I finally know what’s going on here!

I’m curious to see what life will bring tomorrow. We are seated by the poolside of our hotel – in the bay of Saint Paul about 30 minutes north of Valletta. The time is past bedtime for the younger generations, but this is our last day here. The last night at the Whitestar hotel, the hotel that used to be a privatly owned villa just last April. Team blue, the Pirates have encountered Malta.

Music flows from the yellow speaker that we found in a dumpster behind the shopping center. The one that we used to stock up our merchandice for our floating pirate supermarked onboard the FF Harry.

We traveled through some of the oldest channels in north of the European union. We visited Stockholm on our way to a tiny place called Spillersboda. Only in order to repair an old wooden fishing boat that someone had attatched a mast to sometime in time.

We spent two-ish months on the project and sat off to sea only to be rescued three times, and sunk twice. It was a great team exercise and we gained a whole bunch of experience and skills that will be totally necessary on our next ship. The Harry Louella is enjoying a small amount of snow, waiting for someone to discover it’s great potential. Someone that knows how to fix an broken, and slurry-making transmission.

We flew to the historic Athens, and somehow the birth of all democracy. The structure of the world as I know it forwarded us to Malta where I have got an job and tomorrow.. .

On Malta they have a lot of traffic. And you really got to hang on standing up on buses around the island. But the temperature! Oh my holy flaming ball in the sky! The temperature here is made for my sensitive skin.

We have been walking the streets of wonderful Malta for days to end. Tomorrow team blue are moving into their own sanctuary – on an island in the middle of the Mediterranean.

It’s supposed to be sunny tomorrow!

Captain Jack

From Patras to Malta

I know it has been a few days since the last blog. But we have been busy and mostly stuck up in a hill with a great view of Patras in Greece. The hills offer little internet and no electricity. We have been stranded pirates, but have finally moved on with some sort of a plan. We stopped over in Istanbul and landed in Malta a few hours ago. 

Patras is the third largest city in Greece. A student city and a great place to visit for a few days. As the penny-pinchers we are, the molo offered several nights of fishing without any outcome to speak of. Even though it’s winter and the local farmers keep crying about the fact that there is no real rain falling during the rainy-season – we had a great whole night of heavy rain under our tarp.

We comfortably lived on our budget and enjoyed spending the nights with new friends in the park. Some nights the city offered an underground rap concert, other times people danced to the sweet music of salsa. Many nights we really enjoyed the long walks through the city, enjoying new sights on every corner.

The camp was perfectly located on one of the steps of a steep hill on the inside of a hard turn. The view was perfect across the bay, with Patras City in between. Our thinking was that this could be a good place to stay for a while. But we quickly learned that although many spoke English, it could be hard to work up the money needed for us to journey on. We therefore took the bus back to Athens, moved ourselves in direction of the airport and.. Well.. Here we are!

More to come when I know what’s going on here.

Captain Jack

Camping out in Greece

We have moved out of the huge city of Athens. We spent an cold night on the beach of Kiota before venturing further west to our current location – the third largest city of Greece, Patras. At the moment we are sleeping up in a steep hill with the view towards the city and the ocean behind it. But we are looking for an cheap apartment to rent while we search for our new pirate-ship with this city as our base.

We spent our last full day in Athens exploring some of the historical sights it has to offer. Lucky for boat-saving pirates they proved to be free to visit on Sundays, fitting our budget perfectly. Athens was a great visit, but like all other capitals tend to be a great deal more expensive, this also goes for the Greek capital. We therefore decided to move to the west-coast. Here it’s 10,53% cheaper to live according to the great internet and so far I suppose it have proved right. As mentioned, we are currently camping out, expecting rain tonight and are looking for a new place to live, maybe even for a few months.

We will have to raise some money in the months to come. Since we don’t speak the language, I guess we have the work cut out for us. But first we want to get to know this city. Patras look like all other Greek cities we have seen or passed by train or bus and we spent all day yesterday walking around the streets and have already talked to a couple of people about a place to live. Apparently it is hard to rent a place for only a few months but with so much vacancy around I have high hopes for a place in the near future.

Just a little update on our progress. The others just got up and are having their morning coffee. Another day is about to begin, and we need to find a tarp before the rain comes around tonight.

Captain Jack

 

The pirates go to Athens

We have been walking around Athens for a few days. This city is huge – and wherever we go is a new adventure waiting around the corner. Exploring this capital and it’s sites has once again thought me to be humble in humanity. We have celebrated David’s birthday, climbed a mountain, bought fruit at markets, looked for new shoes without finding any, been living comfortable in a very cheap apartment and had amazing Greek food for every meal consumed.

David having a moment.

Coming from living on a budget in Sweden, Athens have been the ultimate upgrade. Of course we can speak about the temperature and the climate – but this have only been the necessary change for us. The culture around here, the people, the history and the food have given us a whole new perspective of the pirate life.

The first day here we walked down to the marina to look for a new pirate ship. There was many options and a whole culture in itself to take in. We were of course tired from having spent four whole days at airports but got caught in the excitement of being stranded in the birthplace of our western culture. The tree of us is a great team, we have the respect, patience and love for each other to actually make this journey together. We have built a strong friendship between us on our way to this point and I have great belief in us as the crew, working ourselves toward our next pirate ship.

Human history was changed here. Forever.

Walking in Athens is a huge adventure. You have all the traits of an European capital among some of the best known historical sites in human history. Combine this with friendly people, no snow and great food and you get an atmosphere worth visiting. I have had no chance but to surpass my goal of ten thousand steps a day, seen architecture transfer moved from the ancient Greek to the modern time of my life and discussed life-changing philosophy with my two best friends in this world.

The place we got David’s birthday ice-cream.

Last night we spent the whole evening selling waffles under our neighbor highway. We had got to know an artist that have his studio there, next to refurnishing-shop, and he was kind enough to let us use his electricity for our waffle-iron. Sadly we was not able to make all the money back for our expenses, but thinking about it – it would probably be far more expensive for us to walk around the city on a Friday night without any purpose to speak of.

Norwegian pirate waffles for sale!

We are not going to stay in Athens. On Monday we’ll catch a bus to the west-coast and the city of Patra. According to people we have met – everything is cheaper there. It’s still Greece’s third largest city and we hope to make a home there for the next couple of months while we regroup and get our plans together for our pirates-for-peace movement. It makes me happy that we have plans to work towards and short-term goals to hit in order for us to get ourselves back on a boat to roam the world. This short week in Athens have given me perspective on my life and I feel strengthened and ready to go.

Let security make sure we are safe.

We still have a couple of days left in Athens. Today is Saturday and if I’m right, whenever the other two awakens to this beautiful warm day, we will have breakfast and go venture into new parts of the city. Tomorrow is Sunday, meaning that all historical sites have free entrance. I will fulfill a life-long dream and finally get to see the first theater in the world.

Captain Jack

 

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