Jen's Greek Journal    Jennie Comay Melmed

This is the journal I kept during my vacation in Greece. It is edited and I tried to cut out the worst of the navel-gazing but probably failed. It's very long, and don't feel obligated to read the whole thing, but for those who want to know "How was the trip?," this is how it was:

It was August 15th-31st. We left from Athens and returned the boat to Syros. Our path was Athens to Kea to Kythnos to Serifos to Sifnos to Dhespotiko to Paros to Mykonos to Syros.

The crew:
Chris Brown (skipper)
Jen Melmed
David Coil
Janet Hufnagel
Eric Blackstone

We were on The John K, a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 36.2.

8/15/03
Omiros Hotel, 23:16

Long day. Breakfast at the hotel, including corn flakes with goat's milk, which was an interesting gray color. Then we saw the National Gardens: trees, dryness, heat, and pigeons. Then the Acropolis: ruins, dryness, heat, and pigeons. It is hard to get enthusiastic about ancient history when the ground is baked and cracked and there are twenty thousand other people around you, being enthusiastic about ancient history. Roadside restaurant lunch, to hotel for sleep. Two hour dinner with David at a nice place where I got fantastic paella and ravina for dessert… it's Greek and even after eating it I'm not quite sure what it is. I took lots of pictures, all of which were of stray dogs.

8/16/03
Marina

I am looking out on a field of deserted boat trailers, stretching out as far as the eye can see. There is a scruffy, black-and-white dog trotting around, apparently an inhabitant of a trailer with a splintered wooden porch. On the other side, a forest of masts in the water. We saw The John K, our boat. It has 3 berths, a scoop transom, roller-furling main and jib, etc. I like it. The water here would be lovely without the film of diesel and sewage. I can see the anchor rodes disappearing into hazy green. The cicadas are deafening here. I can see them clinging to tree bark.

8/16/03
On transit to Kythnos, 09:30

I am sitting on the scoop transom with my feet in the Saronic Gulf, which is warm and a thin sapphire-blue. I'm feeling a bit seasick despite the scopolamine patches, but the water is very distracting. It's like a swimming pool with a navy-blue bottom. I finally understand why people rave about the blue of Mediterranean. It is not the exotic green of the Caribbean, but a simply beautiful color nonetheless. I want my life to be this color.

Last night was disappointing. By the time the boat was checked out (the outboard was broken, no sheets or towels), it was too late to leave. We spent the night moored, listening to packs of stray dogs chase cars up and down the pier. I felt caged; I wanted to go. Leaving in the morning was sublime. Although the man who had our boat last stopped by to talk to us, pale and haggard, speaking of Force 8 and 9 gales. We are low on wind right now, only about three knots. We went wing-and-wing for a while, which always seems impossibly elegant. Now we are sailing a broad reach attempting to skirt Fleves on our way to Kea, the most deserted island we can reach today.

Our boat is lovely. One V-berth and two roomy berths aft, and a large salon paneled in teak. Gas stove, 300L fresh water, 95L diesel. (We must remember to put the diesel in the diesel tank and water in the water tank.) The water from the tanks is… gamey is the only way to describe it. I'm masking the taste with lemon and hoping I don't get sick from it. Breakfast was sparse, half an apple, a cookie, and black tea with honey and lemon.

David just caught a fish! A tuna about ten inches long. Beautiful, silver with rainbow hologram stripes and darker on the dorsal… "stunned" with the winch handle. Now blood in its eyes… no longer so pretty.

10:05

Just learned to clean a fish. It brought back sudden, sharp nostalgia for fishing with Dad in Cape Cod, the clean, salt-blood odor.

11:45

Cleaned another fish, fucked it up again. Then I dissected the head and eye and got the eye lens, remembering how Mom used to bring home fish eye lenses for me from biology class at school (I had strange bathtub toys.) Then I sat on the transom covered in blood, staring at the translucent sphere and feeling like some old mad fortune-teller.

15:00

The meltemi has picked up. (Note: the meltemi is a wind that blows from the north in the Aegean during the summer and fall.) Force 6 winds with large swells, some waves cresting into the cockpit at times. We can see Kea faintly on the horizon. The main and jib are reefed in, and we are in fairly good spirits. I can hear the wind whistling and waves on the bow. Through my polarized sunglasses, the light on the waves is neon violet wherever the sun reflects. I am calling it the Mermaid Rave. A little over ten miles to Kea.

19:30

This island is too picturesque to be real: Terraced hills, small white churches, winding roads and firelights shining out from the lone houses in the golden pastures.

It was a struggle to get here. Our jib halyard snapped, and we had to motor to the bay. Chris was hauled up to the top of the mast in a bosun's chair to attempt to run another line through the mast- hauled up on a halyard just like the one that snapped. I alternated between hiding below because I couldn't watch, and peering up at him with my heart trembling. It didn't work anyway, we used the MPS halyard and cannot use the MPS now, but he didn't fall. I swam and snorkeled. The bottom of the sea here is as barren as the face of the moon. It's unreal. To be fair, there were a few flounder. I can't tell how big they are, because I don't know how deep the water is, it's too clear. The flounder were very funny. I guess they're territorial, because they kept fighting (more of a squabble, with much menacing wriggling.) Then one decided to take on our anchor. We were dragging, trying to get it to bite, and the flounder kept following it, pausing when we stopped, like a dog barking at someone but too afraid to really approach, trying to act brave all the same. Then I ruined dinner because it slipped behind the oven during a swell. Eric broke a glass, and our anchor light does not work.

Exhausting day.

8/18/03
Ormos Kavia, Kea, 09:30

Kouloussandra is a picturesque little town, despite the bitchiest of the tour guides calling it "tarted-up." At least, from here it looks peaceful. I'm glad we took the sheltered anchorage here, instead of Pisses (yes, Pisses), because the wind was up to 35 knots last night, and there are whitecaps even in the bay… I don't mind the swaying at night very much, I find it half-soothing and a little bit disturbing, but many were seasick. Chris was up most of the night checking the anchor. It was not traditionally set- only one fluke- but it held. I was kept awake a lot by the snapping of the flags and the thumping off the water on the hull.

Janet is making banana pancakes. David went out in the dinghy and got blown back at amazing speed. Luckily the outboard is working. (Note: foreshadowing.) He just caught a small red fish with a lure half the fish's size.

The fish David caught is a comber. Apparently best used in soup, but it will be flounder bait, once they tear their attention from our anchor.

Eric was very seasick, but is feeling better. He kept his sense of humor throughout, more than I could do.

14:05

Sailing downwind to Kythnos with a reefed main and job at 6 knots. A smooth ride. We took the dinghy to Kouloussandra and walked in the blistering heat, searching in vain for provisions. It felt strange to have the ground stand still and not too pleasant. It's like I'm not comfortable unless the floor is moving.

The best part of this day has been handline fishing, swimming around with my mask and snorkel. Closest to the "thrill of the hunt" I will ever get, I am sure. I almost caught an octopus twice, but the hook was too small and it escaped both times. The first time I was sitting on the transom fixing my mask, and I felt a pull… I reeled in the line and a flurry of tentacles came rushing up at me. I stopped and yelled, "David!" as I was not sure we wanted an octopus. It escaped. I went into the water again and saw it curled up with its tentacles neatly arranged around itself in curled little packages. I dropped the bait near it and one long tentacle slowly snaked out and around to touch it, then another. It was quite elegant. Then it tried to take the bait, and I pulled it in… it was gone halfway up, in a puff of ink. It was fun to watch, even if I didn't catch it. I'm not sure I could handle watching David beat in an octopus's head in with a winch handle, anyhow.

8/19/03
Ormos Apokouriosis

We are anchored next to Kythnos, in a bay much calmer than the one that rolled and pitched all night. We made pasta carbonara and salad last night, and ate out of one big plastic bowl and drank wine out of the bottle in the dark (the deck light is broken.) In the morning the dinghy line was tangled (terrible trouble losing the dinghy during 8 knot sailing downwind yesterday.)

The line was caught around the rudder, but a piece was fouled around the prop. Chris and I went under the boat and sawed it loose with a diving knife. I got toxic blue paint all over me, so I stripped on the transom and washed with peppermint Dr. Bronner's, to the delight of the Germans anchored next to us. Breakfast was banana pancakes and bacon. Then I snorkeled for a while, which was heaven. I cannot describe the beauty of the schools of fish, and there is not a word for the way they move, somewhere between darting and floating serenely. The light plays down through the water and as they turn they flash silver and red. They are like jewels or copper coins.

8/20
At sea

We are in transit from Kythnos to Serifos or Sifnos, whicever we decide on. Force 7 winds, but we are running (7-8 knots downwind on reefed jib alone), and it feels surprisingly calm. We are the only ones out.
Chris: "Everyone else had to sense to stay home!"
Eric: "We have the least sense out here!"
All: "Woohoo!"
Chris: "But we also have the most sense out here."
All: "Woohoo!"
I'm surprised we didn't all head straight for the ouzo. But we are sailing, after all.

I personally am enjoying this greatly. Seasickness does not seem to be a problem, at least at the moment, and I love the wind and the motion… and the waves cresting higher than I sit.

Last night I snorkeled until it was too dark to see. Light in rays down to sand and kept through pure blue, schools of damselfish and sea bream. We fished and caught a few bait fish, although nothing to eat. So we went to a taverna, which was absolutely amazing. Up over the harbor, strewn with Greek families and not one tourist there, except us. The waitress for some reason seemed to think all Americans were very concerned about being healthy. Finally we convinced her that we didn't care at all, and proceeded to get a wonderful variety of dishes, and eat enough to feed an army, and pay forty dollars for the whole thing.

8 knots under storm jib. 4-8 foot waves. I am a little scared.

14:00
Ormos Kotoula

Now that I am somewhat kicked back into regular, conscious gear I can talk more about our sail. I'm still jumbled though. At one point in the FORCE EIGHT winds, Chris started screaming at the top of his lungs. Eric and David thought, oh, of course, he's screaming at the ocean. Janet and I though my God, either someone's gone overboard or he's lost a limb. Eric and David were right, of course. Interesting gender difference there.

I was unnerved to say the least. There was no gravity, no up or down, just sea and sky, with a horribly mutable line between. The wind was alive and angry, pounding its fists into my ears and screaming over my skin. The waves were sometimes in the ocean, and sometimes in the boat. We are all streaked with white lines of salt, and our hair and eyebrows are crusted with it.

There was some fear after we got into the open water, and then came the seasickness. Seasickness does not fuck around. It is hard to be scared and seasick at the same time. If I fell overboard, I thought, first of all it would be nice and cool, and second of all I would drown and then I wouldn't feel nauseous anymore.

As we started skirting Serifos to the harbor the full force of the wind came at us, and we were no longer running, and I sat and trembled with nothing useful to do and all the time in the world to wonder what we would do if the wind blew so strongly we couldn't reach the harbor at all and we kept going south.

Chris was amazing. He took everything he learned and read about and put it to use without a hitch. He got us here safely and while I will trust him utterly as a skipper, my trust is now more earned than blind. He got us here. He didn't freak out. And right now, I believe he is passed out below.

8/21/03, 17:00

Sailing was much calmer today. Force 7 and a beam to broad reach to Sifnos. We stopped at Kamares to get water and waited on the boat for hours until the water-man came. I went off in search of a now-defunct internet café. It was blisteringly hot. The buildings were white and blue, just like the photographs I have seen.

We are motoring to Vathi. We will probably stay a day to see Apollonia. Apollonia has become somewhat of a joke, because at the tourist office in Kamares, whenever we asked anything- Where can we get a Greek flag? (The coast guard stopped us because ours was so shredded.) Where can we get a boat hook? (David lost ours to a fouled anchor.) Where can we find a locksmith? (The motor key is rusted and about to snap.) "Only in Apollonia," the guy replied. We will get there by bus, although that may not be possible, as we are sure that the only bus stop is in Apollonia. As Chris says, all roads lead to Apollonia.

Last night we dinghied to the taverna ashore for wine. It was very deserted, only Greeks. The waitress originally thought we were Greek. There were old men and women laughing and talking, and a blind old dog with eyes gleaming silver in the moonlight, that let out a volley of wheezy barks whenever anything passed by. The wine was awful. Eric drank it anyway, and told us war stories from the Peace Corps.

8/23

Motoring under the south end of Sifnos. We have a long sail to Paros, where we have to go because our dinghy motor is cracked and cannot hold any fuel.

It made yesterday interesting. We all piled onto the dinghy and set off to catch the bus to Apollonia, the main town. Then the motor wouldn't start and began leaking fuel all over David. The current was strong, and began to take up towards a southerly beach. Chris and I jumped out and swam to the boat, and Eric and David paddled it back. The swim was hard against the current, and basically Eric and David were rowing me as I clung to the dinghy and kicked.

Then Chris called Maria at Mythos and while we waited for her to call back, we played hearts and drank whiskey. She called fairly quickly, telling us that a guy would meet us on Paros, in Paroikia, the incredibly dangerous bay that we wanted to skirt a mile wide.

So then everyone was so desperate to actually see a town that we decided we would row with the current to that deserted, private-property beach ashore-

-Aborting to Faros. Force 7-8 winds blowing us to the side so much we can hardly make headway.

-Anyway, we decided to get blown to that beach and then people would swim back from further on, with the current, and David and Eric would row. You can see how desperate people were to get to land, David and Eric and Janet especially.

We rode the dinghy in (I buried some flippers under it because I didn't trust myself on that swim) and left it on the beach. I don't know where we were, but it was obviously someone's land. I went a little up and found myself face-to-face with a rather astonished-looking old Greek woman. She was the platonic ideal of Old Greek Woman: in a modest black dress, plump, long white hair twisted in a knot, and thick glasses. I waved, and she waved back, and I grinned at her and started trying to figure out the way across the rocks to the beach. I kept hearing this man laugh, but I turned around and around and couldn't see anybody. We found a dirt road and ran down it, and then across a length of beach towards the bus station, which took some locating.

It was your typical foreign bus ride- along the edge of a cliff, hurtling along a one-lane road meant for traffic going both ways.

Argh, it's night and so much to catch up on… okay, Apollonia. Very quaint, small town on the top of Sifnos in white and blue. We hiked around looking for a locksmith and an internet café. There were wild fig trees everywhere, and I stole quite a few. We ate at a very bad taverna with very adorable stray cats prowling underneath our table. Janet and I found the part of the town with no roads, just sidewalks, white with black stones and white walls and blue shutters, and violet sprays of flowers. The swim back to the boat was hellish, against the current. Chris went first from a farther beach, so he was more with the pull, and I watched his head, black on dark blue, slowly move to the boat. I swam from the beach the dinghy was on and nearly didn't make it, even with the fins. The current was killer. We played hearts and ate leftover bad pizza, and amazing baklava.

I woke up this morning to the mast quacking. It was pulling on the mainsheet and squeaking in the winds. We set off disgustingly early and aborted to Faros when we realized our fuel gauge is broken. I can't believe it. We could have died if our motor gave out, or at least been stuck broadcasting a Mayday. I am very pissed off.

David and Eric paddled to the beach and went to Apollonia, and bought a container of diesel. We tried to motor-sail to Pariokia, but the wind and waves would not let us. I was scared again, watching the waves rise up over our stern and disappear as the boat tilted… the bow got splashed and soaked.

After a while, fear gets stale. Stale fear is worse than fresh, sharp fear. It has little teeth and just worries at you. It's the difference between a fresh shock of ice water, and just shivering and miserable in cold water. Anyway, we had to abort to Dhespotiko, an uninhabited island off Antiparos, which has the coolest name ever. We turned and basically had a following sea, which pitched us horribly. Force 7 winds (David says we haven't gone over Force 6, but he is stupid.) So we arrived at Dhespotiko in Ormos Dhespotiko on the south side. It is a bay fringed in green and tumbled rocks in pink and gray and white. Green water, a deserted beach… there is nothing here, but us. Those who have seen underwater (we tied the stern to some rocks) say it is lovely and full of life… so we stay here tomorrow! All the tension has drained out of me. I am tired, but at peace. One day of reprieve works wonders for the psyche.

8/24/03 16:00 Ormos Dhespotiko

Silvered cracks in seaglass. A torrent of icy water. A shattered mirror in a whirlwind.

That is the most beautiful thing I saw today. A cloud of tiny, iridescent fish circling around and under me in the shallows, with a long, reedy garfish swirling above them, blue above and white below. That is the picture I will take with me, with my hands stretching out to touch it all.

Of course, I saw many other things. Bright orange fish (cardinalfish), neon blue and yellow fish (rainbow wrasses), bream, damselfish, silver fish. The best was a Mediterannean moray eel, black with blossoms of canary yellow and wide-awake white eyes, that watched me suspiciously as I hovered over his rock.

The fish here are gorgeous and unafraid. In the shallows a wrass or bream would swim up to me and regard me for a long moment, and them deem me uninteresting and lazily go off somewhere else. There are catfish (mullets in salt water, not catfish, says David) who always seem industrious to me, and I saw a few flounders challenging another boat's anchor as well (we are, alas, no longer fully alone.) The water is a vivid turquoise and clear, with rays of violet light shooting through it. Everywhere are sea urchins, decorated with pieces of shell. The strangest thing I saw today was on the small beach here. There are small pool of water, but they are tinged a deep red-orange, and in one lies a bone almost too large to be human. I immediately cooked up a fantasy, fueled by the litter on the beach, that a madman lives on this otherwise-deserted island, who murders those who throw trash here and sucks the marrow out of their bones.

22:30

I spent most of today underwater, which was perfect. Dinner was bad rice (me) and fish and snails (David.) We drank Retsina, which tastes like Pine-Sol, but grows on you more than I imagine Pine-Sol would.

8/25 10:30

It's stopped. I woke up this morning and it's stopped. The sea is blue and clear again, the meltemi is blowing perhaps 15 knots? Heaven.

I started laughing as soon as I saw it. It seems to be picking up a bit, but it will have to pick up so much to get to near the way it was. All the sailboats are out from their hiding places, bright white and blue. I can see the buildings on the coast of Antiparos.

Now that it is done (or so we hope) is suddenly seems really cool that we made it through. It's our adventure. I was the most freaked out of anyone, which is depressing. David was cool as a cucumber, Chris knew enough to know we weren't in danger, Eric was too seasick to care, and Janet just doesn't seem to get ruffled by much. And then there's me, clinging to a random line for support, huddled up, near tears. The only time it was better was when I took helm- but watching the bow pitch made me seasick. But funnily enough when I was steering the boat I wasn't frightened… but it says something about seasickness that I greatly prefer frightened to seasick. Oh well. Chris says 3 out of 365 days cruising are in storm conditions. I can deal with that, I think. I guess I'll find out.

I looked at David's fish book yesterday. Apparently moray eels are quite the delicacy. I don't think I'd want to eat a moray- I seem to have grown fond of them. Eric hates them. They are ugly… but in a very endearing way. The author also mentioned eating dolphin jerky. Yuck.

There was a picture of a moray peeping out of a length of vacuum hose underwater. Funny, but sad. I can't get over how littered Dhespotiko was. There was a veritable forest of tin cans at the bottom.

We saw mountain goats on Dhespotiko, clambering along the cliff faces. Long, shaggy wool, innocent white faces. We are somewhat out of food, so we began plotting how to hunt them. We designated David to "stun" the goat with the winch handle. He had to clean it too. Eric and David amused themselves for a while trying to get the goats to jump into the water and swim to the boat. ("Heeeere goat goat goat.") This morning, David came up with the idea of the five of us herding the goat into the sea from a cliff. "It'll panic and jump," he said.

Day before yesterday, I flipped Poseidon a Euro for luck. I guess it worked, since if we hadn't aborted we never would have seen Dhespotiko, and now the weather is fair.

11:37

Wind picking up again. We've got some heel, but nothing worrying. We may need to reef again. About 25 knots? More?

Later

The wind is blowing from the south. What the hell? This seems sacrilegious somehow.

8/26/03

I couldn't write more yesterday, because by the time I got home I was hammered on spiked hot chocolate, "The Kalypso Special," and grasshopper.

Yesterday was calm and reasonably pleasant. We motored to Naoussa, on Paros, with no incidents, and moored in the quay. We talked to the motor repair guy and ended up fixing the problem. (The guys fixed the problem, on a dock at dusk with the parts spread out on a towel, and Janet and I went shopping. Oh the gender roles.) A happy dog cooled his underside in the salt water. I bought the most beautiful golden snail shell on a silver chain, to remind me of our wonderful barren anchorage with lots of green water and snails.

We ate a lot, walked around, got water and fuel, and ate some more. And started drinking at midnight. Everyone was up, even little children, even at 3 am.

Now two boats have fouled our anchor, one on either side. We're waiting for them to pull free, so we can leave for Mykonos. Hopefully we'll anchor out, I really don't like these crowded towns. I couldn't even swim yesterday. I'm not really looking forward to Mykonos. None of the guidebooks like it, and the bitchy one likened it to one of the levels of hell, I can't remember which… there is an anchor that apparently is right off a gay male beach and they get really pissed off if people anchor out there, especially women. I want to anchor there.

-Excitement bringing up the anchor. I ended up holding David's left leg while Eric held his right, and he passed a line through the New Zealanders' anchor and dropped ours… freed it very well…

15:57

The sea is blue glass. We can't sail, for completely the opposite reason we haven't been able to before… this trip needs more sailing.

David just caught a tuna. It's horrible to watch them shuddering on the deck, gills splayed open, blood-red, mouth desperate for water… freaky. Usually David bashes their head in quicker. Oh, well, tuna for dinner! (Or actually appetizer, it's only about a foot.)

8/28

I didn't write in this yesterday, I was upset. Janet and Eric and David went to Delos without waking me up. I recovered and snorkeled, only to get pissed off again when they didn't return with the dinghy until 11 o'clock, when Chris and I had been hoping to get some dinner at the bay… Chris was sad, too.

Although I spent 4-5 hours underwater, which was quite enjoyable. I saw a 3-4 foot moray eel swimming free, looping and slithering around rocks. Bright yellow and black with the rather demonic-looking grayish head. Tons of wrasses, rainbow and other, some groupers surrounded by baby groupers. The grouper would eat, regurgitate, and the babies would swim around and eat the glittering dust.

The flounder were awesome. They followed around the mullet-catfish, nibbling at their remains. I played spot-the-flounder on the sand, which is nearly impossible. They camouflage tremendously well. They are very inquisitive, but can move at lightning speeds if provoked. The sea bream are also curious, particularly the young ones in the shallows. They swirl around me, staring. It's cute.

Today we are sailing to Syros. I have an endless craving for salami. Janet bought a filigree egg in Mykonos. They thought it was quite a nice place and not like hell at all. And despite anchoring at the right place, we saw no naked misogynistic gay men. That's

8/29

Ode to Poseidon

You who bring the gale against my back like a stone,
You who clench the water into bone.
I tied your winds into a mighty knot to sail my ship;
I felt the bitter end begin to slip.

I gazed into your green eye, alight with mirror shards.
You reached up and swallowed all my words.
You who keep me salt-drunk on your wild, golden air,
Keep me close, but hold me not too dear.

8/31 21:30

I've been avoiding writing in this… I didn't want it to end. But I'm in the Seattle airport, jet-lagged and morose, and about to return to school; I don't think I can deny it now.

Syros-Ermopoulis, to be exact- was huge. I didn't know what to make of it. Strips of restaurants, signs in English, huge hotels.

We really just ate and slept… the marina was crowded and dirty, with enormous power boats backing in, and one boat with Brits and a very cool salty old skipper.

We gave him leftover food and rum, and he bowed to me as their boat pulled out, a deep bow with three flourishes.

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