jackrussel – The adventures of Captain Jack

Sea legs

(For Dutch click here) It’s almost five years since we live and sail fulltime on a small sailboat and still I have no sea legs. I have to train them again every season. Just like my sea stomach, sea body and sea head. It is best to build it up slowly, but there’s no time for that. So after five months in the sheltered harbor of Mesolonghi, we sail in three day trips to Kyparissia, in the southwest of the Peloponese. With faltering technology, the coldest Greek winter in 30 years and the next predicted winter storm as a serious deadline.

A dog’s life

“Dja skilos?” (for the dog), I ask the butcher’s wife in my best Greek. “Aaah, kokkalla …” she replies enthusiastically and turns around. I’m curious what she will come back with. Then I see her open the waste bin next to the butcher table and fill a plastic bag. When I inspect the contents, I look into six large, questioning eyes of three skinned heads of lamb and some other offal. No paying necessary. I thank her kindly. Our dogs are having another feast tonight.

Scared

I lie awake for a while allready. Nightmares are ruining my sleep. I feel warm and I’m tossing and turning. In my dream I have lost Captain Jack and I am calling out to him constantly. Suddenly I wake up from a loud bang. Jack too. He is scared and crawls under our bed as far as possible. I have an indefinable premonition. The wind should be howling right now, but instead it is calm and dead silent. I lie in bed with baithed breath. It is half past two in the morning in the harbour of Ormos Marathokampou. All of a sudden the predicted storm and torrential rainfall do break through the ominous silence. A fierce katabatic windgust pushes Coco crooked over her fenders against the concrete quay. Things fly through the cabin. “I’m scared,” I say to Ron. “Me too,” he replies.

Travel stress

“Well ma’am, it says ‘security’ behind your name”, the friendly Transavia lady at the check-in desk explains the reason why I could not check in online and even not now in person at her counter. “Did something happen on an earlier flight?” I react as ‘blondly’ as possible and seem to convince her. She assumes a mistaken identity. In the meantime, musing about a ‘security risk’, I imagine something completely different than a scared dog that cannot be put in a locked bag under an airplane seat, as happened to us on our first Transavia flight with Captain Jack.