On a sunny Monday in April, my life drastically changed, as I boarded the plane for my first international flight.
Sailing had been a dream of mine for as long I could remember, and I had signed up on the Crewbay website at least six month prior to meeting Eal. Crewbay is a website connecting captains to interested crew members. Eal was the captain who had reached out to me.
I had already made plans with a friend to travel to Greece during the summer, and when Eal randomly contacted me about helping him through the spring; the dates aligned perfectly and it seemed meant to be. I booked my ticket just twelve days out; I was heading to Europe!
I spent 36 hours at the airport/ on planes.
From Pit- Iceland, Iceland- London, and finally from London-Cyprus. You may think 36 hours sounds a long time to get to Cyprus, and yes, you are correct. But this is how you get the cost of a plane ticket from $1,200 down to $275.
I arrived Tuesday night, still full of nerves. Cyprus is only 300 miles West of Syria, and passport control leaving the airport was no joke. The man fingered through my passport multiple times before looking at me and questioning “first time out of your country?” “Yes” I replied with a nervous smile, to which his stern face broke into a giant grin “have fun” he replied with a thick accent, and handed me back my passport