5:18 AM
Eighteen minutes late . The car was packed the night before and the house is shuttered closed. Is summer already so far gone that there’s no sign of sunrise yet??
Across the border into Italy it starts to rain, a few drops here and there, then a sudden deluge. I don’t like this part of the autostrada, with its endless alternation of tunnels and bridges. Fortunately the speed limit is only 110, sometimes 90, although you’d never know it by the clip at which we are being passed. Glimpses of red-tiled roofs below filling the crevices between steep slopes. Sea and sky are the same blue-grey; it’s hard to tell exactly where the horizon is. We say little; our night was short and all focus is on the road. At the two-hour mark we change seats. From here the road is straighter, the speed limit now 130 – which means about 160 in Italian. I never hog the passing lane and object to being flashed with high beams from half a mile back warning me to get out of the way. I take my sweet time time moving into the right lane and resist the urge to flip the bird as a Porsche flies by, with a Ferrari hard on its tail in hot pursuit.
At the next two-hour mark, we switch again. The road is tediously straight, the countryside unremarkable. I retrieve my knitting from the back seat and toss the ball of wool onto the dashboard. It’s the perfect road trip project – staving off boredom and getting a head start on a Christmas present at the same time.
At Bologna we miss the exit that would have taken us south of the snarl that is the ring-road around the city. An electronic signboard warns of an incidente ahead and traffic slows to a crawl. I am pleased that the smattering of Italian I learned as a piano student is quite useful on the road. 
The ferry we are headed for leaves Ancona, on the east coast, in 4 hours, and it’s beginning to seem a little tight. MFB must be wishing he had overruled my decision not to leave the night before. An hour later, after we’re covered only a mile or so, another sign flashes the all-OK and in concert, hundreds of gas pedals are pushed to the floor.
We are half an hour early at the port of Ancona – the sprawling ferry terminal is crowded and noisy with the din of many languages. I hear bits and pieces of Greek, Italian and Slavic tongues – there is ferry service from here to Albania, of all places. The girl who checks our reservations sticks up four fingers when I ask how many languages she speaks.
The rain pelts down as we manoeuvre into place for the ferry. We eat our picnic lunch sitting in the back seat, because of the fold-out tables. After lunch I knit some more. I’m on the second ball of wool now and going like gang-busters.
The ferry arrives on time but disgorging its cargo of transport trucks and cars
takes forever. Departure time comes and goes, and an hour after that the lines of cars begin to move toward the boat, in seemingly random order.
Inside the bowels of the ship, we understand why everything is so slow. The lower deck fills in a classic U-turn configuration, so that cars are facing the right way to drive off the stern, but the upper level has only one access ramp. Transport trucks are the first to drive up the steep incline, reversing into their spots. Cars follow, parking front-first against the noses of the lorries. The deckhands shout directions in Italian, impatiently gesturing for passengers to get out of their cars so that the driver can squeeze against the row to the right. The cars are so close together that the only way for the exiting drivers to get to the stairwell is to climb across the bumpers of other cars.
Despite the apparent disorganization below deck, all is smooth and charming service above. To our pleasant surprise we’ve been given an outside cabin instead of the porthole-less cubicle we have paid for. I stretch out in anticipation of a little nap while MFB goes off to explore the ship.
Nearly asleep, I hear my cell phone ringing from the recesses of my damnit-where-the-hell-did-I-put-it backpack. It’s my lover, in the bar with a table for two and a panoramic view of the Adriatic Sea. How will I recognize you? I murmur throatily, and brush my teeth extra well before I leave the cabin.
Exceptional situations call for exceptions to the rule, and a chilled white wine is the only appropriate drink for this one, accompanied by a Greek cheese pastry. This is no British Columbia ferry – more like a down-market cruise ship. We sip our drinks la
nguidly, until, reaching for my pastry, MFB knocks over his beer onto his only pair of pants. Never one to let a exceptional situation get the best of him either, he uses my hair-straightening iron to dry them out before dinner.
We turn up our noses at the self-serve cafeteria, nice as it is, and dine in the elegant restaurant, he in his perfectly pressed shorts smelling faintly of hops and me in jean capris and a fuchsia golf shirt. We are the best-dressed people in there with the exception of a woman who looks terrifyingly like Joan Rivers.
Over Greek salad my lover admits to a slight concern about finding our way through Greece in ignorance of Cyrillic script. I scoff, in a high-handed Anglo-Saxon sort of way, because no country so dependent on tourism will neglect to its English-speaking visitors.
Our kind-faced waiter takes the time to teach us a few words in Greek and I am ashamed of my ignorance at having spent my down time across Italy knitting instead of learning how to say please and thank you in Greek.
Watching the disentanglement of the cars on the top deck once we arrive at Egominitsa is the best entertainment I have had since watching ‘Most Extreme Elimination Challenge’. One by painstaking one, each car is directed to reverse out of the huddle, then do a U-turn in order to head down the ramp and out the stern. Miraculously, everyone’s paint job seems intact. The shouting reaches a crescendo when it is discovered that the little blue car behind us is destined for a different port, obviously herded into the wrong bunch on the Italian side. I am ordered to stop taking pictures of the chaos, but I don’t understand Greek, do I??
Sweating, swarthy men with three-day-old beards try to manoeuvre the errant car out of the way, but such an excellent job has been done of sandwiching everyone in that extraction is impossible. I am in rapture; knitting will never have the potential for this kind of amusement.
It’s always a good idea to have enough gas in the tank to allow for disembarkation. 
Finally a flustered and dishevelled young woman appears with the keys to the little blue car, and we are freed to disembark.
The directional signs are, after all, offered in Greek and English. It’s stinking hot and disconcertingly, people are driving on the shoulders. We have our usual argument about map-reading while at the wheel, but a couple of hours later we arrive safely at the town of Lefkas, where our extremely generous Dutch-Norwegian friends are waiting to welcome us on board their 15-metre ketch, Maya. We haul our bags out of the car and up the gangplank, leaving my knitting in the back seat of the car. I just hope nobody steals it.
Our ride for the week. Not.
The ‘Maya’, built in Finland and sturdy enough to sail through the Northwest Passage.
MFB at the helm, doing what he loves best. Well, almost.
Posted, unedited, from Sami, on the island of Keffalunia, Greece. Next instalment when internet connection permits.