An Odyssey to the Islands in Greece’s Ionian Sea

For 10 storm-tossed years Ulysses searched Greece’s Ionian Sea and elsewhere for home. Today you can savor those Odyssey isles in two sun-kissed weeks.

Best of all, you’ll bypass major European airports and possible trouble spots to get here. Any number of British sailing outfits will charter-fly you from London’s Gatwick Airport (it’s included in the package price) to a small well-guarded Greek military airport. From there you sail off on your Ionian adventure.

Seven principal islands, surrounded by hundreds of minor offspring, make up the steep-walled Ionians. On the west coast of Greece below the bleak, disapproving peaks of Albania, all were once part of Italy’s nearby Venetian City States.

There are few hotels in this boater’s paradise. And although long familiar to the British who have a flare for discovering bargain-rate places in the sun, parts of the green mountainous chain have seen few Americans.

Splendid Coves

You will be dazzled by the splendid coves, lush vegetation, colorful ruins and crests rising like monuments from an indigo and turquoise sea.

In their midst, on the island of Lefkas, lies one of many pocket-size towns in magical settings--the fishing and farming community of Nidri. Nidri has no banks, no post office, no high-rises. Its Greek Orthodox papas (priest) strolls the middle of the main street defying motor scooters, bestowing blessings. Women in traditional brown peasant dress cross themselves on seeing bikinis. They also gather at night to applaud the discoing--the Greeks are dancing fools.

In Nidri, Great Britain’s Falcon Sailing has its headquarters. (Other charter companies dot nearby islands.) Their dinghy, windsurfing and flotilla sail weeks are not only great fun, but--by American standards--super bargains.

Although my husband and I now return to sail on our own, we first signed on for two weeks of “Villa-Flotilla,” Falcon’s beginner sailing program. (To enroll, you need only be an active and consenting adult.)

The flotilla concept is a good one, especially for beginners. You sail in a group, often scattering an hour or two apart. In case of mechanical hitches or panic, your skipper is only a radio call away. Despite being bashed and smashed by feckless amateurs, he cheerily ushers you into your boat slip or untangles your anchor and rights your many wrongs.

Although hundreds of old salts sign on for myriad Mediterranean flotillas, Falcon’s record with novices is particularly impressive (it’s the only Royal Yachting Assn.-approved flotilla company that offers instruction).

Not a Secret Society

You learn that sailing is neither a secret society nor the province of the privileged. Each summer Falcon takes 600 callow rookies and, after only four days’ training, puts them out to sea. This is accomplished by launching you in small cruising yachts for schooling via trial and error. You learn that sailing is a breeze. And, with a minimum of technical jargon, you solo.

Your flotilla leader is always standing by. It helps that the Ionian has no tides, fairly predictable winds and no more than half a dozen “unsettled” days from April till October.

You also learn to stay out of the ferry slips and not to jostle fishing caiques. There is plenty of room to practice mooring and, if you forget to throw your anchor at four lengths, to motor out and try again.

Your boat will be a 28-foot, 17,000-pound Cobra 850, immaculately maintained. Sleeping space is for four or five, but two or three aboard make quarters nearly luxurious.

During the opening-night dinner at Panorama or one of Nidri’s half-dozen other waterfront taverns, a witty, articulate young English skipper will outline your agenda.

For the next four days, from your base in a waterfront villa (a Greek-style motel), you will swarm over the Cobras practicing radio transmission, knots, man-overboard drill. (Anyone forgetting radio-check owes his skipper a case of Dutch beer.) You will heave anchors, furl sails, handle engines, learn elemental navigation and tackle six kinds of mooring.

After learning the ropes you’ll lurch cross-channel to the islands of Meganisi and Madouri. (Hundreds of small, friendly islands surround you at all times.)

In Spectacular Flower

You will bumble your way around gazebo-size outcrops, which are recognizable by lumpy lines and a general resemblance to floundering whales, to lunch al fresco at picturesque little ports, romp with porpoises, and, spotting Christina Onassis on her Skorpios pier, snap more pictures than paparazzi .

Following a rainy winter, the Ionians in May are in spectacular flower. Masses of yellow broom, scarlet poppies and wild roses blanket the slopes. The water is fine for swimming, the air velvety.

When you’ve finished basic training you’ll spend an idyllic weekend nosing through Lefkas’ buff and ocher villages, exploring Bronze Age ruins and gazing past spiky cypresses to Actium, where Antony and Cleopatra lost a historic sea battle.

You’ll picnic amid olive trees twisted with age and veiled in creamy blossoms, watch Greeks garden with primitive tools, look over the lemon and currant crops.

On Monday you’ll board your boats, usually four or five in shoulder-season flotillas.

At breakfast your skipper and hostess will brief you on navigational hazards and social plans. Armed with charts and log books, feeling like Sir Francis Chichester, you’ll plot your daily course over coffee metrio --medium sweet.

Once under sail you’ll lunch at sea, breakfast and dine at quayside tavernas--a sociable and inexpensive way to refuel.

Dinner is selected by going into taverna kitchens to sample the moussaka, aubergine, shish kebab and squid. The usual tab, including all the Amstel beer, robust red wine and ouzo you can drink, runs less than $10.

A first port may be Syvota, where you sail past towering headwalls and watch eagles soar through luminescent Greek light. The lobsters at Eleni’s Taverna over the water are waiting in pots.

A Short Haul

From Syvota, the fishing village of Vassiliki is a short haul. Pointing past the port’s distinctive rock quay, your skipper warns, “Watch that tricky sand bar on the left. If you go around, we’ll have to requisition the school bus to pull you off.”

Portside, 100-year-old plane trees shelter caiques with the colors of crayons. On the backdrop mountain above are a pristine monastery and natural springs where you can take monkish baths and do your laundry.

From Vassiliki it’s a lovely sail to Fiscardo on the island of Cephalonia, whose native firs were used to build the black ships of Ulysses. You enter the harbor between majestic headlands on which Venetian towers stand vigil.

Earthquakes have racked much of the Ionian, but here medieval palazzi still stand. You berth between glittering yachts and go ashore to explore Fiscardo’s delectable shops. Hand-carded, hand-knit wool sweaters in bright designs are $20, striped cotton fishermen’s shirts $6 and an intricate belt, studded with brass, leather and stone, $16.

After Cephalonia, Frikes and Port Kioni lie on Ithaca, Homer’s “rugged place, but a good nurse of men.” This is Ulysses’ home island. Many wealthy Athenians have retreats in these hospitable places. As at most ports, you can buy fresh bread from the community oven, then hike a steep trail where clouds seem to drift underfoot.

On your brief but blissful odyssey you will sleep to the shore sounds of small Ionian owls and braying donkeys, and the night scents of jasmine and oleander; explore sea floors with masks and flippers; share sea lanes with oceangoing liners; learn to furl the genny (foresail) without snarling it; and, adrenalin flowing, churn the water at breathtaking clips.

By the time your small fleet turns homeward the clumsiest of you will gracefully “come about,” “reach” for the wind and often outsail your seasoned skipper.

Lashing your windsurfer back aboard, you’ll climb the 300-foot aerie of Meganisi’s Spartahori for a last-night party. There, at Laki’s, everyone dances the now-familiar Zorba steps. Drinking toasts to Greece, the Empire and the Colonies (we Americans are all “colonials”), you’ll sing yourselves hoarse.

Ionian flotillas end with fervent promises to return--same time, next year. Bewitched by Ulysses’ seas, you will rendezvous with new British friends, put straight into the water and sail on south to Zante and north toward Paxos and Corfu. There are underwater caves to explore, ruins to discover. Great clumps of amaryllis will be abloom, the wine freshly made, the lobster traps full.

In Ulysses country, gods and goddesses replay Isak Dinesen’s words: “To set sail somewhere is more important than life itself.”

For information on Villa-Flotilla--the two-week beginner sailing program, straight flotillas and some witty brochures, write to Si Smith’s Sailing In Greece, 720 E. Durant, Aspen, Colo. 81611. Or phone (303) 925-8181. Si books three British boat companies.

Greek flotilla sailing runs from May 1 to Oct. 1. Prices (based on 1 at $1.40) average $500 per person, three to a boat, for two weeks from mid-May through June. (Rates change by the fortnight.) The price includes round-trip air fare from London to Preveza on the west coast of Greece. A $5 cab/ferry ride gets you from there to Nidri.

Instruction is extra, at an average of $100 per person through the season. (One week at the Steve Colgate Sailing Schools on the U.S. East Coast is $950.)

In July and August, prices increase about 25%. In September the fees revert to May-June rates. Experienced sailors may enroll in a two-week flotilla or in individual sailing adventures. These are about 20% more than beginner rates.

On request, Falcon will match you with good boat mates, both for sailing experience and social compatibility.