It’s a beautifully crisp morning with blue skies in Hydra. We start off towards the small port and get waylaid by soft, furry cats.Arjun pets a snow ball of fur and claims to have started its feline engine when she starts purring loudly. I relax on the whitewashed stone ledge and enjoy the warm sun. Time flows deliciously slow.

A train of mules appear and clip clop on the stones. Hydra is a tiny bread stick shaped island in the Saronic gulf, just a few hours from Athens. With a population of two thousand people, most living around the hills of the port, it’s inhabitants must all walk. Garbage trucks and the occasional construction dumper are the only allowed motorized wheels. It’s a great place for Arjun to run around the streets.

The mules are on their way to a barge that is bringing in the essentials of life from the port of Metoxi on the Peloponnese islands. Across the strip of dark blue sea, we can see the hills of the Peloponnese mainland with their slowly whirring windmills.

The mules walk right into a barge where a Pakistani man drives a small forklift moving pallets. Unlike our sedate journey to Hydra on the catamaran from Athens, he had to spend 3 months in a turkish jail for illegal immigrants before coming to shore. The young of Hydra, all seem to have left for better prospects and the task of hauling heavy bags around falls on the mules and the undocumented immigrants.

A man with magnificent whiskers leads the mules out, all hitched in a train. The mules carry a myriad of different things around Hydra, here they are bearing bricks and vegetables. One even has fresh lavender flowers. A solitary fishing boat stands in the harbor. Dozens of cats sit and wait with the calmness of cats who know that they are going to get fed. There is no scrambling for fish. Dmitris, the fisherman has already thrown over a handful of sardines.

In the crystal clear waters shoals of mullets can be seen nibbling at the algae. I am tempted to and buy a cheap fishing rod. With Arjun’s trademark luck, we manage to reel in half a dozen small fish with stale bread and a tiny treble hook. We get a mullet, a red porgy and annular sea breams. On another afternoon, we reel in a beautiful parrotfish and a spiny rabbitfish. The parrotfish is buttery, the rabbitfish on the other hand inflicts a painful sting even as it is dead when I attempt to clean it back at home. Arjun enjoys the fishing and excitedly hands me fresh bait. He then doubles up as fish guard and has to drive away a persistent cat who prowls around our catch. Later on in the evening, he has mixed feelings about the hooked fish.

On the evening of 13th November, the church bells rings raucously as a clutch of magnificently bearded Greek orthodox priests and some official looking men alight from the orange sea taxi. Young priests are at hand to haul suitcases. Tomorrow is a special day, the feast of Konstantinos, the patron saint of Hydra. Konstantinos, was a Hydriot, who converted to Islam , moved more by the better job prospects for a muslim rather than any religious doctrine, when Hydra was under the Ottoman Turks. When his mother refused to answer his letters, he repented and returned to his old faith. Alas this move angered his master and Konstantinos was tortured to death by the Ottomans, He died a Christian and is the patron saint of Hydra.

We are as excited for the feast tomorrow as anyone else. In the small island we had got to talking terms and made friends with all the regulars at the cafes and at the harbor after a week of stay. The promise of the patron saint’s feast reverberates through everyone.

The morning of the 14th, we wake up to the sound of deep chanting from the hills. With unusual haste, we rise up and head out. The sonorous chants lend an air of exotic rituals to the early morning. We join a small group of smartly dressed locals and wait along the path that leads down from the church of Konstantinos. A dapper grand father sits on his porch, besides his empty wheel chair.

The chants grow louder and we hear the beating of drums. There is going to be a parade. Three smartly uniformed naval officers march, holding up the flag of Hydra. School kids follow wearing a sombre dark blue. A grandma appears holding aloft a candle and burning incense. A band follows blowing trumpets and drumming. And then follow the most magnificent bearded priests I have ever seen. Some wear thick golden robes, speckled with red and others wear an all black ensemble of robes and headdress. The beards are accompanied by solid staffs and crosses. It’s all mesmerizing. They make frequent stops and chant, blessings and incense spiraling through the street.

That evening, we walk along the path that winds along the coast towards Mandraki. Arjun makes frequent stops to admire the stones and test their banging properties. One of the highlights of Arjun’s trip so far has been the mythical unimog fire truck that’s parked next to the cannons. For long we have studied the Trucks encyclopedia and admired the Unimog, before getting to see it in all its metal hulk in Hydra.

As the sun sets, we find ourselves under an enormous bronze Sun its metal rays spinning in the breeze. We watch in awe at this magical sight of the sun god Helios. This is the first time, I have been moved by art. There is no written text explaining what or who made this. Later that evening, after returning home, I find out that this is an installation by the celebrated artist Jeff Koons. Somehow I am glad that there is no text under the Spinning Sun and the viewer can find beauty without the distractions of explanations.