![\"\"](\"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/IMG_5666-scaled.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThis was an \u201calumni course\u201d\u2014more casual and less austere than the one in New Zealand. But it was still a course; we were advised not to think of it as a cruise, or even a vacation. We’d be in the Ionian Sea off the west coast of Greece\u2014one boat, six students, two instructors, nine days, and no ban on going ashore or drinking alcohol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d never been to Greece. My knowledge of ancient history and Greek mythology was slim (although I did memorize the Greek alphabet at summer camp when I was 13). I learned a bit about the history of the region in historian David Abulafia\u2019s \u201cThe Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The book\u2019s 783 pages can be summarized as: \u201cEndless war in a beautiful place.\u201d When I told one of my Italian cousins about my plans she replied with a hint of this history: Your trip sounds wonderful. The weather should be lovely and the winds brisk. I’ve always considered the Ionian Sea Italian, but I will share it with Greece \ud83d\ude42<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s how it went.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Monday, May 1, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n We left Villa Diodati, where we\u2019d spent two nights, about 8.30 in the morning in a van and a rented Kia stuffed with duffels, bags of food and water, and a cardboard box with three kinds of leftover pizza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our teachers, Dave Hanaman and Nick Braun, were unable to move the boat from its home berth in Vlikho Bay to Nikiana, which we looked down on from the villa. Even this early in the season\u2014many tourist destinations are opening only next week\u2014all the public slips were taken. We suspected charter companies big-footing them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n As a way to give permission to step aboard, here\u2019s who we were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lead teacher was Nick Braun. Like all the NOLS instructors I\u2019ve met\u2014I also took a Wilderness Medicine course a couple of years ago\u2014he has a long and eclectic resume. He\u2019s the son of an immigrant from Austria; a student of German and environmental education who studied abroad in college and got a master\u2019s degree in Sweden. Once an employee of The Nature Conservancy and now a firefighter in Colorado (where he also helps manage a ranch), Nick works remotely fulltime in the alumni office at NOLS. He was gored by a bull on an expedition in Australia a decade ago. He survived. He teaches backpacking, kayaking, and sailing courses. Needless to say, he’s a person of immense energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other instructor is Dave Hanaman, a former Navy intelligence officer who after leaving the military started and sold a company, retired, and later returned to work. He now heads a \u201cclinical research organization\u201d (CRO to you all in health care), which runs digital clinical trials of drugs, medical devices, and non-pharmaceutical therapies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The students were: Hugh Hudson, an engineer who now works as a \u201cproblem solver\u201d for a consulting company (a source of mirth onboard, where problems aren\u2019t rare); his daughter Emma, an outdoorswoman who runs programs for Outward Bound in the Pacific Northwest for troubled youth; Dave Bock, an arborist for the city of Austin, Texas, who grew up in Chicago sailing boats on Lake Michigan; Brian Le, who escaped Vietnam at 16, became a nurse anesthetist in the United States, and lived in Bangor for 15 years before moving to San Francisco (and that\u2019s not the half of it); and Sasha Lennon, who\u2019s a potter in western Maine (https:\/\/sashalennonpottery.com<\/a>). (She’s also the daughter of an anesthesiologist my nephew has worked with in Portland, Maine.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n And me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We arrived at Vlikho, five miles south of Nikiana, about 9 a.m. and took possession of our boat. It’s a 42-foot German-made Bavaria sloop named \u201cFreedom\u201d; its name is written in English and Greek on the hull. It’s nearly new; Nick thinks it’s a 2022 model. It is bigger than the boat I sailed in in New Zealand, and better appointed (befitting alumni, I thought). <\/p>\n\n\n\n There were two heads and a bigger galley. The forward berths each accommodated two (intimately), and the aft stateroom had its own head. The two instructors chose to sleep on converted beds in the saloon. The floor was unscarred faux parquet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We loaded up. I packed the refrigerator. This required triaging out the cheese when I discovered the cold cuts weren\u2019t stowed when the box was stuffed. Provisions for this trip are a world apart from the New Zealand course\u2019s menu of carbohydrates lightened with tomato paste, a few slices of onion, and no fresh vegetables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The charter company is named Sail Ionian. It\u2019s owned by an English family and run by the second generation. A man helping our final preparations, Billy, came and went from the dock as he attended other boats. He kindly answered a few questions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The company has 45 boats in its charter fleet, and it takes care of 40 private boats not for hire. It\u2019s the only charter company in Vlikho; the whole waterfront is its territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Billy has a broad working-man face, and the accent to match. He\u2019s from Preston, in the north of England near Liverpool. He started out as an automobile mechanic and eventually got a job on the Liverpool waterfront. From there he made contact with the Sail Ionian folks. He moved to Greece 11 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He didn\u2019t speak a word of Greek when he arrived and also didn\u2019t know how to sail. Now, he speaks passable Greek and talks as if he\u2019d won the lottery: \u201cNot many people in my part of the world get to move to a beautiful place like this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We cast off at 10.45 and headed out into the cove beyond the marina. We each got a turn at the helm driving the boat forward, backward, and in circles. For 42 feet it was responsive and fast-turning, with almost no prop-walk in reverse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It rained on and off, never hard or unpleasantly. We had a dodger and a Bimini, but we took the Bimini down when the rain let up and it became more important to see our surroundings than to keep dry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vlikho Harbor is shaped like the candy at the end a lollipop stick. We went down the stick to the open bay, which was the water we\u2019d looked down on from the villa. It was a perfect place to practice sailing\u2014open, windy, no commercial traffic, few sailboats, and no obstructions (the chart told us) except for a two shallow rocks and a submerged wreck next to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nick and Dave showed us how to work the lines, raise the sails (both self-furling, so they move in and out, not up and down), how to tack and jibe. Only Sasha got a chance to jibe, but we all tacked numerous time when we got our 15 minutes at the helm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was breezy and we made 7-8 knots under sail. We furled both sails and saw how the performance of the boat wasn\u2019t hurt with smaller sail area\u2014and may have been better. So, my first lesson of the course was that furling is not just for safety, it can also enhance performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We made the harbor at Spartakhori about 5 o\u2019clock, docking bow-in to a stone bulkhead beside three other boats. Bow-in is preferred because the water gets shallow close to the wall and could threaten the rudder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Five of us\u2014Sasha, Hugh and Emma (the father-daughter team), and Brian (with whom I\u2019m again sharing a bedroom, as at the villa) walked up the switchback single-lane road to the village at the top of the ridge. We passed a bronze monument to a man in uniform who died fighting organized crime in 1997, according to the camera-based translation app on Emma\u2019s phone. A bas-relief showed two open boats, one pursuing the other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We went by a schoolyard with two mothers and four children, two on swings over a synthetic play surface, with the Greek flag fluttering overhead. We went up to a church, but it was locked. We passed what appeared to be an old government building with a sign saying that rehabilitation was taking place with the help of the European Union. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We passed Tropica Pizza and a souvenir shop, both doing no business. At an open-air bar under a plastic cover only old men drinking and smoking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The village was mostly small concrete houses painted white and trimmed in color. They were in good shape in the main. Trees were putting out fruit that was so far from harvest that we couldn’t identify what they would become. Some of the stone-paved streets needed work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Clearly tourism is the main business, although there must be some fishing. We\u2019d passed a small fishing boat coming in, and there were many at the two marinas with piles of fine-mesh yellow netting piled on deck and quay. I wondered what they were after. Maybe sardines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We descended the hilltop on a road whose Achilles heel was hairpin turns, not holes. In our absence, the others had laid out hors d\u2019oeuvres\u2014red wine, stuffed grape leaves out of a jar, carrots, cucumbers, potato chips, and green and black olives\u2014before a dinner of cheeseburgers made by Dave the instructor. He washed the dishes too, quite a generous introduction to the cruise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before the instructors took over the saloon for themselves at 9.30 p.m. we reviewed tomorrow\u2019s weather forecast. We knew it was going to rain for about 36 hours, but now the prediction included the possibility of \u201ccyclonic winds.\u201d Our destination was Sivota, a desirable place under fair skies we are told, but one that may be especially sought in the weather we\u2019re expecting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We plan on getting there by noon.<\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tuesday, May 2<\/p>\n\n\n\n I asked Brian what time it was at 6.30. There was not enough time to try to go back to sleep, so I got up without a lot of debate. We had breakfast of dry cereal, yogurt, fruit and coffee laid out by Nick. These instructors are very solicitous\u2014no leaving all of the grunt work to the paying students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was the first day that most everyone used the heads post-prandially in the space of an hour\u2014a test of self-consciousness and mutual sympathy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We motored out to the open water, hoping the weather wasn\u2019t so bad that we\u2019d have to hightail it to Sivota to wait things out. It turned out to be a great day for sailing. We passed a cliff of brindled rock with a huge half-circle of blackness at the level of the water. It was a cave, one of the biggest in Greece, someone said. But we didn\u2019t go over to explore; we had things to practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As before, we took turns at the helm, setting the main sail and jib and then tacking without adjusting them. This seems to be an important skill, good to know when beating up wind. Two of us tried jibing, but I haven\u2019t had a chance yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was enough sailing traffic to require strategic decision-making; it also gave Nick and Dave reason to talk about right-of-way and rudimentary rules of the road. (I did remember some of this.) The wind picked up to small whitecaps. We reefed the sails, our speed maxing out at 7.8 knots according to the app-recorded route we reviewed later. The wind reached 20 knots right before we pulled in the sails and headed for the harbor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019d taken a spin into Sivota before the sailing lesson to reconnoiter the anchorage. The piers were already full of boats. We looked at the one where we thought we\u2019d tie up and it appeared that tricky docking was in our future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dave called the person in charge of that part of the harbor before we returned in the afternoon. We were told to approach a different dock and pull in between two boats, each with a pair of Englishmen on them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nick did a masterful job. Billy, of Sail Ionian, was on the dock helping with the lines. It wasn\u2019t clear why he was here, but someone later speculated it was to keep an eye on the company\u2019s on-water investment. In the harbor were 10 yachts flying the company\u2019s banner in their shrouds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Late that afternoon a woman who worked for the charter company (and was wearing a Bavarian Yachts tee-shirt) asked to come aboard to attach a tracking device to one of our batteries. It would allow people in the Sail Ionian office to observe our position and track our route and speed in real time. We\u2019d seen black ship icons on our electronic chart and wondered what they were; it turns out they were Sail Ionian vessels equipped with this device. So, we\u2019d briefly been a ghost ship; the company was putting an end to that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut we\u2019re Freedom,\u201d Emma said. \u201cThat\u2019s why we didn\u2019t have that device.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s very Orwellian,\u201d I said. \u201cNow we have what the Soviet communists used to call a ‘new kind of freedom’ .\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI wonder what those things are called,\u201d someone said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBig Brother.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After a mid-afternoon lunch we had a couple of hours to kill. Most of us sat in the saloon doing various things. Dave, the instructor, who sleeps there at night, retired to the forward vee berth for a nap, and Brian went ashore to walk around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nick kindly spent more than an hour helping me with the Navionics and Windy apps. I still had routes through the Everglades I made last fall before the Tonino trip and hadn\u2019t been able to remove. He showed me how to delete them, make new ones, and other useful tasks. We also explored both the windy.com and the windy.app apps. We didn\u2019t learn until the end of the session that the reason I couldn\u2019t get a screen I\u2019d see on Nick\u2019s iPad was that I was on the wrong app. Windy.com and windy.app\u2014why isn\u2019t one of them trademark infringement?<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was very nice of him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We ate at the restaurant run by the people whose dock we were on This apparently isn\u2019t required but is appreciated. NOLS paid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We got local fish dinners\u2014red snapper, dorado, calamari, octopus, and sardines\u2014with vegetables, French fries, bread, and spicy feta. Also beer and wine, although in general this is a temperate group. Our waiter, Ioannis (which he said is the name of 40 percent of Greek men), was witty and full of Greek chauvinism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most names in the Western world were originally Greek\u2014Nicholas, Philip, Peter, John. Greece (and by that he seemed to mean Attica) has better yogurt than northern Greece and the Balkans. Macedonia conquered the whole world except Attica. Greece has more guns than Texas. That sort of thing.<\/p>\n\n\n We were on the restaurant’s second-floor porch. It had clear vinyl walls and was not really indoors. It was cold when we arrived at 6.30 p.m., but after 8 when the crowd arrived it warmed up. A real storm was underway and we were glad we\u2019d come in early. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As rain ran down the vinyl curtain we watched a yacht that had dragged its anchor being blown toward the dock. A Zodiac raced to help in the near darkness. Fifty feet before crashing the anchor held. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The boat started its engine, disappeared, and after a while reappeared. It moved stern-first toward a finger dock across the harbor, trying over and over to keep a safe course in the blustery weather. Night fell before we could see the end of the drama. But all was well the next morning, so it must have been successful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey\u2019ll be doing laundry today,\u201d Dave the instructor said as we had breakfast the next day at a bakery in front of where all that had been happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The weather forecast was for thunderstorms. We didn\u2019t want to be a sailing lightning rod, so we were leaning toward spending another day in Sivota.<\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Wednesday, May 3<\/p>\n\n\n\n We slept late, but by 8.30 everybody but one was up. People went off the boat as they were ready. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The village is a U-shape around the harbor. The arm across from us is the longer and has a row of shops\u2014perhaps 20 in all\u2014catering almost exclusively to the tourist trade. They include two small food markets, a half-dozen restaurants, a bakery, several gift and sundry shops, and several real estate offices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We all gathered in a bakery the first group off the boat had stopped at. We drank coffee and ate pastries until after 10. At one point Brian bought a loaf of peasant bread and a jar of marmalade and we all dug in for dessert. The leaders formalized what was obvious\u2014we were staying the day and another night here, waiting for better weather. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The weather, in fact, was changing about every half hour from overcast, rainy, broken-sunny, and windy. It was a good call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I headed off in search of a nautical chart of our cruising ground\u2014the charter company had lent us one, but I wanted one of my own\u2014but couldn\u2019t find one. However, I did find a shop that sold olive-wood kitchen spoons and spatulas, and a small pair of salad implements, which I bought. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By the time I was back on the boat a list of chores had appeared on the teachers\u2019 whiteboard. People checked a box and put their name next to the task. The work was underway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I took sweeping the floor, with a whisk broom and dustpan on my knees. I covered the stateroom floors, the saloon floor, the cockpit and the aft boarding platform. As a late arrival I\u2019m glad I got one of the harder tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we were done we sat around for a while and then headed out on a hike. Our destination was the point of land at the entrance of the harbor on our side of the U. It wasn\u2019t raining, but we heard intermittent thunder and there were storm clouds and rain across the open water. Three ranks of low mountains were visible but featureless in shades of gray. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Billy had told Nick there was a path to the point of land that was an alternative to the paved road. It paralleled to the road briefly, and we headed onto it as soon as we found it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A two-abreast path soon turned to a single-file one, and then to a barely visible one that required holding back branches of thorny bushes for the people behind. Wildflowers were out and we passed through an area with the scent of spice bush and mint whose source we couldn\u2019t find.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A true path ran out long before we got to either the point or to a swimming place midway along the route that Billy had mentioned. We found what we thought was the latter. It was clearly on private property, but this didn\u2019t bother Nick, who was in the lead. (Dave the instructor had stayed behind on the boat). We descended a set of stone stairs to a cement platform built on the rock. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As we\u2019d set out, Sasha, Emma, and Brian had all said they planned to swim. It was overcast and cool, but they were good to their word. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Brian swam out into the choppy deep-blue water; the women dove in, did a few strokes and headed back to the rocks. A piece of bent stainless steel pipe that emerged from the rock just above the water line turned out to be a hand-hold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We climbed back up the stairs and turned right onto the remnant path. Eventually we came to a fence. Billy clearly hadn\u2019t been down this path recently, or had gotten bad information. We considered turning around but instead headed uphill along the fence until we got to a gate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s somebody\u2019s back yard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDoes it open?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe gate\u2019s welded shut.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We were about to leave when I stepped up to the top step to take a look for myself. On the right-hand gate post was an open padlock, suggesting the gate had been lockable in recent memory. I pushed on it and it opened. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We went through it and turned right, on a stone walk below a stone wall. Eventually, though, the walk’s elevation rose and we came into view of a house on the left where a car was parked. A few seconds later we saw two women, one blonde, the other dark-haired, sitting on a deck in front of computers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It occurred to me to try to just sneak by hoping they wouldn\u2019t see us, but of course they saw us. One person suggested we turn around. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “Just keep a smile on,\u201d Nick said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Our earnestness\u2014we were a group of varying ages and both sexes out in the rain\u2014was obvious. Nick, in the lead, asked the women about a route to the road and said something about being told there was path to our hoped-for destination, the point at the mouth of the harbor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dark-haired woman got up, stepped forward and welcomed us. She said there used to be a public right-of-way, but new property owners had built on it and blocked it off. The municipality had recently asserted the existence of a right-of-way and things were in some sort of litigation. In any case, we were fine to be walking on her mini estate, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We proceeded until we came to another obstruction. This time we walked down to the shore, looking for a way to proceed onward, but there wasn\u2019t one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We gave up going to the point, and as a consolation prize headed back along the shore in search of a way onto a bald promontory that looked like a place with a good view. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We didn\u2019t find a path to that destination, either. Instead, we continued down the shore, which was covered with ledge and boulders of porous gray volcanic rock stuccoed with a white calcified coating that was worn off in many places. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Where the gray stone was bare it was rough, and in places worn to blades and points. It was probably the most dangerous surface I\u2019d ever walked a long distance on. A stumble would have been bloody mess, and even breaking a fall with a hand would have created a nasty wound. Brian was in flip-flops and Emma in sandals. I was in shorts and wished I\u2019d worn long pants. I also thought longingly of my bike gloves back on the boat as I picked my way through the boulders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After half an hour we got to a place where the shore became a cliff. It might have been possible to pick our way along the top, but now the hazards included a tumble 30 feet into the sea. Nick declared it was time to turn around. We hadn\u2019t reached either of our destinations. But we\u2019d gotten farther than most of the group expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was notable that Nick, the leader and person who\u2019d have to solve the problem if one of us got hurt, at every point but the last expressed a desire to keep going. His willingness to walk on private property, seeking forgiveness with a smile while also seeking permission, isn\u2019t what most organizations that take fee-paying strangers on trips advocate or allow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe it\u2019s NOLS or maybe it\u2019s Nick, but this attitude meets with my enthusiastic approval. And his decision to turn around when we did was, of course, the right one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We made it back to where we\u2019d come onto the shore in 17 minutes\u2014half the time it took us to go out. Up on the road, I congratulated myself and everyone else in making it across killer rock without bloodletting. Hugh held up his right hand to show a small cut between two fingers, so it wasn’t quite true. But it was true enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We returned to the harbor on the road in steady rain. We passed many houses newly finished or under construction, all vacation properties. The signs at the driveways were in English\u2014Blue Coves, Villa Emma, Villa Ella, Dynasty Estates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We were wet when we got back on the boat. My running shoes\u2014the only footwear besides my sandals\u2014were soaked, and given the weather report, likely to stay that way. Rain was predicted for the whole next day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We had dinner at the same restaurant, with the same entertaining waiter, who seemed to think I was a famous person he couldn\u2019t quite name. We wanted to try a different dining spot\u2014there were several\u2014but Dave the instructor had been told on an errand in town that the expectation was that if you stayed on the restaurant\u2019s dock you\u2019d eat at the restaurant every night. We stayed until after 10 o\u2019clock, which in this season of retiree sailing meant we closed the place down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We did passage planning in the saloon when we got back to the boat. We\u2019d sail tomorrow, rain or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It did<\/em> rain all day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We went out of Sivota into the open water. There were a few sailboats in view and more appeared as the morning progressed. Visibility was good but the sky was overcast the whole time and we sailed with running lights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I took the helm early on and drove for a long time. The task was to keep on course. We were close hauled. I did a good job, but there were few decisions to made. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d said in the before-cruise self-introduction we all made that one of the things I wanted to get out of the course was to learn how to heave-to. I’ve never reefed the sails on my boat, and doing that single-handed requires heaving-to. I needed to learn the maneuver before my ignorance became dangerous. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Today was the opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We each took a turn, moving into hove-to using the jib principally as the brake, and then out of hove-to with a jibe. For me it\u2019s confusing to the turn the wheel at the helm in the opposite direction from what I\u2019d do with the tiller on my boat. But I think I have enough knowledge now to try it on \u201cWindlass.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n When we were done we headed to our anchorage\u2014Port Leone, an abandoned village on an uninhabited peninsula. An earthquake in 1953 had driven the inhabitants off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was blustery when we sailed into the harbor near the village to look for a place to anchor. The original plan was to motor, but the teachers wanted us to push our limits. We feared the place might be full of boats, but nobody was there. Hugh was at the helm and did a great job. I wonder how I would have done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The remains of a windmill and a second similar structure were visible on the point leading to the village\u2019s harbor. They looked like ruins in a Thomas Cole painting. A nub of land turned the harbor into two coves. We tried to anchor in one, but the anchor failed to hold four times, so we rounded the nub and tried on the other side. There the anchor held. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Dave the instructor and Brian went ashore with two long lines, which they turned into one using a bend we\u2019d been taught in a break in the action earlier in the day. They made the boat fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We tidied up, left our sopped clothing under the Bimini, and went below. We\u2019d skipped lunch, so we moved right into cocktail hour; it was after 5. We\u2019d explore the abandoned village tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Friday, May 5<\/p>\n\n\n\n We woke up and the sun was out. We felt the thrill that people on whale ships and naval vessels of the Frobisher era must have had after days of rain\u2014except that they\u2019d really had a reason to feel miserable, unlike us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The plan for the day was to have half of it onshore at the abandoned village of Port Leone and half under sail to an anchorage somewhere on Ithaca. (Or Ithaka, as we\u2019re in Greece and should honor Homer and Odysseus.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hugh and I made breakfast, which got excellent reviews. He chopped, buttered, and cut, while I cooked. The menu was an omelet with saut\u00e9ed red onions and red bell pepper, with grated cheese, and toast and jam. It was fun doing it all in a small space with several things happening at once, and everything served (on warm plates) at the same time. I can\u2019t imagine doing it for a living.<\/p>\n\n\n After breakfast Dave Bock ferried us ashore in the dinghy. The beach was rocks and trash. There was some trash inland too, but not enough to detract from the mysterious appeal of ruin and abandonment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A paved road ran as a brown thread down the shore to a distant village visible by its terracotta roof tiles. The road was in surprisingly good shape. We were told that women come out every month to keep the church presentable. A late-model Land Cruiser-like vehicle was parked near it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Up hill from the road were tumbledown terraces with olive trees and walls of buildings. The church had been painted in the last decade for certain. It was locked, as were the doors of two buildings next to it, one a residence, the other a small tower. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Two flags hung limp on poles on a terrace looking out on the water. One was the Greek flag, shredded to ribbons that were tied in a Gordian knot. The other was yellow and had simply wrapped around itself into an unflyable state. I explored the area alone and then later with Brian and Sasha. Brian unwrapped the yellow flag; it had a double-headed eagle on it. Was it Russian? It flapped in the wind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Below the church there was what looked like a public building, also intact and locked up, and three piers of concrete and wood. To one side was a roofless ruin with a rusted vertical screw and tun, which someone had read in the cruising book had been an olive press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There were a few words of graffiti on the stone and stucco buildings, but not many. Clearly lots of people came out here\u2014there were campfire scars\u2014but it was largely an unruined ruined town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A point of land on one side of the cove had the two ruins of stone towers. We all headed out there on a goat trail but Brian, Dave, Sasha, and I turned back, as it seemed too much work. We returned to the dinghy to row to the point instead. Just as we were shoving off Emma and Hugh appeared; they’d turned back, too. So, we all piled into the dinghy and rowed out to the sailboat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After an unsuccessful effort to pick up the electric outboard\u2014nobody, including Nick, could get it running\u2014we left Dave and paddled to look at the ruined towers. Each had about 30-degrees of the original stone cylinder still standing, and each had the remains of circular steps and windows at the top. It was hard to tell if the top was the original top, or if something had been above it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What were windmills doing out here? Clearly not making electricity, and unlikely to be moving water. We concluded they drove olive presses. There were remnant walls that might have been buildings, and olive trees on the slope above the point. We wondered what it must have looked like a half-millennium ago, with people carrying baskets of olives down the hill, and shuttling casks and crocks of oil to the village in boats.<\/p>\n\n\n We got back to the sailboat and weighed anchor just as another boat arrived. I was glad we\u2019d been alone, and I\u2019m sure they were happy to see us leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We sailed south and went past Atoka Island, which has dramatic cliffs of sedimentary rock that had been uplifted at a slant. We\u2019re going back to explore there tomorrow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The route to Ithaka was one long close reach. I handled the sheets a few times but had no time on the wheel. I meditated in a supine position on the foredeck and practiced cleating and knot tying in the stern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We looked at two anchorages on the northeast end of the island before finding a beautiful one more to the south. It\u2019s in a broad bay and we are the only boat in it. As I\u2019m writing a full moon has risen over the cuprous sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Saturday, May 6<\/p>\n\n\n\n We woke in a cove out of a sailing magazine or travel brochure, and didn\u2019t want to leave soon. A shore party of most of us headed to the island of Pera Pigadhi to find a trail to a spring, which was visible on Google maps but wasn\u2019t mentioned in the 2017 cruising guide we are using.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was sunny and beautiful. Brian, who is an open water swimmer, swam to our landfall about 400 yards from the boat. He had no wetsuit but did have a neoprene cap. He shivered for 10 minutes after we got to shore and delivered his clothes to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The trail to the spring went up a stream in a cleft in the mountain. We started there and then left it in favor of a path on which we saw white and blue blazes, Greece\u2019s national colors. We walked about 15 minutes to a junction that Nick arrived at first. He went down to the spring, which he reported was surrounded by a steel fence and not much to see. So the group decided to proceed farther up the trail without visiting it.<\/p>\n\n\n We walked another 20 minutes, gaining height and better views of our boat below every time we had an unobstructed view. And, of course, great views of our little patch of the Ionian Sea. It was sunny and warm, especially with our exertion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Dave Bock, Emma, and Brian swam back to the boat while the rest of us paddled or traveled as passengers in the dinghy, which unlike the sailboat is a pathetically designed and inadequate-to-the-task craft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dave the instructor had stayed behind to prepare breakfast. It wasn\u2019t quite ready when we got back; he was awaiting our return. Everyone who hadn\u2019t swum, and some who had (except Hugh) changed into bathing suits and dove into the gin-clear water. I did this too–the last in, but not wanting to be the hypothermia-fearing hold-out. I wore my neoprene vest, silicone cap, and of course my prescription goggles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was less cold than I expected. It was wonderful, in fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just before I went in, some of the people drying off on the starboard deck saw in the water next the boat a long and occasionally moving thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There as a debate about what it was; it looked a little like a sea snake, but it had a spade tail, so wasn\u2019t that. Someone thought it was an anemone. It appeared to have a mouth and I said with a straight face that it was a \u201cMediterranean pencil moray.\u201d Everyone stopped talking for a few seconds and looked at me with semi-believing faces. I relieved them of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We later learned it was a siphonophore\u2014scientific name Farskalia edwardsi<\/em>\u2014and in fact a colony of more than one organism. The more amazing thing, however, was that when viewed underwater (which I did) its body became transparent except for a white line down the body–a gut or spinal cord. Its shape was represented by hundreds of tiny tentacles (or so they appeared) anchored to the body by brown feet. It looked, floating in the water column, like a constellation of unconnected stars, unlike anything I\u2019d ever seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We had a great breakfast, far from NOLS\u2019s infamous 1965 winter-camping cuisine. We had sweet potatoes and bell peppers saut\u00e9ed and softened, with fried eggs (their topsides steam-cooked from a cover over the pan), with melon slices on the side. It was unfancy, fat and starch-rich, and delicious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We set sail without reluctance, as our destination was Atoko Island, which we\u2019d passed on the way down the previous day. It\u2019s nearly uninhabited, high, with dramatic cliffs of uplifted and deformed limestone from the Jurassic era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We motor-sailed there, as the wind was light and we wanted to have time to explore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We got a closer look as we approached the island. Layers of sedimentary rock a foot thick were bent like parallel curves on a high-school algebra graph. The stone had been plastic at some point, or more likely the force that moved the ancient seabed was so strong it had made the stone plastic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sasha and I swam into a rock beach. About fifty yards offshore the bottom turned to rocks tumbled smooth by millions of years of tides. Interspersed among the white stones were ones brindled red and brown, perhaps one percent of the shoreward bottom. The water was both perfectly clear and intensely blue, a mysterious trick. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Once on the beach it was possible to see how beautiful flat, white, ovoid stones can be. It was also a lesson that random friction\u2019s target shape isn\u2019t the circle but the ellipse (although there were a few near-perfect circles; I picked one to keep.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n A section of the cliff on the beach was a fascinating geology lesson\u2014if only I\u2019d studied geology. Studded through the rock at regular intervals\u2014never touching\u2014were round, grapefruit-size pieces of brown stone. Some had lost their weathered surfaces and revealed a shiny grainless interior that looked like flint. How the inclusions came to inhabit the limestone like raisins in a Christmas pudding is another mystery of the place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We swam up the beach and around some rocks to a tiny cave, where another deposit of stones was high but not dry. I was curious whether they were more nearly perfect than the ones exposed on the beach, but they weren\u2019t. It was in such a place on the California-Oregon border that I found two beautiful elliptical stones when walking with my beautiful friend Charlotte, and later wrote \u201cTwo Stones.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wind was light in the afternoon as we headed to Kioni, a town north of the hourglass waist of Ithaka. The instructors turned the boat over to us. We raised the anchor, motored out into the open water, raised the sails, shut down the engine, and sailed a course to our destination. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We were on a close reach much of the way. I got helm time. We practiced sailing in circles\u2014off the wind to a jibe, then up the wind to close-haul. When three of us had done that and the last person had taken us into the anchorage, Nick took over the helm. It was about 6 o\u2019clock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I won\u2019t go through the details except to say we spent nearly two hours securing the boat for the night. The boat’s stern was tied with two lines to hooks and loops of rebar fixed to the rock, the bow at anchor. One of several problems was that the anchor refused to hold, until it finally did. On a road along the shore high above us people watched, got bored, and walked off, and new people arrived. A few stopped to watch us on the way to dinner in the village and stopped to watch us on the way back home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kioni has three ruined stone cylindrical buildings in a line on a point of land that forms one half of the entrance to the harbor. They were windmills for grinding grain (vintage unknown) we were later told.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The cruising guide said that Kioni once had 2,000 residents but now only 200, as there\u2019d been a big migration to Australia and America. It seems unlikely there are so few inhabitants today, but I\u2019m sure many of the houses are occupied by seasonal visitors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The village is on a series of terraces on the hillside. The houses are two-storey white stucco with two-over-two windows. The shutters are red, blue, and a few black. Most were closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sunday, May 7<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what to say today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n We all started out on an upstairs, view-of-the-harbor caf\u00e9 in Kioni. After ordering breakfast but before it arrived I walked around. The streets were steep and I only went up two of the terraces. I passed an elementary school that had a tidy new schoolroom and a tired basketball court next to it. How far Springfield, Massachusetts\u2019s invention has traveled! <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are burned-out hulks for sale for 200,000 euro; if you want something habitable it will cost at least 700,000. It\u2019s a beautiful little village\u2014a great place to spend the winter writing a book. In another life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We reprovisioned, returned to the boat, and headed out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We sailed upwind until we came to a cove in Arkoudi, an uninhabited island. I went below and finished the account of yesterday and also wrote a message and sent photographs to John Mosser, my cousin, who is about to die in Colorado. Most everyone else, led by Brian, the frigidmeister, went swimming. It was very cold, they said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We had lunch\u2014we do lot of eating on NOLS alumni cruises\u2014and headed off. We\u2019d once hoped to get to Assos, on the outside shore of Kefalonia, but it wouldn\u2019t happen today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, we learned about the \u201cfavored tack\u201d\u2014the tack that will get us to a destination, which now was Fiskardho, a bigger and fancier place than our last few stops. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Houses were under construction on the starboard shore as we headed into the harbor. There was also the remains of what the cruising book said was a \u201cVenetian lighthouse.\u201d There were many other boats; we tied up to two trees stern-to-shore in line with six others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hugh and I made dinner\u2014pasta with tomato sauce. The boat has no herbs and spices, and I had to save our two onions for the cooks who wanted them for our last dinner. This left us with a reduced flavor pallette (and possibly palate, as well). We constructed the sauce from saut\u00e9ed garlic and carrots, and red wine (which I consumed too much of while cooking) in addition to the tomato sauce. Grated cheese was offered at the table. It turned out better than expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While I was cooking other members of the crew rigged the dinghy up to one of the mooring lines as a hand-driven ferry. After dinner we took it to shore and walked around the town. I finally found a place with a chart, which I bought for 22 euros. We then turned around and walked out a path to the old lighthouse.<\/p>\n\n\n It was dark and we all sat on the rocks when we got to the lighthouse. We waited for the moon to rise over a hill across the harbor. The sky took on a yellow glow before the bright edge appeared. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We were on Ithaca, and as the moon came into full view I read \u201cIthaka\u201d by Greek poet C. P. Cavafy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As you set out for Ithaka<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n hope your road is a long one,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n full of adventure, full of discovery.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Laistrygonians, Cyclops,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n angry Poseidon\u2014don\u2019t be afraid of them:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n you\u2019ll never find things like that on your way<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n as long as a rare excitement<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n stirs your spirit and your body.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Laistrygonians, Cyclops,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n wild Poseidon\u2014you won\u2019t encounter them<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n unless you bring them along inside your soul,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n unless your soul sets them up in front of you.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hope your road is a long one.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n May there be many summer mornings when,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n with what pleasure, what joy,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n you enter harbors you\u2019re seeing for the first time;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n may you stop at Phoenician trading stations<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n to buy fine things,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n sensual perfume of every kind\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n as many sensual perfumes as you can;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n and may you visit many Egyptian cities<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n to learn and go on learning from their scholars.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Keep Ithaka always in your mind.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Arriving there is what you\u2019re destined for.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n But don\u2019t hurry the journey at all.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Better if it lasts for years,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n so you\u2019re old by the time you reach the island,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n wealthy with all you\u2019ve gained on the way,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Without her you wouldn’t have set out.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n She has nothing left to give you now.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And if you find her poor, Ithaka won\u2019t have fooled you.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n you\u2019ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d warned the group early in the trip this might happen. They didn\u2019t seem to mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My cousin John Mosser sailed around the world in 1976 with four college friends in a leaky 50-foot wooden boat. Their technology was closer to Captain Cook’s than to ours. His courage and expertise, which I admired for decades, was one of the things that made me want to learn to sail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I sent him this poem about a long journey and its impending end. It arrived the day the died. He didn’t see it, and I think that’s best. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Monday, May 8<\/p>\n\n\n\n I got the first mosquito bites of the season last night. We were anchored along a stretch of woods, which was probably the reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve eaten out more than most NOLS alumni trips and more than I expected. Nick has been nice about picking up checks and refusing contributions from the crew. But we\u2019re also about using the food we have on board and wasting as little as possible, so this morning Hugh and I made french toast, grizzled ham, and orange juice, working through our stores. We had no vanilla and of course no maple syrup, but I made a syrup of melted butter and honey, and we had apricot and peach jam. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We motored out past the Venetian lighthouse. On closer inspection we saw portholes in the stone-and-stucco tower at different heights and points of the compass. Dave the instructor said that he thinks it worked this way: fires were lit at every porthole; the light from each was visible only from certain positions at sea, providing directional signal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The crew has been lobbying for a while to go on the \u201coutside\u201d\u2014the open-Ionian side of the islands. The charter company doesn\u2019t let its customers spend the night in anchorages out there. We\u2019d originally wanted to go to Assos, on the western shore of Kefalonia, but it\u2019s been obvious for a couple of days that it was too far for a lunch stop. So instead we set a course for the west side of Levkas, the island north of Kefalonia and Ithaka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We motor-sailed most of the way, as the wind was light, passing an unlit lighthouse that looked to be from the late 19th<\/sup> century (Ak Dhoukato, according to the chart). Beyond it were spectacular cliffs, white with rusty veils that had dripped down from above. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We dropped anchor and had our late-morning snack. I\u2019m trying to get rid of my gorp, so I brought out a bowl, which was mostly consumed. Our mid-afternoon snack\u2014we eat almost continually in NOLS Alumni World\u2014finished it off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The sun wasn\u2019t out, but it was a beautiful place that invited swimming. Around a point, which we\u2019d looked at and rejected, was a beach with umbrellas dotted along it and people strolling. We retreated from them and anchored the boat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was a small beach and a diagonal fissure in the cliff that formed a cave, with two smaller ones next to it. This beckoned, and of course Brian and Sasha took up the challenge. I was determined to take up the challenge as well, but needed time to suit up\u2014neoprene vest, cap, goggles, and willpower. I also didn\u2019t want to swim in alone, as it was about 300 yards, so Emma rowed me. She picked up the other two and they all went off exploring while I stayed and looked around the fissure-cave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was an empty water bottle at the far end. Drops of condensation fell from above, and high up a basketball-sized rock was wedged in the crack. The place was protection in a pinch if you were without a boat, but not without hazards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The water was not as cold as I expected. The bottom was covered with smooth, white ovoid boulders\u2014a Brobdinagian version of the beaches we\u2019d seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We were somewhere near Sappho\u2019s Leap, where she supposedly jumped to her death after being spurned by a lover. As if in recognition, a rock fell from the cliff with a great splash, the people who\u2019d stayed on the boat reported when we returned. It seems improbable that we\u2019d be witnesses to erosive forces in real time, but apparently we were. (I didn\u2019t see or hear it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the afternoon we practiced going downwind, which we\u2019d done little of, including sailing wing-on-wing. The wind was brisker than predicted; it peaked at 20 knots, the heaviest of the trip. Nick had us sail blindfolded when we eventually changed course and began to sail upwind. We tacked from close reach to close reach, steering by the sound of the sails, feel of the boat underfoot, and wind on the face. It was a thrilling exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n We sailed 34.3 nautical miles today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We motored to a pocket cove\u2014actually a pocket bight that offered little protection other than the hundred-foot cliffs above it. Dave the instructor and I took the dinghy to the cliff edge where tumbled rocks went down into the water. He tied us to two domed pinnacles while I worked the oars to keep us in place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n These were cliffs one could look at for hours\u2014their bent bands of whorled strata, the baklava and taffy patterns in the rock unexplorable except by eye. High up were a two little caves worthy of New Yorker-cartoon hermits. Swifts, flashing blue wings and yellow bellies, came and went from invisible nests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tuesday, May 9<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today is the last day\u2014half-day, actually\u2014of the trip. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We have one thing on the agenda, which required us to get up 30 minutes earlier than usual and eat a quick cold breakfast. On our way back to the charter dock we planned to stop at the big cave on Meganisi that we\u2019d seen on the second day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was a windless morning and we never even put up the sails. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We anchored outside the cave, a half-moon of tawny stone disappearing into darkness. I was on the second party to go into it in the dinghy\u2014Dave Bock rowing and Nick and me spectating. How it formed so symmetrically\u2014and with a top 30 feet above the water\u2014is hard to imagine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Small stalactites sketched a ragged eyebrow over the opening. Deeper in, diagonal threads of raised stone were a variant of stalactites, Dave said. Water dripped from the dome ever so often. The deepest part was not in full darkness and it looked like there was a small stone beach there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou could get out of the rain back there, but it wouldn\u2019t be the most comfortable place,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t think it has ever seen rain,\u201d Dave said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We rowed around taking pictures, mostly in silence. No one tested it for an echo. The swifts seemed disturbed by our presence, darting, diving, and giving high-pitched whistles. But perhaps that\u2019s what they would have been doing without us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As we motored to the harbor we separated the food that could be used by the next trip from the food that would seem second-hand to people expecting a fresh start. We packed up our belongings, piled the towels, sheets, and mattress covers, and coiled the lines so they looked smart\u2014something to inspire the next crew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The six people coming in tomorrow are a couple, two close friends, and a father and daughter. They are older than this group. It was the trip that I wanted to go on, but there wasn\u2019t room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m glad I got this one; it was a convivial group, not paired-off except for Hugh and Emma, father and daughter, and we had the instructors fresh and enthusiastic. That\u2019s not to say they won\u2019t be that when the others roll in tomorrow\u2014I\u2019m sure they will be\u2014but it was nice to have them before there was something to compare us to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we had lunch at a restaurant in Nikiana we talked about how NOLS\u2019s approach to outdoor uncertainties is so different from that of many organizations, and from the American people in general. <\/p>\n\n\n\n NOLS acknowledges risk; there have been 13 deaths since it started in 1965. But uncertainty, hazard, and novel challenges requiring real-time evaluation by leaders and students are not only acceptable, they\u2019re part of the \u201cleadership\u201d NOLS aims to teach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I asked Nick if he\u2019d be going to new places with the next group, or be heading to the places he now knew would work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs always, it depends on the weather and conditions,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019m always interested in seeing things for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n NOLS is an organization led by people of immense skill and knowledge, and an adventuring spirit that\u2019s cultivated rather than squelched. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I asked about the NOLS scholarship program that\u2019s been soliciting me unsuccessfully for years. It turns out NOLS gives lots of scholarships, some to people it seeks out and some to those who come asking. I may start to give. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We spent the last night back at Villa Diodati. Four of the group walked up from the village\u2014a couple of miles of switchbacks. I needed exercise, but didn\u2019t feel like doing that right after lunch, so later in the afternoon I went up the road from the villa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n About a quarter mile up the road there was a stone track with a stripe of weeds down the middle that went off to the left. I walked up it. Trash, including a toilet and a clothes washer, had been tipped down the slope. Caterpillars descended on invisible threads from branches overhead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Remnants of squared stone walls and olive trees suggested this was once farmed, and I suppose could still be, although there were no dwellings. Trickles of water flowed among wildflowers and grass that were already tall enough to be falling over. The track disappeared, and soon after, the path. I turned around. The Ionian Sea was visible down the hill and far away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I walked a mile or so farther up the road, passing a house under construction that will have a spectacular view, and on the uphill side a clearing that had 86 bee hives (all I could see). Two cars passed me; one was a police car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nick had ordered another takeout dinner\u2014three salads, gnocchi with beef, grilled vegetables, Greek cannoli and chocolate cake\u2014that was enough for two sailboat crews. The food on this trip couldn\u2019t be more different from what I’d had on the New Zealand sailing class and that I’d lampooned in the travel story I wrote for The Washington Post. (If you’re interested, the story “NOLS for Olds” is in the “Journalism” section of the website.) NOLS has been unusually generous on this trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We didn\u2019t have a formal debriefing, which was fine with me. People had made their views known about the experience as it had unfolded, even if they hadn\u2019t declared a best-and worst parts of it.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Thursday, May 4<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n