Get off the Fast Ferry

In late September, after volunteering with refugees on the island of Lesvos, I found myself ferrying through the Aegean sea with my destination as Amorgos Island, one of the larger islands in the Cyclades.

It’s a time of transition in my life. My children are in college, and I felt a very strong impulse to have a pilgrimage-like experience. This post is about the fruits of my decision to travel alone in what turned out to be a time of joy, freedom, and self-discovery.

What follows is an anecdote from this journey. I’ve come to believe that all of the heaviness in this world should be tempered by beauty and the joy that comes from allowing oneself, if humanly possible, to revel it. In her book Joy is My Justice: Reclaim What is Yours, Tanmeet Sethi, MD “shares her methods for shifting your nervous system and biochemistry into joy at the cellular level.” Although I hadn’t discovered her book yet, I believe that on this trip I was living into the wisdom that Sethi shares with the world through her work and writings.

It was a beautiful morning on the island of Lesvos when I said goodbye to my studio loft, took a cab to the airport, and boarded a tiny airplane to Athens and then to Naxos Island, where I disembarked and cabbed to the port. I sipped lemonade in a cafe before boarding a fast ferry (an approximately hour and a half trip) to Amorgos Island.

After an hour or more on the ferry, I wasn’t tracking anything but the beauty of the islands we were passing in all of their dry, craggy grandeur.

We’d been cruising past multiple islands when the ferry began to approach land. I marveled at scattered tiny, dry islands adorned perhaps with nothing more than a miniature white-washed adobe- looking church. My heart began to flutter. We were entering a harbor featuring a classic white-washed Cycladic village, a swimming beach, and picturesque boats. I grabbed my heavy backpack suitcase and gleefully disembarked.

As soon as I got off, I inquired immediately as to how I might reach the neighboring town of Chora. Was there a bus? Within a few seconds I was told that I’d gotten off on the wrong island. “Is there another ferry today for Amorgos,” I inquired. Yes, two and a half hours later at 4:30 in the afternoon. I hiked up the main street of this little town to buy yet another ferry ticket. With one heavy pack on my back, and another smaller one on my chest, I ascended the hill, found the ticket office, paid 6 Euros for the 4:30 ferry, and left my bags in the corner of the shop at the invitation of the woman who sold me the ticket.

“Where am I,” I inquired of the saleswoman (her son’s toys were there so that he could play while she was working). “Koufonisia,” she said. “Heaven,” I might have replied back to her.

“You’re saving my life,” I said instead. She smiled indulgently, her eyes twinkling.

I had made one of the best mistakes of my life. I had more than two hours to explore the dreaminess of a small island that in summer months fills up mainly with tourists from Greece and Europe.

My unplanned presence on the island of Kouf0nisia was a chance to live into an afternoon of blissful wandering. High on adrenaline, I sped through the main town of Chora recording every picturesque corner, including its iconic windmill, whitewashed dwellings, and curvy streets lined with cafes, craft shops and flowering bougainvillea. Like other island villages, this one fills up from May through September with visitors eager to indulge themselves in sunlight, café life and bohemian living. A tiny island like Kouf0nisia is not overrun, infrequently visited by Americans, and relatively undiscovered.

This town offered an unexpected opportunity to banish ugly self-criticism in favor of embracing the magic of whimsy and chance. I had followed my curiosity and sense of awe right off the ferry boat, a decision that I will never regret.

Getting off on the wrong island allowed me to turn away from my agenda and invited me to turn my attention to what was in front of me. It was if a band of angels had lifted my physical body off the fast ferry, urging me to see beyond the efficiency of a mundane mainstream liner with its airplane seats, first class section, and stuffy interior.

What might happen if we were to decide to do a little more of just letting things happen in our lives, if we were to make room for the unknown, the mystery, taking our hands for a moment off the steering wheel, so that we might open the door to the possibility of experiences impossible to plan for in advance?

Soon enough, it was time to reclaim my bags and wobble down to the harbor, where I waited for the 4:30 ferry.

My heart leapt yet again when I saw that I was to board a Small Cyclades Lines ferry.

Bliss.

Here was a ferry with an old-school ship-like interior below the decks, where a few passengers found snacks, beverages, and a place to shelter from the winds. But most passengers chose to sit out in the open air, socializing and living into the journey itself— the wind, the sites, the company they were with, the eventual sunset over the Aegean Sea.

In boarding this mini-ferry I found myself back in my childhood, traveling again on a small outdoor ferry with regular folks going to irregularly beautiful places. A four-in-a-half hour journey might be construed as an unpleasant way to end an already long day— but no.

It was a time to sit outside with wind blowing through my hair, a time to enjoy the discovery of ports where we stopped, a time to revel in the dramatic appearance of the huge island of Amorgos when it finally emerged in the distance, and a time to laugh at myself for having done so little research about my journey. It was a time to absorb the beauty of the sun setting over Amorgos Island, where I might have landed in the heat of a September day if things had gone as planned.

Here’s my takeaway from this mishap: Get off the fast ferry. Get on the slow ferry. Follow the glorious whims of your heart, for whims are letters from heaven, gentle taps, trips into the unknown, whispers that guide us to take risks, little encouragements that lead us in the direction of living.

It was dark and the port was virtually empty as passengers disembarked at our final destination, the town of Katapola, Amorgos. I walked past empty cafes carrying my bags and searching for a cab. Knowing a bit of conversational French came in handy when I fortuitously met two French ladies traveling to the same pension. I called a cab, and before I knew it I was looking out from a large balcony that gave me view of a town that didn’t look like much in the night air. I had paid thirty Euros a night for a kitchenette, small living room, bedroom and balcony.

Where have I come, I asked myself? Alone, no car. What had I done?

Here I was, on my own, in an almost randomly chosen village in the middle of the Aegean. I woke up after a deep sleep, dressed, and walked up to the main street of the village in search of the first meal I’d had since my afternoon Gyros on the island of Koufonisia.

What would I find? Would these four days be my big mistake?

Banish the self-doubts!

Chora, Amorgos would not disappoint. The Cyclades Islands are replete with villages that feature whitewashed homes, little alleyways that go up and down, steps leading to nowhere and everywhere, and lots and lots of especially blue but also mutli-colored doors. This town, moreover, boasted of around seventy churches (see the first photo) built during the Turkish occupation by families who could afford to construct them as a way of sheltering their assets. Oh but they feel so sacred upon entering them, filled as they are with candles, incense, and icons!

For breakfast, I found a restaurant and bar, the Jazzmin café, with a little sign outside that reads “Books, records, films, these things matter. Call me shallow, it’s the foocking truth.” High Fidelity.

Soon, I was sitting on a balcony overlooking the town with a huge café au lait, a fresh squeezed orange juice, a bowl of yogurt overflowing with honey, an omelet, and some home made bread and butter. I noticed a handsome couple enjoying my appetite, but I’m determined to unapologetically eat as much as my meal as possible. I wanted my husband there to help, but I forged ahead alone.

After breakfast, I wandered through the village until I found my way to a zig zag trail that led me down the mountain and to the entrance of the Panagia Hozoviotissa Monastery, one of the most important and visited religious sites in Greece.

I was tired at the end of the day from walking up and down craggy mountainsides in the heat of the day. Dripping with sweat and sunscreen, I found my way back to the pension depleted but inspired and joy-filled after spending a day as a wandering pilgrim.

My days in Chora were filled by long walks, new discoveries, and chance meetings with humans I grew to adore in the space of short conversations.

A sense of melancholy began to permeate the air as my time on the island wound down. The hot high tourist days that generate a living for the islanders were beginning to fade into slightly cooler days. I was one more person traveling through, and the days when European tourists grace the islands with their pocketbooks were diminishing. The Jazzmin café is only open from Thursday through Sunday during the winter months, when freezing winds whip through the empty streets. The tables and chairs, wine bottles, and ash trays are put away for the long season of winter. Many who work in these towns return to Athens, leaving the locals to themselves.

On my last night in the village, I was up in the pre-dawn chill preparing to bring my bags down to the street, where I met an eighty-ish cab driver who escorted me slowly down the mountain road to the port. While waiting for the ferry to depart, I observed long good bye hugs that anticipated distance and loneliness through the winter months. A man sat in a café with his eyes securely on the ferry until he gave one last wave, reluctantly saying goodbye to all that was during the long summer nights spent sitting outside with loved ones chatting, eating, smoking cigarettes, and living fully into sultry summer nights. All that would be gone with the departure of this before sunrise ferry.

How many people pass through these islands, and how many return for sentimental reasons, looking for something they might have lost in the past but might regain again with friends in moments spent in a café with a heartbeat, old books, music, and soul.

For me, a nine hour ferry ride back to Piraeus Port, Athens and another long day of travel.

But no. The ferry was off, and I drank a cup of coffee while the sun gradually rose over the Aegean Sea. The ferry left Amorgos only to stop frequently, paying homage to one small Koufonisa-like port after another. The sky lightened and turned colors before my eyes.

“Where are we now,” I asked my fellow Greek passengers as we docked briefly at yet one more port. “This is Irakleia, this is Schoinoussa. This is Donoussa,” they told me.

They knew where they were, and I didn’t. No matter.

The sun was coming up over the Aegean Sea, and I was basking in the light that illuminates the islands of my heart. I left part of my soul in the Aegean Sea, but I’ll be back.

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