The early morning sun gently warmed me as I stood on the seashore a mile or so away from the busy port.
Colourful sailing boats were moored to a rather ancient jetty, all waiting to be hired by adventurous tourists tempted by the sun and the deeply azure sea to explore the coastline.
At the shore end of the jetty, swaying in the gentle swell lay a chartered boat, about thirty foot in length with a cuddy that housed the ships wheel, sonar and engine throttles. An afterdeck wide enough to accommodate say, half a dozen rod and line fishermen. A wooden ladder attached to the stern passed down into the water.
The tanned crew were loading diving equipment, air bottles being lifted aboard to be stowed side by side with a metallic clink. Other equipment followed, swimming fins, weight belts and a pile of inflatable diving life jackets and short wet suits of various sizes.
Our London based dive club had arranged a trip to explore the warm waters of the Aegean Sea. We had travelled a long way and intended to enjoy the pleasures of exploring the various excellent dive sites that Grecian waters have to offer.
We gathered in a group at the end of the jetty to meet the skipper clad in a many coloured tank top ,salt-stained shorts, and an Aussie style hat, with corks of course, tastefully decorated with a half-smoked cigar tucked in the band.
Ushering us onto the sun bleached after deck. He called out cheerfully, ‘Morning, we good to go?’, in somewhat fractured English but a lot better than my Greek! ‘First we need to look at the chart, here, I show you, the best dive site for you.’
We gathered around as a nicotine-stained finger pointed out the dive sight and the depth of water we could expect probably around twenty metres, ‘Important for your dive,’ he added, the diesel grumbled into life sending up a cloud of grey smoke from the gurgling exhaust and we nosed away towards the open sea.
I looked up as a blue and white dive flag was hoisted, fluttering in the steady breeze, the international signal for ‘divers down, keep your distance.’
We sat on the deck enjoying the black and strong coffee that only the Greeks could offer, given to us in enormous mugs together with a huge basket of sugary pastries and fresh juicy peaches, a good pre-dive snack!
The sun played on the blue water with several gulls playing around the Greek flag flapping in the stiff breeze on its short flagpole. After a while the engines quietened, and the skipper laid his chart on the deck. ‘This is good, I have a three-point bearing from the trees over there, that rocky outcrop and that light house, pointing to the coast, all lined up.’
‘So, get kitted up and enjoy yourselves, echo sounder is showing 20 metres, that’s good for you I think, gentle slow current, we follow your ball floats so try stick together.’ Said with a grin.
Neoprene rubber tops were soon tugged on helped by liberal amounts of talcum powder and swim fins pulled on.
The regulators were already attached to the dive bottles that were now slung on to our shoulders and the harnesses tightened with its quick release buckle Our weight belt and inflatable life jackets were next, a quick press of the regulator button to test the air flow, lastly a good spit into our masks, amazing stiff spit, it stops your face mask misting up, just need to give it a good rub round on the glass.
Holding the handle of the ball float reel in one hand and our face masks now held in place with the other, a quick nod all round and we tipped backwards into the sea.
Now on the surface and finding my dive buddy, I clipped the buddy line to her harness, gave a thumbs up and we rolled over and swam down though the clear warm water.
After two or three minutes with our floats reeled out that marked our position on the surface, the sandy stony seabed came into view. We swam on slowly, breathing gently, our silvery exhaust bubbles streaming up to the surface.
We knew this was a site of interest to historical explorers. Over the years many archaeological expeditions had shown that the shaped, some circular, stones and the remnants of columns scattered over a wide area had belonged to an ancient civilisation going back in time for some two thousand years.
My friend gently tugged on the buddy line signalling me to stop and pause to take in the stunning sight of such remarkable remains scattered as far as we could see. She had an underwater camera so, balancing with difficulty on one knee, started to record the scene.
Settling on the sandy bottom a spider crab waltzed by his stalky eyes warily viewing this stranger in his world, a tiny fish no doubt intrigued by my glassy face came to have a look. Idly I brushed the fine sand with my fingers for no reason but to watch the gold-coloured grains rise and tumble in the water.
I felt the scratch of something under my finger. Now curious, I gently scooped away the sand, somewhat surprised to see a circular stony rim of what looked like a little pot.
Clearing around it revealed a perfectly intact, small, slender vase about six inches long with a scalloped top and short handles. Around the base were the remnants of small, sculptured shapes, possibly flowers.
Fascinated, a tug at the buddy line and in a minute or two my ‘buddy ‘came over with a swirl of bubbles. I pointed to the little vase, my wife looked on grinning with a thumbs up and set about taking some pictures.
In a few minutes it was time to move on and leave the precious artifact in its resting place, far too valuable to end up in some dusty museum or even worse, in the clutches of some trophy hunter intent on selling it to the highest bidder.
I covered the little vase in its sandy bed and looked back as we swam on. Now completely obscured, the little vase would stay there, maybe for another two thousand years, an occasional home for a ‘just visiting’ small worm or a crab.
Now looking at a photo of the small vase just resting on the golden sand prompts me to wonder about its owner, perhaps a gift to a child, a pencil pot but on second thoughts, they didn’t have pencils in those faraway days.