His watch — 1939My watch — 2025Three generations, one frame — drag the line.
The Story
It was in the family
before it was in me.
Greek tradition gives a son the name of one of his grandfathers. Mine was a merchant captain for more than forty years, and I still carry one of his business cards — seventy years old, with exactly my name printed on it.
My family originates in Loutro, Crete — a village reached only by boat — although Athens is where I have lived. I went to sea at eighteen. The honest reason was independence: in Greece at the time, it was the only real way to stand on my own feet from the outset. I spent my early years on a “vintage” oil tanker, with voyages that kept me aboard for months at a time — sometimes for as long as a year — calling at ports across Latin America. It gave me a glimpse of the seafaring life that Nikos Kavvadias wrote about. I then started over on LNG carriers, learning to understand cryogenic cargoes at −162°C and trying to be at the forefront of my industry.
I entered yachting by chance. A friend asked me to relieve him during one of my rotations, and I stayed for the season. Later, by quite literally stepping aboard the wrong boat, I landed the job that took me from Pole to Pole — the expedition told in The Voyage.
Yachting, though, reminded me why I wanted to be a captain in the first place. I am forever grateful to the people who helped me reach this waypoint.
The torn photograph is him, on deck, in 1939. The sea was already the family trade. Years later, he had a card printed — captain, with his name on it — that I could hand over unchanged today. Same letters. Same rank. Same trade. Some inheritances are written in ink.