It didn’t start very well – soon after the clipper left Piraeus around midnight, heading east, the wind hit 7-9 on the Beaufort scale (anything beyond that is classified as a storm).  Evening drinks still went down smoothly, and so did the sumptuous dinner with a bottle of a good French Bordeaux, but by 2 AM the ship was rocking wildly, and I was curled up in my cabin trying to sleep, hoping that I would digest the contents of my stomach before the situation got worse. For God’s sake – this was not my first encounter with rough seas, so I was hoping for the best.  With the engine switched off, and on just two of its front sails, the ship was moving across the Aegean at the speed of a motorboat.

The next morning was grey and … unstable … and we had a safety drill scheduled for 10 AM.  I decided to play if tough – that is, have a normal breakfast, with eggs and so on …  A BIG MISTAKE.  The safety drill had its hilarious moments, when the entire row of deck chairs (with all those seated in them) suddenly started skidding towards starboard – the sea was that rough.  “What to do in such situations?” – shouted the first officer. “Wait for instructions.” – a young lady replied. “Waiting for instructions is always good.  You must be newly married!” – the officer’s reply sparked a burst of laughter, as he had surely predicted, but the general mood was rather sombre. I wasn’t the only one feeling queasy in my stomach.  The nausea was getting worse by the minute, and lunch already seemed out of the question. By late afternoon I knew that the dinner was also out of the question.  By that time I was retching “dry” every half hour – even a glass of water would trigger a bout of nausea.