It's all Greek to me...

*travel sketches

Observations from the Athens to Astypalea Blue Star Ferry...

A murky-admiral dawn from Piraeus Port in Athens. Sickeningly early.

Outside on the deck. A pretty white-dressed, immaculate but presented as carefree French young woman, whose entire focus seems to be to attract the two young men with her. From 7am till 10am she has been perfectly chain-smoking and talking. She uses her hands a lot, wide-eyed. Her arm tinkles with gold and silver bangles, she wears an eighties Casio watch. She was not born in the eighties. I put on my eye pillow and go back to sleep on the deck.

‘It is maybe dangerous for a woman to go,’ she says, ‘I have many girlfriends who…’

I wake up. They are sucking coffees from plastic straws. The stubbled dark-haired young man wears a white Ralph Lauren polo shirt, around his neck a silver crucifix, Jordan shorts. He was perhaps born in ‘98 or ‘99. The other boy/man wears a Jordan T-shirt. (Side-note: on June 14th 1998 Michael Jordan played his last game for The Chicago Bulls.)

11 am it is startingly hot. Sun bouncing off the Aegean onto shiny faces.

A cruise of the ship. Mainly Greeks. Smokers everywhere. Monster Energy Drinks, ashes and Rislas. A semi-enclosed area with a greenhouse effect. Heads bowed over Macs, phones, straining for wifi. Checker-players, card-gamers, Oreo-eaters. Some readers. Outer deck, collapsed bodies in patches of shade. Some Greek Goths in black sweaters haunt the staircase, one woman’s head lying between the other’s knees, lolled. One late middle-aged woman in a bikini with transparent sun-dress over the top flapping it like a fan.

Cool below deck. ‘The Distinguished Lounge’. Large soft seats, a diverting movie, but no sea breeze. The subterranean lurkers in the ‘Flocafe’. Spinach pies to pass the time.

We have beers, the sun’s over the yardarm. Pass pre-historic islands that rise from the water in jagged clumps. The only other day-drinker is English too. He wears a light blue linen shirt and reflective sunglasses, his wife documents the moment with her phone-camera. Five hours to go.

Astypalean island impressions…

A land mass that is elemental, also a land mass that a child could draw with a pencil, rugged slopes and mountain that touch always-always-blue sky. Buildings of white stone, blue shutters, curved lines. Looking out to sea eight white windmills sentinel the town centre.

Chora we learn means town centre and you do not pronounce the ‘C’. Clustered at the bottom of the hill half a dozen restaurants, three cafes/bars, a deli and gift shop. The deli sells Mountain tea, Mastica liquor, dark, raw honey, gooey baklava. A low buzz of scooters, chatter, from one house we hear bouzouki music and the shout of opa!

There are more cats than people. Feral colonies. Solo strays. Skittish, dishevelled tabbies, all with bitten ears.

Mornings strong coffee with an inch of sludgy grain at the bottom. Greek grandma of the apartment gifts us ripe tomatoes at brunch, sells us peaches in syrup, bestows watermelon hunks in the afternoon.

Up the winding alleys of the Chora white-washed bouganivella-heavy homes, postcard Greece. Outside one sits an elderly man surrounded by paintings, a cat at his feet. One of his paintings depicts Jesus as a merman. Beyond these cobbled streets scrubby, brown soil, rocks, spiky green shrubs, yellow and grey-blue barbed-wire thistles.

‘I like my islands and my men rugged.’

Down on the beach diminutive, sweet-looking birds skewer and devour still buzzing cicadas. The aegean is five layers of blue. So still, just a breath of water curling and falling onto the shingled shore. Macrame parasols. Simple to float like in the Dead Sea.

‘It’s a giant relaxation chamber.’

In the day out on the balcony the wind knocks over a lemon-cucumber water and smashes the glass.

‘Who is the naughty boy?’ says the apartment owner, barrel-chested, stocky, tanned with a burnt nose.

‘The wind. God.’

‘Always God, God is a naughty boy.’