Greece – The Beginning of our 6 months sailing adventures as flotilla leaders.

The beginning of our Greek adventure which I will be documenting on our blog along with what we learnt, what we wish we had known and tons of photos of gorgeous Greek islands!

So. Let us begin. This is the blog post I wrote just before we left. How green and naive we were!!!

April 20th 2022.

“We’re leaving, on a jet plane” in 4 days…!
First, a quick flashback to 2014. I had been married for a short 3 months when I trotted off to Greece with 4 of my close girlfriends to celebrate a 50th birthday! (Had been planned long before there was a wedding on the horizon.)
I remember sitting on a beach in Skiathos, Koukounaries to be exact, (such an amazing name that I could never forget it), looking out over the bay at a beautiful yacht anchored just off the beach, and saying out loud “I will be here, in this bay, on our own boat one day.” Irma van der Vyver, I know you remember that!
We bought our boat 5 months later in South Africa and had huge dreams of sailing the 7 seas. Sadly, cancer was waiting to pounce, and pounce the bitch did. 11 months later my new husband was no longer beside me planning our new life. I had a boat, a broken heart and a dream.
However, as we all know, life marches on relentlessly.

Fast forward 8 years and guess what?

In 2 days’ time, Captain Mike and I fly to Greece to start a new adventure! Based in Athens (can you imagine!), we will be flotilla yacht leaders for 6 months. I will be sailing very close to where I said I would when I sat on that beach a few years ago! The power of manifestation.

It all happened so fast.

Saw a position posted for “flotilla leaders” in the Med on Facebook a few weeks back. Sent a mail. No response. However the idea intrigued me and I did a bit of research about what it entailed, sounded RIGHT up our alley. Spotted a second ad for “flotilla leaders” hidden away on a website on Monday 28th March. Applied for fun, never in my wildest dreams thought we had a hope in hell. Neither did the Captain who was rolling his eyes at another one of my harebrained schemes at this stage. We didn’t have the qualifications, we are too old, and we are at the bottom of the world in faraway Africa. Suprise, surprise, invited to be interviewed via zoom on Tuesday afternoon of the 29th. Apparently, a good meeting as we were offered the crew position later that day!

So what exactly is a flotilla leader? Based in a marina 15 minutes from the centre of Athens, skipper (Captain Mike) and hostess with the mostest, me, will be the lead boat guiding a flotilla of boats around gorgeous Greek islands on 7 or 14-day sailing adventures. Basically, we are there to ensure everyone (on their “rented” yachts) gets from point A to point B safely and has a ton of fun on the way! The guys who rent the yachts all have a skipper’s ticket so should know a thing or 3, we are just there for help if needed, both mechanical and social. We will live on a very comfortable 46 ft Bavaria yacht, she is slightly bigger than SV Knowind. All expenses covered (yes, even a wine allowance), paid in British pounds.

In just less than 3 weeks we frantically (and even that is an understatement) yet methodically and with a clear unwavering goal in mind:

– submitted mountains of documents, renewed passports, spent hours with Swiss and Greek consulates, with the added complication of a new surname for me and an update of marital status in Switzerland for Michael. Stringent regulations applied by the overzealous ever-efficient Swiss (I had to supply an unabridged birth certificate for heaven’s sake, I am over half a century old!!) and the utter hopelessness of SA Home Affairs, applied for my Schengen visa which took several years off our lives as we waited to see if I could get an extended Schengen visa until our marriage is registered and I can travel on a Swiss spousal visa. I can’t. So in to Greece, I go and they will supposedly supply me with a 6-month working visa once I am there.
– booked flights, we have a 90-minute stopover in Doha and I am already having nightmares of Captain Underpants doing an Usain Bolt in the wrong direction.

He has done it before. I speak from experience…..

– parked our beautiful boat at Royal Cape Yacht Club and then subsequently decided Simons Town was a better option so had 2 days (weather window) to get around Cape Point and that was fortunately done with ease and radar in the fog. Had our interview to become members, paid a stack of money to keep her safe for 6 months, organised insurance for her and some other odds and ends.

Fanbelt blew on my car, borrowed Attie’s car and the boot decided it would rather fly open randomly than stay closed so I drove through central Cape Town with a boot popping open like a yawning hippo every few minutes, Greeks lost my visa photos so did another dash into the centre of Cape Town (have you TRIED to find parking in the centre of town??). Plus of course, another exciting trip to Home Affairs to renew The Princesses passport…..the mind boggles.

Anyway, what’s done is done, what isn’t can bloody well just wait. Michael’s SA passport will expire while we are away, he has lost his SA ID, should be fun coming back to SA but that problem is months away! Threw a few sarongs and tons of sunblock in a bag and we fly on Sunday 24th…..2 weeks of “training” around the various islands, meeting taverna owners, and seeing all the secret nooks and crannies so we can give our “guests” the best possible experience. To think we are being paid to drink! Plus socialise and have fun, I mean seriously, can any job be better suited for Captain Underpants and me?
The best part of all this? Our family is allowed to visit and sail with us whenever they can! With the Captains’ daughters and their families in Switzerland and the UK, this is a magnificent perk! Naturally, The Princess and the rest of my gang will visit too.

At the beginning of the year, I mentioned to Michael that I was determined that 2022 will be my BEST year ever and I am going to blast into my sixties and another decade as exuberantly as I possibly can. What a year so far, got married, my first utterly gorgeous grandson arrived and my 60th turn around the sun will be celebrated in Greece in June! Strangely I had my 52nd birthday in Athens too, celebrated by seeing Zorba The Greek performed in the Arena on a hot summer evening. Unforgettable! (Especially when the cork popped off our hidden booze bottle in the middle of the show and we nearly died of embarrassment when the Greeks near us dived for cover) …..(Annelie etc)
Dreading the long flight with the Captain, he is not a good traveller, especially in the air, too far away from the water! However, onwards and upwards, Athens here we come!

τα λέμε σύντομα!
(See you soon!)