“When I first laid eyes on the sea down in Crete, I cried out, ‘Wow—what a vast river!’”
That’s how Captain Haralambos Dialynakis from the village of Polemarchis in Chania described his first encounter with the open blue on “Fair Winds and Following Seas”.
“Those were difficult years. I grew up in poverty, with many hardships. During my elementary school days, we had no electricity. I was always wondering what lay beyond the horizon. That longing—part fear, part curiosity—never left me. I graduated from the Merchant Marine Academy of Aspropyrgos in 1974 and immediately took my first voyage as a cadet with Onassis’s company, aboard the M/V Olympic Chivary. We loaded oil in Kuwait and sailed for New York, rounding the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, since the Suez Canal was closed at the time. Within five months, I became a second officer. And so began my life at sea—a journey that lasted twenty years,” Captain Haralambos told us.
Produced and presented by Antonis Karagiannakis