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The Trojan Walrus: A Stout English Sailor Infiltrates the Aegean Sea
Blatchley’s Second Law of Nautical Recreation: One meets a better class of people in collisions.
Julian is a stout Englishman, no doubt about that: So why, when fortune deposits him in Greece, does he get the feeling that he has come home? He also appears to be without employment. With immediate and decisive action obviously called for, he relaxes and waits to see what will happen next.
Early blooms are radiant in the Mediterranean sun as Greece’s sailing season comes fitfully to life. Easily seduced by this lifestyle and by the promise of the coming summer, the Falstaffian intruder decides to make his new employment as a yacht-charter skipper in the sun-drenched, pristine, watercolour amphitheatre of the Aegean Sea. They’ve already fallen for a Trojan horse… let’s see how they feel about a Trojan walrus.
Follow Julian as he attempts to sidle into the Aegean yachting world, negotiating in turn the Byzantine complexities of navigation, customs, marine regulations, romance, peer-pressure and the roasting of entire pigs in the Wine-Dark Sea.
A sequel to Adjacent to the Argonauts(which received many 5-star ratings) this is a comical romp through the Aegean in which we see, from the author’s affectionate perspective and through his maladroit experiences, the places, customs, history, cuisine and attitudes which go to make the anarchic jigsaw of this beautiful, captivating sea.
Julian is a stout Englishman, no doubt about that: So why, when fortune deposits him in Greece, does he get the feeling that he has come home? He also appears to be without employment. With immediate and decisive action obviously called for, he relaxes and waits to see what will happen next.
Early blooms are radiant in the Mediterranean sun as Greece’s sailing season comes fitfully to life. Easily seduced by this lifestyle and by the promise of the coming summer, the Falstaffian intruder decides to make his new employment as a yacht-charter skipper in the sun-drenched, pristine, watercolour amphitheatre of the Aegean Sea. They’ve already fallen for a Trojan horse… let’s see how they feel about a Trojan walrus.
Follow Julian as he attempts to sidle into the Aegean yachting world, negotiating in turn the Byzantine complexities of navigation, customs, marine regulations, romance, peer-pressure and the roasting of entire pigs in the Wine-Dark Sea.
A sequel to Adjacent to the Argonauts(which received many 5-star ratings) this is a comical romp through the Aegean in which we see, from the author’s affectionate perspective and through his maladroit experiences, the places, customs, history, cuisine and attitudes which go to make the anarchic jigsaw of this beautiful, captivating sea.
276 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 28, 2011
About the author
Julian Blatchley
2 books2 followersJulian Blatchley grew up around water, mostly at Windermere and the River Thames, and cannot remember when or where he first went afloat. Starting with the works of Arthur Ransome he devoured seafaring literature and put what he learned into practice on hire boats, dinghies, offshore racing yachts, work-boats, and even the Windermere Ferry. Leaving school after a youth dominated by sailing and Sea Cadet voyages around the European coast he entered the Merchant Navy as a navigating officer cadet in 1977.
After about ten years of tramp shipping, during which he gained his Second Mate's and Mate's 'tickets', he was forced to change to tankers and rose to be come Master of VLCCs (otherwise known as supertankers) before becoming an oil-field offshore manager. When he tired of the politics in this world after some time, he turned to pilotage and spent over a decade berthing large tankers at offshore terminals.
As a young bachelor Julian tended to take leave wherever ships set him down, resulting in semi-official residences in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and the Pacific islands. In 1984 he took an accidental sailing holiday in the Saronic Gulf of Greece which slightly over-ran... booking for 2 weeks, he stayed 30 years. His first book, 'Adjacent To The Argonauts', describes how this came about, and in 'The Trojan Walrus' he describes his initiation into the Aegean yachting scene. Told in a light-hearted way, these books are informed by considerable experience in the area which has led to them being described as guides as much as entertainments.
Parallel with his love of seafaring and ships Julian has always been an avid amateur historian, with highly indiscriminate tastes for periods but perhaps focussing more on the Napoleonic period than any other. His current writing project is a humorous historical romp through this period which is now looking for a publisher and which he freely admits has been massively influenced by Patrick O'Brian.
He returned to Brtain in 2014, ten days before the 30th anniversary of his arrival in Greece, to live in his native Cumbria where, in 2019, he became the manager of Steam Yacht Gondola at Coniston Water. He greatly enjoys the mixture of historical research, conservation and operation one of Britain's very few scheduled steam passenger vessels.
Julian continues to write, and since 2020 has been a regular contributor to the Marine Quarterly magazine, where he writes articles on his seagoing experiences.
After about ten years of tramp shipping, during which he gained his Second Mate's and Mate's 'tickets', he was forced to change to tankers and rose to be come Master of VLCCs (otherwise known as supertankers) before becoming an oil-field offshore manager. When he tired of the politics in this world after some time, he turned to pilotage and spent over a decade berthing large tankers at offshore terminals.
As a young bachelor Julian tended to take leave wherever ships set him down, resulting in semi-official residences in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and the Pacific islands. In 1984 he took an accidental sailing holiday in the Saronic Gulf of Greece which slightly over-ran... booking for 2 weeks, he stayed 30 years. His first book, 'Adjacent To The Argonauts', describes how this came about, and in 'The Trojan Walrus' he describes his initiation into the Aegean yachting scene. Told in a light-hearted way, these books are informed by considerable experience in the area which has led to them being described as guides as much as entertainments.
Parallel with his love of seafaring and ships Julian has always been an avid amateur historian, with highly indiscriminate tastes for periods but perhaps focussing more on the Napoleonic period than any other. His current writing project is a humorous historical romp through this period which is now looking for a publisher and which he freely admits has been massively influenced by Patrick O'Brian.
He returned to Brtain in 2014, ten days before the 30th anniversary of his arrival in Greece, to live in his native Cumbria where, in 2019, he became the manager of Steam Yacht Gondola at Coniston Water. He greatly enjoys the mixture of historical research, conservation and operation one of Britain's very few scheduled steam passenger vessels.
Julian continues to write, and since 2020 has been a regular contributor to the Marine Quarterly magazine, where he writes articles on his seagoing experiences.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 4, 2020
Not as good as 'Adjacent to the Argonauts', but still very funny.
Displaying 1 of 1 review