The Final Sail
Our final sail from Kea to Athens was a sad, sunny one!
Rumble and Go!
With a literal rumble, most of woke up with the engines at full speed. Certain people, who will not be named but rhymes with Binto, agreed with the captain to sail off at 8am. There were no pastry runs on our last morning!
Sounion
Thankfully, Captain made up for the unexpected early start! At the popular Sounion, the southernmost part of the Greek mainland, he stopped to let us swim. Unfortunately, we had our first hiccup! The anchor wouldn’t go down!
Similar to walking into the wrong class, I felt like we awkwardly had to sail out of the little bay while the other boats stared at us! Captain put us on autopilot, like he usually did, and worked to get the anchor down.
Thankfully, in another little tiny bay, he worked a miracle! We stopped (with an anchor) for a very cold swim. Somehow, this was the coldest swim and I think it was because it was like 10am and the sun was barely up!
The Sad Sail
After our brief and cold swim, our sad last sail to Athens began... safe to say everyone was depressed. This did mean everyone was on deck trying to improve those tans for the last times!
Halfway through the day, we noticed the speed had dramatically decrease. If the landlubbers notice it, then it must have been slow! We think the Captain noticed his crew was sad and melancholy. This made the sail last a lot longer! Although we noticed a large city creeping closer and closer...
The Goodbye
Sadly, we pulled into the Athens marina. Even more sad was our docking performance! After 14 days of near perfect docking, we kinda failed miserably. I am not sure if it was because the Captain had to do it backwards, but we struggled even with the help of the onshore crew to get the boat docked!
Once docked, we began the awkward few minutes before we said our goodbyes and provided the Captain with his tip. A few of us had to rush to the ATM while the others hung out on the boat with Captain. Then, the farewells began. Captain gave a nice speech how he enjoyed his busy 14 days with us and the described us. He said Kathryn was his love and Sarah his daughter. Mary Frances and I were the nephew and niece he never had (strangely...) while Nick was just a friend. Abbey was his favourite young cousin! It was sweet!
Lazy Saturdays
For our last lazy afternoon, we did what we do best - sit on the boat! We had loads of snacks, drinks, and stories to exchange about the trip. As we sat on our deck, we also got to watch more ships come back. While there are some nice boats, I am very happy with our decision!
During our afternoon jam sesh, Eugene, the general manager of DMS, came by to chat with us. He asked us how the trip went and he also confirmed the Captain is lgendary and has more friends than anyone. He said about 20 boats will arrive on Friday night and all 20 will depart on Saturday afternoon. In addition, DMS has about 15 captains and 12 will head our again on
Saturday - similar to The true Captain!
We asked how many people it takes to clean as some of these boats are pretty big. Eugene said it takes a crew of 6 to turn it around quickly. Usually 3 will clean the inside and 3 will handle the exterior. Eugene was super friendly and nice and answered all our questions about owning a yacht company. We were taking notes... haha!
Before dinner, we did the final (painful) task of owing up! Throughout the trip, we used the app Splitwise to split all group costs such as dinners, supplies, and marina costs. Considering 2 passengers wanted to be paid in euros or pounds, it made for a complicated mess! Thankfully Splitwise does a nice job of organising it all!
Night Out in Athens
For the groups last supper, Nick found a swanky rooftop restaurant, The Balcony, that was across the street from our quick 6 hour hostel! We decided to go to the main old town beforehand and walk to the restaurant. This was a great decision!
Surprisingly, the taxi rides to and from are expensive at 20-25 euros one way. That did not stop us! Our first really quick Greek tour stop was the Brittania. Apparently this hotel is really nice and featured in a movie, per Nick Pinto.
As we wandered the streets, we thankfully stumbled on my favourite store called Cookieland. Unsurprisingly, they sell cookies and they are pretty good ones! They are nice and gooey - just how I like them! We saw the sun setting on this ancient city, it was truly beautiful!
One quick note on Athens compared to other ancient cities such as Rome. It really felt more third world esque then we all were expecting. Granted, we could have picked the wrong streets, but most of the stores were similar to what I had seen in Nepal rather than the once capital of a great empire. It just wasn’t what we were expecting!
Our dinner spot was excellent! There were amazing views from the rooftop and the weather was cooperating. We ordered probably our first non-Greek wine in two weeks! For an appetizer, we split a lovely baked cheese dish. For my main, I had a very tasty pesto risotto with crab. Mary Frances couldn’t resist and ordered a nice looking steak. In all, we feasted! For our last meal together, we certainly went out with a bang!