![]() As the crowd grew, so did the anticipation. Everyone had come out for the festivities: families in their Sunday finest, sailors in navy-blue uniforms and white hats, soldiers in camouflage, future captains from the Merchant Shipping Academy in black-and-white uniforms, white-gloved flag bearers and the descendants of Asia Minor refugees in traditional costumes. Margaritis explained that the procession from the church would soon begin.Īfter changing into a button-down shirt, I joined the locals in the cathedral courtyard. ![]() He had dressed in a suit for the occasion, and as he navigated up narrow lanes to the church, retracting his side mirrors with the flick of a button, we passed ferry passengers and young people headed in the same direction. Captain Fotis Margaritis came to fetch me from the port in a shiny, mustard-colored car. When I arrived on the morning of December 6, celebrations were already underway. The island’s monuments, like the statue of the Oinoussian mother in the harbor waving goodbye to her children as they start a long journey, and the statue of the unburied sailor in Naftosini Square-the first in Greece dedicated to lost mariners-also gaze seaward. “In Oinousses, every home looks out to sea,” a local told me. With its long maritime tradition and hillside of boxy, pastel-colored kapetanóspita or captains’ houses, Oinousses is known as the island of seafarers. ![]() He is an important and beloved figure for the seafaring Greeks, and especially the 950 residents of Oinousses, where he is the patron saint. ![]() Agios Nikolaos is the protector of sailors and fishermen, and many of his miracles involve rescuing men at sea and calming rough waves. OINOUSSES, Greece - As I passed a bronze mermaid statue entering this island’s idyllic harbor on the ferry from Chios Town, I could hear the church bells of Agios Nikolaos tolling up on a hill in celebration of the saint’s feast day. ![]()
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