Captain Michalis Karpathakis has dedicated 36 years and 7 months to the sea. He first embarked on April 20, 1964, aboard the cargo vessel Angelis Sigma from Heraklion to Thessaloniki. On July 5, 2005, with tears in his eyes, he descended the gangway of the last ship he captained.
His advice to young people is to “pursue a life at sea only if they truly love it and the profession of a sailor; otherwise, at some point—sooner or later—it will ‘spit them out,’” he says emphatically.
He also shared a wise thought: “A sailor forgets a thousand hours of storm with just one hour of calm.”
To date, he has written three books filled with seafaring stories, narratives, and reflections on ships and the sea: Salty Tales (2016), The Deck Cadet (2018), and The Sea Wolves of the Aegean (2024).
He read to us the story The Baklava.
TO BE CONTINUED…