Astypalea 1980

Photos © Jim Wilson

No cellphones, no airport, just the sea and the dirt roads and the wind whistling through the overhead wires in the Kastro. Sometimes, in winter, when rain ran down the narrow streets in rivers, and the island turned from brown to green, the seas were so high, 7 Bofor, that the ferry couldn't come for six weeks on end. Which wasn't really a problem, island time, except that the old guys who served in the US Army in World War I couldn't get their Social Security checks, and the island ran out of cigarettes. Which was actually a very big problem. Chaos.