Dear reader, this blog is the long version of the tale. This has the choppy ocean adventures and the turquoise cove magic packed into one story. If you’re feeling like a long read, cozy up with a glass of Retsina and scroll on. If you’re already feeling ready to drop a TLDR , a super-short summary is coming soon. ❤️

We weren’t looking for party islands. We were looking for tranquil coves, local flavors, and stories of adventure. Sailing Yacht Coconut carried us not only through the Aegean, but through the lessons of slow living and connection. We found Artemis’ island (Leros), Pythagoras’s birthplace (Samos), and magic in the every day as we pulled up the anchor and sailed forth into the blue jello ocean.

Mere weeks before my feet touched the dock at Amorgos, I had no idea I was going to be in Greece, let alone on the island of the storied King Minos’ summer palace (yes, for whom the Minotaur was named). I arrived at sunset in the main port town of Katapola, located below the ancient town of Minoa on this charming island in the South Aegean.

And what choice did I have? You can’t really say no when your friend says:

“Hey, my boat is in Greece, do you want to come sail with me?”

I eagerly accepted my homework assignment of memorizing the cleat hitch (a key sailing knot) and bought my ticket from San Francisco to Athens that day.

Here is the map of islands and spots we went to.

“What’s your favorite thing about sailing?” I asked Matt the first night I arrived, as we watched the sunset over the port. He answered with a wistful smile:

“I love that everyday is a surprise. I wake up with a plan, then something happens and chaos ensues, and nothing goes as expected. But at the end of the day, everything has worked out, often for the better.”

His excitement bolstered me with optimism, but I can tell now that I hadn’t fully grasped his meaning in the moment. Unluckily for me, I would learn what he meant the very next morning.

*All photos in this article are by Liz Birnbaum, The Curated Feast*

Welcome to Amorgos. Nobody will find you here.

Called “the fairest of the Greek Islands“ by Conde Nast Traveler, Amorgos is the last island in the Cyclades chain and the gateway to the Dodecanese. On our first night, we dined on an adventurous mezze at Mouragio Taverna — tzatziki, local fish, something called “egg fish salad,” and “spicy cheese dip” — with cold Mythos flowing. Adventure had begun.

The next morning we awoke to a slapstick fiasco before we even grabbed our morning coffee. The ferry next to us puffed up a giant black plume as it started its engines, and a dark, slick snowfall of oily ash descended directly onto our boat.

The scene reminded me of the Monsieur Hulot films I watched as a kid, in which disaster slowly unfold through people's most quotidian acts. I’ve always been delighted to watch those movies, but it turns out that being a character in one isn’t quite as funny.

During the ensuing cleanup, we battened down all the hatches in a hurry, although some ash had already floated into the cabins and stained the sheets with black oil. Then we swabbed the deck (yes, it’s a real thing) for next several hours, scrubbing every surface and every piece of fabric covered in the smudged soot.

None of us documented much during the incident. The lemonade from these lemons was a quick bond of friendship that emerged with the other two crew members, Amber Colle and Harry Burnside. We had an impromptu boat-washing party, complete with short shorts and 80’s bangers, while a whole village looked on in intermittent confusion and delight.

You know how after working up an appetite, everything tastes that much better? Maybe it was the soot or the exhaustion, but our three rounds of Cafe Freddos from Το Τελειον tasted truly divine. The ice-cold Mythos and impeccable Gyros at Gorgóna for lunch were transcendent. I savored my incredibly crisp Greek salad topped with oregano and a fresh local goat cheese that was crumblier, wetter, and grassier than the firm, tangy feta.

Sated and sunburned, we packed up and sailed off — and I completely forgot to pay for our last round of Freddos. If anyone is going to Katapola, I will send you six Euros to pay my debt. Dear Τελειον café, I owe you!

*Note the perfectly scrubbed deck. Photo by Liz Birnbaum, The Curated Feast*

After sailing by the Old Lighthouse, we traveled northeast until we had anchored in the turquoise water at beautiful Nikouria Beach in the strait between the small, rocky, and practically uninhabited island Nikouria on the North, and the larger Amorgos to the South. On the beach we could see there was a kind of tiki bar, chairs, a DJ, and a fully grown goat just wandering around the beach.

We were over the moon, but we couldn’t stay.

There was one problem at hand: WiFi. In the flurry of the day, I hadn’t been able to send a crucial email out earlier due to the commotion after the oily black ash, so I looked in the eyes of my captain and my two shipmates Amber Colle and Harry Burnside and asked apologetically for their support. I explained that if this was just a normal email, I would drop it — this was a working vacation, but we all needed the perfection of that anchorage and that beach. But to be honest, it was an email worth more than $10,000. So they chose to be angels, and we pulled up the anchor and sailed to the next town.

Unfortunately we hadn’t found rock bottom yet, because the strait we sailed through to get into the next town with WiFi was hellish, too. It was like the hull would get a smack left, and then another one pushing it right. It was technical to navigate, and the sky was darkening quickly. Needless to say, the ride was tense.

But as the last of the sunlight faded to purple haze, we were finally pulling into a sweeping bay glittering with the lights of Ormos Egialis and filled with the sounds from the clubs behind Levrossos Beach. After pulling out the binoculars and initially thinking that the harbor was already full, my ever-hopeful gut said to look again. My pipe dream came true when I prompted Matt to look closer at the boats around the harbor, and he spotted the Arianrhod, the boat on which former heavyweight lifter and YouTuber Dylan Magaster, lives.

We wound up side-tying to Dylan and in the morning, he brought us some delicious spanakopita from a local café. I’m pretty sure it was just to entice us to get the heck off his side tie the next morning.

Later that day, captain Matt remarked:

“What a proper Greek day you had. You woke up with spanakopita from a pirate.”

And from there, I knew that the adventure had finally begun.

We sailed through 3 meter swells to get to the covert island of Levitha, where the Kamposos family lives and has a little taverna. On our way, the main sail ripped basically exploded and died, there was no regular set period between the waves, and the sea was churning like a washing machine.

It was a rough first day out between islands, for me. Captain Matt even noted that these might be the roughest seas he had seen. But as we pulled into the 13-boat mooring in remote Levitha, the water turned from deep blue to turquoise, and I was feeling ready for a nap.

This first true pause allowed me to crack back into the book I brought: Travels with Epicurus by Daniel Klein. A book about a journey through the Aegean and uncovering the simple pleasures of life, and clearly on the nose for my own epicurean adventure at hand. I wrote in my journal: “Ah, how big the world is again. I’m having a feeling of spaciousness, with all the blue jello we cut through. I am on an absolutely rough, beautiful, real, adventure.”

The most remote dining experience.

Taverna Levitha is an out-of-the-way restaurant if i’ve ever seen one. The whole island is inhabited by just one family of 4 people who run the Taverna Levitha. It was a sweet and magical experience to moor on Levitha, but but be sure you bring a headlamp if you want to get back from dinner without incident. In order to get to the Taverna, you hike up for 30 minutes past the family’s hand-laid rock walls which feel ancient, and past expansive pastures for the grazing goats and sheep.

Dinner on Levitha was amazing, sweet, and a bit funny. The menu sign was in English, and 5 items long. It also had a hand-written note atop it: “We sell jam and eggs for your boats.” The rest of the menu read: Local Lamb, Local Goat, Local Feta Cheese, Kefalotiri (a hard cheese) & Mizithra (a soft cheese).

I had my first glass of retsina, a rosé or white resinated wine, which has been made for at least 2,000 years. Retsina is made in pine barrels and does have a fresh and bright pine resin nose to it.

Of the five things on the menu, we tried most of them. We also had local fish (how could we not!) which we learned was available. We also got the goat, tzatziki, kefalotiri cheese, Greek salad, and for dessert we tried the “fig sweet” and the “lemon sweet” which were both a thick yogurt like a soft ice cream with a kind of dense fig and lemon jam atop it.

Everything was delicious, but especially the goat, which was not gamey at all, and very tender and saucy. Our server was also about 9 or 10 years old, and it was clear that the whole family was pitching in that night. The dad’s checkered shorts even matched the checkered tablecloths. Too cute! At the Taverna, you get really classic Greek fare, but you’re also having a wonderfully rare dining experience. If you go, just keep the location pretty quiet. This is one of those magically unspoiled gems.

From Levitha, we sailed so smoothly to Kalymnos that I barely understood how we could be on the same seas. But we had officially made the shift from the Cyclades to the Dodecanese, and that shift meant a change of the water beneath us somehow. I relished the change and the calm.

Fanouropita, or The Cake for Lost Things.

I probably broke one of the cardinal rules of culinary travel writers while I was on Kalymnos — I ate at one restaurant for 3 consecutive meals, and then was back again the next morning. Paradisio in Vlichadia, I guess I just liked you too much to pull away. But my gut feeling to stay at Paradisio as long as I did was generously rewarded.

I would be clicking away at my laptop with my icy cold freddo beside me, then take a break and walk 6 paces to the pebble peach, go in for a quick dip, dry off, take a moment to pinch myself, and then sit back down to resume my work. This was one of the most full-tilt productive days I had on my trip, and I was literally in a restaurant called Paradise. I don’t think that day could have been any more perfect. I was at peace in every way, and it felt so good to click into my own workflow again.

As the cappuccino freddos of the morning turned to the espresso martinis and piña coladas of the afternoon, some women at the table next to us turned to us and said: “Hi. Would you like some cake?”

This sparked a long conversation with the chef/owner and her friends about food history, symbolism, grains, religion, and tradition. I have all their names written in the back of my journal, just so I could remember.

Saint Fanourious (pronounced “fan-OO-ree-os”) is the patron saint of lost things; the one who’s there to intercede and reveal life paths and goals. To commemorate him, people will make Fanouropita or Phanouropita, also known as The Cake for Lost Things on August 26 and 27. Fanouropita is a rich olive oil cake with a gentle sweetness balanced out by orange, clove, and cinnamon.

The simple offering of a piece of this cake reminded me of what I had lost in my heart and my self, and simultaneously repaired it. It felt, like one of the divine moments for a traveler — you found a secret that could only be revealed at that exact time and place, and you revel at all it took to get you there. This felt like another synchronistic moment where I had dinner with Nanna Rögnvaldardóttir, Iceland’s premiere culinary historian, through the introduction of someone I met at the Reykjavik bus station the day before.

This moment in Paradiso felt like a similar reminder that whenever I travel, I will dream of these kinds of moments. These moments, for me, serve to affirm that I am on the right path, and to keep going.

My new friends and I dropped instantly deep into discussions of food and symbolism, cereal grains and religion, and whether we believed in fate. The chef Nomiki recommended a bunch of books which I snapped phone photos of, and she pointed to the best recipe for Fanouropita (it’s in Greek, if you can read it!).

As David Lynch says, “Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper. Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure.They’re huge and abstract. And they’re very beautiful.” This is one of those days I felt like I had learned to swim to the depths. And perfectly enough, Kalymnos was known for exactly that — it’s known as the Sponge Diver’s Island.

Kalymnos, with very little arable land (less than 18% of the island), made its fortune in boat building and sponges. Kalymnos was the main source of sponges in the Aegean for centuries. Sponges have been mentioned as far back as The Iliad, where Hephaestus washes himself with a sea sponge, and in The Odyssey, where sponges were used to wipe tables after feasts. The sponge is also referenced in Apicus, in scholarly articles about spongivores (it’s wild but true, people have eaten sponges with culinary interest, and there are recipes to prove it), and they have been noted as early contraceptive devices (often when wrapped in silk and/or soaked with lemon or vinegar).

Before we pulled up the anchor from Kalymnos, captain Matt and I went ashore with our new crewmate Laura for some morning freddos. We swatted giant wasp-like insects away as we filled the jugs of water we needed to shower and do dishes the boat, and grabbed fresh fruits and veggies from a truck that pulled up. We were stocked for a full day of sailing ahead. We had to grab some Kalymnian grapes (just look at those beautiful golden bunches!), and say our last goodbyes to this special island.

Note: if you ever do get to Paradiso, please try the Diver’s Meze, which is in honor of what the divers would eat. I still regret that I didn’t order that! Or try Spinalo, which I didn’t see on a menu and can’t say I regret not trying, but it’s a seawater pickled invertebrate dish. Unusual, to say the least!

The Island of the lone huntress.

On our way to Leros, we sailed the calmest seas so far. I didn’t understand how the Aegean could be as wild as it was on days one and two, and then now we could fully stop the boat in the middle of nowhere and all jump off in turns as if we were anchored but in reality, we were in 1,000 meter waters and could drift away quite far from the boat. But everyone was totally safe and I was feeling extra-brave. We also had a divine veggie-filled lunch made by Amber as we were underway.

My the time we pulled into Portolago Bay, on Leros, we’d reached the Elvis part of the playlist. I had just started to learn the names of the wind (the Meltemi, the Bora, the Etesian), and I was feeling pretty savvy with my sailing knots, too. The beginning of the bay is especially beautiful, with rocks jutting up in a way that conjures the image of ancient seafaring boats pulling into a port.

Leros is the island where Artemis would come to hunt. While I couldn’t find any specific surviving stories of Artemis on Leros, we do know there are some small remains for a small temple for her there. Artemis (like Diana) appears with a crescent moon on her head, and is associated with moon, hunting, accuracy, childbirth, and the wild.

On Leros, I realized I was at the cusp of really understanding what I wanted out of this trip: exhilaration, learning, and a feeling of being fully at ease — all at once.

I took a ride on the dinghy to the city of Lakki to do some work on my laptop. Unfortunately the energy of Lakki was lacking for me — though I probably still felt that new crush energy and was missing my beloved Kalymnos, to be fair. I did have a few dreamy moments just sipping my iced coffee while I worked on some projects for a client and looked out on the bay, and I wandered the empty streets while folks were probably having their siesta. I later learned that there is a Greek law on the books ordering “hours of common silence,” which imposes heavy penalties for those breaking the rules. Apocryphal or not, I am not sure.

That night we ate on the boat. We started with a stunning little charcuterie board set up by Amber paired with a dry white we picked up in Amorgos and, of course, more retsina. Then we made some fresh fresh fish tacos with mango salsa, a giant avocado rosette, and salt-rimmed passionfruit margaritas. This was the night I learned that our new shipmate Laura Gable makes a killer cocktail and that I can be pretty darn competitive at Uno.

A whole island of Accidentally Wes Anderson

We stayed on the boat dock in the little city of Lipsi on the island of Lipsi (also called Leipsoi or anciently, Lepsia). We had more than one kerfuffle with the dock master in less than 24 hours, one of which I will keep emblazoned in my memory. We had traveled to Lipsi in order to drop off Harry and Amber at the ferry as they left for their next boat, and were all sad to see them go! Yet this island was filled with such Oz-like vibrancy that it was hard to stay sad for too long.

I will always be able to re-conjure this one scene in my mind:

I was ever going to be the one who gets the “gotcha” on “Smile! You’re on Hidden Camera”, this would have been the moment that made sense. Laura and I stood under a vivid blue sky on the radiant concrete dock and were very harshly scolded in Greek/English (in about a 90/10 ratio, I’d say) by the dock master. He was classic looking — a tan-faced man wearing a beret with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and fishing lines all tangled around his hands, fish and lures jiggling as he cursed us. And what was our crime, you wonder? We missed 10AM garbage time, and it was unacceptable. Or at least that is what I gathered from our lively, if one-sided, exchange.

Everywhere I looked, it I saw folks who could easily be cast in Wes Anderson film. And the setting only bolstered that feeling — it had the right measure of cheer and idiosyncratic formality, plus it conjured the feeling that you had fallen into a quirky micro-world frozen in time.

One of the things I love about Anderson’s films is the sheer variety of life happening in the shots and storylines. Lipsi has that kind of energy. The octopus drying atop a roof, the comedy of errors as another boat tries to dock — and all the associated yelling and futile gesturing. The local micro-celebrity chef brazen astride his motorcycle (also donning his chef’s coat) who took a 20 minute call right for in front of our boat. (I am sure he wanted to get Laura’s attention.) Even the turquoise-painted wooden carts of Kalymnian sponges and tinkling shell mobiles seemed like they’d be suited to a movie set.

While making our dinner reservations at a bustling local spot called Manolis Tastes, we were warmly welcomed by the chef to a quick tour of the kitchen, mid-dinner prep. Thinking we may have just made a new pal, we buzzed with excitement before the dinner. But then by the time our dinner was over, we had been ignored for so long (this is pretty typical in Greece) that we felt a lot less buzzingly happy by the end of the heavy meal. I think we were missing Amber and Harry already.

On our way out the next day, we stopped by the little (but impressively well-stocked) market to grab some supplies for the next couple days as well as the specific task to buy some Malagouzia wine, which I learned is a trendy Greek grape variety which is starting to attract some attention.

How many colors can the water be?

I went to the Mediterranean to explore what this contemporary place of ancient stories looks and feels and tastes and smells like. To remember how small California is on the map and remember how big the world is again.

On Arkoi, I spent the day adventuring with my new shipmate Laura on a stand-up paddle board around our calm cove, finding sea urchins with foot-long spines (we found them with our eyes not our feet thank goodness!), and seeing a tiny octopus squirt ink for the first time. The water was aquamarine, deep cerulean, …

We brought along the GoPro and goggles so we could peer below through the incredibly clear water to the white sands below.

Laura even bravely rowed over to the catamaran next to us to ask if they had ice for cocktails, since we realized we forgot to stock up on Lipsi that morning. They did, but just a fist-full. We made it work.

As Matt and Dylan free dove and spearfished that afternoon, Laura and I watched the day turn to a magical sunset as we took photos, made low-ice cocktails, relaxed, and just reveled in the magic. The boys came back with parrotfish and bream for dinner, and we had drinks and fresh lemony fish as we chatted till the stars sparkling above enticed us to go out and look. Our two nights anchored at Arkoi were filled with more pure aliveness than I have words for.

And as we floated at anchor near Tiganakia Beach and Arkoi, I realized that I was on this trip to re-awaken something deep that I needed to reconnect to: flow.

I needed a challenge and a big win, a peaceful rest and a Coconut to rock me, and simply that sense of ease and exhale just deep enough to remind you you’re enough just being you. I needed this experience in order to remember that I was worthy to live a life I really loved.

Pythagorio and the Owl

My time on Samos was sweet but brief. I said “land ho!” because I realized this was my last chance, and I learned that we were seeing both Greece and mainland Turkey. Double land-ho! I had been to Turkey in 2014 before I started The Curated Feast, and my time there was definitely one of my inspirations in starting this company. Being so near brought back memories of that other formative time, and I inhaled the Aegean air more deeply as I pondered how much life each person can live.

But while I hadn’t known about the island Samos before we docked there, I did know about one famous person from the island: Pythagorus. Thanks for your theorem! (That was one of the only things I remember from High School geometry, so my gratitude is genuine.)

I have spoken about Pythagorus in terms of food history before because he infamously issued a strict rule not to consume fava beans — I have written about them here!

Pythagorus was the son of a gem engraver on Samos, and he founded a school around 530 B.C. where he initiated others into a school of secrecy and asceticism. The concept that struck me the most about his pedagogy is that there were two groups: learners and listeners. The listeners (or “akousmatikoi”) were “old believers” in mysticism, and numerology, while the learners, (or “mathematikoi”) were more rational and scientific.

—

Kalymnos, Leros, Levitha, Amorgos, Arkoi, Lipsi. Signing up for this adventure I knew next to nothing about these islands. But day by day I asked “where are we going tomorrow”, and the next day, we always set sail somewhere I had never imagined I would go. It doesn’t get more Be Here Now than that!

I also clocked my first 100 nautical miles on this trip! I allowed to let the winds dictate the path, both outwardly and inwardly. As the sails fell left and right with each wind shift and tack, I was reminded about how much sailing can re-inspire your flow, your capacity for wonder, and your for the world and for your zig-zagging path in it.

We wandered most of Pythagorio’s central district that night. We walked from the boat yard to the town instead of taking a car, and were rewarded with the wonderful sight of a small owl who perched to look at us. We walked for ages, looking first for the super cute IERA ODOS Art Cafe-Bar and a dinner spot on the water that was cute but that I couldn’t recommend.

On Samos, I jotted this down in my journal:

“After 5 islands in seven days, I believe in love again. I’ve decided the fckboys and the wasted time in heartbreak are not worth one iota of my time.”*

And I meant it, even though it was seven islands, not five… I was very sleepy after the cocktail bar, dinner, walking, packing, and scrambling to make sure I got all the COVID regulations right.