Dodecanese @ Kos

Behind us all lies a year and a half of pandemic restrictions. I also have a year of digital promotion behind me with web design jobs until I drop. We want to be free again and enjoy life. The day before we leave for our honeymoon, the German government declares our holiday destination Greece a risk area. Of course I’m pleased that, as fully vaccinated travellers, we don’t have to go into quarantine on either the outward or return journey. But Delta is giggling expectantly in the background. Tests are not even mandatory.

Shortly before Munich Airport, my car’s oil warning light comes on for the first time in 13 years. During the last oil change, I must have given the engine oil more freedom in the form of a half-closed top-up cap. It was obsessively steaming and waving at me from the oil pan with a shiny black colour. I immediately impose a hard lockdown and wonder how pandemics can promote the ability to interpret oracles.

Stand-up men have always annoyed me. I don’t mean the ones who get punched in the face, pull themselves together and get up again. They have my utmost respect. I mean the stand-up guys on aeroplanes. They’re at least twice as stupid as the small-tailed guys taking off in a green wave with screeching tyres. Their only goal? To wait as quickly as possible at the next red light.

Just like the stand-up guys on the aeroplane: the best thing for the really professional ones is to get their hand luggage down at the start of the descent. The regional league pushes into the aisle before reaching the parking position. I especially understand the small ones among them. Their knees suffer from massive agoraphobia due to the unbelievable legroom. Meanwhile, my 193 cm long full-body haematoma, maltreated by unadjustable Condor seats, silently caresses its claustrophobia.

New in the game today: “Please remain seated until the bench in front of you has disembarked.” It is debatable whether the reduction in density in the corridor has an impact on the infection rate. In any case, it comes as it must. The first one gets up – and so do several gnomes behind him. But today, the stewardess and the applause that follows make my hate dance pogo: “We ask the small children who haven’t understood this to sit down again on a free seat in the front row.”.

The taxi races through the night. Palm trees fly past in front of the lights shining over from nearby Turkey. On the very first afternoon after arriving in Kos, the Meltemi wind picks up. The operator of the water sports centre directly in front of our accommodation in Tigaki tells me that kitesurfing is not tolerated here. I had to go to the end of the beach and launch behind the last parasols, where it would be legal. No sooner said than done. The wind is a bit weak and I drift downwind about 50 metres into the beach area with parasols. I immediately go to the shore with the kite parked on 12.

The result? The owner of the beach area rumbles at me very aggressively: “If I see you again here I call the police and you pay 600 €.” I apologise politely. I had already heard about drastic penalties. That’s why I really wanted to do everything right. Especially as, since a near-fatal scooter accident on Corfu that was my own fault, I can’t help but think that the Greek police are almost as xenophobic as the German police are blind to Nazis.

I wonder why we kiters are increasingly seen as the devils of the wind worldwide. Worse still. If wind disciples are devils – then we kiters are red Khmer on crack. Hated scum. The noise of the motorboats with banaboats and jet skis in the middle of the swimmers off Tigaki is not a problem. It boosts the economy. Barking dogs in the nature reserve? No problem! But the kiters 200 metres in front! My religion mutated from magic for everyone to the dirty green devil in just ten years. I want a Dodecanese, I want to forget what wonderfully colourful birds we kiters used to be in the eyes of others…