Living the Dream

Athens

May 28th 2010

As coastal sailors, Jackie and I often talk about cutting loose the dock lines and setting off for distant ports and traveling where the wind might take us. Sailors call this idea "living the dream" and many have managed to successfully transition to a life on board away from the constraints of a "traditional" existance.

As I was contemplating the dream while sipping a frappe on the pier in Samos' Pathogorio port I got the distinct sensation that we were in fact living the dream as well. True, we were not bobbing on the hook in an exotic port, but we were there too and our experience seemed pretty exotic in its own right.

One of the characteristics of living the dream is that you are free to decide your own schedule; to react and adjust your plans as opportunities and issues arise. Earlier that morning we arrived at the airport at 9am to catch our 10 am flight. After learning that I'd been reading the arrival time instead of the departure time, the unhelpful team at Aegean Airlines informed us that we could basically buy our tickets again if we wanted to fly out of Samos anytime soon; we decided to modify the schedule.

Instead of flying to Athens from Pathagrio and giving the nasty Nellies at Aegean Airlines any more cash we "decided" to take the overnight ferry from Samos city. Smarting from my expensive mistake of reading the e-tickets wrong, I went back to the rental car company and asked for our car back. No problem. We could have let the entire incident ruin our day, but instead we went to the port and "refined" our plans over lunch and a cold beer.

As Bob Bitchen, owner of Lattitudes and Attitudes Seafaring Magazine is fond of saying, "Attitude is the difference between adversity and adventure!" We've got plenty of positive attitude on this adventure, so if you ask me, we're living the dream.

--Paul