Spetses
I was filled with unbearable nostalgia. There I was again, boating, swimming, sunning, drinking wine with good friends, feeling the ecstasy that only a Mediterranean afternoon can arouse in me. Transforming one’s feelings into language is difficult. One has to avoid sounding corny. Byron wrote about the Isles of Greece, and the sea that murmurs softly ‘Come again, and again’. I, too, have heard such voices, mostly when very young, swimming off my father’s boat, checking out the girls lolling on the beaches. The Med’s a drug hard to give up.
Later, by now quite drunk, I floated around Bushido, all in black, its 90-foot-plus masts gently rocking in the swell. Where did all those years go? I asked myself. It seemed like yesterday I began sailing around the isles looking for excitement and romance. Alas, it’s all rear-view-mirror stuff from now on, but not quite yet.
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