It is quite a day for celebrations today. Most importantly, it’s happy birthday to Neil Day, then it’s happy wedding anniversary, and happy landing on Symi Day. In the wider world, Michelangelo’s ‘David’ was first shown on this day, as was the first episode of Star Trek (not in the same year). We shan’t mention the darker events of the day in history, such as the finding of the second Jack the Ripper victim, the death of Queen Elizabeth, and the first football league matches, but on the other side of the coin, we could mention the birthdays of Richard the Lionheart, Patsy Cline, Peter Sellers and my grandfather. What a dinner party that would make.

Yesterday, 24 years ago, we were enjoying our last day on Antiparos. We’d had some holiday time there, doing that lazing on the beach thing that I am no longer any good at, and we had taken a trip. Eight kilometres outside of Antiparos town is the cave of Agios Ioannis, an 85-meter-deep cave that contains Europe’s oldest stalagmite (45 million years, and being Greek, still working 18-hour days), and, carved into the rock among others, the signature of Lord Byron. We’d also dome some asking around, checking out the prices of any properties to rent for a year, but there weren’t any, and asking about job chances. Again, not many, and mostly to do with teaching English. So, although the island was suitably small and reasonably non-commercial, we decided it was not for us, and that we would go to straight from there to Symi. The holiday fund was wearing down, and we had been mooching around for about 10 days so far, and it was time to move on. This involved nothing more complicated than buying a boat ticket from the local agent.

The boat was called Marina, an inter-island ferry that called at Paros and ended up in Rhodes, and, according to our ticket, it left Paros at exactly 23.59 on September 7th. We thought that timing was somewhat precise, but we packed up, took the small boat back to Paros, and there, in the afternoon, found somewhere to leave our luggage. We were travelling with a large rucksack each, a small rucksack and a laptop bag, and that was it, but it was still a fair amount to carry around. So, that lot dumped, we decided to come back for it at ten that night, and, meanwhile, enjoy a leisurely dinner somewhere along the front.

The place we ended up in was one of those where the taverna is on one side of a busy-ish main road and the outside tables, on the other by the sea, from where we could see the port. We opted for pizzas, and the cheerful chappie waiter/owner/lord high everything else, persuaded us to try his saganaki cheese in brandy. Turned out the pizzas were the size of tractor tyres and the cheese not much smaller, and we had to leave most, else we’d be unable to walk. Still, with plenty of time, we waddled back to pick up our luggage, and found a café opposite the port entrance, and there, dumped the bags and ourselves, ordered an ouzo each, and with well over an hour to wait, watched the world go by.

I’d done some background work before setting off on this adventure, and had taken nine months of Greek lessons with a brilliant young woman in Brighton. German by birth, and Greek by parentage, she was at university studying English law. She had also studied languages (understatement), and was a strict grammarian. Hence, I’d learnt how verbs, adjectives and so on worked, and why there are three genders (because there are), and how to decline an active verb (you politely say, ‘no thank you’), and so on, but there was no way I was ever going to pronounce the letters gamma or chi, and nor did we have time to understand reflexive verbs and sentence construction before we left. I could, though, read the language because it is handily phonetic.

At around 22.20, I noticed a ferry lumbering into port, and happened to read its name. ‘MAPINA.’ The tailgate went down just as we settled into our seats, and a crowd of waiting passengers moved forward to embark.
‘That says Marina,’ I translated, cos, let’s face it, you’ve only got to change the P to an R, so it wasn’t much. ‘I’ll check.’ A quick trot across the road to an officer at the gate, and ‘Is that this boat?’ Showing her the ticket. ‘Yes. Why does your ticket say 23.59?’ Well, I’m sure I don’t know, but that’s our boat. A run back across the road. ‘Grab the bags!’ The waiter arrived with the drinks. ‘Sorry, can’t stop.’ (We left the right money.) Another run back across the road with rucksacks hanging, and a dash to the tailgate just in time to be about the last people on – and off it went. We’d thought 23.59 was precise, but not that, when translated to Greek, it stood for 22.36.

There then followed an overnight to Rhodes, trying to sleep on the floor between the airline seats, with, for me, no luck. The boat was packed, and everyone was sleeping wherever they could find a place, but me being one of those who can’t sleep on the move, I wandered about for most of the night. Just before dawn, we were coming up on Kalymnos, so I went to wake Neil so he could see the sun rise over a Greek island on his birthday, which he did. On returning to our nest beneath the seats, we found someone had nicked our roll mat. Ah well, if they need it more… I vaguely remember the boat arrived into Akandia (I think it must have been), and the hydrofoil to Symi left at around two that afternoon. This gave us plenty of time to find it, get on it, and discover that, yes, it left at the time stated on the ticket.