Chapter 30: Come Sail Away

Please close your eyes and pretend that you are reading this in August. Wait, that doesn’t make sense – you can’t read with your eyes closed. Please go ask your parent or guardian or Santa to read this to you, and close your eyes and pretend it’s August.

Bonjour. Guten Tag. Καλή μέρα. Bom dia. Hey y’all.

We haven’t spoken on this blog since France. I’m writing this from Maine by way of Austria and Greece and Portugal and DC/MD/NC/SC/GA/VA/NY or something (see here).

You may recall that Rachel’s university had insisted she return on campus in person this fall; the result being that she told them auf wiedersehen, and found a different university who pledged to let teach her remotely as long as her itinerant heart desired.

Our travel schedule was once again wide-open, and so after canal boating in eastern France we headed to northern Austria. It was predictably beautiful.

After two weeks, we flew from Munich to Athens, Greece. We were considering Greece’s one-year residency visa for remote workers, and wanted to experience the country before committing. I managed to catch COVID on the trip down, and spent my first week in Greece in bed. As soon as I tested positive, Rachel knew she was a marked woman. She followed my exact symptoms on a three-day delay, like a shout echoing back in a canyon.

Many phone calls and emails to Greek Immigration Services during this time gradually made it clear to us that our desired one-year visa could not be given to us in Greece, it must be applied while physically in our country of residence. This news was disappointing, but we trudged through and somehow managed to enjoy our summer stay on the Greek coast.

I don’t know how, but each day we managed to drag ourselves out of bed and go swimming in the clear waters of the Aegean Sea, picking figs and lemons and grapes and oranges from overgrown vacant lots on the short walk to the beach.

We staved off hunger with a meager diet of fried sardines and grilled octopus and calamari and Kalamata olives and warm pita bread with fish roe dip and fried zucchini and feta cheese and Greek salad and baklava and yogurt drizzled with apricot jam and ice-cold Mythos lager and tart red wine.

And the pastries OH MY GOD the pastries.

We walked the streets of the port town Rafina, and saw the sights.

You undoubtedly know by now that Rachel and I change our mind about our long-term plans approximately every 25 seconds, like hummingbirds flitting to a brighter tree. At the time, we were contemplating living on a sailboat, so I signed up for a one-week live-aboard sailing course to achieve the first step towards a captain’s license.

The next Saturday morning, I taxied across southern Greece to the west coast port of Pireas, then took a ferry to the Saronic island of Aegina. The other students on my boat were a man and a woman of my age, childhood friends from Saudi Arabia. And I don’t know how to phrase this without stereotyping, but my captain was a red-headed freckled alcoholic Irishman named Paddy.

This was not a comfort cruise. If Rachel had come, we would’ve shared this “double” room, but I had it to myself.

^ So small I had to step outside to change my mind.

After a quick briefing with the owner of the sailing school, during which it was mentioned several times that drinking alcohol was absolutely not allowed while underway, we weighed anchor, popped open cans of lukewarm Greek beer, and sailed out of the port.

Along with another boat in our school, our “itinerary” chiefly consisted of sailing to whichever island had a dockside restaurant that allowed our captains to eat and drink for free in exchange for filling a table with hungry, parched, amateur sailors.

The highlight of this meal was usually the selection of The Fish, whereupon one of us would go inside, review a large cooler full of fresh-caught fish lying on ice, and select the one to be grilled and prepared for the table, eaten family-style.

In the morning, we’d sail a bit then find an area protected from the wind to anchor out for a few hours for a swim break. Paddy’s breakfast was a Greek energy drink that looked and smelled like turpentine, and he courteously waited until 10:00 a.m. to open his first beer of the day. The rest of us would glance at each other and shrug and follow suit not long after.

The water and skies were clear, the weather was hot but manageable, and each night we’d visit a different seafood restaurant on a small Greek island with friendly locals hawking cigarettes and sodas. I had been apprehensive about boarding with three other strangers on a small 34-foot sailboat for a week, but the time flew by. I even – slightly! – learned to sail.

Listen:

“Luff in the jib sheet!” “Reset the keel fin!”

…are things that you would not say because they don’t make sense.

Not all was paradise. The single tiny bathroom floor began to develop a gross sponginess under our bare feet, probably because it had a handheld nozzle protruding from the wall and doubled as the shower room. The toaster-size refrigerator only cooled its contents down to about 70 degrees, beer included, which didn’t stop Paddy from gradually eschewing his morning energy drink and now cracking a beer as soon as he woke up.

The three crew slept in the three small cabins, so Paddy slept in the salon on the cushioned bench, although he could fall asleep anywhere (luckily, only after we were anchored for the night). One night he fell asleep outside in the cockpit.

The next night, I squeezed myself out of my cabin in the middle of the night and opened the bathroom door to see Paddy sitting on the toilet, pants down, beer in hand, unlit cigarette in lips, fast asleep. I peed overboard and went back to bed.

So, I was definitely ready to leave by the end. Can’t beat the view, though.

A few weeks later, not to be outdone, Rachel took a scuba diving course.

Her photos looked great and all, but I think sailing wins out for me, by virtue of the fact that it’s probably much easier to drink beer and eat potato chips while sailing than while scuba diving.

Rachel’s 2021 birthday was spent in Zagreb, Croatia (not our favorite city), so she was excited to be in Greece for her birthday in 2022. We rented a small boat and spent the day zipping around the coastline. We snorkeled the shallow water, careful to avoid spikes of the ubiquitous sea urchins.

We taxied into Athens a few times to tour the Parthenon and the rest of the Acropolis. It was overrun with summer tourists, and we were not at all sad to leave the city in the evening and retire to our more sedate coastal town.

We rented a car for the final few weeks, and drove into northern Greece to visit Delphi, the famous ancient home of the Oracle. The ancient Greeks considered this to be the center of the world, and trekked into the mountains from vast distances to posit their questions to the prophesying priestess. Their answers were almost always enigmatic, able to be interpreted in several different ways. They were never just like, “Don’t marry Nikos” or, “Buy bitcoin”.

Very pretty area, though. Northern Greece has a very distinctly different feel than southern Greece (more heartier food as opposed to the coastal seafood fare), and we hope to see more of it someday.

In the meantime, our Schengen visa was running out, and we flew to Lisbon to take advantage of a bilateral agreement between Portugal and the USA to add additional time to our allotted 90 days in Europe.

Now we’re caught up to, like, September? I dunno man. We’re in Maine as I’m writing this, and it’s December and snowing and 27 degrees out and dark at 3:45 p.m. and I’m having a hard time remembering Greece.

(Sigh.)

Ok, now you can open your eyes and return your attention to the road.