a Dodecanese chronicle
Getting there
Kos → Kardamena · Friday 11 and Saturday 12 September
The log was built for twelve days on the water, and then the first thirty-four photographs arrived from before it. A ferry on Friday, a sunset dinner in Kos, a red sign that says what everyone was thinking, and at half past one on Saturday, lunch on a boat Mark and Beck last sailed in 2022. Getting on board was like being back at home, Mark wrote. By evening they were off Kardamena with two more of the party aboard and one still to come. This chapter is the journey in, told in the order it was sent.
The first frame is a ferry at twenty-six to four on Friday afternoon, and it is the whole prologue in one picture: a bag over one shoulder, the gangway down, the harbour behind. Mark and Beck had come from Ephesus, where they had walked the ruins the day before — just amazing, in their message — and by half past seven the light was going orange over a table by the water. Dinner came at half past nine: chips under something grilled, two bowls of salad, and no complaints recorded.
Saturday began on foot. A café on the water at six minutes to nine, a galleon with its gangway down at the quay a minute later, and at 9.34am the photograph the whole party would have taken if they had been there yet: two caps, two pairs of sunglasses, and the sign that says I ♥ KOS in big red letters. Beck filed the beach at 11.42am under places, which is where it belongs.
Mandy sent the first words from the boat at two minutes past three, a minute ahead of her photographs: When you first step on to the boat, it is incredible. Such a beautiful boat. Thank you Mark and Beck. The photographs followed at 12.41 — the marina, a forest of masts, two grins under the bimini — and then the boat herself, empty and waiting, cushions plumped, nobody at the helm yet. Mark’s account arrived at thirteen minutes past three and it is the best thing written all day, so it is here in full.
Lunch was photographed by four people from four seats, which is how you know it was good. The dishes came out at 1.26pm on white platters — stuffed vegetables, tomato, a bowl of greens, something creamy to spoon over everything — and the table filled around them under the blue-and-white cloths with the marina masts behind. Beck’s review, sent at 3.09pm with the photograph she took at 1.33, was four words long: Lunch was absolutely delicious! Roger sent three frames of the same table and a twelve-second voice note, which said: Day one, sitting around the lunch table with all the fine crew of Serenissima Two.
At 2.53pm somebody photographed the chart — the Dodecanese in green and cream, Turkey along one edge — and at three, or near enough, Kos Marina was behind them. Beck marked the windiest stretch on a map at 5.36pm: we sailed into the wind to meet Rod & Sheila at Kardamaina. By nine minutes to five the six of them were on the aft deck in a row, feet up, the sea going past, and that is the photograph at the top of this page.
Everything written on Saturday, in the order it arrived. The log has added nothing.
Two hours on, Kardamena. At 6.16pm Serenissima was photographed from the water with her wake still behind her; at 6.26pm the tender was running with two hats and a rucksack in it; at 6.32pm there was an embrace on the aft deck. Mark’s message an hour later said what the pictures had already shown: first stop at Kardamena to pick up Rod and Sheila who flew in from Istanbul. Mandy’s came four minutes after his. Dinner was in bowls, and Mandy photographed the pudding.
