A Bertram, the Aegean and Two Virgins

by Jon Burrows, Siobhan R. Callaghan, Stephen Shaw

Description This story is the direct result of me sitting in the Athens airport departure lounge waiting for my flight back to the UK, picking bits of bright green expanded polyurethane adhesive out of my hair and dark brown polyester resin from my beard. I think that the realisation that I had glued my feet into my boat shoes and stuck my toes together brought home the absurdity into which my life had descended. My situation was hammered home when the security people asked me to take off my shoes before I walked through the airport scanner. I had to tear great lumps of skin from my insoles to get the shoes off. What was revealed was akin to some disgusting tropical foot disease and brought horrified gasps from the security girl. All I could do was shrug my shoulders and say "I have a boat", and to most Greeks that explains everything. How often have you sat in a sterile workplace and dreamed of sun, blue sea and bright sunny islands? Does your dream involve a boat or the enchanted Aegean? Are you ready for the reality? The truth is that living your dream can be more akin to wrestling with demons or riding your nightmares. This is the story of my wife and I and a shared dream of cruising the eastern Mediterranean, basking in the hot sun, swimming in warm seas and enjoying the food and wine. However all of the years of our boating in Northern Europe could not equip us for the chaos and insanity we live every time we step aboard, nor did it equip us for the crazy and sometimes loveable people we regularly encounter. At first we thought that fate had specially selected us for its entertainment, but as the years have rolled on we have met others similarly cursed. And a curse it is. Crazy enough to make you want to sell up and walk away but perfect enough to make you want to go aboard time after time. So if you have the dream read this first and consider taking up golf. It's cheaper and safer.