An Odyssey to Greece
Because I always feel compelled to share words and imagery from our sojourns to and arrivals in the places we go, here I present a quick recap of getting to and preparing for Greece SwimVacation 2025.
Simon and I left Portland Maine mid day on Thursday. We flew to New York, then hopped the pond overnight to Belgrade, Serbia - a first for this kid. We spent a few hours there in the airport, waiting in a rather austere setting, noting that a line for the ladies room is truly a global phenomenon, and trying some Serbian cheesy snacks which were pretty damn good and definitely more than we needed considering we did nothing but sit on many airplanes. From Belgrade we had a short flight to Athens, where we had a long wait both with and without our enormous complement of luggage. Note Simon’s posture deteriorating as we passed over 6 hours in the relative oasis of the Priority Pass lounge. Darkness fell and we boarded our tiniest plane for our shortest flight to the island of Skiathos. I do love an evening arrival, as the lights of a place make its humanity stand out from the surrounding sea. Friday night, almost Saturday, arrived.
One thing about Skiathos - we always need to trudge up steep cobblestoned streets and marble steps with all of these bags, usually in the heat of the day but sometimes in an exhaustion induced darkened stagger. If I had a dime for every photo I have of Simon laden with multiple bags…. “It’s fun.” he utters through tightened jaw. Bless.
We dragged ourselves to our apartment on high to find my dear old friend and Skipper for this trip, Jason, and dear new friend and Chef for this trip, Jemima. Nothing like a team coming together at midnight. Still, we chatted for an hour and got acqainted and made some preliminary plans for our attack on provisioning day.
Shopping, paperwork, hauling down the world’s most rickety dock, more shopping, some problem solving, more hauling, storing, shopping, hauling. Opening our bursting coolers of gear and setting it up around the yacht, turning a rental in a home. This lovely little catamaran, Silver Waters, will be the platform for us to bring our guests to a sea full of history and wonders. I think they’ll be quite comfortable.
Our tradition here in Greece is to have a well earned crew dinner on Saturday night - usually an assortment of amazing Greek delights. There is rarely anything left on the small plates when we are done. There are always optimistic cats near by.
This morning, hours before go time, a little more shopping and tidying up and the final stages of prep. We all woke up to the coffee Simon had picked out at the grocery store yesterday - after his first few sips, he described the flavor as “notes of regret”. New coffee being procured as I type. I am watching plane after plane fly in overhead - I know our guests are on one of these. Jemima is busy preparing for her first day of feeding our guests on her first trip with us. I think she is smart and well provisioned for the significant task she faces. She expresses a little bit of nerves - “flappy” is the word she uses to describe how she feels. She shares with me a bracelet she wears which says exactly that - a personal family joke she shares with her sisters. She giggles while sharing the story with me as she chops and mixes and moves right along in what seems a very unflappy way. I think she’s going to do well.
Simon and I have already discussed with Jason the places we love to swim here, and we have our plan for this afternoon in place. As always, we will only share the next two hours with our guests so we can keep flexible and stay open to any adjustments weather or opportunity may require. So far, the sea looks calm and the sky is clear and blue.
I miss our dears and mainstays, Richie and Lou Lou on this trip. At the same time, I’m so excited to explore and work with Jason and Jemima. Did you know you could feel intensely more than one thing at a time?
Greece will fill us with feelings, sites, sounds, flavors and wonders.
Let’s go.
Love,
Heather