a Dodecanese chronicle
Day Eight
Leipsoi → Patmos · the Dodecanese
Eighty photographs and two clips, and the boat reached Patmos. Roger’s first frame of the voyage is a swimmer in a cove at 8.34; Mandy’s 8.40 is a face-mask packet held up to the camera, and she put it in the Hero folder with a line borrowed from Saturday. Two cruise ships in the roads at half past eleven, the monastery on its hill at 11.49, a paddleboard and a swimmer over the mooring lines at 12.35, and by 1.17 Beck’s pin was on Skala. The afternoon split: the ladies shopped in Skala, and Craig, Rod, Mark and Roger walked up the mountain to the monastery, met the hosts of tonight’s dinner, had a beer at Benetos and came down for the gelato at Daphne’s. Aperol on the wall over the bay at 5.45, the sunset Mandy chose at 6.55, and dinner at Loza — a parcel opened at the table at 8.52, and the long table at 9.23.
Roger’s 8.34 is a swimmer flat on the water at the foot of a rock wall, the first frame he has sent. Mandy’s 8.40 is the packet — a collagen sheet mask held up over the breakfast table — and her note for the Hero folder was Said by the bassett.. “I know a plastic surgeon in Lucerne”. At 9.16 Beck had Mark on his feet in the saloon, both arms out, pointing; her four words on it were The beach is this way! Mandy’s 9.18 is the same pose from across the table. Then under way: Maria’s 11.12 of two of them at the helm, Mandy’s 11.14 of two on the aft sofa in sunglasses, and from 11.36 the ships — a white liner and a dark-hulled expedition ship in the roads, three frames — before the 11.49s: Maria’s of the white town climbing to the fortress-monastery on the hill, and Mandy’s of Rod on the bench with the ship behind.
Mandy’s 12.06 is a paddleboarder small against the rock, the mooring lines crossing the frame in front of her; Maria’s 12.37 is the same board closer, and Mandy’s 12.37 the water itself, green over the stones. The clip is from 12.35 and came without a name: twenty-nine seconds from the deck, a swimmer heading out under the lines and the paddleboard beside him, the beach beyond. At 12.38 two boards were out, and at 12.48 one swimmer alone in the bay. Beck’s 1.17 is the map, the pin on Skala. Lunch at 1.22 was a plate of grilled things under cheese and a bowl of salad with feta.
Rod’s 2.13 is two of the women in white on a bench on the quay, and his 2.21 a bronze figure in a robe beside a doorway. Mandy’s 2.32 is a bar front with an Aperol sign; Craig’s 2.55 the harbour from above, the two ships still in it — so by then the four of them were climbing. Rod’s 3.06 is three of them on the road with the windmills behind, Maria’s 3.06 one of the women in a lane, and from 3.12 the lanes themselves: whitewash, cobbles, a bicycle, a bell tower with three bells and a spill of bougainvillea that Beck and Maria both photographed at 3.29. Craig’s 3.13 is a terrace table with the whole bay below it, and Mark’s 3.13 the selfie of the day — five faces, one of them a woman in grey: the hosts of tonight’s dinner, as his note says, Yvonne from Orange, New South Wales, and her husband Michael. Rod’s 3.31 is a cabinet of four black bottles under a Negroni card. Mark’s 3.43 is the beers, three of them at a table with a caps-and-sunglasses toast; Beck’s 3.44 is the counter at Daphne’s, and her 3.45 the café under the umbrella. Maria’s 3.40 is her own selfie with the ladies at a table in Skala.
Everything written on Day Eight, in the order it arrived. The log has added nothing.
Mandy’s 5.45 is a glass of Aperol on a stone wall with the bay and the ships far below — yamas to everyone on Serenissimus, she wrote — and her 5.54 the same glass raised into the view. Her 6.55 is the one she named the hero: Skala from above at sunset, the town white in the bowl of the bay, the ships at anchor, the hills going pink. Maria’s 7.30 is a chalkboard that says Benetos, her 7.36 a restaurant terrace at dusk, and her 7.37 the table, the bay behind, the light almost gone. At 7.59 she photographed one couple at the end of the table. Craig’s 8.52 is a parcel: a dish baked in paper, tied with string, on a plate with a bowl of dip beside it, and his clip of the same minute has it being opened — twenty-one seconds. Maria’s 9.19 is the wall of plates, Mark’s 9.21 a plated dish, and the 9.23s the long table at Loza from the head of it, stone wall behind, everyone turned to the phone. At 9.44 Mark and Craig each photographed the two women in the kitchen doorway, arm in arm. Maria’s 9.45 is the dining room emptying, and Beck’s 9.47 the lights of Skala from up the hill. The last frames are Maria’s 9.50, the lane back down: a lit sign, a cat, cobbles.
