IONIAN Spirit
On the first day of our holiday, we were enjoying a coffee by the harbour in Sami, on the east coast of Kefalonia in Greece, when we heard the cry “Kraken! Kraken!” from local children. We rushed to the quayside and, sure enough, there was an enormous octopus tracking gracefully across the seabed – not quite the scale of the mythical kraken, but big nonetheless.
As I watched my children pointing excitedly, I was taken back to my own childhood living on boats, first in France then Greece, when I spent much of my time in, on or around the water, stalking all types of sea creatures – but especially octopuses, with whom I felt a special affinity. It was the first of many such flashbacks during our week on board , a 46ft (14m) converted Danish trawler, as we revisited the islands I had grown up among as a child. In the late 1970s, my parents had chartered our 45ft (13.7m) classic motoryacht in these very waters, with my brother Simon and I taking turns to act as crew. Now it was my turn to discover what it was like to be on the receiving end of their catchphrase, “Sun, sea and
