THe ship was a car ferry holding 100 or so cars.15/20 berths and for us poor people open deck space to camp out on. It was an 18-19 hour trip that left around 7 am arriving around 4/5 am next day. Weather not with standing.
We had moved up to the fifth deck in the aft overlooking the swimming pool. We tied our pack to the corrigated roofing and set up camp. there were 85/95 of us yungins up there with music playing and much beer drinking. Our fist beer run was me and four other srtapping lad who went down five decks to the galley and each retrieved wo cases of beer. That lasted an hour or two.
At two pm the weather started to get a little choppy, well, maybe a lot choppy. Several people started getting seasick. Then we made the pact. You could stay as long as you didn’t get sick. Once you heaved we hoed you out. Soon the ship was being tossed around. The waves were washing over the deck. Now this is the fifth drck. Several more people were gone by now. Then three men tied to each other and the deck railing below came out in this weather to open the swimming pool gates, by hand, so the water would wash through and not pull the tail down.
At nine pm only two of us were needed to go down the five decks for beer.. On our way up I asked a crew man how it was going. He didn’t sugar coat it, he said the pumps were running full blast, full steam ahead and losing ground to the storm, and he had high hopes the the storm would break around midnight. Then it would be smooth sailing after the . He said we only lost 14/15 hours, maybe a little more. Nothing to worry about.. HaHa.
When we got back to the fifth deck with the good news we had lost 12/15 more. Now we were down to 18/20 diehards. We turned the music down and hunkered down and around one the waves receeded. By two we has smooth sailing at about 1/3 speed. One of the mates told us it was to conserve petol.
Around five am the galley ran out of beer and the steward gave me his last bottle of vodka. The final 15 of us who weathered the storm and didn’t get sick shared it hobo style as the sun came up over the horizon. We limped into Naxos harbor about 4 pm . We had only lost 11 hours, But what a trip.
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