TYW Day 2: The Day We Learned to Sail

Our boat, the Freja (which for some reason just reminded me of Franzia, I’m not really sure why, but given the amount of “slap the bag” we played on board, I guess it was appropriate) is a 40 ft Bavaria. That’s seriously everything I know about it. It’s a boat, it floats, it has sails, an engine and a place where we can cook, sit and sleep. Yay for people who know nothing about sailing but still sign up to go for a sailing vacation!

I think Louise realized rather quickly that she was stuck in close quarters with a bunch of idiots. As such, she began explaining everything. We had to be taught how to use a wench, how to wrap ropes around wenches, how to differentiate ropes, sails, how to tie knots, how to steer, upwind, downwind, what to do if the boat starts tipping too much, what to do if the boat doesn’t go anywhere, what to do if the boat goes to fast, buoys, engines, depths, sonar, blah blah blah BLAH. The most important lesson she taught us quick was “do what I tell you to, when I tell you to and don’t fuck it up or we capsize and get eaten by sharks.”

Ok well she didn’t say it in so many words, but we got the picture.

I think we learned pretty quickly. And by “we” I really mean, all the men on the boat, because Alisa and I did relatively nothing. We offered, and if we happened to be sitting in the right spot, we were allowed to wench or tie or pull or open or whatever. But for the most part, Alisa and I laid on the front of the boat topless to help motivate our sailors.

Someone’s gotta do it.

Sunday was a pretty easy sail. We only had to go a short distance to Poros (Πόρος) across the bay, which I believe was strategy to help get everyone together safely after our first day.

Poros was absolutely stunning. The marina was large and as such we all had space to park our boats along the road and have direct access to the shore. After we arrived, we restocked ourselves at the grocery store on the things we hadn’t thought about buying the day before (dish soap, sponges, more trash bags, and even more eggs – gypsy omelets take a lot of eggs).

Most of the afternoon was spent socializing. We hosted a plethora of tequila shots on the boat and got introduced to our fellow yachters. We gravitated quickly to naked San Diego, as A) they were Americans and B) they were naked 90% of the time. At first, I hated them for their perfect fake boobs, their 18 inch waists and their perfect blonde hair extensions. But some of them ended up being kind of cool and the couple that sucked ended up providing ENDLESS entertainment for the rest of the week.  In addition we a really cool group of Spanish girls from Madrid. Louise’s brother was also skippering a different boat of Spaniards and we tended to stick with them most of the week. Only two of them could speak English, which sucked for skipper Phillip being Swedish. In addition to not speaking much English, they were kind of douche bags. As even when I spoke to them in Spanish they still sucked.

Dinner on Poros was at a restaurant called Oasis. It was about a 50 yard walk from our boat. We had a Greek feast of lamb, fish, Greek salad, Greek wine, tziki dip. The dinner we would pretty much have at every restaurant from here on out.

From dinner, we walked over to a pre-party being held at a club literally 10 feet from our boat. Tequila shots ensued, a bit of dancing.

At one point, Iggy decided to have a gypsy whistle blowing party. After about 5 blows (exhausting, I know) we started dancing again only to hear… a return call. Someone else was blowing a whistle back at me. We fist pumped and cheered and began walking around the club blowing the gypsy whistle until we found our fellow whistle blower.

If you guys recall my post back in March about my friend Sean who started a company called Falling Whistles. Well, turns out my whistle blowing actually found me another Falling Whistle. No shit y’all. In the middle of Greece, I find another person out there who not only OWNS a Falling Whistle, but he freaking WORKS THERE. We bonded over our mutual friends, talked about what’s been going on, he congratulated me on my dinosaur whistle and we toasted over a tequila shot (naturally).

But seriously, what are the chances?

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