With dread I reached out and pulled my clothes towards me, certain about what I would find. I looked in the pockets. A large sum of money I had withdrawn the previous day was gone, nothing was left. All was spent on prostitutes. I needed to get up early and go to the company to draw on account of my next commission’s wages. I could not continue living on shore for more days, I had spent all my money in one night. It seems the waiters, the women, the cabaret owners had their ways and used incense and other substances to relax the customers into spending their money with ease. This was probably what happened to us. However, I was not really upset, for me, that was a new and relaxing experience.
TRAVELING ON THE SHIP "SOUTHERN UNION":
IN MONTEVIDEO
Uruguay is a small country on the Equator, located in South America, between Brazil and Argentina, and its name means “river of the colourful birds”. All the native inhabitants of the country were exterminated during the colonization period and today there are practically no descendants of those people. Today, Uruguay’s population are all European immigrants.
Montevideo is the country’s capital and it is in the south, on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. It has a population of 1,5 million and maintains its colonial architecture, and it very green and full of impressive plane trees.
At night, the city is filled with the sounds of drummers moving around the city or sitting around fires playing the so-called Uruguay beat, created by the African slaves brought over by the colonialists a little before 1800. This drumming is a poignant expression of the enslaved Africans’ nostalgia for freedom.
The drumming has an impressive sound and rhythm and the white invaders fell under its spell and included it in today’s Uruguayan culture. Mostly on Sundays, the people crowd the streets and parade with their African drums made of wood and animal skins. In formation, they proceed drumming loudly and in sync while men and women, usually youngsters, follow them dancing with animated moves. The renowned tango was created in these neighbourhoods by street dancers and in these same streets the internationally known song “Cumparsita” was heard for the first time.
The day we docked at the port of Montevideo was hot and humid from the constant and relentless drizzle of rain. The heat combined with the humidity made the clothes stick to our sweaty bodies. Unfazed, we donned our best clothes and walked down the ship’s ladder to go into town, the rain soaking us to the bone. None of us thought to wait till the rain stopped, we were in a rush just like a hungry man needs food and a thirsty man needs water, eager to go into the bars around the port and meet women, party with them and get drunk, touch them and be touched in return.
In a side street there was a dark and empty bar. I entered with my companion, one of the stokers. It was completely empty, with no barman or proprietor in sight. We were about to leave when an internal door opened and a beautiful woman with an amazing body appeared. She spoke to us in Greek and my friend the stoker immediately started flirting with her.
I sat at the edge of the bar and ordered a brandy coke. Slowly sipping my drink, I watched them cuddling. My clothes were stuck to my back and every now and then I looked outside at the weather planning to go and change clothes as soon as the rain stopped. As the rain abated and I was about to tell my friend that I was leaving, the door opened again and another girl walked out, slim with slender legs and narrow hips. She must have been about twice my age with a kind and sad face. She looked like a person who led a troubled life, psychologically tired, with sweet and sorrowful eyes. She saw me getting up, came close and took me by the hand.
- “Where are you going?” she asked in broken Greek, “stay and let’s get to know each other, we love Greeks and your ancient culture”.
She did not release my hand but continued holding it tenderly, putting me in an awkward position. After a while she realised I was feeling a little uncomfortable and, on her own accord, went behind the bar, poured two drinks and gave me one. In a while I ordered two more, the again two more, and without really knowing whether I picked her up or she picked me up, we left holding hands.
These are everyday human experiences that turn into indelible memories even after the passage of many years, especially in cases of seamen who, while away from their country and in bleak foreign lands, find solace in female arms that offer false tenderness and make-believe love and try to create fake feelings, in faces soon to be forgotten at the next port, but these memories remain ineffaceable in their mind for life.
My next shift begun at 04.00 next morning. I sleepily forced myself out of bed, got dressed, paid the lady, said my goodbyes, and left. I walked back to the ship and found it had discharged its cargo and stood empty, something which caused the ladder to be too high for me to reach. I called the sailor on duty who was leaning on the railings and he signaled to me to wait. He used the walkie-talkie in his hand to call the boatswain and he came to the hoist with one more sailor and lowered a large basket-like cage on the pier. I hopped in and they pulled me up.
I went to my cabin to put on my work overalls and go down to the engine room to start my shift.
While below deck I was walking up and down to pass the time and suddenly caught myself having forgotten her name. I realized that it was merely a simple sexual encounter with fake feelings of tenderness, an act of human necessity and facilitation that I received from a skinny woman in a cheap hotel in exchange for payment.
The ship was empty, and with no cargo, it sailed under fuel-saving speed towards Saudi Arabia. The temperature in the engine room, as usual, was close to 50 degrees Celsius and the heat was intolerable as the ship was old, badly maintained and had seen better days. The pipes were full of joins and extensions and boiling steam escaped from most of these, making the atmosphere dangerously hot and foggy. The extractor fans were working strenuously trying to suck out the heat and the fans created a cool draught inviting us to stand under them for most of our shift in an attempt to cool off.
The sea was rough and the ship, being without cargo and with less ballast than usual, was being shaken by the currents and the waves, making a bad situation even worse.
It was a summer’s day and I was carrying out my afternoon shift. I was working on the boiler changing a broken join and being scorched by the insufferable heat. I was bare-chested and in shorts, with thick asbestos gloves on my hands, trying to loosen the tight screws that were warped due to the high temperature of the steam. Exerting myself in the unbearable heat, I managed to change the broken join and was gathering the tools to climb down when I heard the third officer calling me to get down quickly. I picked up the bucket with the tools and swiftly jumped off. Out of breath, the third engineer explained that we had an urgent incident. A message came from the bridge to accelerate full speed ahead and fill the ballast tanks to capacity so that the ship could reach its full speed.
Extremely curious but without complaining, we got to work. The stoker altered the dials on the boilers to increase the supply of fuel and strengthen the fire in order to produce the steam we needed. I opened the valves and turned on the large pumps to increase the ballast of the ship, and the third engineer took over the control panel to ensure the smooth operation of the engine room and issued the relevant necessary orders. Everything took place in a matter of minutes but before we even finished, the first and second engineers came down into the engine room. Pleased to see that in a case of emergency everything in the engine room was executed without delay, the first engineer explained that we had received a message about a ship in danger and that we were sailing full speed ahead to assist.
I finished my shift and went up to the stern. I sat on the metal floor and felt the heat radiating from it, despite the fact that it was under the shade provided by the stern’s awning, and I allowed my eyes to sweep the distant horizon, just visible through the foggy atmosphere and hazy under the hot sun.
I leaned with my back to the bulkhead and allowed my body to rest, my thoughts transcending the distant horizon and travelling far away, reaching my country. I visualized how many countries stood between me and my homeland and how many countless miles separated us. I had sailed to earn better wages because in 1973 Cyprus was suffering from high unemployment and great poverty. I chose to work on a tanker because it docked less frequently so I avoided spending a lot of money at ports in an attempt to save most of my pay. My salary was low and every pound I managed to save was a good profit. If we managed to be the first ship to reach the ship that sent the mayday call and saved the shipwrecked sailors, in accordance to shipping laws. we would get an extra month’s pay for free. This would be a very welcome extra income, I thought, but I was immediately angry with myself for thinking this way, of my own personal benefit that derived from misfortune instead of worrying about my fellow seamen in peril.
I got off the floor and stood at the railings watching the long white frothy line formed by the propeller behind the ship; when the ship rose high on the waves, the sound of the engine and the spinning propeller changed. I watched this while my thoughts run wild and, at some stage, I noticed that the ship stopped heaving and the sea was calm and resembled oil. Its colour changed to white like that of phosphorous and the day grew dark even though the sun had not gone down yet. Puzzled, I watched all these strange occurences wondering whether they were real or whether they were figments of my imagination.
On the horizon, clearly in front of us and at a distance I saw a ship with white sails and a huge hull in shades of brown, appearing like a bright vision in the darkened evening. There was no human activity on deck, and it sailed at great speed, parallel to us. I thought I saw some white images moving on deck. It seemed deserted and sailing on its own and I watched ecstatically as it caught up, sailed by and quickly disappeared in front of us. It seemed like a scene from a film in fast-forward mode. A sudden and inexplicable vision outside normal parameters, and my mind recalled stories told by seamen during the endless hours of their shifts when they had nothing else to do.
I recalled the well-known story widely recounted among seamen about a ghost ship that appears when a big disaster was imminent, such as a shipwreck or an accident at sea that would result in death. They say it is a beautiful vessel without a crew and in it sail the spirits of all who perished at sea and that these souls are so many, the cargo holds overflow and souls trail behind forming visions of colourful waterfalls upon the surface of the sea, in brilliant shades of colour. They also say that it appears and disappears suddenly. The souls of the drowned seamen stay behind and beckon the crews of other ships to follow. Just like the ancient Sirens of Ulysses, they bewitch those with weak hearts and willpower and persuade them to follow.
I was overcome with worry and my mind immediately thought the worst, I wondered whether the ship of death had come for us. Maybe the old steam boilers could not withstand the pressure for maximum speed and would explode. I knew the pressure was immense and that an explosion would be similar to a big bomb going off and would result in great material damage and loss of life.
I wrestled with cold logic and told myself that I was just thinking bad thoughts and that my mind was playing tricks; such things do not happen, they are simply illusions caused by superstitions. I even thought that I was imagining things, that I was daydreaming. Suddenly, and while uncertainty had taken over my thoughts, I felt the ship reduce speed. Surprised and full of curiosity, I went down into the engine room to see what was happening, sure that new information had been received regarding the salvage order we had been given.
Indeed, the third engineer informed me that we were ordered to continue our course as before the change for the salvage because others had already arrived first to the ship in danger and offered their assistance.
I didn’t think of one month’s free salary lost since we didn’t help the other ship. My mind lingered on the ghost ship I thought I had seen. I say “I thought” I had seen because, when I asked my colleagues, nobody else had seen it. The incident stayed in my mind because I considered it a forewarning, or, alternatively, maybe I was simply affected by all the books I had been reading.
Later that night, the wireless operator informed us that he had received a message that the ship needing assistance had suffered an explosion in one of its ballast tanks where welders were at work, it flooded and drowned three sailors.
The thought that, as the legend would have it, the ghost ship appears in areas where a disaster is about to happen in order to take the souls of the drowned and sail away with them, entered my mind once more.
I was convinced now that I really had seen the ghost ship, but it had not come for us, it had come for the three drowned sailors on the other ship.
THE STRONG WAVE – TANKERS
Tankers are ships with tanks in place of cargo holds, where crude oil is stowed in order to transport it from its place of extraction to where it will be refined.
They are huge and have a capacity of up to 500.000 tons. The liquid cargo transported is dangerous because it is unstable. Tankers sink and even break in two more easily. They are high risk vessels because they carry dangerous cargo. The seamen working on these ships are strong, brave and patient people, able to tolerate a life full of danger and isolation since life on tankers requires great stamina because they sail for long periods of time and seldomly set foot on dry land. It is a choice of employment that requires courage because it is full of danger and long periods of loneliness.
As my commission on the ship “SAN DENNIS” ended, and knowing all the above facts about tankers, I decided to work on a tanker because the pay was much better, triple the amount I was earning so far.
It is easier to recruit crews for cargo ships because they carried out shorter voyages, docked in harbours every few days and usually remained docked in the harbour for a few days while discharging or loading cargo. Life was better on cargo ships, more agreeable, and many seamen preferred working on these ships. This was the reason why it was easy for me to find a placement on a tanker. Tankers were manned mainly by seamen who consciously took the dangerous nature of the job and placed it into the furthest compartment of their subconscious, simply because they desperately needed the higher income.
I walked up and down Akti Miaouli and entered office after office looking and enquiring about work. I finally signed an employment contract with the company “S. Niarchos” and sailed as a Trainee Engineer with a monthly salary of 140 Pounds Sterling on a 45.000-ton tanker called “SOUTHERN UNION”, built before 1960. This was one of the first ships Niarchos, the shipowner, had purchased, most probably for a good price, and it was so beat, it risked drowning us every time it hit rough seas. The shipowner however did not take into consideration such small details and continued using it.
It was a golden age for tankers. Stavros Niarchos was a self-made man, he started as an employee in a flour mill and ended up being a multi-millionaire. He convinced his uncles and his employers to purchase six cargo ships to transport grain and he personally borrowed the money to purchase one of these ships himself. During World War II, he chartered it to the Allies, but it was destroyed in the war. He used the money he received from the insurance company as capital to extend his fleet. He mainly purchased tankers. This is how Stavros Niarchos made his debut as a significant presence in the field of international trade.
One of his first ships, “SOUTHERN UNION” was a tanker with an old hull, made of steel plates which gave it strength to withstand rough seas but had no air conditioning. The combined heat from the steam boilers and the naturally insufferable hot climate of the Persian Gulf made the lives of the crew unbearable. The temperature in the engine room would reach 50° C. As a bit of fun, we would break eggs on the hot plates of the deck and watch them cook in seconds under the hot sun.
The ship’s propulsion was by propeller attached to an axle. The axle itself was turned by a steam turbine fed with steam from the boilers. The engine room of the ship was located in the depths of the stern and was divided into two compartments; the boiler room housing the boilers running on diesel and the engine room where the turbine turned the axle. The pipes carrying the steam were old and fatigued, could not withstand the high pressure and a lot of steam escaped every now and then causing the air to fog up. By the time we fixed one worn gasket, another blew out. It was a tiring process of constant repair in order to limit losses and maintain adequate steam to move the turbine which in turn spun the propeller’s axle. It was dangerous, hard work and, I am adamant that, in the history of steam propelled ships, there is not even one engineer who can say that he never sustained a serious burn.
Despite all this, we gritted our teeth and waited for the days to pass and we dock at the next port and enjoy a good sleep on dry land and off the ship. Fortunately, the aged and battered ship did not undertake long voyages, and this time there was a charter agreement for the island of Ceylon.
Sri Lanka, the name meaning Blessed Island, known in the past as Ceylon, is in the south east of India. It has a warm and humid climate because it is near the Equator. This is an island with dense vegetation and jungles, endless tea plantations, huge statues of Buddha sculpted on rockface, as well as National Parks with wild animals and dangerous snakes with horns and other repulsive diabolical creatures with weird colours. For its strange beauty, Ceylon has been described as India’s Tear as well as Tahiti of the East. Colombo is the capital city and the port. Before 1980, the buildings were low, mainly makeshift shacks with some majestic stone buildings left over from the time of British Colonialism.
The weather during our last voyage to Ceylon was bad, and so was the sea. When a tanker is laden and in rough seas, sailing is exceptionally dangerous because, due to the heavy cargo, the ship is low on the sea, with only a minimal part of the deck above water. Therefore, when the sea is very rough, the waves cover the deck and only the crews’ quarters and the masts remain above water.
The weather on the day we were approaching the port of Colombo was this bad but, as always, a few hours before arrival, we needed to inspect the pipes that supplied the anchor and deck machinery with steam. We slowly opened the valves and allowed steam to gradually flow into the pipes so the sudden expansion would not crack them. Despite our care, one of the flanges broke and needed repair. It wasn’t a difficult job and the Third Engineer assigned it to me. The broken flange was approximately half way between bow and stern. Huge waves washed over the deck and caution needed to be exercised because many times in such weather the sea snatched people off tankers’ decks and washed them out to sea. Usually nobody survived such mishap as the wake of the ship would draw them under and they would disappear.
I donned my asbestos gloves as necessary protection from the hot steam, and holding on to the steam pipe for balance, I started making my way out to fix the broken flange. I reached the fault near the middle mast, and very carefully, balancing on alternate legs depending on the rolling of the ship, I removed the screws to change the flange. The waves mounted the deck and every time would wet my legs. Carefully and methodically I worked, taking care not to be swept off by a large wave while under my breath I prayed to the Virgin Mary to look after me. Screw after screw, some I unscrewed easily and others I had to cut with the cutter, I was almost finished when suddenly a huge wave covered the deck and swept me off my feet. With immense force, it swept me away and I was unable to react and hold on. On the bridge, the Captain and the Second Officer together with the duty sailor were dumbstruck seeing the huge wave sweep me away. They stared with their mouths open, unable to utter a word. They were sure I was lost, swept out to sea.
When the wave rolled off, I was lying on the ship’s deck and not lost in the deep waters. I had taken the precaution of tying a rope around my waist which I had also connected to the steam pipe. The Captain and the others breathed a sigh of relief. They had not realised I had survived because from such distance, they could not see I was tied by a rope. They started making the sign of the cross and thanked God, believing it was a miracle that such a strong wave did not sweep me off. For me, however, it was the Virgin Mary’s grace that led me to think of tying myself down, thus saving me from drowning.
IN CEYLON
Ceylon is an island state near the Equator, covered in forests and jungles, with a humid and warm climate. It is a charming country with western and eastern influences that were left behind by various invaders, and an assortment of religions and cultures.
Colombo is the capital city and a significant Asian commercial centre. Because of its naturally large harbor and strategic location on the commercial routes connecting the East with the West, it was known to traders since ancient times.
We travelled to Colombo regularly for a whole year. Stavros Niarchos’ company had a contract to transport fuel to the country and our ship was assigned to carry out the charter for the next term. We would load from Libya, navigate the Suez Canal, Red Sea and Arabian Sea, enter the Indian Ocean and reach the large harbour of the city.
Colombo was a beautiful Meridian city with wild vegetation and a lot of mosquitos. Unfortunately, there was also the threat of contracting malaria because of the humid and warm atmosphere hovering over still and stagnant waters in many parts of the country.
Every voyage, I eagerly awaited to disembark on the land spread before me, a place so green, so beautiful and overgrown with tropical vegetation. I loved walking the streets and observe the people moving up and down, their simple clothing being but a piece of fabric thrown over their shoulders partially covering their body. Among them, countless traders peddled their wares while the streets were buzzing with two and three-wheeled motorbikes and bicycles as well as cars of a passed era. A city unlike those of Western countries, a different culture untouched by progress and development, as if time had stopped.
Colombo harbour was deep, and the ships docked practically next to the shore, on wharves that extended considerably into the sea. They were wooden and narrow yet sturdy since large tonnage tankers could tie alongside. The distance to the entrance of the port was 200-300 metres and there we would meet a medley of taxi drivers and guides waiting to transport us and give us guided tours of the city and the country.
Even though the city was an extension of the port and at a short distance, we usually took a taxi because the fare was cheap but also because the taxi drivers would give us tours of the sights and the parts of the city they knew well. This was particularly useful to us sailors because the first things on our minds were pleasure and entertainment as each round trip, loading and discharge, lasted up to a month. With a minimal fee, they gave us tours from morning till night, until the opening hours of the bars, which were our final destination.
Even though Colombo was the capital city of a country with a population of eighteen million people, it boasted only two bars, and there should have been more. Both bars were huge and full of prostitutes looking for customers. No prostitute exercised her profession publicly as family values and, even more, religious beliefs, were strict and did not allow it. Despite this, there are prostitutes all over the world, some hidden and others out in the open. I remember the first impression I had during my first visit to these bars. I saw a vast establishment, a huge banquet hall, full of women trying to hook up with the few customers. There were no local customers, the only local men were the waiters. It was obviously a place specifically made for foreign visitors, mainly sailors, who yearned for female company after their long voyages across oceans. This was why the place was so big; it had to accommodate all the prostitutes of the capital. Drinks were cheap and so were the women, so we offered them all drinks and danced with them until we settled with one girl and were taken by her to a cheap hotel.
The national currency, the rupee, had small value against international currencies and so the drivers used to ask payment in dollars and pounds sterling. Even the Cyprus pound had value. We knew this and would reach an agreement with them to exchange dollars for rupees for a significant profit which covered our expenses during our stay in the country.
During one of our trips, we docked and noticed that the city was very still, with no life around and no movement. It seemed asleep and the people were closed in their homes and did not go out to work nor carry on with everyday life. It appeared that the city was under a curfew. The labourers and engineers assigned to discharge the ship’s cargo were few on the dock, and further inland, there were only one or two taxi drivers awaiting us.
The taxi drivers knew Greek and we could easily communicate with them. It was the same in every other port as Greek shipping was number one in the world.
We found out from these taxi drivers that this particular day was a great religious Buddhist festival and that was why everything was closed; it was a holiday for all. Even the bars, the owners of which eagerly awaited a ship to dock so the seamen would rush to spend their money, were closed. The few who were circulating around the city that day were not Buddhists but probably belonged to another religion and were not celebrating. Most of the population of Ceylon are Buddhists, but there are other religions such as Hinduists, Muslims and even Christians.
I had just finished my shift in the engine room and, together with a new recruit trainee engineer, we dressed in our finest and went on shore leave. It was nine o’clock in the evening and we planned to go directly to one of the two bars at opening time. On learning that everything was closed we were very upset because after so many days at sea we were looking forward to going on shore, letting our hair down and having fun. We walked a little in the hope of finding some shops that were opened but everything was closed, and the streets were empty. Every now and then an old car would speed down the street and disappear into the city. Even the open-air fruit market that buzzed with life was deserted. It was obvious that the vast majority of the residents were Buddhists and were celebrating their grand festival. So, with nothing to do and having walked for quite a while, we felt disappointed and decided to return.
We started heading back with our heads hanging down in discontent since arriving at a deserted city was of no value to us. The fact that we didn’t do any shopping was not a serious matter to us, but not having picked up women was indeed monumental. In the middle of the ocean and interminably lonely, with hard work our only solace, we longed to dock and have some fun, drink, get drunk and indulge our libido. The voyage was long, and so was the longing. Here we were, on shore. I was clean shaven and doused in expensive cologne. I wore my fanciest clothes, and, with my buddy, we walked the town. Yet, here we were, returning to the ship unfulfilled and morose. We would go to bed and, by the time we were relieved again from our shift, the ship would have discharged its cargo and we would be ready to sail away.
With a heavy heart, we walked slowly without being in a hurry to get back. At a distance, we saw the ship standing tall in the water looking huge, a sign that it had discharged most of the cargo.
As we walked silent and pensive, an old taxi stopped, and the driver started talking to us in a mixture of Greek and English.
I will never forget his appearance no matter how many years pass, it is etched in my memory as if I had seen him only yesterday. His skin colour was an odd blend of black and brown and, combined with the asymmetrical features of his face, made him look very ugly. However, the thing I cannot forget is how detestable he was, with hard furrows across his face and with eyes an indescribable colour that looked like the eyes of a venomous serpent ready to pounce without warning and inject its deadly poison. He reminded me of a strange snake I had seen in the large zoo of the country during my last trip, a snake with a huge horned head on a slender and very disproportionate body. A snake so terrifying that I have never seen again despite researching in encyclopaedias, I still remember it and shudder. In any case, he did not look like a normal man and as soon as I set eyes on him, I disliked him.
While chatting he asked us whether we wanted to have fun and, if we did, he said that he had his own women and could take us to them. There was nothing we wanted more at the time and we immediately said yes. He grasped the opportunity and charged us more than the regular fare, explaining that everything was prohibited on this day and that his risk was double, therefore he charged more. We asked him what the second risk was, and he explained to us that, on this day, the prostitutes did not work and so he would take us to his wife and daughter and that this was the risk. If people found out, they would shun him.
I was immediately furious because, in my country, family is a highly sacred institution. I was ready to tell him to go to Hell, but the trainee turned and said:
- “What do we care, it is his family, and, in any case, he may even be lying to justify the extra money he is demanding”.
Wanting to have my fun, I accepted my friend’s explanation without giving it much thought.
We entered the taxi and he drove for a few kilometres. We arrived in a neighbourhood with small houses that looked like they were made of thin cardboard, like the shantytowns of underdeveloped countries shown on the news. The asphalt had come to an end, and he was driving the car on a dirt road. Obviously, this was a very poor area. There were street lights attached to poles and, in the faint light, we could see the poverty and misery of the place. The streets were without pavements or asphalt and riddled with potholes filled with stagnant water. All the houses were tiny, with one or two rooms, low and crooked, listing towards one side because of the wind as they were made with thin and crude materials.
We stopped in a yard in front of a cardboard house a little bigger than the others. He opened the makeshift door and in the faint light we saw a woman sitting on an old chair with a bowl in her lap, cutting some vegetables. He spoke to her in their language and we saw her giving him a surprised look.
My friend and I became worried, but the taxi driver turned and reassured us. The woman went into the other room and came out holding a young girl by the hand. She did not look older than sixteen. Being young at the time, we paid no attention to the fact that she may have been underage. In any case, my friend had chosen her for himself and he was barely eighteen.
We noticed however that both women looked frightened I thought that they may have been terrified and unable to refuse the commands of their master.
The despicable man said something further to the two women and they beckoned us to follow them. We went out into the yard and they led us into a room. It was a single room divided by a low wicker mat, and on either side of this there was a bed. My friend and I stood with the two women and we all felt very uncomfortable.
The older woman removed her clothes and lay naked and on her back on the low bed and beckoned me to approach. I however no longer wanted sex, under the circumstances I considered it to be a humiliating act. At the same time, I heard the young girl crying silently at the other side of the room.
We understood exactly what was going on. The wicked taxi driver was selling them against their will and forcing them to have intercourse with clients. They were terrified to refuse. I understood that the older woman had accepted her fate, but it may have been the first time for the young girl, and she was terrified. In the end, she explained that this was the case to my friend and was crying in fear, pleading with us to show mercy and not tell her stepfather that she cried.
My friend the trainee engineer was a kind and sensitive boy, so it was easy to agree not to touch them nor tell on them and ask for our money back. We managed to somehow explain our intentions to them and relieved, they kissed our hands.
I never regretted this and felt relieved with our decision. On the way back though I could not help but think that the poor girl was spared this time, but what about next time, and the time after that?
In time, whenever I recalled this episode in my life, I felt pleased with the way I conducted myself. I knew that I had done the right thing and hoped that I would continue doing so for the rest of my life.
SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES
All over the world, ports are centres for the sale of sex and drugs where unemployed lonely seamen looking for employment, or crews off ships that docked to discharge cargo, seek warmth in carnal gratification after long voyages across seas and oceans. Sometimes the prostitutes walk the streets alone trying to sell their body and, in other cases, pimps are willing to give seamen a tour around the temples of entertainment and lust. Usually this is conventional and classic lust and carnal pleasure, but sometimes it is heretic unorthodox lust out of the context of traditional values. These are sex and drug markets transcending the limits of human denigration, full of drug mules with no inhibitions, women who sell their bodies, and men who pimp and exploit them shamelessly with profit the only thing on their mind, where all limits of morality, decency and propriety are breached.
In ports, young women and little girls line up waiting for clients, and young sailors unfamiliar with the system or those who want something alternative, turn to the pimps and sex dealers to find it.
Depending on the stringency of the law in every country and port, things may vary.
I remember once in Bari, before the ship even tied up, locals jumped the rails and boarded the ship. The fact that in Italy private citizens had the right to board a ship under foreign flag when docked in a port did not seem strange to me and did not raise any suspicions in me. I simply assumed they were customs officials or port labourers. In my greasy overalls, I stood by the engine room door and watched them walk up and down.
Having nothing better to do until my shift was over, I watched. Standing a little further from everything and watching what was going on, I quickly comprehended that contraband and games were taking place between the crew and the visitors. Dealings were taking place in goods seamen bought from other countries for trading, such as Seiko watches and calculators from Japan, Zenith cameras from the Soviet Union and illegal substances from cheap countries, usually Latin America or Africa. I remember once in Nigeria, we anchored outside the harbour to refuel and launches actually came alongside with customs officers and labourers offering us such substances very cheaply, mainly in exchange for luxury cigarettes such as Rothmans.
In all this frenzied commercial activity, I saw a local youngster talking with the ship’s cabin boy and, after a while, they walked away together and entered the cabin boy’s cabin at the end of the corridor. I figured he was going to show him something for sale or that they reached a more private arrangement since one usually does not know another’s sexual preferences, whether he is straight or not. The cabin boy seemed a serious young man, very masculine, and we never thought of him as homosexual. However, my eyes had seen many things, too many things, and nothing would surprise me.
In time, it was obvious that something other than contraband had taken place in the cabin. Not only because they were inside the cabin together for a long time but because, after we sailed, our cabin boy came down with a serious illness caused by a sexually transmitted disease and we just managed to deliver him for treatment in time before he died at sea as his illness took hold very quickly and ate away at his body, causing him intolerable pain.
Homosexuality has genetic origins and, combined with environmental influences, makes a person a homosexual. That is to say, most gay people are born with a predisposition and homosexuality is not a choice they make later in life. The wider public considers this bad and even a crime sometimes while open-minded and educated people simply see it as a sexual preference.
Scientific research however emphasises that particular care needs to be exercised during such sexual encounters because, as public criticism forces homosexuals into secrecy, they tend to change partners. Doing so facilitates the spread of diseases.
All seamen are at risk of contracting contagious diseases because of their unusual living environment and circumstances of work. Again, studies have shown that of those seamen who fall ill and die, most deaths are not due to accidents or drowning, as many would think, but to contagious diseases, mainly sexually transmitted, especially during the past when these were not treatable. It is therefore and undisputed fact that seamen risk contracting a wide range of diseases, most of which are caused by having sex without taking the necessary precautions. In my view, the most usual ailments suffered by seamen are herpes, papilloma, genital lice and gonorrhea. Many definitely contract more dangerous diseases but because of their severity nobody wants to mention them, in contrast with the more frequent and usual STDs mentioned by many because they are considered run of the mill, like ‘flu or a cold.
So, our young cabin boy contracted gonorrhea. Those few moments of sexual pleasure for which obviously no precautions were taken, brought him a lot of suffering, pain and hardship. In his haste and in the throes of passion, he hurriedly released himself into the enjoyment of sexual deeds without using protection. For a few seconds of lust that were over so quickly, he did not operate correctly, he did not protect himself.
And here he was now, in the middle of the Indian ocean, suffering the manifestation of a dreadful disease. In the beginning, he hid the problem masking his pain and serving food in the mess without showing discomfort.
As the hours and the days passed however, the sickness started eating away at him and weakening his system. It was clear on his face and in his movements that something was hurting. When we asked, he said that he had a problem with his back and at the beginning we felt sorry for him and helped by serving ourselves.
Until one day, I saw him come out of his cabin with his legs spread open as if he suffered from ire, totally unable to walk, with tears running from his eyes, his face in a spasm brought on by insufferable pain. I asked him what was wrong and, crying, he answered that he contracted a disease, that it was eating away at him and finishing him off, and that he could no longer stand the dreadful pain. He wanted to die, to spare himself. At that moment, the boatswain appeared at the other end of the corridor and approached. He was an older seaman and experienced, so he immediately realised what was going on and asked:
- “Faggot, you got the clap up your bottom?”
- “Hey, Cypriot, this is a serious situation, run and get the Second Mate.”
The Second Officer, or Second Mate as he was usually called, was responsible for everything that happened on the ship, and had to ensure that everything run smoothly and correctly. He was, of course, answerable to the Captain and would update him about everything and would take orders only from him.
In the cabin boy’s case, he concluded that he had to be confined to his cabin until we arrived in port, to see a doctor. His ailment was contagious, and he should not circulate or work, and, most importantly, should not serve food to the crew. So, he gave him some painkillers, locked him in his cabin and gave the order that nobody should let him out or visit him.
As the days passed, the cabin boy was writhing in pain locked in his cabin, and his cries were heard throughout the day and night, piercing our ears. It was a situation that frightened us because his cries were heartbreaking. The pain, it seemed, was unbearable and got worse by the day.
I considered the situation inhumane. Why wasn’t the Captain requesting a helicopter to lift the cabin boy off the ship? I wondered whether it was deliberate because the cost to the company in such cases would be high. I also thought that possibly the Second Mate did not care about the human lives on the ship and left the poor boy to suffer his destiny and bad luck. My thoughts were valid because, during a previous voyage, I had seen evil and inhumanity in this man. I remember an incident like it was yesterday, an incident that made me very sad and caused me to write him off as a human being. We had sailed from a port and the assistant boatswain (his name was Sakis, I still remember him well) had bought a small monkey. This monkey was a tiny thing, very graceful, calm and well trained, a delightful little creature. We all loved him and would play with him. That was until the day the Second Mate, a man made of skin and bone, as if food did not touch him because of his heartlessness, found out about him. He grabbed the little animal and forcefully threw him overboard. This was a sad incident that has remained etched in my memory, as I watched the little creature swimming in his desperation to stay afloat. And the ship sailed away leaving the poor little monkey behind, to drown and be eaten by fish. I knew that animals were not allowed on ships because there was a danger of transmitting contagious diseases to the crew and that the Second Mate acted based on regulation but, notwithstanding this, I still considered his deed cruel.
One day, the screams of pain and the cries of despair from our patient that saddened and embittered our hearts, stopped. We all thought that the worst had happened and worried, we asked the Second Mate for information. He gave us a reasonable explanation, that he was transferred to sickbay in the front deck, so that the rest of the crew’s work and efficiency would not be affected by his cries. I did not really believe this explanation and I wonder to his day if this was indeed the case, or if the poor cabin boy did not survive the pain and the dreadful disease, whether he breathed his last breath in that ship and whether the Second Officer and the steward carried his lifeless body to the fridge until we arrived in port, as provided in the regulations.
We all had this horrible thought, but we were obliged to accept the Second Officer’s explanation.
Extreme temperatures of over 50° Celsius are often recorded in countries of the Middle East, countries with areas covered by the hot sands of the desert. The scorching sun and the stifling heat in the summer make the lives of the inhabitants very difficult and unbearable. The majority of the population cover their body for the whole day by wearing white jellabiyas since white deflects heat.
The largest part of these countries is covered by the Sahara Desert and are sparsely populated by humans. In many cases the only residents are a few wild animals and plants that survive without water.
In ancient times there was plenty of water in the Sahara and it formed large rivers with banks covered in vegetation and full of life, but after the passage of millions of years the climatic changes and strong earthquakes changed everything. Today, scientists say that all rivers that flowed on the surface of the Earth have submerged and now flow underground in the depths of the planet and that they are at such depth that man cannot exploit them and to try to do so would be counter-productive due to the high costs involved.
As part of this area, Saudi Arabia is a country that, upon arrival, a visitor receives a different feeling. Another kind of sense, dangerous and deadly like the desert surrounding it. Saudi Arabia is a country that very frequently imposes the death penalty on both locals and foreigners.
On weekdays, people walk without worries and children play ball and other games in the squares, but on Fridays people are executed by beheading for crimes such as possession of drugs or robbery, but mainly for offences against religion as their sense of religion is very strong. After all, this country is the cradle of the Muslim religion and birthplace of Prophet Muhammad. These are offences that are punishable with death by beheading in public areas, and this is a powerful deterrent.
In those years, before 1980, the country’s authorities made life very difficult and repressed for both locals and foreign visitors, except for seamen who worked on Greek ships, and this was because the Saudis liked the Greeks. There was a deep appreciation for anything Greek and an infinite respect for the Greek people. This is what I noticed and received from the local population, even from my first voyage there, and older seamen explained to me that indeed, this was the case. I thought that maybe they admired us as Greeks because of Alexander the Great who conquered their country and spread Greek culture.
The people in Saudi Arabia engaged in the production and cultivation of pearls, as well as the cultivation of palm trees because, as a desert state, palm trees flourished in its soil. Mainly however, they engaged in the extraction and worldwide exportation of petrol which is abundant in its sub terrain. In the large port of Dammam, in the middle of the Persian Gulf, there are huge terminals for the extraction of petrol. Huge metal structures extending deep into the sea form artificial docks, where ships tie to load the precious liquid. Our ship docked at one of these docks and anchored to load mazut.
We came from Japan. We had travelled to Nagasaki, one of the best natural harbours on the island of Chiusu, the ancient town of Shogun and the Samurai.
We had carried there a cargo of mazut, and, after unloading, we quickly departed for the Persian Gulf. Sailing the Indian Ocean, we reached the Gulf of Oman, on the north-western part of the Arabian Peninsula and passed through the Ormuz Straits that link the Ocean with the Gulf.
The Persian Gulf or Arabian Gulf is important to the world economy as it produces and exports large shipments of oil. It links Arabia with the Indian Ocean, and touches the coasts of Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the Arab Emirates, and part of Iraq and Persia.
Shipping traffic was high at that time, so we were sailing carefully at low speed. The sea was calm and still, with a murky white colour like that of the desert. The weather had changed, the coolness of the sea slowly faded away and a hot wind started to blow from the shore, and, as we approached, it became hotter. The wind was light, and it brought high temperatures from the Sahara Desert, turning the atmosphere dull and hazy. In a short time, we realised that the weather had totally hanged and had become unbearably hot.
It was a dry, scorching wind originating in the great desert, dragging sand and dust in its wake. It was a Sirocco, hot and dangerous like Livas (south-west wind), the wind that scorches crops and causes damage in its wake.
It was a Sirocco, blistering and perilous, blowing from the south-east, originating usually from the Sahara, crossing North Africa, passing the Mediterranean where it gathers moisture and thus cause rainfall and fog. It moves at a speed of 55 knots and may last half a day to several days at a time.
From my porthole I watched the sailors handling the ship’s ropes wearing thick gloves to prevent burns on their hands as the whole deck had heated to great temperatures by the boiling Sirocco. My cabin was located quite high up and, having a panoramic view, I watched the ship approach and come alongside the pier, docking under the pilot’s guidance. I saw the labourers passing the slack lines over the dock’s bollards and the sailors manning the winches, slowly and steadily tightening the ropes so that the ship gently came alongside the dock, tightly secured and safe.
Having tied up, my gaze wandered towards the shore and a little further away I saw a desolate land without housing or infrastructure apart from a straight, wide road, black like a snake, starting from the coast and disappearing into the desert.
Sleeping quarters, warehouses, offices, machinery installations and petrol pumps were erected in the middle of these artificial large platforms and docks and all together formed a large floating port secured and immobilised on the surface of the sea by weights and anchors. It was an immense floating platform with all the infrastructure and installations of a Lilliputian town, with a helipad and large oil extraction and pumping machinery.
A little further off the dock, a few hundred metres away from where we had tied up, I saw another tanker lying low in the water, a sign that it had almost finished loading. The logo on the funnel was of a Greek ship owning company, indicating that most of the crew would be Greeks. I immediately wondered whether there were any Cypriots among them. I was away from Cyprus for a long time and I missed receiving news and updates from my home country. It was the period after the 1974 Turkish invasion, and I was concerned about what was happening in my divided country. I also wondered whether I would meet anyone from my own village. Two young villagers from Chloraka had left a little earlier than me to work on the ships. First to go was Paschalakis Fouartas, and a little later followed Giannakis Polemitis who went to meet Paschalakis. They were both older than me and I thought at the time that, since they were not daunted by the prospect of leaving for foreign lands, why should I be? With them as an example, I took the big decision and sailed on the ships. I left my land and now, here I was, in a faraway country, standing on a high deck, wondering whether I would meet fellow villagers on board the other ship.
I shook my head from side to side to escape my nostalgic musings. I thought once more, how possible would it be …..? In the whole world to meet someone from my village here, just because I felt nostalgic. The Earth is inhabited by almost seven billion people and I was from a small village with a population of just one thousand five hundred souls. A very poor place for someone to easily find work, any type of work, during those hard times. That’s why some young people ventured to leave and travel far away from their land in the hope of a better future. Paschalakis and Giannakis thought of working on ships and, eventually, when they docked at an American port, jump ship and stay in that rich western country described in the newspapers and shown in films as the promised land, as an affluent country of opportunity. With this dream, Paschalakis decided to go abroad and with the same ideas, his friend followed. I did the same thing a little over two years later. So, the two left, and nobody had received any news from them, neither friends nor family knew what had happened to them. I imagined that they had already settled in a foreign country, surely after all this time they had found the means to succeed. They were probably comfortably settled somewhere washing dishes in a restaurant. A difficult job nobody liked but was in high demand, a job degrading for a man and therefore always considered as temporary, a beginning, until given an opportunity for something better. For those who travelled abroad for a better future, America was an attractive and favourite destination because it was a prosperous country. This was why the two friends thought of going there. Maybe when they landed there, they would have a chance; this is what they thought and dreamt.
Nostalgia for home is generated in travellers of the world who leave their poor countries in search of a better fortune. It is fed and watered by their sweat and blood in exchange for a little hope in life, in exchange for bread and employment.
In me it appeared and took hold when I began my long sea voyage, my wondering around the world, with hope in my heart for a better future.
My thoughts were racing, memories took me back to my village, and a sadness took over because I hadn’t communicated with my people for a long time. I had travelled abroad for the sole purpose of finding work and now, in the middle of an Arabian desert, I was overwhelmed by an unbearable longing for what I had left behind. My nostalgia hurt like being stabbed with a sharp knife, a pain known only to those who emigrate. Nostalgia for beloved places and people, friends, siblings and relatives, a bitter and raw pain.
With my mind clouded in memories, I climbed down the deck and walked to the bow of the ship, the point that was nearest to the ship tied in front of us. I lifted my hand as a shield against the sun and carefully observed the deck, trying to make out if people were moving around. The hazy atmosphere was shimmering in the high temperature and my vision was limited. Looking carefully, I eventually saw a sailor stooped next to the mast, the sun pitilessly beating him, strenuously stripping rust, and at the same time my ears were assaulted by the loud noise of the copper stripping tool banging upon the thick plates of the deck. Every now and then he would stop and with a cloth in his other hand, would wipe the profuse sweat off his naked torso. It was extremely hot and the light Sirocco wind blowing made the heat even more unbearable and intolerable. The sailor however continued working, he seemed tough and had stamina since sailors working for months and years under adverse weather, in both hot and cold conditions, become hardened and learn to endure and persist under duress since the nature of their profession involves contending with the wild elements of nature and the sea…
The bow under my feet was incredibly high, many metres above sea level because the ship had its ballast removed and was ready to load crude oil. The sea was motionless like a mirror and reflected the sun while in the water the fish were clearly visible swimming around the ship looking for food.
I turned towards the stern and walked until the middle of the ship where the sailors had placed a rope ladder. I placed one foot on the first rung and hung on. I descended very carefully. The heat was relentless, and any reasonable man would have stayed in the cabin or the cafeteria, but I decided to walk up to the other ship and say “Hi” to the sailor who was tirelessly stripping the steel plates.
With no particular reason, an inexplicable feeling drove me to go and greet him. An unusual premonition pushed me to do it. And so, my steps led me where the sailor was working. I stepped over the low railings and hopped onto the deck. I walked towards him and greeted him loudly so my voice could be heard over the noise of the stripping tool. Startled by the volume of my voice, he abruptly turned towards me. What I saw surprised me, I did not even dare believe it. He was also surprised to see me ….. It was Paschalakis.
And so, a seaman’s life is full of surprises, it is unbearable and relentless, sometimes even cruel, full of danger and longing for the country and the people left behind.
It was daybreak and I was standing on the stern after finishing my night shift. It had become a habit to come out onto the stern at this time in the morning when everyone except those on shift were asleep. I would sit under the fading stars as daylight broke and would feel the ship under my feet creak and shudder as the propeller met the resistance of the water. I would listen to the rudder under the waterline groan constantly as it tirelessly kept the ship on course. I sensed and felt the immense power of the ship under my feet wrestling with the sea and pushing against it in order to keep going. Leaning on the railings and watching the seawater being churned into white froth by the ship’s propeller, I allowed my mind to travel across the grey twilight and take me wherever it wished. On that day and at that time – maybe a coincidence – I was thinking of the great force of the sea and all the unexplained things that lay hidden in its dark and unknown depths when, suddenly and without being sure of when exactly it started happening, I thought I felt the atmosphere’s gravity changing and the ship, together with the sea moving downwards, like the water in a lake goes down without actually forming a whirlpool. Startled and horrified, I looked at the sea around us and it seemed that the ship was at the bottom of a huge wave, while its crest was far above us. It was like a gorge between two mountains, all made of water, and the ship was sailing at the lowest point of all this water.
It was a uniquely dangerous situation so inconceivably real, that my brain refused to believe it at first and I felt I was in a dreamlike state watching this phenomenon unfold from the position of an external observer. I could see the wave’s crest touching the sky ready to turn and cap us, and the ship was nothing but a small toy in its shadow. The sea looked like an immense mountain, and we sailed up its side until we reached the top. Then, we descended sailing downwards, and found ourselves floating in calm waters while the large wave left us and disappeared in the distance.
It was a massive wave, something I had never come across before during my travels. A huge wall of water, a gigantic wave over thirty meters high, maybe even over one hundred meters, that had just appeared out of nowhere.
When everything was over, I was not even sure whether the incident was real. I pinched my arm until it hurt, but I could still see the huge wave disappearing in the distance, continuing its path, enormous and terrifying, and it was real. It had really happened, it was a gigantic wave that rolled into our path, passed us, and did not sink us.
During the endless hours of our shifts down in the engine room, we would recount stories, mainly of the sea. Once, an old stoker told me that he heard of a gigantic wave hitting a ship in Mozambique, lifting it upon a mountain of water and then sinking it in the sea trench that followed. He explained however that it was probably a myth because there are no such waves, same as the Gorgon, sister of Alexander the Great, does not exist. I tried to find out more about this huge wave asking old seamen and also researching in books, but all I found were unconvincing theories because a regular earthquake could not cause turmoil of such an extent in the sea, nor was it a tsunami, as there was no earthquake registered anywhere in the world on that day.
I stood at the end of the ship and watched the wave depart and panic had not taken over yet because my mind had not grasped the huge risk we came across and passed. The sun slowly rose in the sky and there was no other vessel on the horizon. The thought “maybe they were swallowed up by the wave” crossed my mind. The light and cool night breeze disappeared, the wave had taken it away with it, leaving behind a deathly stillness in the atmosphere and there I was, standing still in deep silence, slowly comprehending the strange unnatural phenomenon that had occurred.
TRAVELING ON THE SHIP "EUGENIE"
INTRIGUES ON SHIPS
Instincts and tendencies drive people towards certain human behaviours and reactions. They exist before memory and learning develop and are integral characteristics of our biological species. As cerebral anomalies from birth, they dominate and determine various human behaviours for dealing with certain situations, through the body’s neurons.
Therefore, all passions, whether good or bad, are a result of ancient instincts that drive all biological organisms and turn reaction to action. Unfortunately, people are driven and directed many times by their animalistic instincts and act in a harmful way towards others not only shamelessly, but with full knowledge that they are causing pain and damage for the simple reason of getting a sick pleasure out of it which they gleefully enjoy. These are evil and bored people who have nothing interesting to do, people who look for entertainment in another person’s pain. For their own personal reasons, all deriving from overpowering bad instincts, these people enjoy human misery.
The first time I came across such unpleasantness was in the army, when the older soldiers repressed the younger ones by exercising extreme bullying. I encountered exactly the same on sea-going ships when I was a new recruit in my youth. Solitary people wallowing in the loneliness of endless voyages across the oceans, who manufacture and create situations, undermine younger sailors, especially those who’s appearance and demeanour make them appear weaker. This caused some groups of foreign seamen to isolate themselves by hermetically closing themselves in their cabins after their shift.
I was employed on the ship “Eugenie” for some months. We would take on cargo from the port of Ras Tanoura in Saudi Arabia and travel back mainly to European countries. This voyage lasted a long time as the Suez Canal was closed and we had to sail around Africa to reach or destination. I remember we needed about one month to sail the Indian and Atlantic Oceans.
It was not just the long voyage that forced us to find companionship in the sea and sky, but also the fact that at Ras Tanoura we had to remain anchored without access to land sometimes for a number of days.
Therefore, the lonely hours of the sailors were long, and each sailor sought ways to pass the time, ways to feel some enjoyment, sometimes with whatever means. Some worked overtime, others read, some wrote. Many lost themselves in the giddy intoxication of booze, others used substances that made them feel closer to God, narcotics or even chemicals that changed the structure of their brains overstimulating them and making them feel good.
Unfortunately, sometimes people would resort to cruel and inhumane actions to entertain themselves, and, maybe because they had some kind of sick mental disorder, would come up with and create intrigues and conspiracies. They would devise plans to trick their colleagues and create dangerous situations for them, just so they could sit back and watch the consequences unfold and entertain their boring solitude.
Under these circumstances on this ship, and during a voyage lasting over two months, our ship’s pump man, who had no work to do since his work was mainly during our stay in ports, organised a whole plan of underhanded action against me, and cunningly tried to implement it.
The pump man is the person in charge of pumping petrol from the ship’s tanks into other storage or transportation units. He oversees the smooth operation of the system and is the only one in charge of the piping, filters and valves which allow pumping from the relevant tanks. He is also in charge of spare parts and deck machinery directly connected with the transportation of liquid cargo. During the whole voyage, his only job is to monitor the tanks and keep the cargo at a steady temperature, to prevent it from solidifying, and be ready for pumping at the next port. In such case, he asks the engine room to channel steam which he also uses for other work on the machinery relevant to the ship’s tanks. When the ship is in port however, he is on active duty at all times, day and night, as he is needed for the completion of a smooth discharge and subsequent ballasting of the tanks. This job requires great stamina during loading and discharge, but also during the voyage, as during the voyage he remains idle and has to withstand the boredom of not being fully active since he has no duties to carry out.
The pump man was twice my age and seemed serious and heavy going, a modest man of few words. The whole crew showed him respect. Even the officers, the captain and second officer, were polite when issuing his orders. Whatever he said was properly justified, documented and very polite. In a few words, he was a man of good standing and personality. I respected and admired him, and he reciprocated. In the varied mix of people and nationalities of tough sailors that formed the crew, where most had crude and cruel, sometimes even indifferent, manners of behaviour, the pump man stood out like a good teacher who was loved by his pupils.
We met daily in the cafeteria and chatted. He was a simple man and very approachable, a man you could trust. As time passed, we spoke about a variety of things. I said a lot about the situation in Cyprus as only a little time had passed since the Turkish invasion of the island, and as this tragedy was still fresh, it was an interesting subject for all.
I told him about the situation before the invasion, about EOKA B’ and the followers of Makarios, the violence and murders between both factions, about the tragic events that took place on the long-suffering island and that the entire Greek population was embroiled in the battle between the two men. We even spoke about the previous situation and the epic struggle of the first EOKA when the people, with the youth in the forefront, young boys in their teenage years, rose and fought a great struggle and managed to overthrow the British colonialists, without fear of torture and death.
He was very interested to learn about Cyprus and I was happy to talk to him about Cyprus historical and prehistorical times.
When two people are in contact for a length of time, and when a lot of things are said during endless conversations, some of these things are deep secrets that would not have been revealed under other circumstances. So, I revealed to him some things in which I was involved during those difficult times in Cyprus, when brother turned against brother, and when discord had nested and flourished in the souls and hearts of the people because of the propaganda relating to the clash between the two men, Archbishop Makarios and Grivas Dighenis.
Being very young, I trusted and considered the pump man my friend and a person who cared about me. When someone is away from home and especially in a tanker where life is harsh and difficult and sailors form pseudo-friendships as we are cursed with loving the sea and not loving each other, I was relieved and pleased to have the pump man as my friend, brother, father. It was a great joy to feel that there was a person to whom I could confide about my loneliness, nostalgia, fears, to feel I had someone to lean on for both happy times and times of sorrow.
During our long conversations and analyses, he gave me advice, but he also caused me to wonder about various things, behaviours, and mainly the consequences of our actions. Our conversations were mainly about my activities during the period of discord in Cyprus. Discussions which, in hindsight, I realized were aimed at artfully impregnating my brain with the idea that the English were involved in this discord and that they very successfully applied the “divide and conquer” principle, that they were heinous conquerors and oppressors of weak people. Thus, he slowly filled my young soul with hatred against them.
The wireless operator of the ship was British. He was large, blue-eyed and blonde and had short curly hair. He was ugly and unlikeable, he reminded me of English officers behind desks, coldly issuing harsh orders, he reminded me of the ugly torturers of the EOKA fighters who, without wearing masks and with faces immune to the suffering of their victims, tortured young lads, sometimes even to death. With a little encouragement from my friend the pump man, my soul slowly-slowly filled with dislike and hatred for the “disgusting” wireless operator.
The wireless operator had no contact with anyone, he remained alone, closed in his narrow room with his machinery for company, listening on a 24-hour basis to various messages, unknown voices and languages, messages from other ships and coastal stations with nobody to relieve him as there was no second wireless operator. He would come down to the mess and take his food into his cabin. He seldomly greeted anyone and, whenever we came across each other in the narrow passageways of the ship, we both felt a mutual aversion. This went on for many days and, as time passed, I understood that our mutual hatred grew and was becoming dangerous.
Surely this situation was worrying, and I naturally discussed it with my friend, the pump man. He reassured me and told me that it was natural for this to be happening as the British never got over their defeat from the Cypriots but assured me not to worry because they were friends, and he would have a word with him.
Time passed and every time we met, I realized he looked at me with a wild look on his face, a look that I took as that of someone who wanted to attack me.
My friend the pump man advised me to be careful because, no matter how many times he spoke to the wireless operator, he was adamant and wicked, fixated like a psychopath, had taken the whole thing as a matter of patriotic pride, and was determined to harm me.
This story lasted a long time. When I later considered matters, the pump man had a lot of comings and goings between us, pretended to both that he was a friend, and created not only hatred and dislike between us but also fear that one was out to harm the other.
One day he called me and told me to be twice as vigilant because he realised that the wireless operator was a schizophrenic and was driven to madness by the hatred he had for me. From what he was saying, he concluded that he was planning to ambush me within the upcoming dark nights and throw me into the sea. I asked him what I should do, should I go to the captain? But he answered that aboard a ship there are no laws to protect me like those on land and that the captain would probably consider it a joke. Being gullible, I believed him because he was a veteran and I considered him to be my friend.
Things had come to a head. I thought of going to the captain but, by the time he ordered an enquiry, the bad deed would probably be done. I decided that I needed to act first. I should implement on him the plan he had for me. I knew that every night he would descend to the small kitchenette and fill a plate with cheese, salami and bread and take them up to his cabin to eat as he hardly slept during the day and night. In order to reach the small kitchenette, he descended from a higher deck where his cabin was situated, via external stairs.
I would lay in wait under the stairs that night and, using a large wrench taken from the engine room, I would strike him on the head and push him into the sea where he would be lost forever.
This thought terrified me, but I had no more time, the fear inside me for my life was intense, a living hell. It had reached a point where I had become a desperate man, determined to carry out my plan in the belief that it was a case of him or me.
I had finished my 16:00-20:00 shift in the engine room, showered and made myself a frape coffee. As I did every day during long, endless voyages, until my next shift, I lounged on the couch in my cabin and either read a novel or played my beloved guitar, entertaining myself and my loneliness.
That day, with my frape in hand, I sat on the couch thinking of the difficult decision I had taken and had to carry out. Filled with difficult thoughts I absentmindedly stared at the floor and then at the ceiling. My head was spinning and felt ready to explode as I tried to convince my brain to accept the big decision I had reached. Time was passing but I could not relax. To the contrary, I was getting agitated. It was a very difficult decision and I was deeply troubled. I thought about it, then thought about it again in an attempt to find another solution, but my mind was blocked and in despair.
At some stage, I heard a noise and lifted my head to see the wireless operator standing at my open door. I was startled and afraid and instinctively I jumped to my feet and immediately grabbed the wrench I had hung on my wall a few days ago just in case it was needed. I was ready to attack.
As I stood expecting him to attack me, I saw him suddenly fall to his knees crying pitifully, asking me why I wanted to kill him. Totally taken aback from this turn of events, I immediately realised that all was a nasty game played by the pump man for fun, to amuse himself in this way and satisfy his miserable and callous instincts.
- “Cypriot” said the wireless operator, in a shaky voice, “I’m an Irishman and I love Cypriots because we face the same struggles against the British. I never meant you any harm, why do you want to harm me?”
It immediately dawned on me. This was a misunderstanding created by the pump man who lied to each one of us in order to make us believe that there was an issue between us. As we both considered him a friend, we gave credibility and believed everything he said.
Realising the nasty and underhanded game played against us by the pump man without us having a clue, and now that everything had cleared, I felt relief and joy, but also great anger against him.
I invited the wireless operator to sit, we started talking and became friends. We explained everything to each other and started thinking how to get back at the pump man who caused us to live for days under fear for our lives.
Yes, we would certainly get back at him. An eye for an eye, especially now that we were two against one. We would let him stew in his own juice for a long time, knowing and fearing that we were definitely going to punish him. It was about time that he lived through a fear similar to the one he managed to plant into our hearts. And, when least expected and when we thought the time was right, we would get him back.
A SHOW OF STRENGTH
Pull-ups on a single bar are one of few exercises that measure the pure strength of an athlete. It is one of the exercises integrated in the training of sports and military academies, as well as in the training of security forces. In order to be successful in exercises on the single bar, the athlete needs to know that he is in for hard, painful and intense training, requiring a lot of work and patience.
Lifting the body over the bar in an upright position with arms stretched downwards for support is a very difficult exercise and one to be achieved only after a lot of practice. This is a very difficult position to maintain and, apart from practice, the athlete is also required to have a lot of physical strength. I watched a new officer cadet called Makis, if I remember correctly, doing this exercise on the ship and observed many trying to imitate him, without success. At first glance, the exercise seems easy as it looks like an exercise of simply swinging with technique, however, it requires great muscular power and a lot of practice in order to perfect it.
The new cadet was about 35 years old, with rough features and a well-built body, yet he had a kind and gentle demeanour. He formed friendships with the deck crew and almost every day they sat in the corridor outside his cabin and drank whisky until they collapsed. It was their fun and their way out of the interminable loneliness of the ship. He associated mostly with a well-built sailor who said he was a professional weightlifter.
He looked a little stupid, but his body was so solidly built, we called him “The Wall”. Just like the Chios islanders would always walk in pairs during the Ottoman occupation, these two muscle-bound strongmen were always together. They formed a powerful unit and using the hot and dry air on the deck over the engine room caused by the steam-producing boilers as an excuse, they walked around half naked, exposing their huge muscles, in a blatant attempt at showing off.
As the new officer cadet and I were colleagues, our cabins were close. Despite this, we didn’t form any particular friendship and he kept his distance. When we frequently met in the engine room, he would hang off a thick rail and execute difficult single bar exercises, wanting in this way to show off his strength and power. I interpreted these moves as his way of giving me the message that he was the sailor’s friend and would go against me in case I ever crossed the sailor again. A few weeks previously, I had words with his friend the sailor, and that offended him. This was the reason why the cadet held a grudge against me.
In the engine room of the ship there was an L-shaped rail with a ¾ inch diameter. It was next to the console with the control indicators. It started from the deck floor and ended at the base of the evaporator, forming a perfect single bar. This is where I exercised for hours and managed to become very good at pull-ups, having started my regime from the beginning of my commission on this ship and practicing during my night shifts and while everyone was asleep. However, at first, I could not manage this new exercise. Because of our non-verbal conflict however, I needed to succeed. Fortunately, I had not tried it in front of others, so I was the only one who knew my weakness. I felt I definitely needed to achieve this exercise because I knew that there is respect between adversaries when one acknowledges the value of the other. I believed that in this way, managing to execute this difficult exercise, I would prevent the two of them from trying anything against me in the future, due to my previous argument with the sailor.
Showing one’s strength sometimes acts like a form of defence and prevents bullying, but most times it is a sick characteristic of the bullies themselves. Though “bully” was initially synonymous with a strong man admired by everyone, the meaning of the word lost favour and now symbolised a “lad” who had no respect for anything. Bullies are a particular type of person, they are the protagonists of situations and don’t limit themselves to exhibiting their strength, they also exercise a psychological tyranny of terror and, through systematic and unprovoked oppression or even use of force lead their victims, that is to say, the ones who cannot react, into a stressful situation of fear that destroys them psychologically. The ultimate aim of the bully is retaining control, sometimes for the sole purpose of feeling powerful and confident. As most people want to be better than others, don’t have the way or the means to do so and yet still want to stand out, consciously or subconsciously they try to display their strengths and abilities. There are others however who still want to excel yet are noble and socially educated, so they try to do so through honourable competition, succeeding in this way to emerge as champions and prove themselves. These are proud people who do not stoop down to the level of appearing superior to the detriment of other, weaker, individuals. These are the people who have evolved away from the instincts of greed for supremacy, who have earned respect and admiration through their own worth and not through power.
For the next few weeks during my shift and after having gone through the standard inspection of the engine and auxiliary machinery which did not take me longer than 30 minutes, I exercised hard on the single bar wanting to perfect this exercise. In the beginning of my endeavours, my muscles became stiff and I was in a lot of pain, but I stubbornly continued exercising without resting.
Wanting to make the most from my routine, I exercised hard, and constantly pushed myself thinking that obviously, the harder I exercised, the better I would become. I was not interested in exercising properly, all I cared about was to complete the specific difficult stunt. After a few days, and I remember this as if it was yesterday, I managed to do the first pull-up. I was so happy, but during the next days, sometimes I managed it and sometimes I didn’t. Unphased, I continued without paying attention to the third officer who was on shift with me. The poor guy wanted some company to pass the difficult hours of our night shift and constantly tried to make conversation, but I took no notice and stubbornly continued my practice.
I remember some weeks had gone by, we were approaching Rotterdam, and I was almost ready. I was able to carry out some pull-ups with great effort, and this would prove that I was very good on the single bar…
I was on morning shift 08.00-12.00 that day, and the whole crew, both from the engine room and the deck, were on standby to dock. Our movements in the engine room were standard, the first officer overseeing the engine’s operation and the stoker either increasing or decreasing the heat in the boilers, depending on the desired ship’s manoeuvres.
We were all in a good mood because we were going ashore after a month at sea. Rotterdam, one of the most multicultural cities in Europe was known not only for having the largest port in the world but also for its drug and sex tourism, as both were legal. In the streets of Katendrecht one could see people strolling without a care in the world holding a spliff, and in shop windows, where other Europeans would advertise their products, in Holland they advertised prostitutes. They were inside the shop windows on display and the passers-by could choose and purchase their services, which were offered behind the windows, in specially designed areas.
So, in the midst of joy and expectation and in the prevailing light-hearted euphoria, all of us, mechanics, cleaners, oilers, cadets, electricians, third, second and first engineers, were teasing each other. A rather short young oiler named Mitsos, who came aboard at the last port, was waiting in earnest to go ashore and buy a plastic doll from a sex-shop, others were eager to buy substances and others to simply walk about and go to the Greek music taverns in town, renowned among the sailors.
I chose this day, while we were all gathered in the engine room around an open space and, with a leap, I grabbed the single bar and started doing pull-ups. I completed my display in a few minutes and with the corner of my eye I caught my colleague watching me with surprise all over his face. Others applauded and others teased me without realising the difficulty of the exercise, unlike Makis, who understood only too well and watched me full of surprise.
Pleased, and with the hope that he received my message, I leaned on the railings and watched the turbine on the lower deck spinning fast and whistling loudly, then gently, depending on the amount of steam the second engineer was allowing through.
We tied in port and those of us who were not on duty alighted and walked the long dock into the busy city. It was evening and while waiting for the night so we could go to the red-light district, we walked the town looking around or shopping, even registering landmarks to find our way back to the suspicious places we wanted to visit at night to unwind and relax.
The next day, in the afternoon and after we had sailed, I sat in my cabin with the door opened listening to the crazy bunch of seamen outside Makis’s cabin clinking glasses and laughing at their own jokes.
In the meantime, I had noticed a change in his stance towards me. He did not avoid me when meeting me previously and even on shore we sat at a pub and exchanged a few sentences. In other words, I had hit bull’s eye with what I had set out to achieve by executing the difficult gymnastics on the single bar.
He called me to join their group and have a glass with them, but I refused explaining I was not a drinker. He invited me to stand outside Mitsos’s cabin after he came off shift, to have a laugh when he inflated the doll he bought to use as a sex aid.
I liked the idea. In any case Mitsos and I were friends and had great laughs together so I was sure he wouldn’t mind.
So, Mitsos came off shift and entered his cabin that was between mine and that of Makis. We calculated the time he needed to begin his task and allowed it to pass, and all of us gathered outside his cabin, taking turns to peep through the keyhole, and listening to the sounds emanating from within. We heard him blowing hard and inflating the doll. There was silence until he drew another breath and then, a loud bang broke the silence. At first, we were startled and stood speechless unable to understand what had happened. Then a sailor shouted:
and we all fell about laughing.
Inside the cabin, Mitsos started swearing and shouting, not because he was interrupted half way through his sexual encounter, but because he was cheated and sold a faulty doll.
IERA ODOS – THE SACRED ROAD TO ATHENS
The vessel “EUGENIE” belonged to Stavros Niarchos company and was a seaworthy, 70,000-ton tanker. It sailed the rough waters of the Atlantic without much rolling and pitching because it had full a ballast and the ship sat low in the water and was therefore not at the mercy of the waves and currents. I remember it was a heavy winter and a few days before Christmas. We were travelling from the North Atlantic to the South and then to the Indian Ocean with our destination being the Persian Gulf to take on cargo. The Suez Canal had not opened yet, so we were forced to sail around Africa. We unexpectedly received orders to sail to the Skaramangas shipyards for minor repairs, mainly to paint the hull of the ship, because the company had no charter for us at that time.
The crew comprised of many races, but most members were Greeks, from Greece. On hearing that we were heading for Greece and they would be able to spend the Christmas holiday with their families, they were very happy and joyful. They welcomed the news with excitement and cheered, their smiling faces beaming. In the afternoon, after break, a big party was set up in the main dining room and, with captain’s orders, the second officer took free drinks out of transit and the steward served nuts and lots of goodies, adding to the joy and celebration. The booze was plentiful, but happiness prevented people from getting drunk, everyone was suddenly nostalgic to arrive home. The whole crew, officers, sailors, formed a festive crowd, enjoyed themselves and rejoiced with thoughts of returning home.
- “Cheers!” said the captain,
- “Cheers” answered the deckhand,
and they would clink their glasses.
At some stage, a third Engineer who was Cretan and called Minas, I still remember his name, a polite man and an intellectual, got up and made a long toast. Among other things, he said:
- “Santa Claus brings presents for the children at Christmas but this year he also brought a present for us.”
Yes, I thought, a wonderful Christmas miracle for all of us to enjoy. We feel wonderful and everything around us is brilliant, because it is a great and wonderful thing for a seaman to wake up on Christmas day in his home and with his family. It is a joy experienced mainly by people who are forced to live away from their families, especially seamen whose profession has them spending many festive seasons away from their loved ones.
We were sailing with the Atlantic Ocean at starboard and the Gibraltar Straits at port when we received the message for our new destination. We turned to port and entered the Mediterranean Sea, the largest enclosed sea in the world, contained by three continents, Europe, Asia and Africa. We sailed the straits accompanied by dolphins and seagulls. We passed Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia and finally Malta, left them behind and entered the Ionian Sea.
The Skaramangas shipyard is the largest and oldest modern shipyard facility in Greece and was founded in 1958 by shipowner Stavros Niarchos, our employer, for the building and maintenance of his ships but also for repairing the second-hand ships purchased by his shipping company. It was close to Athens And Piraeus so our access to both cities was easy.
We entered the harbour of Skaramangas and we tied on the pier until one of the drydocks became vacant for us to enter. Drydocks are big narrow tanks inside which large vessels just fit, supported by big cranes. When the vessel enters, locks are sealed, and the water is drained. Thus, the ship remains suspended and secured so that engineers may work on its outer parts without water getting in their way.
The whole crew hurriedly donned their best clothes and rushed to go ashore and run to their families, some close and others further away. The captain had arranged that only a few necessary crew members were to return to the ship the next day, in order to place it in the drydock. After this we would carry out a “blackout” and abandon ship.
As we still needed to carry out some maneuvers the next day in order to place the ship in drydock, the engine room remained operational. Being a Cypriot with my home far away, I was chosen to carry out the night shift together with a stoker. A sailor was chosen the same way to watch the deck and bridge. The rest of the crew went ashore with the families of some waiting for them at the bottom of the long steps as they were informed and had come to welcome their loved ones.
The next morning the captain returned with the second officer, the boatswain and the first and second engineers. Under the guidance of the shipyard’s pilot and the assistance of a tug and some light movements of the engine, we placed the ship in drydock. We then begun to carry out a blackout, that is to say, turn off all machinery and the power generator. The ship was now a dark, lifeless corpse, and we left it there. We were going to visit the offices of the company on Miaoulis street in Piraeus to be paid for our service. Those of us wishing to continue their contract would be sent to other ships or could wait for completion of repairs on the “EUGENIE” in order to continue their commission there.
Since nobody was waiting for me, I was not in a hurry to leave. I wanted to watch the process of draining the water from the drydock and see the ship on which I lived for almost one year standing out of the water, in its full size and in all its glory.
When the water drained and the entire ship appeared, the sight of it was impressive and a little daunting. Standing almost at its base and looking up its immense height, the whole sight was awesome. A magnificent monster, more than 300 meters long and about 10 meters high to deck level, and more up to bridge level.
I stood there quite a while admiring it and watched the workers starting to use machinery of the latest technology to inspect and work on the thick plates that spent years in salty water and had started rusting and needing debridement and a few coats of paint.
After a while I got tired and went over to a little hill opposite and sat at a table outside one of the shipyard canteens on a veranda and watched the huge shipyard under my feet buzzing with life and the workers and engineers working like bees.
Midday passed, afternoon was upon us, and I was still sitting there alone, with a wonderful feeling of standing on sturdy dry land without being rocked by the movement of the sea, sipping my fourth beer, with my mind a little dizzy from the brew, gently travelling on thoughts of the future and what was meant to be.
I asked the proprietor to call me a taxi and I headed to Piraeus. The “Voskopoula” was on a street off Akti Miaouli, a few meters up and was a coffee shop frequented only by seamen. It was the meeting place of all Cypriots working on ships and when I was on shore, I always lounged there in the hope of meeting someone I knew, or, at least, get some news about Cyprus as things on the unfortunate island after the Turkish invasion were difficult.
It was dark and people were walking fast, the locals wanting to leave the area before nightfall, as it filled with foreigners and people of the night, with Troumba street, the infamous area full of cabarets and shady pimps lurking around corners looking for prey, being parallel to Akti Miaouli.
I entered “Voskopoula” and had a look around but didn’t see anyone I knew. I sat at a table and ordered a large cool mahallepi desert with sugar, rose cordial and plenty of aromatic rosewater.
While enjoying this tasty Cypriot sweet, I observed those around me. After such a long time the Cypriot dialect echoed pleasantly in my ears, a sound so melodic and full of poetic rhymes, a language historians claim is a unique ancient dialect still alive today.
People were going in and out and I just watched. I had all of God’s time, I was in no hurry. I saw many different types going in and out, young boys and middle-aged men, some well-dressed and others shabby, some smiling and others looking morose. Each having a mix of feelings, each having his own set of problems, some were happy because they were ashore, and others were sad because they were about to set sail on long voyages. Tough faces, soft faces, faces sculpted by sun and salt, or pale from the misty air of the engine room. I was observant and I enjoyed crowd watching.
I sat like that for quite a while when suddenly at the door I saw my uncle Nicholis, my father’s youngest brother. Surprised, I called him, and he, knowing I was working on ships, was not too surprised to see me. I was, however, because I didn’t know he was abroad. He came and sat with me.
We sat and talked for some time and we caught up. Our conversation was endless, and so were the questions. He told me his news and I told him mine.
Due to the war, work on the island was scarce. He was a good builder and his profession was well sought after because the government was building housing for the refugees, the pay, however, was very low. So, he decided to sail as a deckhand on a small ship that smuggled cigarettes in the Mediterranean. This was a dangerous job because, if caught, he would be thrown in jail for many years. He was a risk taker however, so he took the risk. He was tall, a fully trained army commando expert at body to body combat, with or without weapons. During an occurrence on the ship when an Arab tried to stab the captain, he got in the middle, grabbed the blade in his bare hand, immobilized and arrested the dangerous criminal.
This type of ship employed all sorts as a crew, any criminal and lawless persons were welcome. Life was dangerous and many vanished in the deep sea without a trace.
The captain was a hardened man, inhumane and cruel, and this behaviour exposed him to danger. He immediately hired my uncle as his bodyguard and promoted him to first officer, with a fat salary to match the position.
I envied his good fortune because I had served for two years on Stavros Niarchos’ ships and I was still a cadet. This company did not usually promote seamen who trained on the job because they had their own shipping school that trained all levels of expertise. So, hearing how easily Nicholis was promoted to officer, I decided to ask the personnel manager of the company to promote me, otherwise I would switch company.
The sky over Piraeus was cloudy and dark without stars. Maybe it was getting ready to rain, but Akti Miaouli and its side streets were brightly illuminated under the neon signs of the countless shops and large streetlights on top of the electricity grid’s poles.
Nicholis and I left Voskopoula coffeeshop and headed towards Pasalimani to visit one of his friends who worked there. The plan was to meet him after work, and he was going to take us to a nightclub on Iera Odos. He was a frequent patron and he bragged that we were in for a good time.
Pasalimani, or, as it is known otherwise, the port of Zea, was a cosmopolitan part of Piraeus. The view towards the open sea takes the visitors on wonderful imaginary journeys. The entire coastal zone of Pasalimani is taken over by restaurants, taverns, cafeterias and all sorts of establishments where one can sit and enjoy Greek and Mediterranean delicacies washing them down with choice Greek wines and Ouzo, while enjoying the wonderful view of ships, yachts and sailboats tied at the marina or sailing on the calm waters.
When we arrived, it was late at night, but the little harbour was brightly lit and buzzing with life. My uncle’s friend worked in a fast food joint which mainly sold roast chickens and he delivered on a small motorbike. It was a tiny shop right on the pier which barely held the roasting oven and just managed to cook and sell the chickens. It also had two small tables on the pavement with two chairs each. It was a one-way street and immediately after was the sea. In this idyllic location and in order to pass the time until our friend got off work, we sat at one of the tables and ordered a whole chicken, just plain chicken with no sides, and a bottle of retsina. We ate and drank, talking and enjoying the beautiful view of the port of Zea, the renowned Pasalimani. Time passed pleasantly and I was very happy that after so long, I came across one of my own, one of my relatives.
Iera Odos is the oldest road in Greece, the national route that connected Athens with Northern Greece and Epirus. It still exists to this day and is well known, especially because of the antiquities found alongside it, but also for the best nightclubs of Athens. At the time, the 70’s, there were many seedy places and joints set up in prefabricated and makeshift structures, and Iera Odos was famous for them.
The seedy nightclubs known in Greece as “skyladika” existed during those decades but are no longer. The golden age of this type of club has passed and the youth of today don’t have first-hand knowledge of what a “skyladiko” represented in older days. This one word described a nightclub where the customer could find whatever he wished in terms of entertainment, female company, drugs, pleasure, enjoyment, joy.
It was late and my new friend finished work. He washed a little and soaked his hair with oil to made it shine. He had a thin moustache, just a line of hair on his upper lip, and he was the spitting image of Clark Gable.
The taxi let us outside a dark door with no sign. This was an indication that the joint was frequented only by the people who knew about it. It was passed midnight and, as the door opened, I saw a long room with empty walls and no decorations. It was practically derelict. In the back, a band was playing a soulful song and the bosses and staff were all sitting at one table. As soon as we entered, one of them approached accompanied by one of the heavies and greeted us wholeheartedly, as if he had known us for years. He obviously knew our new friend however, because he greeted him by name. He arranged for us to sit in a darkened corner and they served us graciously. Soon, the songstress of the place came to greet us, and we invited her to sit at our table. We ordered a large bottle of Johnny Walker whisky and filled our glasses. We were in the mood to get drunk and intended to go off the rails.
I noticed my uncle’s friend getting up and walking to the opposite wall, pushing a door that was not visible in the semi-darkness and had no sign over it, like “toilet” for instance. Despite this, I assumed he went to answer the call of nature. Time passed and he did not return, so I realized that he had gone to get high.
My uncle was immersed in a close conversation with the singer, so I was left alone to listen to the music and observe the place.
As time passed, the singer performed some songs from our table without getting up, while my uncle Nicholis ordered a second bottle, plenty of flowers and a few bottles of champagne…
At some stage the entrance door opened and a girl with a beautiful body entered. She walked with a limp as one of her legs was shorter than the other. She quickly walked to the table where the boss was sitting, and they exchanged some words. She then turned around and came to our table. I was not surprised because I understood that she was one of the girls used by the establishment to encourage the consumption of drinks, something like a shot girl. What surprised me however was her bold move as soon as she sat next to me.
It was a move I remember to this day exactly as it happened, as if it happened yesterday. Just as she bent her body to sit on the chair next to me, she leaned towards me and with a sudden movement revealed her breasts stuffing a nipple in my mouth. Startled, I remained motionless, not knowing what to do. I remember the soft skin of her breast, a plump breast, one of the most beautiful breasts I have ever kissed in my life. It seemed magical, sweet tasting and soft. I was mezmerised, spellbound, befuddled, I don’t know. What I do know however is that I remained motionless with my face buried in her cleavage. I liked it and responded to her touch, I thought that I was about to have a very good night. Listening to the sad melody of the bouzouki and the bittersweet lyrics of the song, with alcohol freely flowing while making out with the girl sitting next to me, I didn’t care how much we spent. I didn’t care, my uncle having an equally good time next to me didn’t care either, we had hit the jackpot and, as far as we were concerned, they could take everything we had.
Time passed, and we were still having a good time. The bill was increasing, and we gave no notice to the fact that our friend was still missing.
- “Leave him”, said my uncle, “he must be lying somewhere inside, high on drugs”.
As time was passing, the girls succeeded in making us spend more and more.
“This is the meaning of a “skyladiko””, I thought, “Just a few customers, yet the bills are getting higher and higher.”
At the same time however, I was also thinking “what if our money is not enough, what will happen to us in foreign country, inside a “skyladiko”?”
The police got us out of the tight spot. In the early hours, members of the police force raided the place and stood us all against the wall. We were all frightened, so nobody protested, the customers, the musicians, the bosses, us, nobody. At the time, the police force in Greece could do anything they wanted without being accountable and without being under an obligation to justify their actions. The arrested people as they liked and jailed them in holding cells for questioning. A slight suspicion is all it took. They justified their actions by claiming they wanted to reduce criminality that was on the rise and had reached great heights. Many were arrested and tortured, some had even disappeared without a trace. The circumstances prevailing at the time were chaotic, it was the time a little before the handing over of power by the Junta to the politicians.
After we were searched, we were led out into the yard and were ordered to get into the paddy wagon parked outside. They had also dragged our friend out with us. He was fully doped up and they laid him down on the pavement, unconscious.
- “God help us, we are going to suffer”, I thought.
I had heard stories about the behaviour of policemen against prisoners and I was overwhelmed with dread.
My uncle Nickolis, however, was more cool-headed and asked to speak to the officer in charge.
- “I have a brother who is an officer in the Cyprus Army” he said, “we are on your side, we are your brothers and we support you and your government”.
I was happy to see the officer give attention to my uncle, asking for his brother’s name.
- “Kokos Tapakoudes, he’s a second lieutenant”, he answered.
The officer in charge walked away, holding a walkie-talkie to his ear. He soon returned and told us that it was okay, we and our friend could leave.
They gathered all the rest into the paddy-wagon, and we were left with our unconscious friend alone and free, in the night.
The next day I went to the company’s offices and asked for a promotion, otherwise, I explained, I would leave to be employed by another company. The man in charge looked at my file and after reading all the information about me, looked at me with satisfaction.
- “You have a good record”, he said. “But, as you know, we have our own shipping school and our policy is to only promote our cadets. In your case, I will make an exception. If you are able to ship out immediately on the same ship which is leaving in two-three days, I will recruit you with the rank of Junior Engineer”.
Junior Engineer means exactly that, a junior engineer, it was the rank of a sub-officer who executed the duties of third Engineer. Of course, I accepted with great pleasure because the salary and overtimes would higher than previously but also because my ego was greatly flattered. The company had its own school, but my promotion was something I achieved by myself.
IN HOLLAND
I got off the bus and headed towards the shipyard where the “EUGENIE” was docked, looking new after her fresh paint job. She was, once more, ready to sail and as the company had offered me a new contract for the same ship, I did not refuse. So, I climbed the tall steps and presented myself to the captain and after to the first engineer. All formalities being completed, I stowed my belongings in my old cabin and went on deck on the side of the pier, leaned on the railings, and started watching the new seamen who were arriving one by one to crew the ship. The entire crew was new except for me and one sailor. He was the weight-lifting muscle-bound guy with the square body, the one we called The Wall because his body was as thick as a thick wall.
The ship was ready to sail, we just needed some more stores which we were to pick up on our way from the St. Nicholas port in Crete.
In the evening, all engineers, with the first engineer in charge, commenced the process of making the entire engine room fully operational. We started the electricity generator, the auxiliary machinery, the boilers, the evaporators and so on. In a few hours the whole engine room was in full operation, supplying the entire ship with energy, water, refrigeration, air conditioning. Everything was double-checked, and the engine was on standby.
At dawn, we sailed for our next long voyage with the engines on “slow”.
We arrived at St. Nicholas and anchored to take on board our remaining stores. The day started out with clouds and rain. The pump man, boatswain and a few sailors were on the deck preparing the winch to load while waiting for the launch, and they were commenting on the rain falling gently, washing the deck. Next to them, the second in command was listening while focusing his attention on the launch.
While the ship was anchored the rest of the seamen were watching the traffic in the port and the town of St. Nicholas from under the covered stern deck. Those of us not on shift stood looking at the beautiful small Cretan cove of St. Nicholas, a tiny but renowned fishing village.
- “It’s a lovely morning”, I heard the officer say, “we will get our stores, then head to Kharg Island and take on cargo for Holland. These are our instructions for the next charter, the wireless operator just got a telegram”.
Usually, we took on cargo without knowing our precise destination and received our instructions from the company’s office after the ship was loaded and ready to sail for any long voyage. This time we knew our destination before even sailing for the Persian Gulf.
- “There’s the launch, it’s coming” said the engine cleaner standing next to me and pointed at a large boat coming towards us.
As it approached, it reduced speed, stuck to our side and put its engine on idle. At the stern of the launch stood a man looking towards us in earnest.
- “He looks like my friend Antoneskos”, I thought to myself.
I stood watching him, surprised by the amazing resemblance, I was sure it wasn’t him since my childhood friend of twenty years, my lifelong friend, my friend from the same village and the same neighbourhood should not be here. I knew he was studying in Piraeus. I got the impression that the man was also looking at me but did not seem to recognize me. When he eventually came on board and stood next to me, it was with great surprise that yes! I did recognize my childhood friend Antoneskos! It was him, he had requested and got a job in the same company and the same ship as me. He wanted to surprise me, so he arrived without warning. My surprise was big, but my joy was even bigger, so I welcomed him with great pleasure. I helped him with his luggage and then took him to the captain’s office to report for duty.
So, in foreign lands and on the high seas I came across my friend and this made me very happy. I would have a companion and friend among the unknown members of the crew whose hearts usually turned hard and morose because people on tankers became cold and distant due to their great loneliness. In such surroundings and circumstances, it is a big deal to have a true friend because true friendship is a huge help when trying to deal with your troubles. Friends share joys and sorrows and in difficult times, one becomes the support of the other. Now, among Greek and sailors from foreign countries and different cultures, my friend and I will be companions and support each other.
From St. Nicholas in Crete, we sailed the tranquil waters of the Mediterranean Sea and through the straits of Gibraltar we entered the angry seas of the Atlantic. We sailed around Africa and after many, many days, we arrived at Kharg Island and tied at a platform to load our cargo. The return trip was not to be the same, it would be shorter. We would sail up the Red Sea and through the Suez Canal which, at long last, had been cleared of mines and sailing it was now allowed.
In a few days we were sailing through the Suez Canal and those of us not on duty were out on the deck observing the route.
The Suez Canal is one of the most important shipping routes of the planet. It is a manmade waterway, the largest in the world, traversing the Suez Isthmus and connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. It starts from Port Said in Egypt on the Mediterranean, the city of Ismailia known as the city of beauty and Charm is approximately half way and it ends at the port of Suez, in the Gulf of the Red Sea.
We sailed the Mediterranean and passed through the Gibraltar straits. We then sailed along the coast of Portugal, through the Bay of Biscay and along the coast of France, and entered the English Channel where, somewhere near Dover, we anchored and discharged part of our cargo via a pipeline. Rotterdam was close, and in a few hours, we had arrived and tied at the large Dutch port.
At the time, Holland was a country at the centre of the worldwide news reports because it was trying a groundbreaking system in relation to the use of drugs. The government imposed a policy which received a lot of criticism and was widely discussed. We had also read about these measures in the Greek newspapers, and within the narrow and strict confines of Greek and Cypriot culture, we thought it was very advanced and unheard of.
Because Rotterdam was a large port through which millions of people and containers from all over the world passed and which, after the war, became one of the biggest centres for drug trafficking and drug use, Holland, being a very tolerant country, prepared to listen to new ideas, applied a very daring drug policy. Having in mind to fight crime that emanated from drug smuggling, the government allowed the sale of small amounts of hashish in the renowned “coffee shops” of Rotterdam and other Dutch towns, under strict regulation. This policy led to the increase of criminality around these coffee shops and the street of Katendrecht was flooded by drug addicts and everything that accompanies them. It acquired the international reputation of being a bad neighbourhood. Bars and cafeterias opened and filled with every Tom, Dick and Harry. Suspicious contraband was rife, while pimps watched their prostitutes and dealers watched their runners from afar. In other areas, small groups of people would get together possibly planning small or big illegal operations or even robberies.
It was the afternoon, my shift in the engine room had finished, and with my mate Antoneskos, we descended the long stairs of the ship and headed towards the city of Rotterdam which was located near the harbour, the first thing on our minds being the procurement of prostitutes.
The town seemed deserted on that day, with very few people and cars on the roads. Many of the shop signs were written in Greek. Restaurants, bars, places where one could hear the “rebetika” songs, and many other establishments. It was like every other port, Greece was everywhere. The Greek immigrants made their presence felt and were the owners of many shops where seamen liked to shop. The Greek merchant fleet was, at that time, the largest in the world, and Greeks crowded ever port.
It was the 70’s and nowhere, apart from America and maybe Germany, were there shop windows advertising live prostitutes. They were lined up, showing their wares and beckoning to passersby to enter and enjoy special treatments. Touts stood outside trying to describe their saucy offerings. As we were accustomed from previous ports, we listened to them and continued walking and looking for something of interest to us.
We entered a cinema advertising porn and inside, instead of seats, there were individual stands covered in hard carpet, where viewers could sit or lie and watch the risqué films. The service was excellent, beautiful girls made sure that each customer was having a good time, and there were also bouncers standing discretely in dark corners with their arms crossed, watching. They were the guards who made sure everything was as it should, without diversions from the predetermined allowed game.
In the semi-dark cinema screening porn, the viewers could not touch the partially dressed girls. Only the girls could touch the viewers wherever they wished, only the girls had the initiative. That was how the game was played and everything depended on viewers’ tips and stamina.
So, we passed the day and the night found us walking in Katendrecht, the infamous neighbourhood with its renowned “coffeeshops” and usual suspects. It was like a festival buzzing with people, hippies with large bellbottomed trousers, just like fashion required, walking lazily up and down, sweeping the streets as they passed. In the distance, where Katendrecht street ended, there was a sign over a door which read “Hellas Bar”. We entered and were joyfully greeted by the Greek clientele and proprietors who eagerly asked for news of the motherland.
We had a good time there, with cold drinks, loud music and beautiful girls to keep us company and look after us. We spent the rest of the night there until our shift approached and we had to return to the ship. Satisfied, we started walking back. For days on end we would have a lot to say and discuss about our experiences in Katendrecht, during our breaks and during long nights, sitting under the cover on the stern deck, on long voyages over oceans and seas.
The crew of a tanker consists of the deck crew, engine crew and general services crew.
The deck crew includes the captain, the officers, the sub-officers (boatswain and pump man), sailors and cadets. The engine crew includes the officers, oilers, stokers and cleaners. Finally, the general services crew includes the wireless operator, the steward, cook, cabin boys and waiters.
In the “EUGENIE”, the cabins of mechanics and sailors were on the first deck above the engine. The deck level housed the kitchen and dining rooms, the next held the officers’ cabins and above those were the cabins of the captain, the first officer and the wireless operator.
In the beginning, as a trainee engineer, I slept in a cabin on the same level as the mechanics and lower crew, but after my promotion, I moved on the officers’ level.
There were two dining rooms for our meals, one on either side of the ship. They were big and roomy so that the crew could use them during their free time as cafeterias. The starboard dining room was used by the officers, and the port dining room by everyone else. Out of habit from my past as a trainee engineer and now as a junior engineer, I used both dining rooms, but I mostly used the second one because my childhood friend Antoneskos was a trainee engineer on this trip and he ate there.
It was a roomy area with air conditioning and a huge radio that would catch plenty of frequencies in the middle of the sea, so we always had it turned on to keep us company during our break.
The boatswain, pump man and the pump man’s assistant, a huge sailor with a square muscular body and a broken nose with a stupid face to match and who was also on our last crew, were buddies and played backgammon for hours.
The boatswain was short and red-skinned, with blue eyes and a permanent frown and I wondered how he managed to satisfy the criteria for his position. The pump man looked like an innocent peasant, a bit rough around the edges, but kind. Finally, the sailor looked like a modern-day strongman. He epitomized the phenomenon of super human strength reflected in a powerful body with obvious muscle power. As a young man he worked in construction and got involved with the sport of weightlifting by going to the gym every night after he got off work. He trained as a weightlifter during his formative years, so the constant training and exercise sculpted his body to resemble that of a strong-man.
They were all good players and from playing with each other for countless hours, their game became stereotypical. The square sailor was a good-enough player, but not as good as his companions who were more masterful. The rest of us were very interested in watching their games.
I, and I believe most of us, considered the square sailor as a personality that fell somewhere between a simple mind and an idiot, or even a moron. His square body and his physical strength compelled everyone to be friendly towards him and, with most crew members treating him in this manner, he became addicted to power and strength, and, as most people would, enjoyed it.
No idiot considers himself stupid and, while intelligent people realise their mistakes and try to correct them, idiots do not, and that results in them thinking and acting even more stupidly. When things do not turn out as they expect, they become angry and react with aggression. A skillful and intelligent person may find a way to advise and make them think more intelligently. Of course, a truly intelligent person when realizing just how deep their stupidity really lies, tries to avoid them because, at the end of the day, idiots only succeed in bringing destruction to those around them, and, indeed, without a morsel of regret. I didn’t like him because he was an imbecile, but I maintained a distance to avoid making him angry but also to avoid having any dealings with him.
My friend Andreas once made a comment on a mistake during a game and he took it wrongly, they had a bad argument and the rest of us had a very difficult task preventing him from harming Andreas. The comments were not a good reason for a fight, but the sailor’s idiocy made a big deal out of nothing.
In my opinion, a person is considered an idiot when he creates problems out of nothing thus becoming, at times, dangerous. The only way to avoid these consequences is to actually avoid these people, just as I was doing.
The sailor’s stupidity and arrogance didn’t allow him to consider the incident resolved then and there. He began a campaign of bullying and intimidation against my friend. He kept staring at him provocatively and making comments with innuendos, and this happened on a daily basis. As the days passed, instead of the situation being defused, it became more volatile, and the results were not going to be good. The tension increased and my friend was hanging on tender hooks, while, from his position of being the one with the mightier physical power, the sailor enjoyed the terrible bullying he exercised upon a person with a weaker physique…
This was a situation that needed to end. Even though we believed that two of us against one of him would still be difficult, we felt that, nevertheless, we needed to act because the situation was worsening as the days passed.
When I was present, he avoided provoking, possibly thinking that it would not be easy fighting two persons, so we agreed to challenge him and act fast before he had the time to react. We needed to act in a way that showed him to be at fault so that we would not suffer any consequences because we planned to cause him a lot of injury in order to give him the message that we meant business and that he should stop acting like a bully.
One stormy day while the crew were in their cabins, we cornered him in the cafeteria. Andreas went in first and, upon seeing the sailor’s sarcastic smile, he responded with profanities against his mother. The sailor was momentarily taken aback and could not believe what he was hearing. He sprang out of his chair and, feeling cocky against my friend, moved aggressively towards him.
I immediately jumped in from behind and with a strong hold immobilised his arms behind him. Andreas was ready with two knuckle dusters we had made for this purpose in the engine room and started punching him with rage. He hit him with such unforeseen hatred and would not stop. All the frustration he felt had turned into hatred and was now manifesting itself through his fists with immense fury. He struck him relentlessly, his arms moving like pistons.
The sailor did not manage to withstand the attack and fell unconscious into my arms. My friend however could not stop because he had suffered abuse every day for so long and his suppressed anger was now spilling over.
I let go of the sailor and tried to hold my friend back, but he had so much hatred inside him, he grabbed a heavy chair and smashed it over the unconscious body of the sailor. Seeing him motionless on the floor, with no reaction and no movement, he stopped and looked at him, great satisfaction spreading over his face.
We stood for a while looking at him until he started moving and groaning slightly. We looked out into the corridor and did not see anyone. Nobody saw us, nobody heard a thing. So, we decided to leave him lying there and flee, thinking that he would be too embarrassed to name us as his attackers.
We went to my cabin feeling pleased with the result and started talking and planning what to say in case the sailor eventually reported us. We were not particularly worried because the captain, at most, would impose a fine upon us, or expel us from the ship.
Hours passed, the whole night passed, and the next morning arrived. At lunch time, we went to the dining room to eat, but the sailor was nowhere to be seen. As soon as we entered, all eyes were upon us because everybody had realized what happened and nobody believed the sailor’s story about falling down some steps.
At the next port, the sailor left the ship.
MISSISSIPPI, NEW ORLEANS
I visited New Orleans many times in 1977. Because of the Greek sailors visiting its large port at the time, there were many Greek shops there, even a bouzoukia night club.
It is a beautiful area with a mild climate, a lot of greenery and many sights. Visitors fall in love with the town as soon as they set eyes on it and wish they could live there.
New Orleans is built on the banks of the Mississippi, the largest river of the country. Its waters flow for many kilometres until reaching the sea, and the wild natural beauty with old trees, colourful birds, beavers and endless swamps constitute a huge wetland ecosystem with hundreds of living creatures, alligators, reptiles and other amphibians.
Winter is mild and does not last long, while the summers are hot and rainy.
It is inhabited by people of many races with most of the population being of African descent. It was established as a French colony during the sixteenth century and its name was linked to the slave trade, riverboats and Jazz. The city of New Orleans boasts the famous French Market, the museum with the famous wax sculptures of famous persons and the Tremé Quarter where Jazz was born and developed, as well as the famous French Quarter and Bourbon Street, the former overflowing with jazz music culture and the latter overrun by houses of ill repute and criminality everywhere, out in the streets and behind bright lights where suspicious night activities coexist with carnal lust and other pleasures.
Bourbon Street, a name linked with prostitution and drugs. The street with countless establishments hosting hell and paradise, prostitution and exploitation, suspicious transactions between the lawless and big contraband behind closed doors. A busy street with vibrant and strong colours in the shop windows, yellows, greens and purples.
The passersby were mostly of mixed race, walking to the rhythm of jazz. The women were big, juicy and jaunty, showing off their big breasts and provocative behinds. They were negro, mixed race and creole, all beautiful and desirable with a firm step that made their firm buttocks wobble. I thought that, maybe, Paradise was right here, on the famous and infamous Bourbon street.
The shipowner Stavros Niarchos named the tanker that carried us to New Orleans “EUGENIE”, after his wife Eugenia. To reach our destination we sailed up the Mississippi, the largest river of North America, considered in the past as the boundary of the “Wild West” flowing down the country over a distance of six thousand kilometres and washing into the bay of Mexico, the largest ocean lagoon in the world. The call it the “great river” and is an essential transportation artery as it is navigable almost to its source. It is a wild river that man never managed to tame. When it floods, its waters cover vast territories. Various projects aiming to harness its great force always fail before its power.
On the ship I worked as a junior engineer and carried out the duties of third engineer. These were duties assigned to me by the first engineer because the third engineer of the ship had no idea about engines. Because of this, I carried out my shifts with him, as his equal. I was a good mechanic and deserved my promotion. The third engineer was a man from the island of Chios and he was recruited without having a diploma or knowledge of engineering but simply because he was a relative of the chief engineer of the company fleet.
He was from Chios and came along with his cousin, a stoker. They were inseparable, they stayed together in the same cabin, they ate together, they worked their shifts together exactly like the old story that says, 'peaple fron Chios always walk in twos', and all this, in breach of the regulations because on ships, there needs to be a separation between officers and lower-ranking crew. The third engineer was an officer while the stoker was just crew. In ships there are separate dining and recreation areas for lower-ranking crew and higher-ranking crew in order to keep the necessary distance which is conducive for discipline. In their case however, an exception was made, by orders that came from the higher echelons of the company.
The Islanders of Chios were mainly fishermen, a low-income profession as it depended not only on hard and dangerous work but also on the weather which usually renders the sea rough and wild. Therefore, they considered seamen as rich and aristocratic because they received a steady salary, and all wished to become seamen. Those who could, were recruited on ships.
One will therefore find many Chios islanders on ships in agreement with the well-known saying of “people from Chios always walk in twos”. The Chios people acquired this habit for mutual support, and even though it is misunderstood by many, it actually shows their intelligence. This support for each other became well known because, during the Ottoman occupation, a Turk in Chios had the right to ask a Greek on the street to lift him on his back and carry him. The Chios islanders could not accept this and, instead, loaded one of their own on their back to carry, so they would not be forced to carry a Turk.
The two men from Chios were friendly and very likeable. Their extreme kindness was etched on their faces and no bad words ever came out of their lips. For days and nights, we carried out endless shifts together, and we really got on well. Many years passed since then and they are of the few that I can still remember their names. Mikes and Stamatis. Mikes was simple and thickset, just like the strong and thick trunk of an oak and his strong arms could bend steel. Stamatis was slight and pretended to be devious without being very clever in reality, but this bothered nobody, as they all saw his kind side. In any case, nobody would dare mess with him as his cousin was always next to him, standing like a brick wall.
As our shifts coincided, so did our shore leaves. Before our first shore leave in New Orleans, we mainly talked about the sinful Bourbon street we were going to visit and how it was filled with shops stocking all types of pornographic material, sexual services for sale and all kinds of sex toys and accessories, enhancing substances and all sorts of secrets on straight or gay carnal pleasure. This is where all the clubs were located and where the famous naked go-go girls danced seductively and sensually, lifting the libido of the audience.
In those days, it was fashionable to have go-go girls in bars. These were beautiful young girls who danced practically naked on poles and stages a little higher than the customers, for their enjoyment, but the customers were not allowed to touch them. They danced slow routines, alone and held the male population spellbound. They only wore a tiny string and that was the only place where customers were allowed to touch in order to hang dollars as payment for the wonderful shows they were staging. Any other contact was strictly prohibited and for this reason there was discreet surveillance of every customer’s movements by bouncers, for the prevention of any unauthorized contact. God help anyone who dared breach the bar code. Immediately, countless bodyguards would appear out of nowhere and savagely beat the culprit.
We reached the infamous street and followed the call of one of the many touts outside the bars, into an empty bar. A very beautiful and petite dancer was gyrating on the stage and beckoned us to enter. As soon as her eyes fell on the stoker, she stood right above him, possibly considering that he was an easy target being so slight and kind-looking.
Stamatis was wearing a brand-new suit that matched his tie. He was freshly shaven and bathed and was doused in fragrant cologne. He looked like a well-paid merchant marine officer and, in comparison, wearing our plain clothes, we looked like his subordinates.
So, the little dancer zeroed on the well-paid, in her opinion, officer, considering him to be a good customer. She probably thought that she was going to get good tips from him.
We sat near the stage and enjoyed the view she offered with her dancing, but she was gyrating over the stoker as if we did not exist, and she was not going to leave him.
The minutes ticked away, but the stoker did not offer any tips. The girl, annoyed, was getting closer to him, thrusting her pelvis into his face and making him heave with desire. We thought, and, most probably, so did the stripper, that he was doing this to pretend that he is a tough little man but would pay eventually. He had placed his cigarettes and gold lighter on the stage and had devoted himself completely on watching the beautiful girl. By now, she was dancing angrily, indicating to him that he should hang money on the thin thread that held her flimsy underwear together. In the end, having received no response, she stopped dancing and vociferously demanded her payment. The damned stoker, however, proved to be stingy and refused so the young girl grabbed his gold lighter and moved away from us. He was about to go after her, but I realized that we were going to get into trouble and grabbed him by the arm to stop him. I explained to him that if we made a fuss in these places of ill repute abroad, we would disappear without a trace. The stoker was very upset because his lighter was gold and therefore expensive and he said that he was going to make a fuss to get it back, even if this meant he was going to get a beating.
Seeing that we were not going to get out of this situation, I told him to wait and give me a chance to think. I came up with the idea of grabbing the lighter from her when she least expected us to do so, since she was alone in the little room, and immediately running away fast so that the bouncers of the club standing behind the screens could not catch us.
It was a difficult moment, we had taken a big decision, but we were forced to do it because the stoker was going to make a fuss anyway. I knew that we were in a dangerous place, protected by tough and dangerous people of the criminal world who would surely rush out upon hearing the slightest noise.
So, we put our plan to action, the stoker grabbed the lighter from the girl’s hands, and we ran. I still have flashbacks of their terrifying voices swearing while chasing us.
I don’t know how many there were, nobody looked back, but we ran at great speed. I am sure that, had we run the 100 metre sprint that night, we would have come first.
Our sprint led us to a narrow street, and we saw the boatswain of the ship standing in a lit doorway with some sailors. We stopped there feeling that in the company of our own people, we would not be in danger. And, indeed, we realised that we were no longer chased, and our hearts went back to their normal beat.
The bright door was the entrance to a Greek night club. Above the door there was a sign that read “ATHENS, Greek Bouzoukia”. We went up the stairs and found all the crew that was not on shift sitting and having fun the Greek way, with the sound of bouzouki music playing Angelopoulos’s song “I am a refugee”.
I served as a trainee mechanic and Junior Engineer on four tankers belonging to the Stavros Niarchos company. The “Southern Union”, the “Eugenie”, the “Eugenie S. Niarchos” and the “World Knowledge”.
We usually took cargo on board from the Persian Gulf and mainly from Ras Tanura. During one of our voyages to this port, we remained anchored for two months. It was difficult times for tankers and, until the ship owning companies entered into the next charter, a lot of ships remained anchored and waiting outside ports. It was the first and only time we needed to wait for so long.
After loading our cargo, we set sail for Cape Town, a voyage that was quite long and lasted one month because the ship was using economy speed. In Ras Tanura we usually loaded from platforms that were at a distance from the shore. That long voyage, together with remaining anchored and waiting, kept us at sea for three continuous months. In my nautical career, this was the longest period I stayed on a ship without setting foot on dry land.
The long voyages, as well as the short time tankers were required to stay in port because discharging the cargo did not take too long, drove many seamen to choose cargo or passenger ships for work.
Tankers are dangerous ships because they carry liquid cargoes that are unstable. They sink and break in two more easily. The seamen working on these ships are men with stamina who have courage and patience and who can withstand a life full of danger and seclusion. A voyage on a tanker is an unsurpassable magical experience because the seaman lives between the sky and the sea for a long period of time, alone, with only his solitude and lonely thoughts as company, surrounded by the elements of nature.
During this voyage, we came across many storms, large and small. Others against us and others behind us, pushing us along and, depending on their force, we either sailed along or against them. One storm during that voyage really caused us trouble and frightened us more than any other. The waves were immense, they grabbed the large ship and lifted it onto their crest as if it was a walnut shell ready to break. As it rose, it creaked with a horrendous slow sound, like from another world. All of us on shifts in the engine room and the helm, but the others also, who were on standby and alert, counted the seconds it took the wave to lift us holding our breath. We breathed out only when we felt that we were descending the wave. We brought to the forefront of our thoughts what we should do in case the ship broke. Would we have time to get out onto the deck and lower the lifeboats? Would the pull of the ship drag us down or would we have time to distance ourselves?
There were also lovely days, and nights with a full moon and calm seas. On those nights, when the sea is like a milk pond and the moon is full, we would get the chance while on deck to be carried away, reminisce and feel nostalgic.
One night, I finished my shift in the engine room and came out of the hot steam onto the deck to breathe some fresh air. It was a night with no stars and no moon, the sky was dark and ink black, yet the sea glowed white and reflective, a vast expanse up to where the eye could see, a strange and inexplicable phenomenon, a beautiful and enigmatic spectacle that caused awe and admiration. Charmed and ecstatic, I stood and observed the limitless phosphorescent glow without being able to explain it. I was looking at it trying to understand it but had no answer.
We had a sixty-year-old stoker on board, from the island of Chios. He had retired and went ashore to live out his remaining days but could not tolerate the tranquility of land life and went back on the ships without even thinking of his advanced age.
Anyone talking with older people always learns new things. However, he didn’t have an explanation for the phosphorescent glow of the sea, all he knew was the story of the Fairy from an island, who surfaces from the bottom of the sea and walks on the waves to meet her beloved Captain Giorkis. This is when the phenomenon occurs, the sea goes white and the rest of creation falls into darkness….
It is a story, an old myth, about a worker in the shipyard who didn’t like building caiques but instead loved sailing in them. He longed for adventures on the waves. He loved the sea, it was as if the sirens and sea fairies beckoned him. So, he sailed, the years passed and, as a Captain, he travelled distant and dangerous seas. The Fairy cove however, was his haven, his anchorage, his home. He travelled extensively, voyages were his whole life, but he always returned to his haven. There, he had his home and his wife who always waited for him scanning the horizon. She adored him greatly, he was her captain, and she was his beautiful wife. Everyone was envious of the Captain and his good luck…
But, one damned and dark night, Giorkis’ caique disappeared during a storm. The villagers waited for days to hear news but there was only silence. Those who knew about travels and sailing could not offer any hope for survival. His wife did not want to believe it and mourned him for many days, until she could no longer withstand the loss and lost her mind. Nobody could find her at home, she was always at the seaside gazing and waiting, and crying unconsolably. Until one day she heard the Fairies of the sea calling her. With her hair loose and a smile on her face she walked into the waves and was lost in the depths of the sea in search of her beloved Captain. Since then, every time there is no moon or stars, the sky is dark and the sea is calm, a white majestic phosphorescent light emanates from the deep, and some people see the Fairy walking on the waves and disappearing beneath them.
This is a story of local Greek folklore, a legend, maybe a true story, showing the pain of those left behind.
During this voyage, I saw beautiful places, I saw the sea full of little boats with fishermen far from the shore, fishing in deep waters with no engines on their boats, with just a small sail on a small mast. I saw the sea brimming with fish, I saw her change colours, I saw her phosphorescent in the night and emerald in the morning, I saw her take the best of all the colours of the rainbow, an exquisite and beautiful vision, a balsam to our souls and our hearts.
I saw many more things, but the stories of the old stoker filled my mind and took over my thoughts, casting a shadow over the beauty of the new seas as they caressed the feet of the tall ridges on the shores far away on the horizon.
TRAVELING ON THE SHIP "EUGENIE S. NIARCHOS"
THE SANDSTORM
Life on a tanker proved to be very hard, more so than I had imagined. Despite this, I gritted my teeth and decided to persevere. I didn’t have that many options anyway.
We arrived in Saudi Arabia and anchored waiting in queue for an order from the port authority allowing us to tie at the platform and load our cargo.
The days were passing, and we received no message. Those were hard times because there was a financial crisis and therefore difficulties in closing deals for the transportation of petrol. So, out of necessity, we waited for almost a whole month.
During this stressful wait and a few days before receiving a message from the company that it had secured a charter, I was standing with the handyman on the ship’s deck. It was a summer day, hazy due to the hot air coming off the sea mixing with the vapours created by the scorching sun evaporating the water, and we were looking at the yellow sand stretching beyond the shore at a distance of approximately half a kilometre from us. The endless sand covered the country of Saudi Arabia, creating a lifeless scenery with no vegetation.
The desert of Arabia is a dry area but every now and then, and quite rarely, it is beaten by gale force winds and heavy rain. It is a vast uncultivated area with a lot of sunshine and permanently parched soil, inhabited by tanned, dark-skinned people.
Despite all this, in its endless desolation, in certain locations there are small oases, that is to say, places with greenery, mainly palm trees, and water wells. In the old days, these were stations for the merchants’ caravans crossing the desert transporting wares from one city to the other and from one country to the other. They were places of rest, replenishment and shelter from monsoons and sandstorms. The winds blowing over the desert are quite strong and very often create whirlwinds that change the terrain of the desert forming wavy valleys and tall sand dunes, sometimes huge and artfully sculpted, like works of art.
These were my thoughts as I stood under the shade of the stern gazing at the great expanse of the desert shore. We were about half a kilometre away and the hazy atmosphere created a shimmer that formed strange and savage shapes floating over the ground.
My mind had recalled bad thoughts. As we know, when something sinister comes to our attention, our mind races to equally sinister thoughts. Subconsciously and for no reason, just by looking at the shimmering air creating all sorts of incorporeal shapes, my mind took me to evil yellow images of hell and apocalypse.
Knowing that malevolent and strange monsters come from the sea and the sand, I suddenly saw, or thought I saw, the beast of the apocalypse taking shape in the scorching haze and leaping from the sand into the air, filling the sky with its huge body. And immediately I brought to mind the words of John the Evangelist “then I saw a beast with ten horns and seven heads rising out of the sand and sea…”. And, as I watched, the huge shadows of the sand transformed and changed shape, becoming a beast with horns and many heads.
Suddenly, the beast turned its head towards us, and with a mighty whirl flipped its whole body, and attacked us.
It was a whirlwind, a desert storm, and in fractions of a second, from one moment to the next, we were cloaked in yellow sand with shards of sand mercilessly beating us and scratching our faces before we even managed to seek refuge inside the ship.
With our eyes bleary from the sand we entered the safety of the ship and stood at the port hole watching the rabid wind forcefully carrying the heavy sand that beat the bulkheads and whistled eerily, deafening and scaring us. It was a phenomenon I had never seen before but had read about it in books. I had never imagined what an uncontainable force and fury sand could be when swept by the wind. It savagely beat the thick panels of the ship making a terrible noise that pierced our ears and made our eardrums hurt, frightened our hearts and caused us to panic.
With our senses numbed by the stress of watching the magnificent show, I watched this natural phenomenon in all its glory. Hoping that nature’s fury would quickly die down and the strong wind would abate so that the beast of the desert passes us by, I watched dumbfounded and without being sure within myself whether I had fear or admiration for the majestic phenomenon taking place before my eyes.
And the beast left, just as it had appeared. Suddenly. It disappeared into the horizon, leaving behind a total silence, without the slightest of sounds. As if time had stopped and stalled life itself. The deck was covered in sand. Whole mounds had gathered in the ship’s remotest crevices. I noticed that the panels of the ship had changed colour. The force of the wind carrying the sand was such that it stripped the paint and revealed the thick undercoat in many parts of the ship. “The sailors will have a lot of work in the coming days”, I thought.
At the bow I saw the metal door of the bridge open and the second officer climbing down the steps. I knew he was going to call the boatswain and order him to clean the sand and dust off the ship. At the same time, I saw the stern deck door opening and the boatswain coming out to meet the second officer, sure, as he knew his job well, that the latter would be looking for him.
I also headed towards the engine room because I too knew my job well. I knew that any minute now the telephone in the engine room would ring and we would receive an order from the bridge to commence the sanitary, that being the pump that sent seawater to the deck where the sailors, using hoses, would wash the whole ship of the dust and sand.
NAGASAKI OF THE SAMURAI
A little before the twentieth century, a group of Samurai warriors wiped out a whole family, butchering them with their famous swords. This was a crime that needed to be punished in order to restore justice. The administrative authorities however recognized that the Samourai were executing orders issued by their master so, instead of convicting them and bringing them shame, they allowed them to carry out hara-kiri and die honourably in accordance with their standards, as honourable warriors, since the laws of the Samurai dictated that they obey their masters blindly, without question nor resistance.
This was an incident that shows the Japanese way of life before World War II when many things changed, and the Japanese started to lead a way of life closer to western standards.
Nagasaki is a Japanese city known through history as the city of the Shogun and the Samurai.
Shoguns were the senior military leaders and masters of the Samurai during the middle ages and the Samurai were armies of the great Feudal Lords with a mission to guard their property. Their culture was founded on the quintessence of a warrior of great ability and high level of training. Their main dogma was honour defiance of death, they fought bravely for their master and preferred an honourable death than the shame of being defeated. The tradition of hara-kiri, a ritualistic way of suicide as the only permitted way out in case of defeat or dishonour, emanated from this defiance of death.
As a people, Japanese culture differed from that of the Europeans. Generally, their way of life and behaviour was very different. The noblemen belonging to a higher social class used the masses as tools to serve their needs.
During the centuries, this way of life remained the same with the only changes being those in who possessed the power. The traditions and beliefs were not changed. Even the architectural building principles remained, to a great extent, unchanged, the main changes being just in decorative details, while during the passing of the various dynasties, they were subjected to just small influences from extrinsic factors. Their architecture basically adhered to its own elements and managed not to be influenced by European architecture.
Nagasaki is built on a long and narrow cove that forming a natural harbour. We were relieved when we entered the harbour and prayed to thank St. Nicholas who helped us to safely navigate the wild Indian ocean. Voyages on this ocean were very difficult at times, due to the monsoons blowing in alternating directions and creating different surface currents and large waves.
We had endured a long voyage that caused us hardship as the sea was rough and with winds high up on the beaufort scale making sailing difficult. The waves swept over the ship for the duration of the voyage and the sailors on the bridge as well as the engineers in the engine room put up a big battle. We were tossed about more than other times because the waves and currents were against us. We were forced to sail slightly parallel to the weather to reduce our risk, and that resulted in our voyage lasting longer.
Following the long voyage, we returned to the Persian Gulf. After remaining anchored waiting for the company to secure a charter, we sailed for Japan.
We loaded our cargo at Ras Tanura, one of the main energy sources of the modern world. They named petrol the “black gold” and they were right, as it’s uses are unlimited since ancient times, before it was even discovered.
A long time ago, petrol leaked on the surface of the land, and in japan and elsewhere, it was used as naphtha and bitumen. When natural gas leaked, it was used by high priests and sorcerers as a force sent by the Gods.
Nowadays, after the World War, access to petrol was easy as huge reserves were discovered mainly in the Middle East, and it was transported to various countries with tankers.
Our cargo holds were loaded with tens of thousands of tons of mazut destined for the needs of the ancient city of Nagasaki, a modern city that during the last years, had developed into a large industrial centre.
We entered the safe harbour and tied at the dock. The sailors of the ship and the port workers worked like bees and in just a short time, the engine room pumps were ready to begin pumping the valuable liquid cargo on shore. It was a little after noon. I had finished my shift and had eight hours to kill until the next one, and for sure, I was going to use these hours to tour the new country I was visiting, the land of the rising sun.
Japan is an East Asian country. It is comprised of four large islands, Kyushu, where Nagasaki was built, Honshu, Shikoku and Hokkaido, as well as around seven thousand other islands sprinkled over the Japanese Archipelago. I was eager to experience the Japanese culture and the behaviour of the local population. At the time karate films starring Bruce Lee as well as adventures of the invincible Samurai battling with their swords against the rifles and machine guns of westerners were very much very much in vogue.
I wanted to walk around the shops with the famous Seiko watches and the cheap, superior technology electronics. I wanted to taste sushi and get to know Geishas and their story. Sushi is a traditional food based on vinegary rice combined with seafood and sauces with exquisite flavours. Geishas were educated women with special training in the arts of dance, music, singing and poetry and used to serve in the large feudal courts of the middle ages.
Nagasaki has a history starting thousands of years ago. During the middle ages the city had become a centre of European influence and became known as the second city after Hiroshima that was hit during World War II by an atomic bomb. It was totally annihilated as if hit by a gigantic meteorite. It was a total catastrophe caused by splitting the atom in an attempt by man to replicate the might of God. Everything turned into fire and people burned and melted like candles. Corpses were strewn everywhere and the dying, like mummies without eyes, staggered before succumbing to death. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in just seconds, ceased to exist and were reduced to dead, smoking, hollow cities. Shapeless piles of rubble were reduced to their molecular composition and covered the areas where once stood the buildings that formed the cities.
….And after this total destruction, people rebuilt their city. They gave it a new look, modern and European. High skyscrapers and sprawling building complexes were built from scratch and the fast development of high-end electronic industries made the city rich and prosperous. People worked at a fast pace, like ants in a state of complete discipline. Everything was orderly and programmed.
I expected to come across different things, similar to the things I read in books when I was a boy. I expected to recognize the culture and ancient history of the powerful feudal lords and emperors protected by vast armies of Shoguns and Samurai. I expected to meet women in kimonos and men in modern clothes piled into buses going to work. But I met nothing remotely reminiscent of those things. Everything was in absolute order and wealth was evident everywhere. Shops with expensive jewelry and electronic goods that had not even been imported yet in other countries, well-dressed people in expensive suits walking without staring curiously at us because we were different, and streets full of only locally manufactured cars. It was a rich and developed city, more so than other cities of modern Europe.
AN ICY CHRISTMAS AT SEA
Even in winter, the sea is beautiful. When the gentle splash becomes a roar that frightens all your tranquil senses, even this fear has a beauty. When the sea gets rough and shows her anger, when the blue water turns white and murky, when ships and shores vanish under the sea’s currents and mighty drag, when waves rise into the air and dissipate moisture filling the atmosphere with salt one can taste and smell, one realises the grandeur held and hidden by the sea, how strong she really is.
Many times, the issue is how one looks upon the sea. A wild sea in a cove, waves crashing angrily on the shore or savagely eating away at the coast, or, even from afar, looking at her from the top of a hill, enjoying the whole view in all its glory, without, however, having all one’s senses experience her true dimension since the sea’s roar cannot be heard nor can her great strength be felt when violently stirring the waters.
I have felt and I have faced her might in the middle of the sea, in angry and rough waters, when travelling in seafaring ships across dangerous oceans from one country to the other, far away, at the ends of the Earth. We faced extreme cold, snow and ice that froze the drinking water in the ship’s tanks. We travelled in sub-zero temperatures that cooled the exterior sides of the boilers in the engine room which we touched with pleasure in order to warm ourselves. On long voyages we had never done before, in places where the sea froze over, and the waves remained suspended like solidified liquid sculptures.
I remember it being Christmas on one of these long and endless voyages. The wind was icy and the fog covering the sea was lethal.
On board, sailors and engineers were thinking of our loved ones at home and with frozen hands we would light a cigarette in the hope that the smoke would warm our innards and our cold hearts. We walked on the stairs and in the corridors in an attempt to get warm. The wind was so cold it burned like fire and the extreme cold penetrated the hermetically sealed metal doors and froze our bodies’ extremities, causing frostbite.
I wondered; is there really a Hell, or did God create it upon this Earth? Is it possible that fiery Hell be worse than the merciless weather that burns us with such frost?
I shook my head thinking this to myself while huddled next to the boiler to get warm. Next to me, the old stoker, Gasfikis, said that never in his long sailing career did he ever come across such freezing weather. He said that he never before celebrated Christmas in such unbearable cold.
The sailors in the dining room were feeling even colder and ecstatically watched the portholes freezing over while, outside, the wind howled, appearing to have taken solid form as it froze the sea vapours in midair.
Festivities, and particularly religious celebrations at sea and away from loved ones bring upon us a feeling of sadness. The loneliness and nostalgia of Christmas saddens sailors and their thoughts are with the people they love, and they are immersed in dark thoughts, reminiscing about wonderful festive family gatherings at home. It makes no difference how well they have come to terms with the loneliness of isolation, away from their people, especially at Christmas their thoughts are inundated by memories of adored voices from past Christmases and their nostalgia increases.
And so, Christmas day passes, and so do all other festive days on seafaring ships travelling for days with just sea in the horizon, in every direction. Those who decide to follow this profession, know how lonely isolation can be.
However, during this voyage, our sad thoughts of home were compounded by the cold weather that froze us to the bone and numbed our bodies, the large waves that shook the ship, and the freezing wind that frosted our breath and caused us pain from the intolerable cold.
This was weather that neither I nor the other sailors on that ship had come across before on the seas we had travelled. It was freezing conditions before Christmas with a wind so cold it burned like fire, and the extreme frost went right through us causing us immense pain.
TRAVELING ON THE SHIP "EUGENIE S. NIARCHOS"
WILD WEATHER
The engine was groaning and struggling to propel the ship against the waves and currents. It needed a lot of horse power to move because it was a huge tanker of 350 tons, but the engine was strong and modern and we continued to sail without concern and worry in our minds about the wild weather that raged outside, in an unprecedented expression of anger.
The “World Knowledge”, the huge tanker which, in 1978, was the third largest in the world, could sail under the most adverse conditions. It was constructed to withstand the roughest seas without sinking. This is how it was designed in theory and on paper, and we hoped it was made the same way.
What man-made thing however can withstand God’s fury? How could science surpass the Creator? The forces of nature are unsurpassable and only fools dare to stand against them.
During this voyage through gale force weather and very rough seas, the waves became stronger and larger, reaching the dark sky and becoming one with the frightening angry weather. The sky was as black as bitumen, just like the fear that nestles in the hearts of seamen when witnessing the extreme deterioration of the weather and the viciousness of the waves as they become stronger and beat against anything they come across. Lightning brightened the darkness and the thunder covered the roar of the sea. The currents combined forces with the waves and the strong winds, in an unforeseen catastrophic force making our huge ship look like a nutshell swirling in a maelstrom of nature’s forces.
Despite all of this, we felt reassured having in mind the good specifications of the ship and the only thing that worried us was the possibility that such a large ship could be broken in two when lifted onto its crest by a big wave.
One of the biggest seaman’s fears during bad weather, are the squalls and storms that put the safety of the ship at risk.
Many seamen who cross the oceans in tankers and cargo ships have stories to tell about unbelievable and surreal yet true occurrences and events they witnessed with their own eyes. Things and situations they experienced on board ships when nature violently unleashed her elements in a wild magnificence, dragging ships and drowning seamen in their wake.
Seamen also say that, when the sea becomes so rough, nothing stays as it was before, neither the sea nor the shore, and that Noah’s deluge was nothing more than an outburst of the sea’s rage.
Some sailors say that they encountered waves as high as 30 metres and that this is a secret of the sea kept for many centuries and that science is not aware of them since the highest waves ever recorded are up to 10 metres. Many, therefore, question seamen when they describe the existence of gigantic waves and doubt what they say. Despite this, some seamen insist that they really exist do and that they embrace ships they meet and lift them to extreme heights, then drop them into the chasms of the sea. Rarely has a ship survived an encounter with such wave and not often will one hear a seaman talk about them, since usually nobody survives to tell the tale.
Such waves may appear suddenly from nowhere but may also be created by extremely bad weather and excessively rough seas. While there is a chance for a ship to withstand the former as they are high but roll smoothly creating even peaks, nobody survives the latter because they are ruthless and as they move, they form maelstroms and currents.
During that long voyage, the sea and the sky created a surreal setting with the waves reaching the sky and the dull horizon reaching the ends of the Earth fiercely beautiful and terrifying, filling our hearts with fear and causing worrying thoughts. The salty water from the waves crashing on the ship was carried by the wind and hit the thick plates of the ship generating a screeching and hair-raising sound that pierced our ears while the spray created by the aftermath clouded the port holes as salty water left its mark on the glass.
The view was frightening and nightmarish on the one hand but, on the other, our fear was somewhat set aside by the magnificence of the raging weather.
An artist experiencing such vision would be greatly inspired. Arion would write dithyrombs and Euripides tragic and sad poetry.
Many land dwellers would like to experience the sea at its angriest at some stage of their life, but they would like to do this from a position of safety, either through a film or the narration of a seaman, or by reading descriptions of storms and rough seas.
There are also many who are afraid of her and do not even want to see her rough, influenced by many writers who have praised her beauty but also interpreted her fury in its correct dimensions, and who have described how easily she sank and swallowed ships and people.
The sea is very charming for those who have lived and loved her, but she also inspires fear and true horror for most that have not had the chance to become acquainted with her. Many do not even dare to board a ship no matter how big and safe it is, and prefer never to travel and never feel the amazing feeling of a traveler, never get to know other amazing and beautiful places apart from their own country, maintaining at the same time the feeling that their own homeland is the whole world.
The sea is strange, magical, beautiful. She is a seductress more so than a woman, and dangerous like fire. When she is calm, she is like a sleeping lover, not complaining, nor moaning, but when she is enraged, she raises waves and forms strong currents, both dangerous and deadly. In her depths she hides unnamed secrets and tragic stories of drowned men and ships that disappeared in the mist, lost forever. Kelp as big as trees and other flora grow in valleys and gorges that host beautiful fish but also fairytale dragons that cannot fit in the imagination of man. Unexplored mysteries human knowledge has never investigated and will never discover. She rages at a whim and raises huge waves that darken the sky.
The seas and the oceans are the children of Gaea and Uranus, the first Titan of the Earth that created all the bodies of water now existing on Earth.
The blue sea, the grey sea, the murky sea, the sea of so many colours that change according to the wind that blows, the currents formed and the atmospheric pressure and gravity.
The sea that is sprawled to all corners of the Earth and covers the largest part of Earth’s surface, that spreads over the horizon and blends with the sky, a union so perfect, two elements creating one majestic vision, an unfathomable and amazing picture.
The sea is beautiful and magical, whether she is calm, rough, asleep or raging. She is mysterious, dangerous and frightening, but she is also well-loved. In her body she hides unknown, lost and sunken shipwrecks; she hides the entire history of the world that is around her, since the beginning of time and the creation of the Earth. Thousands of shipwrecks sit at the bottom of the sea and myriads of flora and fauna specimen live in the oceans.
The large ship tore through the big waves with the propeller steadily spinning against the resistance of the currents. The high waves carried us to their crests exposing the bow and the stern, both hanging in the void. And we would hear the screeching sound of the plates balancing the weight of the ship without the support of the water and the metal hull crackling hollowly and hair-raisingly, and then we would hear the sound of the ship crashing back and sinking into the water.
But the “World Knowledge” was an enormous tanker, the third biggest in the world and could sail through the worst weather conditions as it was built to withstand the biggest tempests without sinking. This was the design of the ship in theory and on paper, and this was how well it was made, to carry us safely. And, as seamen, so we hoped.
The sea has many unseen secrets, well hidden under bottomless and unknown waters. An area with the most mysteries is the Bermuda Triangle. It is situated in the western part of the North Atlantic and is designated by Bermuda, Miami and San Juan of Puerto Rico. Aircraft and ships are said to have been mysteriously lost in this area. They did not sink but disappeared and were transported to another dimension.
Stories and myths have attributed these disappearances to paranormal activity, and this is the reason why many scientists claim that this is a myth because, after investigations, no evidence of paranormal activity was found.
However, the incidents that took place are many and unexplained and for this reason this location is also known as the Devil’s Triangle.
There are countless theories about the mysterious disappearances, some relating to natural and others to paranormal phenomena.
The inhabitants of this area have their own stories about the mysterious disappearances, their own versions about the Bermuda Triangle and call it the witches’ place because of strange evidence that was found in the sea. The wreck of a metal ship that went down with all hands aboard stands at 300 metres depth unaffected and in the same good condition, sitting for many decades on the bottom of the sea in an unnatural position, and scientists cannot explain why it remains unchanged by the passage of time and the wear and tear in salt water. Many stories are being told and, because the instances of disappearances in the area are countless and increasing, the infamy of the Triangle relating to passed shipwrecks and mysterious disappearances are starting to be analysed under the light of myth and paradox.
The crew of the ship had a discussion regarding the surreal and paradoxical stories of events that happened as told by many seamen. During this time the shipping company of Stavros Niarchos, my employer, had entered into a contract to carry out a number of routes for the transportation of petrol from Libya to Freeport in America.
I had finished my service on the ship “Eurenie S. Niarchos” and was immediately recruited on my fourth ship of the same company. It was the “World Knowledge”, a huge tanker both in size and tonnage, the third largest in the world. It could take 350 thousand tons and was over 500 metres long. Because it was too big to tie up in ports it usually anchored in deep waters and loaded and unloaded from platforms. This was the ship I happened to be working on at the time.
Our route started from the terminal in Libya and after sailing the Mediterranean, we entered the Atlantic Ocean. With the Bahamas as our destination, we passed through the dangerous waters of the Bermuda Triangle and arrived in Freeport to discharge our cargo.
On official maps the area of the Bermuda Triangle is not mentioned as such nor is it recognised, it is simply mentioned orally as an imaginary area created by people. Despite this, the mystery around this area is real, and so are the aircraft and ships that were lost.
It was a quiet winter night, the sea was calm and the sky was covered in stars. There were no clouds covering their brightness.
The only thing reminiscent of winter was the sharp cold and all of us who were not on shift gathered early in the warm sitting area to watch a film the reels of which we had secured at the previous port. It was a documentary about the dangerous waters of the Bermuda Triangle, precisely where our ship was sailing at that very moment.
It was a very interesting documentary with quite a mysterious theme, covering the strange and inexplicable things that happened in this sea, and it made our imagination run away with us, allowing a feeling of fear and unease to take over. Strange thoughts entered my mind and as I was very young, I was easily influenced and fell into a spiral of fear and paranormal theories on the strange phenomena taking place in this sea. I started thinking that maybe it would be our luck and the same would happen to us, if not during this voyage, maybe during the next, or the one after that, or another, since the ship was to carry out several voyages through this sea.
With worrying thoughts swirling in my head but also a lot of curiosity, after the film was over I went out onto the stern deck to see the notorious Devil’s sea where so many inexplicable things had happened and upon which it was our fate to be sailing at that very moment.
I saw the sea all black and dark, the stars unable to light it with even a little reflection of their brightness. It looked like bitumen, exactly as it would be if it were the Devil’s. Even the waters churned by the propeller were not white but also remained dark. I thought it was weird and unnatural that, under the bright light of the stars shining in the sky, the sea remained so incredibly dark. Something did not seem normal, something seemed to be in the atmosphere, something paranormal, something out of this world. Something that was probably only in my thoughts, but which affected my imagination and caused me to have worryingly scary thoughts.
I looked intensely towards the length of the horizon trying to distinguish something there apart from the absolute darkness, even if just a shadow. I needing to pacify my affected thoughts and convince myself that we were not sailing over an unnatural sea in another dimension to which we were possibly transported by paranormal phenomena happening in this damned sea of the triangle.
I looked up at the stars in the sky and I was taken over by an even bigger worry because I saw some of them fade slowly and unhurriedly, gradually becoming extinguished and dark, allowing the solid darkness to take their place. The whole ship was immersed in darkness and the only indication of light was the sliver of brightness shining through the crack of the metal door leading inside the ship.
There was no indication of any natural threat emanating from the sea, it was just a deep feeling of fear within myself that was born from stories told by people who claimed these had happened, weird and disturbing stories that upset my subconscious and caused phobias to grow within my conscious mind.
I leaned on the railings and stood immobile like a statue, feeling a threat permeating the atmosphere. My imagination was galloping out of control and bringing to the surface of my memory stories about this place that I had watched previously in the documentary. I shivered with the fear that I felt was slowly going through me. I tried to convince myself that the impregnable darkness that had just enveloped us was not due to unnatural or paranormal phenomena taking place in the area but was probably due to the weather and that fog and cloud had covered the stars and the sea creating this absolute darkness, this bottomless, black colour of the night which suddenly covered us and brought terrible thoughts to my mind that, like the ancient Furies, upset my whole existence….
I am not aware of how much time passed, but my bad thoughts had caused me to stay immobile for a while, until at some stage I was made aware that the darkness was fading and was being replaced by the rosy light of dawn, while the black colour of the sea also started turning blue, the natural colour of water and sky.
It was the beginning of a new day, an ordinary day like so many others and, as the light disbursed my dark, bad thoughts, I realised with relief that they were most possibly creations of my mind.
ENGINE REPAIR IN ROUGH SEAS
Since ancient times liquid cargo, mainly oil, wine and grains, was transported from one country to the other in amphorae and later barrels. This lasted until World War I. As man progressed, his needs increased, so easier solutions needed to be found.
The Greek captains and ship owners thought, “why load products in barrels onto the ships and not build ships like barrels, with tanks in their cargo holds?”
And so, the Greeks were the first to build tanker cargo ships. Firstly, they were small but later became much larger.
During the reign of Onassis and Niarchos, beyond all logic, they built tankers exceeding a 350 thousand tonnage.
The “World Knowledge” was a 350-thousand-ton ship and it was carrying us across the Pacific to our destination, Korea. The sea was rough, but the huge ship tore through it with ease.
I thought it was going to be an easy voyage without problems and without any serious incident in the engine room as the ship was quite new and all machinery was automatic and of the latest technology.
We were heading to the port of Seoul and a few days into the voyage we entered the Yellow Sea of China where we found rough seas that were worsening fast.
The Yellow Sea took its name from the colour of silt and sand carried down into the sea by rivers. It takes on a yellow colour during the strong storms that frequently hit it. So, the sea was yellow, and the atmosphere had changed. The wind picked up and the day became darker.
As if the deterioration of the weather and the yellow sand from the deserts of Chine in the atmosphere were not enough, one of the engine’s pistons decided to break.
The engine had eight huge pistons that moved the propeller. It was not easy for it to move with only seven, because this would cause even more damage. We needed to anchor and change the broken piston. The ship carried all the necessary spare parts and the senior engineer officers had good knowledge on how to proceed with the repair of the engine. Had we been in port, we would receive assistance from shore but as we were in the middle of the sea and in a raging storm, all the hard work needed to be carried out by us. The problem we were facing was the roughness of the sea that was getting worse by the minute and a ship, without a working engine, is out of control and at the mercy of the weather.
We anchored and got to work. It was a difficult job, and dangerous, because the ship was rolling and pitching, and this did not allow us to work. The broken piston was huge, so huge that, when we removed it, we hung into the cylinder where we fitted with ease and started polishing it. It was an arduous task that exhausted us, and the constant rolling and pitching kept changing our direction of gravity. While hanging in the cylinder, we needed to maintain a steady position and balance, with our knees resting on the walls, in order to have the necessary strength to scrape the petrified soot caused by burning fuel.
There were only a few members of engine crew because the ship was state of the art and automated.
Everything was operated from a control room within the engine room which was a huge room with consoles, boards and panels covered in all necessary indicators and switches which, with the correct handling, gave the relevant message to the engine and auxiliary machinery. All of us, even the First Engineer, got down to work. The risks were high, the sea was getting worse and, in case the current turned us against the weather, and we were hit by a large wave from the side, we could sink.
Three days and nights, we all worked very hard without sleep or rest. Others were rubbing the heads with emery powder and others were preparing the new piston that was stowed for a long time next to the engine. It took a lot of work to clean, polish and prepare it. However, the difficult work was carried out in the cylinder. We waited for hours until it cooled down, and then we had to remove huge amounts of petrified soot that were attached to the walls because of the damage. Only one man fitted inside at a time, so we took it in turns to hang, and using scrapers and cutters, we first scraped and then polished well, without leaving any trace of any substance on the interior metal.
The first engineer was a really cool guy, a man with an imposing personality who did not use yelling and anger but only good manners. He had a foreign sounding name, Gatagas. It’s the only first engineer’s name from my entire nautical career I still remember today, after so many years, because we never called the first engineer by his name as it was customary to address him with the English term “Chief”. He was always polite and approachable and was highly appreciated by the entire crew, and especially us, the engineers.
He summoned us all in the control room and calmly described our situation. He explained that shutting down the engine in such rough seas was a great risk, but we could not do otherwise. For this reason, we needed to surpass ourselves and work without rest in order to change the piston as fast as possible before a big wave took us under.
With the threat of imminent danger and with great responsibility we all set to work under the guidance of our first officer. The second and third engineers, the junior engineer (me), oilers and cleaner, we threw ourselves into the hard battle against time to beat the weather.
The day passed, and so did the first night. We held out well and withstood. We ate on the go, we practically forgot what coffee was, and did not even stop for a smoke.
The second night came upon us and we had not yet finished. Our worry increased because the weather was getting worse and fatigue started leaving its mark upon us. When we entered the cool air of the control room for a coffee, no matter how hard we tried not to fall asleep on the chair, our eyes would close on their own accord. I remember it like it was yesterday; I would force my eyes to remain open with my fingers. I remember well that I allowed one to close and rest, and then the other, while with my fingers I held on to my eyelids, in a desperate attempt not to sleep. Despite the effort, however, I remember that for a few seconds, Morpheus would get the better of me and would throw me into a few seconds of sleep, full of disturbed dreams, some nightmarish and some pleasing. In split seconds I had glimpses of dreams containing real and imaginary events, parading in front of me as if real, like a cinematographic film in fast forward mode. I saw us teetering on the crest of a wave and then diving into deep darkness, I saw us immersed in murky waters unable to breathe, and, as if moonstruck, would jerk awake trying to catch my breath. I even saw us floating in calm waters under a blue sky with low flying seagulls, a good omen, a sign that we were approaching our destination. And me, standing against the railings and gazing into the horizon trying to catch a glimpse of dry land.
The second night passed, dawn was upon us and at last, we finished. We tightened the last bolt and made a final general check. The First Engineer informed the captain and received an order for “ahead slow”. Crossing himself, he pushed the parallel control and started the big engine. Everything was OK, we slowly picked up speed and at the same time we felt the ship steadying itself and the pitching and rolling reduced. The mighty engine was turning the axel effortlessly and the propeller pushed the water back and thrusted us forward, hurriedly leaving behind the rough sea in anticipation of entering the safe harbour of Seoul.
Since long ago and until today, sailors’ lives have been harder than those of land dwellers. The hardship of isolation away from dry land and people, and existing in an infinite expanse of water, lead to the development of various mentalities and ways of thinking.
Man has the charisma of adapting to the difficulties he faces, by acquiring abilities, and developing particular behaviours and habits that he incorporates in his way of living as a means to make his life easier.
Therefore, when a sailor spends most of his life on ships, when he mingles with a handful of people, namely his colleagues, his range of interests remains limited. When he lives away from his family for a long time, his desire to return causes nostalgia and sadness. So, it is natural to invent ways of breaking the monotony of his everyday life, ways that a land dweller would not turn to because of having alternative solutions that are unavailable to a seaman. Some seamen, while battling with the unworldly elements of the sea, acquire boundless knowledge because, as they sail all the seas on Earth, they become omniscient philosophers, and with wisdom though experience, pass onto others, knowledge about things and undiscovered wonders that are hidden in the oceans’ depths.
Oceangoing ships undertake voyages that take many days and their crews anticipate the few hours when they tie in a port somewhere, and desperately seek means to entertain themselves and let off steam.
So, at each port there are places for the entertainment of seamen. Knowing the intense wish of their customers to let off steam and freely spend their money, some clever businessmen have adapted entertainment to fit the needs of sailors, and in particular, Greek sailors, as in those days most of the ships were Greek. In many countries with big ports with a capacity for many ships, there were Greek entertainment establishments. Cape Town, New Orleans, Costanza, Rotterdam, everywhere.
The monster tanker “World Knowledge”, my last ship, tied up in the port of Seoul during the early hours of the morning. By then, I was on the ship for about ten months. Life on this ship was good, it had every comfort. There was a large library with all sorts of books and a beautiful area to relax, where I sat during my endless off duty hours, leafing through and reading books. During the voyage to Seoul, I looked up Korea and was informed of the country’s history.
Seoul is the capital and the largest city of South Korea. The city served as the capital during old dynasties and after the establishment of the Republic of Korea in 1948, became the capital once more and was considered the main city of the nation. It is one of the most densely populated cities in the world.
Korea had been taken over by Japan in 1895. The Japanese occupation was brutal, it forced the population into forced labour and the women into obligatory prostitution for the needs of the occupation armies.
A little before the fall of Japan, Russian and American troops invaded the country and agreed on its division.
The Communists settled in the North of the country and the western forces settled in the South. In 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea starting a civil war that lasted three years in which Greek troops also participated, as allies of the USA.
The war ended after three years with a treaty, basically leaving things in the same place as they were when it had started, without victors, but having been a terrible tragedy with many victims and no benefit to either side.
Since then, there is a cold war in progress between the two sides, an unproclaimed hidden war of provocation and altercation.
At the time of my voyage to the country, America was more dominant in the world than the Soviet Union, but this did not give us a great feeling of security because Russia was still the super power that supported the dictatorial and unpredictable regime of North Korea.
Therefore, as we were advised by the Captain, we ventured into the town cautiously, looking to do some shopping and have some fun. While the city is one of the most densely populated cities of the world, there was little traffic on the streets. The shops were meagre and had no wares of interest to us. We walked the streets without finding anything of interest. We passed a hair dressing salon two-three times and the two girls inside smiled at us. On our third time, the electrician and I decided to go in. We had just shaved on the ship, but since they were inviting us in such a nice way, and since they were also beautiful girls, we went in.
Immediately the little hairdressers welcomed us and sat us down on the chairs. The spoke very little English, so understanding each other was difficult. I was young and hardly had a beard and while aboard the ship I only shaved every now and then when we were in port. During this voyage, my only blade turned out to be blunt and this resulted in me scraping my skin and I was now in pain. However, the young girl was very good at her job. She first applied cream and then compresses to soothe the skin and lessen the pain. Afterwards, with great care she cut the hairs one by one with an old fashioned and very sharp blade, with her soft and skilful fingers and hands.
The shop was not busy, and our treatment lasted quite a while. We felt we were in good hands and relaxed. They treated our face, our hair, the nails on our fingers and toes, they even gave us a light massage with their experienced hands. We really enjoyed the treatment.
With their little English and mostly with sign language, we managed to understand each other and when we asked them out on a date, they happily agreed.
It was the afternoon and the young girls were coming off work in a few hours. To pass the time we walked around the city and at the agreed time, I met my date at a café-restaurant on the same street.
A young man with long hair, most probably a hippy, was strumming an electric guitar and sang popular songs of the time. Next to him he had a classical guitar and I thought that he was probably a classic guitarist who, due to popular demand, also played an electric guitar.
We had planned to eat, relax and listen to music and then, whatever the night brought.
The food on the menu was different to the European food I was accustomed to, and so I ordered crab as a starter, and then a steak with a strange name in the menu, food I thought I knew. My new friend ordered her own, and, while waiting to be served, we continued getting to know each other.
I was presented with a giant boiled crab in a huge plate. The taste was exquisite and gave me an appetite for more. After a while, the chef came out of the kitchen with two assistants and stood at our table. One of the assistants held a small frying pan brimming with hot oil that was still sizzling from too much heat and he placed it on a counter, inside a big plate. The chef picked up a monstrous raw beef steak and put it in the overheated oil and cracked two eggs on top. With grandiose movements, he then proceeded to serve me, wishing me Bonne Appetit.
I watched the whole procedure incredulously but being in a foreign country I decided not to express any doubt. The eggs were cooked but the steak merely changed colour; when I sliced into it, it oozed live blood.
So, I ate the eggs and left the steak untouched, as I preferred my meat well done, and not practically raw. In a foreign country where the Captain had advised we be careful, I decided to stay silent and not protest. In any case, I felt sure that this is how the Koreas ate their food.
The crab and the eggs proved to be a full meal and my hunger was well sated. I ordered two brandy cokes and we leaned back in the comfortable chairs to enjoy the guitarist’s music. At some point, he started playing a Greek nostalgic song by Xatzidakis which left me listening ecstatically. The musician understood this and played another, then another and I was overjoyed, sang along with him and applauded enthusiastically.
The musician was pleased to have found an audience and leaned over to pick up one of the score books scattered on the floor beside him. He picked up a thick one and placed it on the stand. He continued playing Greek Xatzidakis and Theodorakis music and the exquisite melodies filled the place. There were a few customers, but they also focused on the notes filling the atmosphere, a true sign that they were enjoying the lovely Greek music.
The musician had abandoned his electric guitar and took the classic guitar in his hands, strummed it softly and beautifully as he played. I had never heard music being played so amazingly. He gave the songs such colour and his unprecedented execution together with the equally amazing Greek melodies bewitched our ears.
The classic guitar is not necessarily a particular musical instrument. The term classic simply indicates an artistic creation that has a time defying and ecumenical value.
The artist I came across in this faraway country was a brilliant virtuoso and as I listened, I was ecstatic and enjoyed the sweet melodies floating in the atmosphere. I dedicated myself to listening to him and ignored my date a little, but she also showed the same attention to the heavenly music.
Greek music has a special place in all countries of the world, and I love it. Countless songs have been translated and sung in the most unlikely languages. Here as well, our virtuoso guitarist, mostly playing but also singing just a little, sang songs of Greek giants Hatzidakis and Theodorakis in his language.
The hours slipped by and, while enjoying the music and with the help of some alcoholic beverages, as “wine gladdens the heart”, I reached a happy and pleasant state and told myself I wished daybreak would never come. It satisfied and lifted my soul which brought some feeling of relief to my immeasurable nostalgia for my country as I had been away from Cyprus for over four years.
The kind musician did not stop playing at all, responding to the happiness that he saw spreading all over my face. He played Greek songs by the two composers non-stop until, oh no, the time reached twelve o’clock. It was his time to stop, but for me, he continued playing. With good will, I wanted to actively thank him, so I put my hand in my pocket. I had 200 Euro and I offered half to him as a tip. He didn’t want to accept it, but nobody says no to money, so with a little insistence from me, he accepted it with many thanks.
And this is a seaman’s life, adapted to fit into the conditions imposed by life at sea, sometimes bitter and sometimes sweet.
THE SEA IS OUR MOTHER, OUR DESTINY, OUR LOVER
It was the vastness of the sea that accompanied me together with memories from dry land, fairy tales and stories I heard about pirates and drowned seamen in the holds of their ships. It was that I survived great storms and fished huge fish, monsters of the sea. That I witnessed weddings of colleagues in foreign lands and new customs, morals and cultures. That I got to have different experiences in every port of the world, in heavens of depravity, enjoyment, excess and delinquency behind curtains offering anything the mind could wish for, as well as dangerous adventures for those who wished to seek them.
It was my memories as a seaman that may seem unbelievable and cause incredulity, it was a period in my life that scarred me permanently and left upon me an indelible mark. Those who have experienced these difficult but sweet situations know. And yet, they continue to love the sea and fight it daily, saluting her mockingly and showing no fear.
These however were not the only things that marked me, but my observation of the seaman’s life when, sailing on large tankers with the sea and the sky as their only companions for two, three months, they no longer had regular behaviour, but wanted to break their monotonous days that followed identical days containing the same boring, usual things, by creating intrigues and then sitting back to watch them and have something new to do. It was that I always had to be careful with what I believed, that I should never trust anybody, maybe it was a Law of the seamen that they should not love each other but only love the sea. So, I loved the sea and I was dragged by an invisible force to be near her.
I sailed on my first ship without loving the sea, she tortured me at first in a small ship sailing the Black Sea, the same sea sailed by people in historic times, where the shores were crowded by ancient civilisations and modern cities, and where under the surface, in her bowels, opposing currents clashed and swirled causing currents that rocked the little ship and messed with my stomach causing me to spill my innards.
Despite the difficulties however, the pull of the sea is great and whoever lives with her falls in love and cannot live without her.
I sailed continuously for five years and, when I came ashore the thought of abandoning life at sea started to torture my mind. I decided to marry an old love and decided to become a home body and land dweller. At first, everything was good, and I was happy, there was love, I was in love, everything I ever wished for. After a while however, the love of the sea that was not extinguished within me, made me long for and reminisce the endless nights of total solitude on deck, the heavy thud of the ship’s engine in the engine room, the endless shifts where a cup of coffee in my hand, drinking it sip by sip, was enough until I was relieved and another came on shift.
Until one night, at the small coffee shop of the village, I met an old seaman from the village who had just come ashore, we sat and drank, and talked about the sea and the ports. I felt the pull of the sea once more, I felt that my life ashore had no meaning. I knew that if I remained on dry land, I would be miserable, I realised that I would not manage to survive. With my memory running wildly to those times, nostalgia choked me, and I was taken over by sorrow. And under the influence of drink, I felt my longing becoming a sharp nail piercing my chest.
So, in the stupor of alcohol, I took the decision to sail again. I knew it was not easy, that everyone would try to stop me. So, I would sneak off like a thief, I would tell nobody, and would let them all know once I was far away…
But I never took the big decision and remained a land dweller forever. The years passed, but I cannot forget the sea, I stand on the beach, gaze at the horizon and wonder whether I regret not sailing again, but I have no answer. The only thing I know is that the Sea is a song, an experience, a mother, our destiny and our lover. Those who love her and stay away from her miss her lullabies and her immense love.
Squalls, gales, cyclones and storms. These are the companions of seamen when traveling the seas in their seafaring ships, sailing across the oceans from port to port.
I was nineteen when I left my country and ventured out to foreign lands. I abandoned my tormented little motherland destined by God centuries ago to suffer the same history of enslavement and persecution, time and time again. I left a few months before the Junta’s coup d’état and the subsequent Turkish invasion sparing myself of the civil unrest and brutality of the invaders.
THE WEDDING PARTY 
Instincts and tendencies drive people towards certain human behaviours and reactions. They exist before memory and learning develop and are integral characteristics of our biological species. As cerebral anomalies from birth, they dominate and determine various human behaviours for dealing with certain situations, through the body’s neurons.
