WE THE SEAMEN, PROLOGUE
Squalls, gales, cyclones and storms. These are the companions of seamen when traveling the seas in their seafaring ships, sailing across the oceans from port to port.
Squalls, gales, cyclones and storms. These are the companions of seamen when traveling the seas in their seafaring ships, sailing across the oceans from port to port.
Many a time, while caught in the midst of these fierce elements of nature, they pray that this, this one voyage, will not be their last. Many a time they wonder whether they will reach the next port.
It is their destiny to live in awe of the supernatural forces of the sea, forces that move billions of tons of water, at times gently, at times mightily, many times shifting land and coastline in their wake.
It is their destiny to withstand immeasurable fear every time a huge wave lifts the ship up high in the skies and keeps it dangling at great height. To hear the terrible creaking sounds of the ship while balancing in the air and count the seconds until the wave brings it back down on wide water.
Calm seas never hone skilled seamen; so, no seaman regrets long voyages in seafaring ships, no islander regrets sailing his caique out on the open seas, facing fierce, white topped waves, reaching heights of three and four metres.
When the immense waves on the ocean hide the sky, the sailors look through the big windows of the bridge and, with every striking wave, see the ship sinking under the water and then, when raised up on the wave’s crest, see it teetering at great heights.
Behind sealed iron doors, some in the engine room and others on the bridge, they hold onto immovable parts of the ship, trying to balance against the rolling of the ship, or walk with legs akimbo to stay upright, leaning their body away from the listing of the ship. Nobody is able to sleep, they cannot close their eyes, and those who try, fall out of their bunks. They sit in the mess, on benches and chairs fixed to the floor, or stand, leaning on the bulkhead behind the portholes. Quiet, without talking, they look at the angry sea outside and wonder how many beauforts they can withstand. Fear takes shape on their faces when the ship is raised up, because, while hanging in the balance, at the crest of the wave, it may break in two; relief takes over every time the ship sits low on the base of the receding wave, and they have no fear when the water covers the whole ship because they know that its bulkheads protect it from sinking. And again, pensive and quiet in their own hidden, dark thoughts, they wait for the next wave.
This life, the life lived by seamen, is a dangerous and unusual one, very different from that of land dwellers. It is governed by other rules, different ethics, it is a life that that has adjusted to the difficulties of isolation and hard work.
They are never sorry about their profession, not even a little bit. They never regret their choice.
They travel without pause, through the painful fear when the sea is rough and with nostalgia for those on land waiting for them, as if they are possessed by a morbid attraction. Some enlightened poets write in their poems that seamen have their souls pledged to the devil….
Yet, I have travelled and withstood the many sufferings as a seaman, and, I say, no. They have not sold their souls, it is their love of the sea; she is difficult and unbearable, but those who fight her get used to her and fall in love, she becomes a habit and life itself. For she gives as many joys as dangers. Middle aged sailors cannot tolerate land, they prefer the loneliness of vast oceans and the music of gentle waves plashing, the howling of the winds when the weather becomes heavy and the sea swells.
Young boys fresh at sea experience on board the inhumanity and rage of hardened seamen and, at port, in the embrace of prostitutes, they get to know the sweet hedonistic pleasures and the secrets and enjoyment of paid love.
They contract tropical diseases and become covered by deadly sores, they learn about forbidden herbs and drunken love in port dives.
For months and months, the sailors on tankers impatiently wait for the few hours they will dock, to run to the bars and surrender themselves to the delusion of drink and the embrace of women with red, painted lips that accentuate their sordid profession, who ask first for payment and then, gladly offer their false love.
A seaman’s life is hard, but it is also sweet. It is a longing and a love for the sea. And, as the song goes,
Captains and so many others,
boatswains, sailors, engineers
each has his longings
this is how we are, we, the seamen.
THE VAST SEA
And the sea He created was unexplored, unsurmountable, unpredictable, yet beautiful, unparalleled and incomparable.
He gave her the power to change and transform herself, and she possesses that power until today. God made her depths and morphology change shape with every current and quake, assume different formations, form valleys and ravines, some, densely covered in vegetation and others barren landscapes eternally covered by salty water, their bottomless depths at times impenetrable by sunlight.
Life first spawned and evolved within her salty waters. The well documented knowledge of scientists could not contradict the theological treaties that explained this genesis. All agree however, that the sea is the cradle of life.
Her world is full of plant life that varies depending on the latitude. How sea plants and gigantic kelp grew and evolved is still unknown to scientists. Myriads of life forms, from microscopic and invisible organisms to huge fish and strange fairy tale dragons live within her.
When the vapours in the atmosphere liquified, they created myriads of tons of water which fell to the Earth and created lakes and seas.
Small seas and large seas, open seas and closed seas, pelagoes and oceans.
Seas that are rough and grey, seas that are blue and calm.
The Mediterranean Sea lapped upon the whole south western side of my small village. Usually, the sea was rough as the area was exposed to south western winds, mainly the western wind known in the Mediterranean as “Pounendes”. Whenever there was bad weather over the Greek seas, Pounendes savagely brought it to our area, and Paphos was always in its wake. Pounendes brought with him raging seas that pounded the shore from the Akamas peninsula to Petra to Romiou, and even further.
My small village was in the middle. The shores, whether summer or winter, were beaten by the sea, always covered by the vapours of the terrifying waves that crashed on the jagged indestructible rocks that stood on the beach and arrested their force.
The strong currents agitated the water and formed maelstroms that pushed and shifted the water with great force. Coupled with the huge waves, they formed a formidable force, a major threat, and made the sea of Chloraka very dangerous. As a child, I remember that many lost their lives at sea, mainly people who defied her or did not take her seriously.
So, the seas in Chloraka are rough and, despite being a small village with few inhabitants, it had the misfortune of losing many lives during the scorching summer days when people took a dip to cool off. The elders but also the younger generation say that never did a year pass without drownings.
This is where I was born many years ago, in this beautifully savage place, yet I longingly remember those difficult and hard times when, through a miserable and very poor existence, I was raised and became a man.
I remember when we had no food, not even our daily bread. I was thin and skeletal, but I never cried or complained, despite the hardships of my poor existence.
I was comforted by the vast and amazingly beautiful view of the sea and I would sit and lose myself in my musings. The roar and groan of the sea reached the windows of the small shack where I lived and penetrated the wooden shutters, filling my young heart with fear. As I grew however, I became used to this fear and the howling sea winds became necessary, almost like a tender lullaby. These same winds at times roared in anger and yet, at other times, they calmly and serenely caressed the waves that softly crashed on the shores.
During life’s great school of childhood, I would stand on the rocky shore and stare for countless hours at the vastness of the water. My mind would go through a thousand thoughts, but I could not comprehend the great mysteries of the sea, hidden in plain sight on her surface and her depths. I was ecstatic while looking at her, majestically spread before me, and, in the distance, I would see her coupling with the sky and forming the circular shape of the Earth. And I, a poor boy not yet educated, could not understand all these mysteries. I thought I could see the edge, the point where the world came to an end…
And, I was pleased to see the edge of the Earth.
People say that a rough sea symbolises problems and worries. They also say that, if the waves reach inland, the local people will have days of happiness and prosperity. Both phenomena occurred on the beaches of Chloraka, therefore the circumstances prevailing were somewhere in the middle, no insurmountable despair, yet no happiness either. This was a dry terrain, void of soil and water, and the inhabitants toiled in manual labour as stone masons, builders and carpenters. These were the usual professions, and only a few parents were able to send their children for further education. Most just managed to complete elementary education, because, in those days, secondary education could only be obtained by paying tuition.
I lived under these difficult circumstances and conditions until the age of eighteen. Those were adverse times, the whole population lived a difficult life and, for most, there was no work… The food was not enough to feed their children because the land was barren, practically all of it being bedrock. A rocky terrain, yet green with the evergreen pistacia bushes and sea squills, known locally as “schinies” and “arkoshilles”, growing among the dry rocks. Between them, cyclamen and wild irises known as “macherades” as well as many other kinds of beautiful wildflowers adorned God’s creation. It was a beautiful place and, despite the hardships I endured due to the poverty of the times, it remained embedded in my heart, forever loved.
Children’s voices soon left our small house as my older siblings moved to other districts in search of a better future. The house itself was built at the end of the village, lonely and without amenities, without drinking water and without electricity. We drank water from a seven fathom deep well, and we drew it using a kind of pulley, always careful not to swallow any of the numerous leeches thriving in the well. When night fell, we went to bed early to save the kerosene that fueled the lamp, our one and only lamp. A lamp with a wick that just managed a gentle glow, so we had to do our homework early, before sundown.
Our mother grew some vegetables and potatoes to feed us. After school, we would help her in the small field that was in the yard, pulling the weeds and hoeing the vegetable beds.
At the beginning of every summer, when the terebinths ripened, we collected them and took them to the mill to have them ground in order to extract the oil. It was a bitter oil, it burned the top of our mouths and our innards, but we used it out of need because we could not afford to buy corn oil from the shop. We called it terebinth oil and it had a coarse taste we didn’t like, it tasted literally like poison. Now, however, after the passing of so many years, I nostalgically miss its taste.
During the summer, a small truck drove down the narrow road outside our yard with its back door opened. Slowly and painstakingly, it rolled down the slope in first or second gear. All the children in the neighbourhood ran and climbed in the back, and it would take us all to the beach. The driver was a kind man with rheumatism and, every day, he would go to the beach to bury himself in the hot sand to relieve his pain. He allowed all of us to climb in his vehicle and he happily took us to the beach. All he asked was a little help. We would dig a hole and cover him in sand, up to his neck. As long as he tolerated the heat of the sand, we swam and splashed in the tranquil and blue waters of the sea of Chloraka.
Before I learned how to swim, I would just go into the shallow waters and never dare venture into the deep. However, when one of us brought an inflated inner tyre tube, we would gleefully hang on to it and, as many of us as the thing could hold, we went out into the deep waters.
From the deep, I could see another world. I saw the distant land differently, dry and yellow under the sun. I saw the scorching heat hover and fill the atmosphere with mist while I felt fresh bathing in the cool sea water.
It never crossed my mind at the time that I would become a seaman, or, that I would love the sea as much as I love her now. As a child, I loved the sea and played with her, but now I love her as she has played with me, for, soon, fate would lead me to sail on the ships and experience her good, and her bad side.
THE FIRST VOYAGE
My childhood and formative years were spent in poverty, and most days we had no food. I remember the cold winters without heat, the cold baths, even cooking over a woodfire because we had no gas.
The only thing we bought from the shop was bread, and even that was on credit, and we paid it off with great difficulty.
My childhood was indeed difficult and poor. I remember my sick mother on her deathbed, suffering and dying at a young age, never having the chance to grow old.
As time passed, the memories remained indelible, but I gained inspiration and experience from everything I endured as a child. These were experiences that scarred me and helped me become patient and resilient, but, mainly, taught me to depend on myself. The hardships and lack of worldly goods caused by poverty during my childhood followed me forever, stayed with me for the rest of my life, and had a decisive effect on the formation of my character, my evolution as a person and, also, my conduct.
I finished school, got an education, learned how to speak English, and decided to embark on the ships. I felt the world could not contain me, I felt I was surrounded by walls imprisoning and limiting my horizons. These walls however were too low to hold me back, so, one day, I climbed over them and fled far away. I broke the shackles of my surroundings, widened my stride and ventured to the ends of the Earth. I became a traveller, I became a seaman and sailed the sea, I saw and got to know cities and villages, new places and people, new values and traditions, other cultures and new things, true mysteries.
I have vivid memories of the last months of my national service, I was serving at an outpost to the north of Polis. I would find work in the fields and earn a daily wage of five shillings. The bosses were hard men, I could not even stop to take a breath, and I worked very hard. The wage was low, but I didn’t mind, so long as I found work every few days. I religiously saved my five shillings, so, when I was discharged, I had saved three pounds. I managed to find work that paid twenty pounds a month at a warehouse. This, however, was very temporary. I was dismissed shortly after, and the job was given to a relative of the boss. I do remember that day very clearly though, because I counted the pounds I had earned and saved with such hard labour, and they were enough to buy a ticket on the ship “Knossos”.
I boarded the ship and thus begun the big voyage…
I stood at the stern and watched my country fade away. I found out that the ship I boarded was on its last voyage and was to be decommissioned. It was old, eaten up by the sea. All I hoped was that this voyage, away from my country, would not be my last, and I prayed that God would help me return one day, under better circumstances. With these worrying thoughts flooding my mind, I stood and bid farewell to my island until the land disappeared and all that remained was the infinite sea.
Time passed, and dusk found me in the same place, leaning on the railings. My ticket was cheap, and I was going to stay awake on deck.
I stood, and thoughts danced in my head. I was making plans and thinking of the unknown future ahead, and in my heart, I had one hope; that my future would be better than my miserable past.
At dawn, the sunlight revealed the endless blue of the sea, fading in the distant horizon. I felt my eyes heavy, so I sat down, leaned on the bulkhead of the ship and fell asleep with the cool breeze of the sea sculpting my face.
The splashing of the ship through the waves lulled me to sleep and I slept for quite a while, until the sun shone in my face and woke me. I lingered half asleep watching the passengers coming and going before me while, in the calm sea, dolphins swam and leaped in the water happily by the sides of the ship.
I remained leaning on the railings watching the playful waves; I was not in a hurry, I had all of God’s time on my hands.
The day passed, then nightfall took over, and again came the morning. I then heard happy voices shouting “land, land”. I lifted my head and saw the distant shores of Greece slowly approaching, and the port of Piraeus formed in the distance. I felt a chill pass through my body, in a while I would set foot on the sacred soil of the mother country, Hellas of the Hellenes, the land of spirituality and light.
