After a glorious week on the northeast agean island of Samos we made our way to the port of Samos. Samos City on Sundays was mostly closed, but we managed to find the one Taverna that was open. Sharing a light lunch I felt the need for a little pick-me-up and reached into my backpack and pulled out a miniature crown royal whiskey still in its little purple bag. As I was about to open it a young man approached and asked what it was. He said he had never seen the likes of it so I told him and then offered it to him to try. I pulled a miniature cc out and we toasted and drank up.
He became our local friend even goiung so far as to take us to a real local restaurant where they frowned on tourist, and really frowned on Americans. He smoothed it over with the owner and then we had a great dinner and some great company.
Now to the meat of the story. Since we were shipping out the next morning he persuaded the guy on the the dock to let us board the ship and sleep there saving us the cost of a room for the night. We found a 1/2 booth in the cafeteria and put our packs down and got settled for the night. After all that ouzo and beer we drank we went right to sleep only waking as the ship was leaving,with us on it, without paying, and noone ever asked us for our tickets. Free Ride.
Oh about 4-5 hours later the seas were getting rough and we decided to head up to an open area a few decks above the fan tail. There were alot of young kids like us there and a party soon began. As the seas got worse we all made a pact that if you got sick you had to leave the party. There were around 85-95 of us when it started, and most of us tied our backpacks to the frameworks of the corrugated roof to keep them dry.
As the storm got heavier the crowd got lighter. We were down to about 40 drinkers and the trip that four or five of would make, heading down five decks to get beer became two guys going down five decks to get beer. and, around the sixth hour of the storm some entertainment arrived. These three guys in rain slickers and lashed to the railing came out to open up the gates to the swimming pool. It seems that the waves were washing over the ship and hitting the pool and making the bow go higher and higher as yhe waves got bigger and bigger. It took them almost an hour to hand crank the gates open ang then just as quickly as they came they were gone.
On our eighteen hour trip from Samos to Naxos we were on about hour twenty when the big blow started to ease. Only fifteen of us remained, the galley was out of beer and we were where we started when the storm began. 13 hours from Naxos. We all lived to tell the tale,, and for another chapter in the ongoing saga of the BLOGG