in 1967 in Bodrum, Turkey. Although when I first chartered
her, she still had no refrigeration or air conditioning they have
since been installed. Her captain supervised her construction
and remains with her today along with two crew members.
Often, when I sat in the full-width main cabin���which in an
unusual twist on nautical design is used as the principal stateroom���I have a Proustian moment: it is 1957, my mother is
calling me out of Cleopatra���s deck house at the Peabody.
G
reece, made up of several groups of islands, is a yachtsman���s paradise. The Sporades, the first of three clusters we
visited, blessed us with moderate winds and seas. On Kira
Pangia Island, owned by Great Lavra, a single monk dwells in
the island���s only residential structure, a small monastery. A
single very narrow passage opens upon a generous protected
anchorage visited only by fishermen and the occasional private
yacht. The mirror-flat water afforded the best water-skiing of
the trip.
After a meal of langoustini with butter and lemon purchased
from the fishermen tied up to the rocks nearby, I fell immediately asleep on what would be the calmest, most absolutely
still night of the entire voyage, indeed, of my life. No wind,
no rattling, no generator: no noise. I awakened from a category ten deep sleep not to go to the loo but to move as if
HYLAND
37
