Panormitis (3) – the trip home
From Julia
I had thought that the boat I was catching for my trip back to town on Symi would be just a taxi-boat, that it was going to be a short boat ride, and back to base. Of course I hadn’t really thought about it at all until I found myself in the middle of a great crowd of multinational holidaymakers, Danes, French, Australians and various others, all out for the day, a bunfight, and lots of adventures. They had already made one stop before Panormitis, but the little separate groups of people were still separate groups, and were carefully not talking to each other yet. But Yiannis, when I asked him, said we were going next to Sesklia Island where there would be a barbecue and swimming, and on after that for coffee and more swimming in St George’s Bay.
I changed into my swimsuit in the head (no lights, wet swimsuit, very funny) and when we got to Sesklia I was all ready to swim in the beautiful pebbled bay. The crew of the Poseidon clearly know their stuff, and in the hour that we were all swimming and basking, they put together a terrific and delicious collection of food. I’m not a foodie, but everything I had was scrumptious. The small groups of goats that had been hanging around moved ever-closer to us as the eating finished, and at the end they got all the leftovers. (They clearly recognise the arrival of the Poseidon as a Good Thing.)
We’d left Panormitis at about one p.m., and by the time we’d swum and eaten and all got back onto the boat, the day was declining, and when the boat arrived in St George’s Bay the sun was slanting across the skyscraper-tall cliffs onto the water at a sharp and dramatic angle. Yiannis called out as he cut the engines, “Swim first, then coffee! No swim, no coffee!”
Of course we all went in, off the boat, since the only beach was tiny and a long way off. Some dived in gracefully (others not so gracefully), some crept down the ladder and slipped into the water gingerly; I just climbed down three rungs, held my nose and jumped. When all the passengers were in the water, the crew did the cannonball trick, one by one, from the railings, a great leap, bunch into a ball, and hit the water with a huge explosion and waterspout. And all of a sudden we were all just heads, bobbing about in that delicious buoyant, cool water, everyone just the same as everyone else. And when we got back onto the boat, all the distance and awkwardness was gone, and people were all talking to each other, exchanging jokes and addresses and smiling. The coffee was handed out, and the boat was on her way home in the golden afternoon light. Everyone was relaxed with the food and the swimming and the sun, and when we got back and moored-up, I couldn’t help thinking “Yiannis must love doing this, taking out a lot of strangers and bringing them back friends.” I gave him my fare (he almost forgot to ask me, I had to remind him) and shouldered my little rucksack and set off for the climb up the 156 steps to my studio, feeling as if I’d been away for a month and not just two days.
More guest blog posts next week.
