Pirates of the Sporades

Dear readers,

It’s has been a long time since my last post. I’m sorry for that. NOT. You see, the reason I wasn’t able to post is that I was sailing at Sporades formation (a few small islands located at North-West Aegean sea, Greece). Before you proceed further down the post, you have to be warned: some of the photo material is the product of moderate digital processing I did on original material acquired from my friends without their permission. If you believe it is a crime, don’t look at the pictures.

This was our sailing boat. Kidding. Actually, this is a reconstruction of an ancient Greek ship of the "Argo" class. According to the old myth, Argo was the ship that helped Jason to his quest for the Golden Fleece. The modern city of Volos, our starting point, is probably built over the ruins of ancient Iolkos.

Some good friends of mine (all guys, unfortunately) are into sailing and stuff (stuff: sailing, diving, underwater fishing and stuff - recursively). Every summer for the last 4 or 5 years they rent a sailing boat and sail around various islands and wild coasts. They swim by the dolphins, they get grate tans. They are all guys. That’s why I had always been negative to the idea of participating in their “gay cruises”, as I usually call hem (after hearing that, they started disliking me). But this year, one of them asked me to join them, on the ground that “there will be quite a few chicks there, too”. I was skeptical at first (and maybe I should have stayed that way), but the solid hand-waving arguments of my friend convinced me to follow their metro-sexual cruise.

Sailing is not only for pirates and medieval explorers. Modern-day lazy tourists can sail too! The secret is not to mess with the fancy ropes.

We arrived at the port of Volos and we started our trip without any girls on board. The lie I have been fed was that the girls were waiting at a nearby port to be picked up. The truth is nobody asked any girls to join us. I had been trapped. “We wanted you to pay your share for the boat” they explained without any signs of shame. “Besides, I bet you will enjoy it”. Guess what: I did!

The interior of a sailing boat has never been used as a synonym to "cozy". On the bright side, there are a lot of small windows you can open, unless you want to keep your stuff dry.

Sporades is the name of a formation of Greek islands at the North West Aegean Sea. Most of them are isolated, except Skiathos, Skopelos, Alonnisos and Skyros. We did our best to include most of them in our route from Volos to Kyra-Panagia and back.

A rival sailing boat we met between Alonnisos and Kyra Panagia. When I asked for an attack, they informed me I was very stoned.

Sailors use their own language to communicate while sailing. They have names for each and every colored rope on the deck, chosen to be incomprehensible to anyone else. They also have strange names for everything else too. I couldn’t memorize any of these names and I believe they made them up just to confuse me. But if they didn’t, it is a fact that sailing requires good memory.

The most obvious sailing skill is also the key to enjoy the trip. I’m talking about nausea. If you are too sensitive to that, don’t sail. I know of people who spent their carefully planned holidays throwing up for a weak. If you happen to be such a person, you will be sick for the whole trip which will turn out to be a living hell for you. To my friends disappointment, I turned out to be nausea-resistant. Actually, I was quite happy during most of the trip, also thanks to recreational substances I was thoughtful enough to carry with me.

Sailing boats are equipped with bedrooms, which are sometimes called "graves" because of the feeling you get when you enter one. In the picture you can see a considerably large 2-person sailing bedroom. Personally, I prefer to sleep on the deck, as I did most of the times.

The other think I noticed about sailing is the kinky side of the sport. People wear swimsuits, it involves a great deal of ropes and metal rings and some times people get physically heart, but not to much (just enough to turn on the excitement). Sometimes there are people yelling at each other or pissing openly, which is a turn on for some  (my friends, probably).

Ropes and other "toys" are used by gay sailors to fulfill their disgusting sexual needs.

In spite of the above negatives, sailing gave me the pleasure of visiting some of the most magical isolated beaches, with breathtaking blue or green clear waters, surrounded by breath-giving pine trees, their branches playing with the waves. The nights are even better (as long as you don’t touch any of your friends, because it is very romantic out there and “accidents” are waiting to happen). I was blessed to observe a moon-free clear sky full of stars at places where no human lights have ever reached (at least until recently). I’ve seen a clear night sky before but I’m always amazed by the almost infinite number of stars one can observe from our insignificant planet.

If you get bored easily, you will get sick of beautiful beaches like this.

Skiathos seems to be the most popular of the Sporades islands. It is the birth place of one of my favorite novelists, Alexadros Papadiamantis, and also a favorite summer destination for young Greeks who like to party all night long while listening to the worst Greek dance music imaginable. If you happen to sail to Skiathos, try to avoid spending the night at Skiathos port, except if you are in the mood for meeting attractive young people who like to party. I know how it sounds, but sailing makes you more tired than horny, so you would probably prefer a quiet night at an isolated bay instead of a hopeless series of attempts to sleep near the crowded and super-loud dance clubs of Skiathos.

Rock formations like these are put there to tell people the geological history of the islands.

Skopelos and Alonnisos are two very beautiful Greek islands. The most famous Greek islands are in the Cyclades formation. Sporades look different in the sense that they are green instead of rocky and white. I love the rocky landscapes of Cyclades, but Sporades are nice too. The pine forests complement the green or blue crystal clear waters, the blue sky and the golden sand, creating an eye-catching landscape which was the trigger image to remind me the bag of weed that was hidding in my cabin.

View from Glossa village of Skopelos island, during the sunset.

Weed and sailing are a perfect match, especially if you don’t claim to be a “sailor”. While my friends were anxious to avoid a passing by lighthouse or boat (they couldn’t tell  which because of the storm), I was oblivious to the consequences of such a crash, thanks to my super-strong joints and my complete lack of knowledge about sailing. Another example: my friends believe that anchoring the boat is a very stressful procedure, but I beg to differ since I spent each of these procedures lying on the deck and looking the sky. This is also a gift from my magic combination: ignorance and weed. It was so relaxing to see all these people running up and down, climbing on poles, pulling ropes, getting wet by high waves! My stress levels were quite low to begin with and they continue to fall day by day. I remember a time that I had no pulse at all or maybe I had negative pulse, if such a think is possible.

The blue waters of Aegean Sea should always appear under the series of islanding mountains, otherwise the ship is sinking.

The island of Kyra Panagia (Greek for Lady Mother of God) is not inhabited and the bay we threw our anchor in used to be a hiding place for pirates. People say that the entrance of the bay may become invisible if the sea get slightly more turbulent, so we where lucky to find it. The underwater life of the bay is protected by special laws, so we were not allowed to eat any of the delicious cell fish. I mean I don’t know if they are delicious or not, I didn’t eat any. I tasted but I didn’t swallow. I don’t have to explain, I could easily remove these lines from my blog and nobody could accuse me of anything! Anyway, I’m not even going to reveal the name of the bay, which is a pity, since it makes perfect sense if you spend the night there. It was the most star-complete and clear night sky I’ve ever seen in my life. It worth the not-eating the cell fish (although I was hungry from the weed).

This landscape comes either from Skopelos or Alonnisos, but I was to stoned to remember wich. It's a sunset. It has flowers in orange sea waters in it. Who cares for the name of the island?

I had many good experiences during my sailing trip, but the best of all was the lamb. One day we visited a village at Skopelos, and we ordered some traditionally roasted lamb. According to the statistics, 75% of the people who eat this dish suffer from heart attacks a couple of hours later. They know that in advance but they don’t mind. The lamp is that delicious. My friends experienced multiple orgasms just after the first few bites. I was as hungry as them, and on top of that I was also stoned, so my orgasm was a great and real one. I literally came into my pants and I’m not ashamed to admit it. It was that delicious.

7 days in the sea is not a very long time if you have that much weed with you. It is matter of what ends first, and in that case it was the days. I left my remaining weed on the boat as a present to the boat owner and step my foot on the ancient docks of Volos port. The sailing trip was over and my friends were laughing as I was feeling the after-effect of sailing: the ground is moving like a boat deck. But I didn’t mind. The lamb was that delicious.