas), Lipsos (one of the most photogenic harbors and Greek towns I have seen), or Kalymnos. Its just that time spent aboard the Angelina was probably more memorable than the destinations themselves.

Life aboard the Angelina: roll out of bed whenever. If for some strange reason you are the first one up, put on a pot of coffee. Otherwise, enjoy the fruits of someone else's labor while lounging on deck. At some point (not predetermined, entirely negotiable, subject to the whims of all parties) set sail for our next destination. Good sailing conditions? Sail back-and-forth aimlessly just for the fun of doing so, particularly if the next destination is not far enough away. No wind? Drop sails (important step, as at some point the wind will pick up, we learned) and go for a mid-Mediterranean dip. By 10am, some charitable individual would start the frequent visits to the galley, ensuring that nobody was without a cold Mythos. 4pm--coctail hour. Transition from Mythos to G&T's. Coctail 'hour' is something of a misnomer, as it tended to encompass most of the evening, before and after (sometimes including) dinner. Dinner was always ashore, consisting of excellent Greek food at a taverna at or near the harbor. Some of the larger islands (Kos, Patmos, Leros) sport an extensive nightlife, while on the smaller islands 'nightlife' was a continuation of coctail-hour onboard Angelina with our new friends. Central to the success of our SeaScape sailing experience was our Captain, Ray. We were fortunate to have the experience of such a seasoned professional onboard. He was an excellent host (usually the first to the ice box), a knowledgeable guide (years of experiece finding the best food, most interesting drinks, liveliest tavernas), a natural entertainer (reminiscent of Eric Idle), and he could sail, too. Always willing to show us the ropes, figuratively and literally, offering excellent sailing instruction for those of us who knew little of nothing about sailing beforehand. In no time at all, we were well-versed in nautical terms (like 'stringy-things' and 'steery-stick') and handling Angelina like old salts.

Some of the more memorable moments during our first week aboard, sailing in Greece:

Lipsos--quiet harbor town, a sharp contrast to Mykonos, Santorini and Rhodes. Very photogenic.

Patmos--beaches; the monastery and cave of the Apocalypse; suturing up a large laceration after one of 'the boys' from New York was involved in a scooter accident.

Marathi--sunset after a wonderful meal on a small speck of an island with more goats than people. Leros--more beaches; great food; Flaming Lamborginis. Kalymnos- -swimming in the narrow cove leading to Vathi; fresh hot dolmathes delivered to our yacht by an elderly Greek woman (a friend of Diane & Ray's) on her scooter.

Kos--Greek and Roman ruins; the Aesclepion; nightclubs; enjoying sunrise on a deserted beach while soaking in a hotspring flowing into the sea.

JB