ON BOARD S/Y BUSHIDO—Sailing into Athens, renamed “cemento-polis” by green-loving Athenians, can be a traumatic experience, for one’s crew, that is. Coming in from the west, crossing Pireaus, my German cook Daniel could not believe his eyes. “Was ist das? Das ist furchtbar, abscheulich!” Daniel is young, a very good cook and as good a pick-up artist as I have come … [Read More]

CORFU—The Ionian islands are softer, greener and more feminine than those of the Aegean, and Corfu in particular was used by Homer as the setting of one of the most beautiful episodes of the Odyssey, the meeting of Odysseus with Nausica. For any of you with short memories of the classics, Odysseus was washed ashore, having escaped Calypso’s enchantments, and is … [Read More]

The sea surface is smooth and mirror-like, and from the deck of Bushido I scan the coastline for the mother and baby porpoises who live inside a blue-green grotto off Assos, the tiny village which clings to a small isthmus between the island and a huge, forested pine hill crowned by a ruined 15th-century fort. It is a bad time of … [Read More]