This night I eat with the crew. The Company is elsewhere. Francesco, the Italian co-owner of Hera, co-captain and chef, cooks a sumptuous meal of fish, meats, pasta and salad so fresh that it springs off the olive oil that he made from his own olive trees. The boat stretches to and fro, just exercising the ropes slightly, and the wine, made from Francesco’s grapes, pours from a canteen that has no bottom.

I learn that Francesco has fathered three sets of children by three different wives. At 57 years of age, his oldest is 28, youngest is 6. His current wife is Croatian – a language he has yet to learn after being in the country ten years – and has born him two children. She is 30 and when we meet her, we all recognize that this man must be a magician to have attracted one so much younger and comely then is he. (And taller too.)