The Journey Home Begins

Odysseus and his men after leaving Troy first landed at Ismarus, in the land of the Cicones that was likely in Thrace. Odysseus' men pillaged the city, and took their women. Although Odysseus thought it was time to leave, his men did not listen, as they were drunk. The Cicones brought reinforcements, and chase them out to sea.  This sets the basic pattern for most of Odysseus' difficulties. 

As we were familiar from study of the Odyssey of Ulysses’ problems we decided to forgo the consumption of alcohol while in the high seas and keep a distance from women at our landings.  As I do not have the talent or the imagination of Homer my descriptions of our experiences at sea will be rather ordinary and as close to the truth as my memory allows.  I will start with our wonderful sailboat, a nine meter J92, aptly named “Vol de Nuit”.  In this picture the four sailors who participated in our epic journey standing on our sailboat.  The first on the left is my colleague and friend Nikos who was our chef par excellence and also our able minister of our finances.  Next to him is my brother Nikos an experienced seaman and our captain who like Odysseus brought us back home safe.  I am the next who may qualify for the distinction of being the oldest sailor who crossed the Mediterranean on a little sailboat.  My main function being the navigator a task I performed with the use of maps, the assistance of a GPS and the use of the stars at night.  Next to me is Kostas the youngest in our crew who won my admiration as one of the most able sailors I ever met.  It turned out that some of the most memorable experiences during our passage on “Vol de Nuit” were at night and similar to those of the protagonists of the wonderful novel “Night Flight” by Antoine De Saint-Exupery a sensitive author and pioneering aviator who lost his life in July 1944 in a mission to Corsica.  It is with great respect that I dedicate this post to the memory of this wonderful human being.

We departed Costa Brava with the friendly people of Cataluña and our friend Stephan biding us goodbye.  We headed east and sailed first the Balearic Sea and the southern most fringes of Golfe de Lion or Bocca di Leone which is feared by many sailors for the Mistral a ferocious northwesterly wind.  In our crossing the winds were weak and we were becalmed so we decided to use the iron oars of our 9hp diesel engine.  The engine carried us comfortably for a while but for some unexplained reason it decided to quit.  The mechanically inclined members of the crew jumped to the opportunity and tried to bleed the fuel system but to no avail.  Although I dissented as I was of the opinion that the root of our misfortune was that we embarked to our journey without offering at least part of the “hamon” we bought and carried with us to Poseidon but nobody listened.  While we were pitching and rolling in the wine colored sea as Homer described them and literally baking under the strong sun we heard an unusual sound.  When we turned, we saw to our delight two whales that were swimming nearby.  I am sure they were fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) as they had fins on their backs and they are the commonest whale species in the Mediterranean Sea.  Fin whales are usually found in the deep, offshore waters of the western Mediterranean region for most of the year and in the winter, they tend to disperse and occasionally venture in the Adriatic, Ionian and the Aegean Seas.  Although we were advised to avoid them I would like to suggest that seeing one of these wonderful mammals is an unforgettable experience.  I think the stories of whales attacking boats are either figments of sailors’ imaginations or grossly exaggerated.  We should keep in mind that whales are in their element and habitat and if a so call attack is recorded must be an accident. Because all our attempts to start the engine were for naught we finished the 300+ nautical miles crossing to the port of Propriano in Corsica under sail.  During this crossing one member of the crew (NZ) fell victim to a virus or as I am inclined to believe his fever and weakness were due to the wrath of Gods, as we did not make a proper offering before our departure.   

Odyssey and our Epic Journey

It is impossible to know the locations Ulysses and his fellow sailors visited in their legendary trip from Troy to Ithaca.  As many ancient authors I believe, that the hero of the Odyssey was driven west from Cape Maleas in Peloponnese and, more than nine years later, returned from the west to his native Ionian islands: his landfalls are therefore to be found in the western Mediterranean.  The locations listed above in are those in the opinion of V. Berard in his work “Dans le Sillage d’ Ulysse”. 

Our journey and landfalls were also in the western Mediterranean.    We started in Blanes a small town in Costa Brava and headed east towards Corsica and then via the Strait of Bonifacio to the Tyrrhenian Sea.  We then headed south along the west coast of Italy to the Aeolian Islands and Sicily.  After we departed the charming Salina we crossed the Strait of Messina, where the feared Skyla and Charybdis resided to the Ionian Sea and towards the islands on the west coast of Greece.  We then sailed along the Corinthian Gulf and after we crossed Corinth’s canal we entered the Saronic Gulf and reached Athens.  We continued south to Cape Sounion and after rounded it we sailed north to the Bay of Porto Rafti nearby to which one can find the magnificent Templeof Artemis in Vravrona.  It was in its little bay the Achaean Fleet was becalmed and waited for favorable winds on their way to Troy.