The Greek islands are beautiful, especially in summer. But Samos is special among them. It is a place that has everything for the most discerning eye to see, fall in love with, and find peace once and for all. The sun, the sea, the mountains, and, uncommonly for the Mediterranean, a real forest. Yes, Samos is a green island! A blessed place where anything you plant will surely grow.
And also—a forest of yacht masts in the water and on the shore in the marina. Water, crystal clear to the very bottom. And the love of a Greek woman, which can be earned as the grandest prize. Or maybe, not quite a Greek woman, but everything is so mixed here, and what difference does it make, really?
Above all this, heavy fishing gear soared, taking off like an airplane, gaining altitude in a circle and flying ten, sometimes even twenty meters deep into the marina from the pier.
Unwind, swing—throw!!! A heavy octopus trap, a piece of white plastic with a red artificial crab attached to one side and a piece of lead with two powerful steel hooks on the other, flies far into the sea.
One, two, three, four, five… Another moment, and the trap must have reached the bottom, time to pull it out. Slowly, gently jerking the thick line, like children playing with kittens with a string, we pull the tool towards us. It passes smoothly without snags. Good, not this time. No octopus caught. We pull it out, check if the bait is still on the hooks, pieces of white chicken meat, and repeat the process.
Catching octopuses had become David’s main occupation in the past two months. Unfortunately, not very successful. Like everything he did these days, because this summer his life’s zebra was clearly jumping over a black stripe.
The divorce ended in complete bankruptcy. Seven years of married life with a woman—and here he is, a young, promising programmer with a stable income and prospects, left with nothing. The house he had lived in for the past few years and had paid off nearly half of the mortgage loan. The wife who preferred her independence to daily relationship clarifications, or maybe, who knows, someone else. The daughter, left by the court, of course, with her mother.
As a result, David lost everything and was still in debt. Living further in Britain seemed completely pointless. And he remembered his distant childhood when he and his grandfather would go out to sea on the family yacht—an old small wooden sloop of classic design with gaff rigging.
These were the best years, as it seemed now from the height of his approaching thirties. A time of hope. When everything, absolutely everything still seemed to be ahead.
The accumulated knowledge from those childhood and teenage experiences with a real yacht skipper was enough to pass the exams externally. And so, David, now a yachtmaster, found a job in this field and flew to Greece to take tourists on charter trips…
Just a bit to the right. We scan all the water around us in a fan shape. Spin, a strong final swing, a throw—a splash of water ahead, fifteen meters away. We wait for the bait to settle on the bottom and start pulling it out again…
**Meeting a Greek Woman**
Upon arriving in Samos, David quickly realized that he had, in fact, found himself in a kind of reserve. The charter company, which had several yachts and skippers at its disposal, rented them out on a weekly basis, sometimes offering a captain as an option. It was for this role that he had signed up.
However, there were a couple of significant details. To go out to sea, the company first had to find a client. And the competition in the charter market was very high. Private boat owners were also not averse to earning some extra money, thereby covering at least part of their maintenance costs.
Having read books about the sea, few people dream of becoming a sailor—everyone in this world sees themselves as a captain. Most clients preferred to operate the boats themselves. And since that was the case, David was left with nothing to do but sit on the shore and wait until he was needed, receiving the bare minimum of the agreed salary.
Time passed. The water, from 18 degrees at the end of spring, warmed up to 25 degrees by mid-summer. It was gradually becoming not only hot but also a bit boring. And suddenly, one day it became very hot—she appeared.
As usual, David was returning to the boat where he lived, along the pier, passing many docked yachts, large and small, sailing and motorized. Being a polite person, he greeted everyone he met. That’s the custom with neighbors. And then, at some point, his gaze met a lady sitting on the shore in a folding chair. She wasn’t alone but with a young man.
“Hi! I’m Christina! Want a beer?” And she handed David a can of cold drink, which was so much needed under the scorching summer sun of the Greek island. They got acquainted. And she stuck in his mind.
At that moment, something told David that the man sitting next to her on the second folding chair was as much a passerby in her life as he was. Not her boyfriend at all. And David, without hesitation, stayed—in her company.
Is there something? An octopus? A snag? The line wouldn’t move, it was impossible to pull out. Try the other way? No, it’s not working. Now go to the right. Pull from the pontoon. Completely stuck, nothing works.
For about fifteen minutes, David pulled his gear in different directions, but it turned out to be impossible to retrieve it. In the end, desperate, he threw the line over the yacht’s winch, the yacht where he lived, pulled, and immediately broke it.
That ended his octopus fishing. At least until the next paycheck. David didn’t have extra money to buy a new set of gear. It wasn’t that he couldn’t find a few euros, it’s just that fishing is a gambling game where you have to know when to stop…
Playing Love
Greek women are true masters of the game of love. Their flirtation can drive a man to distraction, drawing him in with their attention, like an octopus wrapping its tentacles around a man’s soul, only to push him away, slipping off the hook and swimming away into the deep blue sea.
Almost every day, David and Kristina went fishing together. For the most part, it was she who taught him to fish the Greek way: without a rod, using a simple reel with a line and a bundle of ten hooks at the end, into which bread was wrapped.
But David, as a true Brit, was ready to take on the challenge: he didn’t just want fish. He was determined to catch an octopus at all costs.
After all, both love and fishing are, first and foremost, games. One could say it was almost The Great Game—in the British sense. The stakes were getting higher and higher. And David’s relationship with Kristina was growing warmer and warmer, like an electric kettle that begins to hiss but has not yet reached boiling point.
Kristina, however, remained completely unpredictable to him. Sometimes she would casually touch his chest with her fingers, hinting that she wanted something, while at other times she would push him away, saying bluntly, “Don’t touch me.” Most likely, something in her past was preventing Kristina from having normal relationships with men, David thought, and he tried to be understanding.
That morning, after receiving his paycheck the day before and a trip to a nearby town, he had a new octopus-catching rig. The attempts continued. Kristina sat on the shore with a can of beer, occasionally pausing to remove another mullet from the hooks. Meanwhile, David kept casting his device, playing with it, and pulling out the sharp hooks attached to a platform with an artificial crab, time and again without success. Luck did not favor him. Octopuses eluded him entirely.
Swing, throw, the octopus trap flies into the sea. Tugging at the line, David pulled it out repeatedly, each time without result. Finally, on about the twentieth or thirtieth attempt, the end of the line felt very light. The device had broken off by itself and remained in the sea…
Towards evening, another man joined the group of young people, talking at length with Kristina in incomprehensible Greek. David, sitting nearby, felt like an outsider, lost.
Eventually, Kristina told him:
“I’m leaving tonight. I might get a new job,” she mentioned a substantial monthly amount, “you know, I need the money.”
There was something about this woman. On one hand, quite silly and primitive, but on the other, so simple and straightforward. Kristina was not shy about saying directly: I love money. This always left David somewhat stunned because, ironically, he had no money this summer.
“Alright, Kristina, good luck!”—what else could a man say to a woman leaving him alone on the shore?.. After all, who was she to him?..
David saw her, dressed in a short white skirt, get on the back of another man’s motorcycle. They rode off into the approaching twilight. David’s heart clenched, perhaps with the same pain as the tentacles of an octopus impaled by a hook.
…Kristina returned to her boat late at night. In the morning, she was drinking beer and fishing again, clearly suffering from a severe hangover. They never discussed the new job, neither that day nor afterward.
The Gift
David had lost faith, but he managed to cope with his inner resentment and jealousy. They still went fishing together almost every day. Every month, with his salary, David bought another octopus trap, and within days, or even hours, he would lose it.
Christina continued to play with him. Her attitude towards him sometimes seemed increasingly warm. But in the end, nothing ever happened. The fire would be replaced by coldness and indifference. Her character seemed so mysterious and unpredictable to him.
One day she even suggested he come over to her place for the night. But she did it via SMS, in the middle of the night. By morning, everything returned to normal. Maybe she just had too much to drink?..
In the end, he got tired of both fishing and watching others do it. David met a professional on the shore, who was beating freshly caught octopuses, and asked him directly: what’s the secret, how do you do it?..
The proud owner of nearly a dozen(!) not very large but freshly caught octopuses seemed pleased with himself as he explained the nuances of his success. He showed David some tricks. In his opinion, even hooks aren’t necessary to catch an octopus—it’s enough to play the bait correctly and gently pull it to the shore.
And then the octopus catcher did what only Greeks usually do!
The fact is, if Karl Marx hadn’t been Jewish, one might think that his ideas were born here, in sunny Hellas. Greeks, in their hearts, are true communists, accustomed to sharing what they have with their friends, family, and people around them. You probably have to be a genuinely not wealthy nation to show such genuine generosity.
Along with the free lesson on octopus catching, David received one of the octopuses as a gift. Christina explained how to prepare it, and he followed her very simple recipe.
That evening, their small company—because they weren’t alone on the shore—enjoyed a bottle of white wine, and then a second and even a third, as the young people ate octopus tentacles, rolled in flour and fried in boiling oil on a skillet.
Oddly enough, the octopus was not only exceptionally tasty but also tender: it’s no wonder the Greeks beat them before taking them home and cooking them for dinner.
Christina was a little drunk and very pleased. Maybe it was that evening that the joke between her and David was born: I will be your woman if you can catch an octopus. Prove that you are a real man!
The Experience of the Past
David accepted the girl’s challenge. Especially since, once upon a time, he could say he had already caught an octopus. Caught and shamefully lost. In memory of this momentous event, there were only a few photos left on his phone.
This is how it happened. On that day, David was fishing as usual, but not from the shore, but directly from the yacht on which he worked, when no one was watching.
At that time, he did not yet know the simplicity and charm of the most basic fishing device — an ordinary reel with a line, which the Greeks use. Therefore, he was using the simplest cheap Chinese fishing rod with a plastic reel.
Of course, he was not paid to sit and fish all day. During the endless waiting for clients, his duties included keeping the boat in order, dusting, and other such tasks. The fishing rod simply remained secured on the deck — with a bell that was supposed to alert David of a bite.
At some point, the bell not only rang but clanged madly. David rushed to the deck and grabbed the rod. The reel refused to pull up what was on the line — something too heavy. David began to pull in the line by hand. What was it? A squid? Something white… Barely, with one hand he reached, without letting go of the tension, for the net. Straddling the deck, with the line in one hand and the net in the other, he managed to scoop up the caught octopus and, with great difficulty, pull it onto the teak deck — if only the boat owner could see this!…
But what to do next? The creature made desperate attempts to escape and return to the water. It sprawled across the teak deck and crawled towards the edge, clutching everything with its eight tentacles.
David grabbed his phone from the cockpit table and took a few shots. Then he tried to stop the octopus with a boat hook. His idea was to remove the creature from the deck. After all, the yacht was not his, and even people walked barefoot on the teak; what kind of marks might this otherworldly creature leave!…
The octopus proved to be quicker than David. It disappeared from the deck, finally reaching the water while David ran for a bucket.
All that remained this time was to repeat the successful experience but to be more attentive. And there would be happiness: both a dinner with octopus and, perhaps, Christina?…
She was becoming his vision. Every time David closed his eyes, she appeared somewhere nearby. With her hair tied in two simple ponytails with rubber bands, her broken English, sometimes without any grammar. And at the same time, so sexy, desperate, desirable.
What prevented her from building a relationship with him? Maybe past experiences? Once, while returning with him late in the evening from a cafe, she admitted that with the guy he first saw her with when they met, she indeed had a relationship. She said it like this: yes, he’s nothing special. I had sex with him — two and a half times.
That was before him. And now the game continued. She with him, he with her, and both of them with the octopuses. A game for love. Or for life.
On the Hook
They hadn’t been together for a week. She was serving the family that owned the boat on which she worked. And he finally got an order and went out to sea for a few days. Christina’s prediction that David would forget her in a week as soon as they parted did not come true. He remembered her and missed her.
She met him — like a queen, as she considered herself. Surrounded by other male friends, during an evening fishing session. Perhaps David would have been jealous if he hadn’t gotten used to it by then. Besides, Christina’s admirers usually had one of two flaws: half of them turned out to be married, and the other half were too many years older than her.
Early the next morning, David went to the pier for another attempt to catch an octopus. With a new trap on a thick line and already without any hope for success. He simply knew how to achieve his goal, and he set a task for himself: cast exactly fifty times and go home, back to his boat.
Mentally, David divided the space around him into sectors like a fan and began casting the trap again and again, shifting the direction by a few degrees.
The first ten to twenty casts yielded nothing. Somehow, a couple of times, he had to replace the pieces of chicken on the trap hooks. Was it an octopus? Or did the device just get caught on something on the bottom, who knows…
Next to David on the shore was a closed plastic box with pieces of chicken. Last time, he forgot to close the lid, and a dog, being walked along the shore by a family of sailors, stole the remainder.
Also nearby lay a ready hook like a gaff, but sharp, to retrieve the octopus if it got caught in the trap. And a blue bucket, prepared for the catch. And he could also sit on it, pulling out the bait again and again…
At some point, it seemed to David that his device got caught on something at the bottom again. But as soon as he applied a little more effort, something shifted. His heart began to beat faster and faster: there was something there. A struggle was beginning.
A terrible battle was ahead. The octopus fought for its life, and David — for love, although at that moment he wasn’t even thinking about it. The line cut his hands, but he pulled and pulled it step by step, meter by meter.
And then, somewhere down there, something white appeared, clinging with all its might to the pier. David knew that octopuses change color, but he couldn’t imagine to what extent! You could say that octopuses turn white from fear or anger, becoming the color of a sheet.
David grabbed the hook to catch the creature and pull it ashore, it was already rising above the surface — a powerful spray of water… and a moment of hesitation was enough for the octopus to break free and begin to sink deeper and deeper, retreating into the dark abyss of the water.
The unsuccessful fisherman and lover stood on the shore with an empty hook in one hand and a Greek reel with a line, at the end of which was tied an empty octopus trap, in the other. And this time, luck deserted David. The octopus proved stronger and smarter; its thirst for life overcame the young man’s passion for a woman.
Christina saw everything. She watched what was happening, occasionally glancing at her friend through marine binoculars from the boat she worked on. She said nothing to him, only smiled at his story in the evening when they met.
They spent the evening in a local bar. And she even allowed David to touch her. But they went to sleep — each to their own place.
Deception
Now David knew exactly what he should feel. The second woman yields faster and easier than the first in life. And catching an octopus again is much easier than for the first time. You can’t deceive your hands; they feel the line getting heavier if there’s something there. They feel how the unfortunate animal resists, clinging to the bottom and even to the water with its tentacles. And how an octopus looks when it’s being pulled to the surface, appearing from the depths for the first time.
Christina was still sometimes extraordinarily soft and attractive, sometimes cold and cynical. It was hard to say if she needed that octopus along with David. She didn’t hide much that she loved money and souvenirs. A simple woman of our time, not burdened with anything serious. Like most of our contemporaries—an ordinary person of the consumer era.
But David felt lonely and sad here, far from his home, where everyone around him was relaxing and enjoying life, the sun, the sea, and the summer. And he wasn’t even working, just waiting for work, for the moment when someone would need an experienced skipper.
So it’s no surprise that David clung to the elusive Christina just like that first octopus he accidentally caught instead of fish—grasping the teak deck of the charter yacht with all his tentacles.
It was already late to catch octopuses that day when he was free. But as they say, no pain, no gain. And suddenly—on the fourth or fifth cast, something happened. The line tightened and became heavy. Very similar to the last time!
Now David was an experienced octopus catcher—not just a fisherman!—and right beside him lay a long and powerful net, fully unfolded and ready to gently lift the catch.
Slowly, step by step, never releasing and not even relaxing the tension, David pulled the octopus towards the dock. The line was now going not far and deep but down, almost perpendicular to the water’s edge. Now he needed to pull up with extended arms, not letting it get close to the pier, otherwise, it would latch on, and lifting it would be difficult.
Something was off, although the line was still heavy. There was something almost round under the shimmering sea ripples. Throwing the reel back, holding the line with one hand, heart pounding with tension, David brought the net under the thing hiding underwater. No resistance. Strange! He lifted it, and an involuntary curse escaped his lips—it was a stone! How could a huge boulder get hooked on an octopus trap with large hooks? Apparently, it was possible, depending on the type of rock…
The caught boulder seemed to David the perfect symbol of his life. Christina was turning from a fun amusement into a cold and heavy stone around his neck, maybe even in his heart. Unable to shake it off, David went out to the pier day after day, casting the octopus trap into the sea.
Autumn of Love
It’s believed that spring is the season of love. And autumn is the time for octopuses. By September, the local fishermen catch more and more of them. And over the summer, they grow significantly, transforming from small creatures with thin tentacles into fairly large delicacies.
David continued to persistently catch them. Now he knew, having found out from others, the best time for octopus fishing. That morning he once again went ashore, laid out his simple gear—a bucket for the catch, a reel with a fishing device, a net, and a knife to immediately kill the animal, sparing it from suffering if caught.
Greeks, of course, treat octopuses differently. They beat them against rocks while they’re still alive to make the meat softer. Then, without freezing, they grill the fresh tentacles. But David was not Greek. He was ready to beat the octopus, but certainly not while it was alive.
The trap swung above his head. He cast it—it flew into the sea. A splash about fifteen meters away. Wait ten seconds, letting the baited and weighted artificial crab sink to the bottom. Pull it out. Got something! To catch something on the first try!
With practiced movements from his training with the stone, David pulled the line, brought the net under it. Here it was, the white octopus! Got it, hooked it, it was resisting with all its might…
And suddenly, at that moment, the net, made somewhere nearby in Turkey, folded in half, hanging on one bolt. There wasn’t a second one at all; it was replaced, as it turned out, by glue, which had somehow been holding the flimsy aluminum structure together all this time…
David spent half the day swearing, repairing the net on his boat. In the evening, a whole company gathered, including Christina. They ordered pizza and watched a movie together. Of course, laughing at his latest octopus adventure. And closer to night, everyone went their separate ways. And Christina again left David, going home to her boat.
She was so close, yet remained inaccessible to him. This both excited and angered him. Christina warmed his soul and truly infuriated him. She was there, like the octopus that day in the net. The one that escaped back into the sea again.
The next day’s octopus fishing ended almost as soon as it began. This time, the line with the device broke. It simply flew into the sea abyss. Following an already established tradition, David didn’t buy a new trap that same day, putting it off until his next paycheck, which was just a week away.
…They quarreled. In the end, Christina got tired of David always being without money. She just told him one day that it was his problem, not hers. He turned and left. Yes, he saw her every day on the yacht opposite, but he didn’t approach her anymore.
Victory
A week later, out of his inner resolve rather than to catch an octopus or win Christina over, David bought a new fishing device and went to the pier. This time, his device was different from the previous one. It was made by the local yacht shop owner, who had taken pity on the skipper who bought the same thing over and over again.
Now at the end of the thin but strong synthetic rope was a piece of chain as a weight. And the artificial crab with hooks was attached higher and didn’t touch the ground, floating above the bottom, so it couldn’t get snagged. The game, the excitement, and the adventure, the stubbornness took hold of David as he started fishing again. And this time, luck smiled at him.
Almost immediately, David felt the familiar sensation of the end becoming heavy. Reel to the side. Gradually, step by step, with expertise, David pulled and pulled the rope.
Here it was, held at arm’s length, away from the dock to avoid it grabbing the edge. Carefully, he brought the net under it, pulled it out, and dumped it into the bucket. Got it! The octopus was caught!
Amazingly, after all summer, several months of persistent struggle, when David finally succeeded, he didn’t feel anything at all. His heart didn’t beat faster as it had before in moments of tension. There was no happiness, no joy from catching the animal. Nothing. He just stood on the shore with a sense of something accomplished. But useless. Any interest in what was happening was gone.
No, David didn’t release the octopus. And he didn’t torture it. He stabbed it several times with a sharp knife where the brain should be. Then, as the Greeks do, he beat the octopus against the rocks, although it was already dead, because he couldn’t bring himself to torment a living, defeated opponent, vanquished in a fair duel.
Perhaps David sincerely pitied it. But life is life. It’s a struggle for existence, a food chain not invented by us. He’s just a fisherman, if you can call him that, an octopus catcher. And for those who find it unacceptable to eat sea animals, that’s not David’s problem. That’s for the creator.
That day, after the morning fishing, David’s boss, the company director, called him and gave him a task for the evening—he needed David’s help on another boat. David returned to himself closer to sunset.
The sun was setting over the island, painting the green-covered mountains in red tones. On the opposite side—how does it happen, why is the light visible on both sides?—over Turkey to the east, there was also a muted red glow. The wind died down for the night, seemingly asleep.
A tired David went below deck and looked into the fridge, pondering what to cook for dinner. In the freezer, the morning’s catch was turning into a solid icy mass. No, David wouldn’t cook it today. He’d microwave something simpler.
At that moment, the phone rang. It was Christina.
– David! I saw you finally caught an octopus today?!
– Yes, imagine, I did! Over a kilo!
– David, I want it! I want octopus! And I’m ready for sex, do you want to?
Nothing, not a single muscle twitched in David, and his heart didn’t clench. The same indifference and calm that he felt catching the unfortunate octopus after so many months of futile attempts enveloped him. And then he replied:
– You know, Christina, I’m very tired today from work. I’m going to sleep. Goodbye, maybe until tomorrow.
But they didn’t meet the next day. Early in the morning, David went out to sea with clients for a week. And when he returned, the owner of the boat where Christina worked took her along with the yacht to another marina, on an island closer to Athens.
He saw her leaving him forever. A sixty-foot black motor yacht, looking like a powerful and fast motorboat, started its two heavy bass-sounding engines and slowly moved from the dock towards the marina exit.
Christina was on the bow of the vessel, removing the fenders. She waved to David.
As soon as the yacht passed between the two beacons marking the marina entrance, the engines roared, and the boat rushed into the open sea, turning into a small black dot. It was all over.
The season was coming to an end. David never cooked that octopus. He gave it to his Greek friend who helped him with the boat. And that friend, in turn, grilled it that evening with his friends. The octopus still made someone happy.