Cheese Pies, Ferries and Chewing Gum

When you get stuck in Athens for an extra day due to high winds canceling ferries to the Greek Islands you do think that the weather is going to be much better the next day. Or well that must of been what I was thinking.

Anyway I managed to book a ferry out of Athens on the Monday. First stop Santorini. I chose this island as the first port of call as I figured it was the furtherest island in the Cyclades which I would visit. What a bad call that was.

The fast ferries are nice flash looking Catamarans larger than the Brisbane City ferries. You are assigned a seat on the boat, so after taking my seat I thought it would be plain sailing. After all it was only a 4 hour journey. My seat was towards the front, and in the middle. Near the snack bar.


As I said it was to be a 4 hour journey. So I couldn't resist. After all nearly everyone else visited the snack bar too. And there in lies my mistake. I looked at the menu and thought, hmmm cheese pie, sounds good. For those uninitiated to the cheese pie it is a puff pastry filled with cheese. My previous experience with these had been good, having been filled with a Gouda cheese. This time though it was a rougher Feta Cheese. Why oh why I didn't remember to consider I was on a boat I don't know.

Anyway the boat started cruising out from the bay in nice calm waters. I managed to get a nap during boarding before we actually departed. But then it all went wrong. We hit open water. Smaller fast boats as I discovered weren't big enough to go through the wave action. They go up and down, side to side. Now side to side I can handle, it was the up and down that made me woosey. At this point I started to moan 'damn cheese pie'. I was catching a ferry on a day after 2 days of canceled ferries and ordered the diary food included pastry. Not good.

Anyway after about an hour we made it to the first stop. I was doing ok. I had been running a sweat for a second but starting to feel better. The 15 minutes in the calm waters of the ferry terminal helped. But in between the first and second stop whoa did it get rough. It also go dark outside. So no longer could you prepare yourself for the next sway. Then all of a sudden I noticed the ferry staff walking up and down the boat carrying wads of sick bags. Not a good sign. The weakest fell, and it was all over red rover. We had a barfing convention on board. The ups and downs were too much. Thank goodness I didn't have a seat near a bin.

Sadly it strain came to much and I too become a victim. In fact I'd say over 75% of the boat were carrying a brown paper bag. Anyway enough of the details.

After arriving in at the 2nd port two fellow passengers in the seats besides saw my plight. They saw I wasn't in the best shape. They offered me some chewing gum saying it might help. Gosh that was the best ever chewing gum I've ever encountered. I just sat there concentrating on chewing. Sitting as low as I could in the seat chewing. for the next 3 hours. I had survived the remainder of our 5 hour 'semi fast' boat ride.

I don't even remember what flavour the gum was. I didn't care. That chewing gum was my solution to everything on that ferry.