I've been coming to Sifnos since the late seventies. My parents and brothers and sister first came in 1972 during the summer while I was off in Mykonos.

Back then Sifnos was primitive and totally undiscovered. There was no dock and the ferry would pull into the bay and be met by the fishermen who would take people back and forth in small boats.

There were a few foreigners living in rented rooms or tents, mostly seasoned travelers who would rather experience the real Greece of the time, then be partying with me and my decadent friends on Ios or Mykonos.

By the time I made my first trip there was a ferry docking at a real dock and cars were unloading and driving the newly paved roads. It was still untouristed compared to other places, but it was on it's way to becoming what it is now, a charming island that loses much of that charm in July and August when the hordes invade.

My first time here was the fateful summer of hiding from the Greek army. I assumed it would be the last Greek island I would ever go to but it didn't turn out that way.

The next time I came was in 1978 with my pal Leigh Sioris. We had been in Mykonos and Ios and we were meeting up with some friends in Sifnos. We camped on a small beach near the community of Pharos. There was one restaurant, one grocery store that served eggs for breakfast, and little else. There wasn't even a bus. We had to take a bus to Platiyialos, get off above Chrissopigi and walk down the mountain and along the coast. I don't think we went into town more then once in the ten days we spent there.

After a break of about 6 years where I didn't even come to Greece I finally returned to Sifnos at the instigation of my friend Dorian who had opened a live music bar in Kamares. Dorian and I became the live music, doing a two hour show every night from June to September. It was my favorite Sifnos summer, the year that I bonded with the island and made most of the friends that I still have. It was a tumultuous time for the Old Captain Bar. Because of the live music there was always a crowd while the few other bars remained empty. This created some friction between the owners of these other bars, who were locals, and the Old Captain, whose owners were from Athens. Every few days the rules of the game would change. One night we could play only until midnight. A couple days later it was until eleven. Then we were told that we were not licensed for live music. The next night one of the stereo systems had left the bar and taken up residency in the police station and we were playing again. Finally towards the end of the season a policeman came up to me after the show and asked for my passport. When I gave it to him he told me I could pick it up the next morning at the station.

The next day I took the bus up to Appolonia and found the police station. I was sent in to speak to the Chief. He asked me if the day before I had been walking in the valley where the farmers have their fields. I told him I had, that I liked to walk around there and look at the goats and sheep. He asked me if I had stolen a watermelon. I hadn't. I had seen many watermelons but I hadn't taken any. He said that was interesting because a watermelon had been stolen and that I was seen walking in the fields by a farmer.

"Did the farmer say I had a watermelon with me?" I asked innocently.

"He didn't mention it."

"Then why am I here" I asked.

"Because right now you are our only suspect", he said trying to crack my cool facade with his stare. He changed the subject. "Can I see your working papers for playing music at the Old Captain." I didn't have any.

"OK. Let me tell you this once. You are not to play at the Old Captain any more. If you do I will send you to Syros (where the jail is) and then have you deported from this country and you will never be able to come back."

I didn't know if he was bluffing or not but I wasn't about to test him. I agreed not to play. When I returned to the club and told them, Dorian told me not to be ridiculous. Of course I would continue to play. He was just a village cop. He couldn't deport me. Besides I'm Greek.

I argued that if the guy knew I was Greek I would be in even more trouble because they would want to see my Greek identification papers and instead of kicking me out of the country they'd throw me in the army.

If islands could have human personalities then Sifnos would have that of the bumbling well intentioned fool whose great plans seem to go astray. The year I arrived to play at the bar for example. They had been planning all year to put in a sewage system before the tourists arrived in July. When I arrived on July 1st the roads were all dug up. There was a long trench the length of the harbor road with a pile of dirt just as long. The tourists had to cross over plank bridges and the noise of the workmen did not make for a quiet holiday. Finally by the beginning of AUGUST they had all the pipes in place and covered with concrete. That night around two in the morning the Ferry Mykonos, which only carries trucks, arrived with two gas tanker trucks to refuel the islands two gas stations. They raced through the sleeping town and shattered the newly installed pipes beneath the newly cemented road. The next day and for the rest of that summer the stench was unbearable. It was a major setback to Sifnos' plan to become one of the elite islands of the Aegean.

But now Sifnos has the finest waste-treatment and disposal plant in all of the Aegean.

THE SIFNOS MONSTER

It was that same summer that I first heard about the Sifnos Monster. I had stopped in New York on my way to Greece and stayed with my sister while I waited for a standby flight to anywhere in Europe. After a plane, a few trains, a ferry, a bus and a particularly wild first night in Athens, I found myself hungover on the Friday afternoon boat to Sifnos. Who should I see on the rear deck but my sister Cindy and her three year old son Shane. My visit had inspired her. She had bought a couple tickets and left her husband to spend the summer in Greece. We each rented the third of a house right on the beach. The remaining third was inhabited by Old Markos, one of the famous potters of Sifnos, an island known for its ceramic art. We all spent the summer in this ancient stone house. Every day Markos would come out of his part of the house and watch the sunset between the two points of the bay. He had rheumatism so he couldn't make pottery anymore. He just sat. Sometimes we would sit with him. He would always say the same things to us. If the wind was blowing and the sea was rough he would say poli fassaria (much disturbance). When the evening ferry would arrive he would say poli cosmos,(much people). When the sea was calm he would say poli esichia(Much quietness). It was actually kind of funny. We would just be sitting there saying nothing, sort of meditating on the beauty of our surroundings, but in the back of my mind there was this tension because I knew that any moment Markos was going to speak. I knew exactly what he was going to say though I never knew when he was going to say it so these quiet moments with Markos, sitting outside his hut on the beach turned into these internal struggles. I suppose I could have changed the routine and asked him about his long life or told him about America, but I wasn't sure if that would be a kind of sacrilege. Maybe he didn't want to talk. Maybe he was in a state of total peace and his simple words were just a sigh to the universe. I sat and tried to emulate Markos, watching the sun sink down on the horizon giving the appearance of inner peace, while inside I was just waiting for him to speak. Maybe he was doing the same.

I'll never know. Now Markos is dead and the house is the living quarters for the people who work in the disco that was built from the ruins of the house next door. Sifnos has changed.

But it was that summer, while we were sitting on the small bench outside Markos hut that my sister asked me the question. "Matt. Have you ever heard really loud breathing on the road down to Kamares from Apollonia?"

I hadn't. But I had heard what I thought she was talking about while walking on the rocks in Kamares bay. It was the sound of air being pushed through cavities in the rock by the movement of the waves. I assumed that this was the same phenomen that caused the heavy breathing sound that Cindy had heard even though it was miles away from the sea.

But a couple weeks later I overheard Eleni, an elegant Mexican woman from Berkeley who had a great love of island lore, telling two young tourists about the legendary Sifnos monster and how the islanders will not walk down the road at night.

It wasn't until two summers had passsed that I heard the Sifnos monster myself. I was with my friend Chris Hunt. We had borrowed a couple motorcycles to go to Phillipe's Italian restaurant at Platy Yialos Beach, for a party that had ended before we arrived. It was a forty minute ride on unlit mountain roads so on the way back we stopped at the Saligari Night Club in the mountain village of Katovati to listen to some live Rembetika music and have one drink which was all we could afford there. Andonis Kalogeros, the famous potter and island Casanova was dancing for the tourist girls he had brought to the club, doing handstands and back-flips. We stayed for awhile and left when we had finished our drinks. After passing through Apollonia we drove down the road to Kamares with Chris in the lead. Suddenly he signaled me to stop.

"Do you hear that?" he asked.

I could hear it. Even above the roar of the motorcycles the sound of heavy breathing came form the ravine that ran down the mountainside and passed under the road beneath us. It was unbelievably loud and it scared the hell out of us. We raced back to Kamares and ran into the Old Captain Bar.

"There's a monster on the road! There's a monster on the road!" we cried in terror to the few remaining customers who looked blankly up from their drinks. They laughed and ridiculed us, having neither the courage nor the desire to investigate. We pleaded for someone to come back with us and be our witness that we were not crazy. Finally Caroline, the girlfriend of Lefteris the bartender agreed to ride up there with us.

When we reached the curve in the road the breathing was as loud as before.

"Let's turn off the bikes and check it out" said Chris, with the courage of youth.

"If you do I'll kill you!" cried Caroline, pounding on his back. "Let's get out of here!" and down the mountain we zoomed once again.

"There is a monster! There is!" cried Caroline back at the bar. "And it's enormous!"

The two remaining customers looked at us condescendingly, then with great effort lifted themselves away from their drinks. "Let's go see this monster" they chimed in bored unison.

When we returned to the curve in the road the monster was still breathing but not as loud as before. Having experienced it in its full fury, the hushed tone still evoked feelings of terror in me from the two previous visits. But not so with these two guys. One was German, the other French, and they both tried to 'out-cool' each other by acting as un-enthused and disinterested as possible. When the German guy took a leak in the vicinity of the monster's hushed breathing it was the act of ultimate disrespect for our legend.

"Let's get these jerks out of here", I whispered to Chris. But my real inclination was to leave them there and hope they were eaten.

The next day we organized a search part to go after the monster. To motivate our friends to move from one cafe to another was difficult enough, but to get a group to ride up the mountain road in the mid afternoon sun was a feat unparalleled in Sifnos Tourist History and a tribute of great respect to the Sifnos Monster Myth. But as we feared there was no sound of heavy breathing. This of course, filled our party with great courage and they searched the hillside with abandon. We found two goat skulls and we were sure we were on the right track. But when Danish Michael stuck his head in a cave a bat darted out and caused us all to run away in terror. With the spark for adventure extinguished by the flying furry creature we drove off to Plati Yialos to eat fried squid.

We tried our best to enhance the Legend of the Sifnos Monster, telling every newcomer about it. The curve in the road became a favorite spot for romance. "Do you want to go hear the Sifnos Monster" became the pick-up line of the summer and many relationships were consummated beneath the gaze of the monster.

Stellios, who owned the local ice-cream shop as well as the only Greek taverna in Iceland, poked fun and teased us about the Sifnos Monster, but it became apparent that it was bothering him and one day he sat down at my table and spoke very seriously to me.

"You must stop all this talk about this Sifnos Monster. It is going to scare all the tourists from the island." To him, this was a much more frightening prospect then the terrible creature who guarded the road to Apollonia.

But I knew Stellios well. "Don't worry about the monster", I reassured him. If anyone can figure out a way to make money out of him, you will.

We continued driving up to the lair of the Monster. We couldn't help ourselves. It was the only show in town. One night we were standing in the road with our bikes turned off, listening to the monster when we saw Adonis the Casanova approaching on his motorcycle.

He stopped and spoke to us. "No sex tonight. Self-service. People say me Casanova but every night sleeping alone."

"Listen Adonis. What is that sound?"

"I have to go now," he said quickly and was gone.

Interest in the Sifnos Monster eventually subsided. In desperation I tried to get a new myth started. One morning I had taken a motorbike up a the very rocky road that led to Saint Simeon and Propfittis Ilias when I came upon a deserted quarry filled with smoldering garbage.

"Wow!" I thought. "This could be a volcano. I can't believe nobody knows about this or tried to exploit it. Maybe it really is a volcano and they have just found that it's an efficient way to dispose of waste. Maybe since Santorini is already known as the island with the volcano, rather then be redundant, the Sifniots were being practical with theirs."

But Stelios was not interested in my volcano theories. He had been working out explanations for the Sifnos Monster and offering them to anyone who would listen, and he now had a new one for me.

"One hundred years ago Sifnos was a very busy island with many ships in the harbor. In those days the monks from the monasteries would come down the mountain to have sex with the sailors.

They did not want the islanders to know so they would dress up in white sheets and dance down the mountain paths. The villagers would be frightened and run into their homes."

"That certainly explains everything," I said as I walked away in amazement. I couldn't get over the image of each sailor joyfully meeting his favorite monk on the dock while the villagers cowered behind locked doors. But what this had to do with the heavy breathing on the mountain road only Stelios knew.

The only sensible explanation was given by one of the most sensible people on the island, Boulis the hardest working restaurant owner's son Antonios. He told me that what we were hearing was a giant bird known as the Buffos, which breathes heavily in the summer to keep his temperature down.

The next day Stellios came to our table looking happier then I had ever seen him.

"It's a big bird", he laughed. "The Sifnos Monster is nothing but a big bird."

"I don't care what you say", said Kyriakos, who had only arrived that day. "I believe there is a monster up there."

The last time I actually heard the Sifnos Monster was on a humid evening in late August. A group of us had gone to Apollonia to hang out in the clubs, so of course we had to stop along the way and listen. The sound was very faint so we continued on our way. On the way home we were met in the road by Dorian who had left earlier.

"You won't believe it. It's loud as hell and there are two of them!"

He was right. there were two of them. And they were both breathing louder then ever before. Maybe the Sifnos monster had found a girlfriend. Bride of the Sifnos monster. Then in a move that stunned all of us, someone threw a rock in the direction of the creatures. There was a flapping of wings and then silence.

I never heard the Sifnos Monster again.

That would seem to be the end of the story. But on my very last day on the island, a cool and cloudy day in early September that came like a breath of fresh air after that hot summer, I was riding my motorbike up the mountain road. When I got to the familiar spot there was a crowd peering over the side of the cliff. Down below a bulldozer was making a road to one of the islands taxi cabs that had apparently gone flying off the cliff like the bad guys in a James Bond movie.

I asked a farmer holding on to his donkey, what had happened to the driver.

"Nothing. Not a scratch. A miracle" he said while crossing himself.

I was amazed. The car was demolished. You couldn't even tell what make it was. I looked at the road. No skid marks. He just drove straight off the cliff like something had gotten his attention and he'd forgotten he was driving. It could only have been...

I jumped on my bike and happily rode down the mountainside to tell Stellios the good news.

SIFNOS NOW

When we arrive in Sifnos it is three AM. There is a small group of people on the dock including Kosta who owns the convenience store, there to pick up the daily newspapers, and Bouli's brother who is there because it is his job to catch the rope and help tie up the ship. I like getting in so late because I can walk down the street in quiet anonymity and not have to say hi to every single person I know from twenty years of visits. We dump our bags in the lobby of the Stavros and are met by Tony who escorts us to the Old Captain where we have a couple ouzos to unwind. Amarandi plays with Lefteri's girlfriend Anna and walks around chasing after the cat and ducks. We eventually make it up to our room and fall asleep around five.

The next morning we wake up about eleven and go downstairs to test the coffee. I talk with Sarah in the cafe of the Hotel Stavros and eat a bowl of yogurt with honey and nuts. Our highschool friend Beau comes in and sits with me before going upstairs with a cup of coffee to try to pry his girlfriend May Ping out of bed. When he returns he tells me that he had been with our friend Arthur, from Boston, Beau's ex-girlfriend Martha and Arthur's girlfriend but they had a falling out and they all changed their tickets and went to Ireland. Apparently Arthur couldn't get into the pace of life here, not to mention the intense heat and his girlfriend had been critical of everything. When Martha accused May Ping of being anorexic and throwing up in the bathroom it began a screaming fight that ended with them leaving the island. Beau didn't seem sad to see them go but he plans on leaving the island ASAP himself. He wants to show Santorini to May Ping but unfortunately the next boat is at 2:30 Tuesday morning, and in a ty pical example of Greek ferry scheduling the next boat is a half an hour after that and no others until Saturday.

We spend a few hours in the cafe by the water. Amarandi and Andrea join us and we pass the day until around 4 o'clock when Beau and I get in his inflatable boat and sail to the rocks on the other side of the bay to go spear-fishing. When we get there I discover that there is no string attaching the spear to the gun which means that if I shoot at a fish and miss, the spear could fall down a hole and never be found again, or if by some chance I shoot a big fish it could swim away with my spear. I realize the only thing to do is walk to the nearest group of buildings and see if I can find some clothesline. Just as I climb up to the main road my friend Dimitri rides up on his motorcycle and gives me a ride to town where I get a piece of elastic from Dario at the Italian restaurant that he uses to tie down the tablecloths. I promise him a fish in return. Dimitri gives me a ride back and confesses he is concerned by some white foam he has seen in the water. Being a chemical engineer he suspects it is some sort of a gricultural run-off and he, in the interest of his own well-being is going to Chrysopigi on the other side of the island to swim.

But chemicals cannot stop us from our purpose and within a few minutes I have caught two barbounia, which cost about 1300 dracs a kilo in the restaurants. (about $25 a pound.) The only problem using the elastic is that when I miss a fish it sends the spear back the way it had come towards me, but soon I master this problem by learning to get out of the way as soon as I shoot. We swim and float around for a few hours and catch two more fish before heading back to town for a night of ouzo, octopus, kalamaraki and salad. We end up at the Old Captain where there is a wild celebration of Lefteris birthday.

Tuesday June 13th
I wake up at 7am and walk out on the balcony. It's cloudy and there is a crowd of people waiting for the ferry to Santorini that was supposed to leave at 4 AM. I'm thinking that maybe Beau and May Ping are among them since they had made up their minds to leave. Though neither of them wanted to go, nothing we said could convince them to stay. I go down to the dock where it's cold and rainy with a strong wind.

My friends are not among the unhappy passengers and I am told by Stavros's father that the other ferry was "on time" meaning that it was only about eight hours late. With nothing better to do I decide to wait for the boat to come in. While I'm standing on the dock a small freighter filled with sand for building the new road to Vathi, sails into the bay. Since I'm the only one in the crowd who is not a tourist I step forward and catch the rope so they can tie up. Just as the ferry Apollo Express arrives, a big rat jumps off the freighter and runs across the dock. As soon as they spot it, the port policeman, Andonis the fisherman's dog, and an unknown tourist run after it and chase it off the island and back on to the boat from which it had come. Then the port policeman has a word with a member of the crew who stands watch and makes sure the rat does not get back off the ship. The ship continues to unload sand for ten hours and for all I know the crewman may still be on guard.

After the ferry leaves, I return to the room and sleep until nine when I am awakened by Stavros calling my name. There is a telephone call for me and I run down the stairs dreading it. It's Mitch, calling me from Carrboro. He tells me he is coming to Greece in July. I thought he was going to tell me our house had burned down.

The day is now sunny and hot. All day people are commenting on how hot it is. "Poli zesti" they say to one another in greeting while shaking their heads. Andrea, as is her nature, is suffering. We take a ride up to Appolonia where Stavros shows us the new hotel apartment complex he is building on a sight overlooking the town, with a view of the sea and the islands of Paros and Antiparos. Then we go to get some string for my spear-gun and then to this beautiful old cafeneon that Andrea likes. Now it has gotten cloudy and rainy again and I am waiting to go down to Spilia for more snorkeling.

GONE FISHIN'

How did I get this passion for spearfishing. I don't know if you can really call it a passion just as you wouldn't call watching TV every night a passion. Drinking ouzo and eating octopus is a passion, but I can't spend all day doing that. There are certain rules regarding passions and one of them is that if you do it all the time it's not a passion but a compulsion or mental illness. So what do I do with my days until the time that is acceptable for drinking ouzo? I go hunting for mezedes. What could be finer then a few fresh, crispy fried fish with a bit of lemon to go with my ouzo. Who cares if I spend three hours filling a plate the size of a saucer? It's not what the hunter brings back, but how much he has enjoyed the hunt. Some days I will catch a few morsels and some days I will provide an entire meal for my family.

I suppose becoming a spear-fisherman was a by-product of my maturation. What does one do when island night life has lost it's appeal? When the girls are so young and naive that chasing them is not a fair sport, even if they were interested in fat, balding middle-aged men. When the music they play in the bar sounds redundant, insipid, shallow, phony or just plain bad, and everyone around me is mouthing the words and tapping their feet. It's time to say good-bye to old habits, throw away my contraceptives, and head for the open sea. Instead of chasing women I'm chasing fish. It can be a lot more rewarding and I've never woken up with a fish I didn't like.

Fish are not known for their intelligence, having an IQ a few decimal points above most of your favorite vegetables, however it takes a certain amount of intelligence to get close enough to shoot one. Any fish worth shooting has probably survived numerous attempts on its life and does not have a man with a spear on its list of creatures with friendly motives. In other words, with most species of fish, if he sees you first you may as well forget it. He'll go under some big rock or into a cave that you can enter at your own risk. But when your air supply consists of whatever you have managed to suck into your lungs while in hot pursuit, then your underwater time is limited. It's a great equalization process. Sure, you are a big smart powerful human with a gun, but the fish still holds the advantage in his element. You can take away his advantage one of two ways. You can make him play on your turf, chasing him on dry land which is much less challenging and I doubt could even be considered as a sport, besides loo king totally ridiculous. Or you can spend a couple thousand dollars for all sorts of tanks and valves and weights, staying submerged for hours at a time, thus leveling the playing field or making it easy for you to not only win but dominate. But I'm not much into equipment. I have a mask, a snorkel, a flipper for each foot, a menacing looking knife for the kind of emergencies I'm too afraid to even think about, a bag to keep my catch that I wear around my waist which enables me to travel long distances and not have to go back to shore every time I catch a fish, and a speargun.

The first thing that one realizes is that everything looks bigger underwater. A meal for two turns out to be a treat for a cat and the giant octopus you battled for hours is best eaten quickly before anyone sees it and ridicules you. The good news is that nothing is too small to eat if fried crispy enough.

Though the expression is "Curiosity killed the cat", in the magic undersea kingdom it could just as easily apply to fish. Certain species, either more intelligent or less intelligent, sit still and stare in wonder as you get close enough so that missing them is impossible. These fish are usually small and unless you catch many, not worth the feelings of guilt that overcome you for killing such a trusting innocent creature. The sad fact is that most of the fish you see in these waters are cute and with the exception of the smyrna(moray eel), not very threatening. In fact except for the smyrna and an occasional maniac on jet skis I am the most dangerous thing in the water.

At the top of the list of cute fish is the octopus, followed closely by the soupia(cuttle fish). Both creatures bear an amazing resemblance to Groucho Marks. If my heart is hardened and my animal instinct takes over I shoot first and ask questions later. But if I hesitate or miss the first shot it sets off an inner battle that leads me to question my right to take a life, the flaws in my personality, my lack of compassion and eventually my entire existence. I try to avoid these moments by making a clean quick kill. As Robert Deniro said in The Deer Hunter, You have to take a deer with "One Shot". What applies on land to deer could easily apply to octopodi or soupia. I've had unfortunate experiences with both.

I was about to leave the water after three hours of fishing one morning but as is often the case, I wanted to take one last shot. I swam a few yards beyond where I had left my clothes on the rocks and noticed a commotion in a small cove. There were a lot of little fish darting back and forth harassing this strange gray creature. Suddenly I realized I was face to face with a soupia with his back to the rocky shore. As any diver worth his salt knows, there are few things more dangerous then a cornered cuttlefish. I could see him staring at me in disbelief as I took my aim. It was only a matter of who would strike first. The number one rule of engagement with a soupia is "Don't let him stare you down." Besides the deadly ink his only other defense is his previously mentioned resemblance to Groucho, and he's not afraid to use it to his advantage. My hands were beginning to shake as I fought the feelings of conscience that were trying to break through to my animal self. I knew it was now or never. I fired just as the soupia let out a stream of black ink that temporarily blinded me. But it was too late as my spear found it's mark. Suddenly in a burst of super effort the soupia freed himself and fired another blast of the dangerous ink. I dug in and prepared myself for a fight to the finish. I knew the creature was wounded, perhaps mortally and so had nothing to lose. In my fear and confusion I loaded my spear backwards. The little darting fish were now taking a keen interest in this battle. Strange how just a few minutes before they were fighting with the soupia and were now actively rooting for him. "Like nations", I thought to myself as I readied for one final shot. The battle was taking its toll on me as I waited for the ink to clear. I kept hearing Deniro..."One shot...one shot", over and over again in my brain. OK. I blew it. Did I have to pay for it with my life? Then as the ink cleared I realized I would get another chance. The soupia was hugging the ocean floor hoping to catch me off guard. I got him in my sigh ts and fired again. A direct hit! He died without further struggle and I put him in my pouch with the other fish I had caught that morning.

When I got to shore I examined my fallen opponent. He measured a full seven inches from head to tentacle tip and though I felt a certain amount of pride in the outcome of the battle I still had to ask my self that eternal question. "How could I shoot and kill anything so cute?" I attributed it to some genetic Neolithic hunting instinct and tried to imagine my ancestor in philosophical turmoil over the cute-ness of the woolly mammoth he had just brought down.

Regardless of my deep angst he was delicious, kind of a cross between filet mignon and an inner-tube.

The octopus story was a little more tragic. I was with my brother David, a fierce and noble hunter, in Vathy, when he spotted an octopus under a rock. Over and over he went down and resurfaced for air, until he returned with a little baby octopus that he had shot by accident while going after its mother. I looked at the poor little mutilated creature and tears filled my eyes. I continued to cry when David returned with its mother. Then he told me that since he had shot them, it was my job to beat them to death on the rocks, standard procedure for tenderizing octopus. After that it was a long time before I shot an octopus myself though I captured many, held and played with them before letting them go. In fact among certain octopus circles I am a sort of a Saint Paul of Octopi, having persecuted them and then seen the error of my ways. Even so, I never gave up eating them.

David also shot a huge eel right off the rocks in Kamares. It took half an hour to get the spear out of it and the animal was so powerful you could not hold the spear while he wriggled trying to extricate himself. That night, after eating it, David developed a respiratory infection and almost died. We discovered that eels are very intelligent creatures with a highly evolved system of justice. After that we left them alone.

We developed a slightly unorthodox method of spearfishing. First we find an undersea area with lots of stones and archinos(sea urchins). When we turn the stones over we expose a fantastic collection of strange creatures and colorful lichens. This attracts lots of fish who come to eat the now accessible food that was under the stones. Then we smash a couple sea urchins to attract even more fish. Suddenly we find ourselves in a multicolored underwater garden surrounded by hundreds of beautiful fish. Then we open-fire.

But something more beautiful and meaningful happened to me one day towards the end of last summer. I was swimming in a very well known spot in Kamares bay when I saw the biggest, most colorful grouper I had ever seen. It was almost as large as I was and it swam into a cave where I was able to watch it swim back and forth like a tiger pacing its cage. I suddenly felt very stupid with my little spear-gun as I looked in awe at this creature that might have been twice as old as I was. Even if my puny spear-gun had enough power to take this magnificent fish I didn't feel I had the right to. What I felt was a sort of fear and respect for this creature of God and also a sadness because I knew that sooner or later someone is going to get it. I wondered if they would feel the same awe and respect when they do.

I told Michali about the fish after he promised not to hunt it but only to visit it. I don't know if he ever saw it. It was after this incident that I 'lost heart' as they say in snorkeling circles. Spearfishing seemed like a really pointless and stupid sport. Luckily with the approach of fall and winter I didn't have to suffer too much mental anguish about it. When I am sitting in my house in North Carolina watching the occasional snow fall, the last thing on my mind is that big fish. By the time the next summer came I was back beneath the waves, terrorizing my brothers of the deep.

Yesterday evening I went to Spilia to fish. I swam over to the giant rocks that they use as a breakwater for the pier. There were huge fish and I shot my biggest one ever. At least it was the biggest good-tasting fish I ever caught. A melanouria. It was exciting fishing there because the rocks piled on each other create a labyrinth of caves and I was playing a cat and mouse game with the fish. The one I got was a pretty lucky shot. I also caught two barbounia and unfortunately wounded a couple kefalo, which I was not able to retrieve.

When I got back to Spilia, Andrea and Amarandi were waiting for me. Amarandi saw my mask and said "Da-Da. You wearing sunglasses". She loves the water now. Last year she was terrified of it.

We had our fish with ouzo at Kamborakis restaurant and then went over to the Italian Restaurant for spaghetti. When we finished we went next door to the little children's park for Amarandi to play. While we were watching her on the swings Dario came over from the Italian restaurant with four shots of grappa on a tray. He told us it was the best thing for digestion. He was right. It knocked me out.