Veteran radio operator Dimitris Orfanoudis from Chios takes the helm of “Fair Winds and Following Seas” on Voice of Greece.
“The sea is a great love of mine! If I don’t see, even for a little while, its blue and azure colors, I can’t bear it. It’s my life. I’ve grown used to living with it. But we must respect the sea and move with its currents — never against them,” he says.
With vivid storytelling and tireless energy, he recalls:
“I turned to the sea and to ships out of necessity, like many people did after the war. I graduated from the Private Radio Operators School in Chios, founded by Karras and Laimos, which operated from 1958 to 1967. In 1967, immediately after graduating, I signed on in Varna for what was supposed to be a six-month voyage, but the radio operator never left the ship for me to take over the position. So I signed off, and another voyage followed — thirteen months aboard the M/V Nisos Skopelos, a small 3,500-ton cargo vessel, where I assumed responsibility for radio communications. With that ship we sailed throughout the Mediterranean, but also reached Rostock in what was then East Germany, as well as Arkhangelsk on the White Sea.”
TO BE CONTINUED…
Produced and presented by Antonis Karagiannakis