Monday
At first it was all very much as planned. I had a shower and breakfast. We finished packing, paid the hotel bills, and wandered down to wait for the Flying Cat.
The sea looked pretty flat, and the wind was probably Force 4, or maybe 5. The port area was strangely deserted, and we were the only ones with suitcases. No Flying Dolphins came in.
We had coffees, and Dominic had a chocolate ice-cream, but I was becoming increasingly uneasy about whether the Flying Cat 2 was on its way, and went to the ticket office to confirm it was coming. Of course, it had been cancelled. One of the Port Police was there, and had some helpful suggestions, involving a water taxi to Ermione, a taxi to the bus station, a bus to Athens, and so on. So I got a refund on our tickets, and we went to get a water taxi.
There was only one left. I think the others were hiding somewhere. I checked the fare on the notice board, and it was about the same size as the ticket refund. Bouncing from wave to wave, at speeds that made me think the boat would need the fare spent on welding if it didn't sink, we thrashed down the coast of Hydra and across to Ermione. It was not as rough as I had feared when people were going on about the weather forecasts, but Dominic got pale and sweaty towards the end, and when we landed, he was rather sick. I was glad he hadn't done it in the boat.
After a quick visit to a handy caf's toilets, we found the local taxi office, and asked how much to Athens Airport. Frankly, the idea of buses just wasn't all that appealing, and the taxi price was very reasonable considering the distance. Off we went. The driving was far less terrifying than most Greek taxi drivers, possibly because the driver had a bad cold, which he treated while driving, using a wide range of products. He thoughtfully made a toilet stop at Korinthos, and I had a quick look at the canal, which is at the bottom of an astonishingly deep cut. We got to the airport earlier than we would have done by my original plan, waited for ages, got on the plane before everyone else again, waited two hours to take off because there were apparently not enough air traffic controllers in Gatwick, flew back to Gatwick, and I drove us home. We were in bed by 04:30.
