May 20 HBTM HBTM HBDN HBTM

Today we left Kefalonia for Ithaca. This island is the place where Ulysses did his Odyssey. It is the story, kind of a travel blog, where Ulysses traveled for 10 years (after his genius move with the Trojan horse conquered Troy) trying to get home. The Gods were not too happy with him so every step of the way bad things happened and his men were all killed. They encountered the Cyclops, the witch Circe, were swept to Hades, evaded the Siren mermaids with Ulysses tied to the mast and the men with wax ear plugs so they couldn’t here the Sirens songs. I came through that passage today with my noise cancelling headphones on – you can’t be too careful. We didn’t hear or see any mermaids. There was some singing at dinner time…

We tried sailing today, but we had very little wind – got only 2 knots of speed. I got to drive a bit. Captain Josh had a good saying when approaching another boat – Go to port, go to court. In other words – always pass to the starboard side.

We stopped for lunch at a town called Kioni – very cute little town and we took a hike to ancient windmills on the point.

We motored down the length of Ithaca while reading Homer (actually a kids book summary of Homer’s Odyssey.)

We are staying tonight on a little cove with a swim through cave (if you can free dive.) Josh did it and looked for lobsters.

My favorite job is when tying off the stern lines to the rocks, someone has to jump in with the line and swim ashore, climb the sharp lava rocks and tie the line there. Then swim back and do a second line. Abigail usually does it but I like to help.

A note on the underwater worlds in Greece. I think the scuba isn’t so good. – it looks like it is all rocks. No coral, and not much in the way of fish.