Am I Thinking?

It has come to my attention that I might have not been doing the smartest activity ever thought up, if not crazy. Playing frogger with ships at the same time peekaboo with my boat (Norwegian friend I made calls my boat an air mattress) as I duck under the peak of waves. I have decided to drop out of the Aegean sea crossing. I take this in a good way as in I tried and have decided to move on somewhere I am not fighting the weather and ships, Croatia is the new venue for Ben and his Kayak! Like many other weeks, this past one has been full of everything.

I did make the crossing from Kea island to Kythnos after a long ordeal of patients and scare. Patients with the weather so many sailors I have met say is the key to survival. Yes I can be a patient person if I want to be and I know that does not make sense but it does to me. I understand that weather is one of my biggest challenges using a boat the size of mine. The use of resources form the internet have been the key source of information. The weather reports on the VHF radio are not good told by many of the locals, if you are even able to hear them. So patient I must be and pacients I was on the day I was intending to set out for the crossing. Nothing but sitting and waiting at port with intentions to getting an early start the next day.

Intionaly I really wanted to get an early start, but that did not happen. Now my excuse: first I did not want to get up and second another excuse I slept horrible because of the rain, sand flies and the disco that played 90's hits tell the morning light! (It does all come into play though and with good luck in the future, it just shows everything is for a reason)

The first part of the day was uneventful with not much more than a slight swell and little to no wind. It all came into action when rounding the southern point of the island into the obvious windward side. It never got too horrible really, but slowly progressed from mild winds, big rolling waves to wind in your face slowing progress and waves breaking over the bow of my boat. None of the conditions really bothered me besides the fact it could get worst. I decided I would not cross that day(again good thing I got up later than I wanted to or the weather might have hit in mid channel) and for sure not at the southern point for if the weather did get worst blowing me further south I would be without land. That land part was an issue too. The southern part of Kea island is cliffed out. Even if I wanted to there was nowhere to land my boat. My decision was to head further up the east side of the coast looking for a beach to camp out on and wait out the weather before it got worse. Slowly, very slowly I did make my way up the coat at about 1MPH paddling at a good pace. By that time though I was into it and did not care I was enjoying the ride the sea was giving me and singing away with my iPod! I landed at my beach early afternoon.

My Beach, it is a wonderful place. An old site of Greek ruins. It actually comes with two beaches separated by a rock outcropping on which 3 temples lye in ruins. Then there is a small chappel and a a couple of workers huts for working on the ruins. The hillsides are terraced from long ago and so many stone fences with corrals line the hills. So there I was at my beach just me, alone. It is a funny feeling though because it is a deserted beach but so long ago alive with many people giving it a weird feeling like someone else should be there.

I really had nothing to do and that is not good. I hate beach holidays. I have only really been on one you could say. I was in Mexico after climbing some volcanoes I had to wait at the beach for a friend and then spend time there. I think it was 5-7 days and really after 1 or so hours on a beach laying around I need to run around or something. So now I was stuck on a beach alone and for how long well the weather only knew. I ended up spending 1 and a half days on the beach and my something I ended up doing was hiking. The terraces really give you a great trail to run around on. So much work was done by so many people there in the past it was amazing to be the only one there. I also did head inland to find house and some people. I put a plan C or so into play that if I was not able to paddle way before my 3 day supply of food and water I could break everything down and hike it out to a road and hitch or something.

I built fires at night, read a little and enjoyed the sound of the waves. But still throughout those days the wind and waves held there own for my little kayak. I did even try once to go out but then remembered to be patient. The night before I actually did make the crossing a sailboat and crew from Denmark did come into the bay. They too in there 40 something foot boat were hiding from the weather. This justified my reasoning and was now happy to be doing nothing on a beach. The crew of the boat came ashore asking me if I needed anything with the offer to take me to the other side of the island the next morning. I declined the offer though knowing I was self supported and had time to wait it out. Something about me is I never like to go backwards. I will try anything and the idea as everyone obviously knows might be too big for me to bite off but I hate going backwards. So that night I decided to just get a good nights sleep and hope for the best the next morning.

The weather the next morning was looking up for a great crossing. Perfect amount of wind to sail and only smaller sized waves to deal with now. The big problem was I was feeling horrible. I not sure actually why. Maybe it was something I ate or the wine I had was bad? Even though, I had to go puking and a head ache my decision was to go. So after packing up real quick and puking up the food I tried to eat I was in my kayak and paddling.

First thing I hate being sick, I rarely get sick and second you never want to get in a kayak when you have to paddle and you have to make it to the other side when you are sick. At first it was fine I had a little wind with it picking up making it so I did not really even have to paddle. But after the winds got higher so did the waves. At the point I believe I was 3 miles offshore almost half way in the 8 mile crossing the waves were higher than my head while sitting in my kayak with a slight white cap on them. This will do nothing good at all for your stomach let alone your nerves. I was really doing it then! I had thoughts of going back but the thought of going back did not sit well with me I was almost halfway across. When I tried drinking anything I would just puke it up all over the side of my boat. So this is it I was just going and counting the tenths of miles slowly going by.

Then there is the boat traffic. Even when the weather is great I never want to be in the channel. The ferries and large container ships along with just your regular recreational boats scare me. I know they can't see me. I have a VHF radio but still I don't want to have to judge when I should use it or not and then it be too late. So again I want out of this channel ASAP. Traffic is high today just my luck and many pass by obviously without incident. Then I see one of these cargo ships coming a distance off. It is really hard to tell how far but it does look possible with my progress and his we could connect. The decision is to either stay where I am and wait for him to cross or make a run for it. Now if I stay where I am, I am exposed to others longer and if I run for it I may not run fast enough. So I choose to run haha.

Paddling and watching we become closer and closer connected. Maybe I should have stayed where I was but still we will see. The actuality of him hitting me is slim but I do not want a chance at all. Within a few hundred yards I decide to call him on the radio just to warn him of my presence. It must have been funny to hear my transmission. I think it was something like this”Big shipping vessel this is Irene do you see me” or something like that. I know I did use big shipping vessel haha. Lack of professional use of the radio probably warned him more than the words. The radio worked and my worrying was over as the crew looked over and gave me a nice shout of enthusiasm.


Still I hate the traffic and there was probably nothing to worry about. All I had to do was get to the other side now and get off the boat. This seemed easy but not at all. By the time I did make the crossing to Kythnos, where I was there was nowhere to get out. Rocky cliffs lined the coast. I wanted nothing more than to get off the boat and lay down or die. None of that was possible as I still had a good 7 miles to go from there to the port. This was the long part of the day. I would paddle and stop then do it again. I wanted nothing to do with being there. I had no choose though. Hours went on like this, I was pathetic. My worst and best performance yet. I did make it obviously and with that it became my best performance because I did it. I was met at the beach by a local named Consta. His family owns a restaurant situated on the beach and he offered me a fresh squeezed orange juice “On the house”

How I hated and loved that experience. I would do it again, but do not ask me to. I have said this before but I do love to suffer and maybe give myself too much pride in it sometimes. Sometimes though I wish this was not the way I was. My short term memory of pain my be the reason I get myself into these ideas. Somethings I do want to develop in my life but this one is undecided and I think it is just the way I am.

The island of Kythnos was nice. The town of Loutra where I stayed is a small place. Perfect really all you really need is there. Soon after I arrived I was greeted by an older Norwegian man: Lasse, who owned a 40 something foot sailing boat. He was the only other tourist around. After talking for a bit and him telling me I was traveling on an air mattress we agreed to meet for dinner to try to find a good steak. Maybe this is only funny to me but I was not really sure about finding a good steak and was right. Hamburger steak I guess you could call it, we did though the next night find a descent steak. Over the next few days we spent time eating together telling stories with me learning lots about the sea and sailing.

I am in Croatia now, with the advice of Lasse and my troubles waiting around for better weather. Another choose would have been to go to the southeastern islands of Greece near the Turkish coast and sail about for a bit. The problem though is time, both mine and relations with the politics in Greece. As many of you may know the economic crisis has hit hard in Greece. This past week some of the transport systems have striked and the ferry's along with the train services were effected. This also played into a role of my decision. I just did not want to put of with there issues. A choose was made, Croatia is a nice place having been there two years ago and the island hoping seems like a given area to try it out.

So here I am on my final train leg. In about 1 hour I will be in Zadar. I have been traveling since 8PM two days ago when I left Athens, it will almost be 47 hours by the time I arrive. I do not mind this type of endless travel. You just go with the flow and sometimes the system is smooth but most of the time it is not. I always do know I will make it there someway. Just like today when I did not read, as I can't read that the train does not run at 1300 to Zadar at my connection on Saturdays, I had to wait 3 hours. But those three hours were in a small town I would probably never seen if I did not have that luck.

So as for this last week, it happened and another is in the future.