“I wonder how much they were prepared to pay us”.

Lisa and I were having breakfast in the college restaurant.

“I’ve no idea”, I replied. “It’s probably good money; these guys don’t seem to have any regard to cost… you little Jezebel! You’re not thinking of going with it?”

“No, no, I was just wondering…”

“Well, you can find out if you want: Remember you have agreed to speak to His Most Excellent Excellency’s agent?”

Things were going well in Dublin, but I now needed to move to London. From there I could apply at the Embassy for a passport with greater leeway as to who could countersign the paperwork. We told Sameed that we would be quitting at the end of the week and he was most disconsolate. He persuaded us to do one more week and we were happy to oblige him. He also gave us a reference in Arabic in the event that we wanted to look for work in any of the Lebanese restaurants or Arabic-themed clubs there.

“Jasmine, Jim, you’re safe now. We’re taking you home.”

“Sometimes, when you’re surrounded by problems, all you can do is concentrate on the most immediate one, in this case, nausea. Lying in the trunk of a moving car, completely unable to move my arms and with precious little ability to move anything else, covered in something like a bag, all I could do was think of not being sick. Being sick into a gag could choke me. The journey seemed as long as the rest of my life to date, but just pure misery.

The yacht’s motion started to ease as we proceeded south, coming into the shelter of the Crete coast. We got up and dressed, donned our lifejackets and made our way up to the bridge. All was quiet. George was asleep on the guest bench at the rear of the bridge, his head on Maria’s lap. Her head was tilted to the side, somewhat asleep as well. Jorge was helming, Dimitri and Greg were nowhere to be seen. We crept to Jorge so as not to wake Maria or George; he whispered that the others were in their bunks. Dimitri was due on the helm in an hour or so.

Life quickly settled into a routine. We generally picked up guests in the afternoon from a morning flight, or occasionally from a private aircraft. We all mustered to greet them and take their luggage, all delivered from the airport by limousine. Onboarding was a key point for Maria, Lisa and me. George did the initial greeting, then Maria took over, whilst Lisa and I kept the champagne and canapes going. The cabins had been prepared by the “shore crew”, down to the champagne minis in the bar, chocolates on the table and towels in the “heads”. All guest cabins were en-suite.