Time to start guessing...

It’s a bright sunny morning as we watch our ancient ferry make the short trip across the harbour, from where she has been moored for two days while sheltering from high winds and rocky seas to the place where we can drive aboard. Our trip has been delayed by one day. Yesterday the winds were so strong that all boats were forbidden to leave port.

Alas, the carefully arranged and looked-forward to overnight stay on the mainland, with a friend had to be cancelled at the last minute, while we sat out the storm in Syros. It was a bit of a nail-biting wait. There was only one ferry that might get us to our next connection on time. And we didn’t yet know how Aimile would perform, nor if the wind would die down enough for the boats to start moving again. Happily our ferry had been stranded in Syros, so if it was safe to sail, was likely to leave on time.

I take a photo on the port of Hermoupolis in Syros to record the kilometres already registered on Aimile’s odometer. He doesn’t have a trip metre. The fuel gauge is showing full, our luggage is loaded along with a few things we think might be useful. We’re ready to depart. It’s Thursday January 19th, 09.30am and the odometer reading is 40988.

In a little under four weeks, we’ll be asking you all to send in your guesses for the first part of the competition. It’s a chance to win a piece of hand-crafted silver jewellery for yourself or to give as a special gift.

We don’t want to make it too easy, so watch out for the clues in our blog. Some might be words or quotations, others photographs. We start our journey by driving on to a very elderly boat named for Apollo’s twin, her destination different from that of the Blue Star Paros – had we been able to leave yesterday. She has a reputation for being late, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed that she will arrive on time.

There are only a handful of cars on board and not many more passengers. At this time of year when journeys can be disrupted easily by bad weather, sensible people stay home! We’re soon on our way, rocking and rolling. We explore the facilities – there’s not much on offer, so we picnic on some bread, cheese and hard-boiled eggs we’ve brought along.

It’s going to be a long, slow uncomfortable journey, I kick off my boots and get comfortable on one of the bench seats – I didn’t get much sleep last night and it’s been an early start.

We’ll be calling at another couple of Cycladic islands en-route. Hopefully our time in the interim ports will allow for a bit of a stretch of the legs and a cup of something hot, when we can have a drink without the danger of it slopping all over us.

Our epic journey begins…