Lucky Me! This story is true.

Perdika is a beautiful village out on the tip of Aegina island. In contrast to bustling Aegina town, its neighbor across the bay, Perdika boasts just a few tavernas and a sea view from wherever you stand. The walk around the beautiful church gives a spectacular view across the sparkling, vivid blue sea to the islands of Moni and Agistri and at night old fashioned lamp posts illuminate the pavement. That is, those that are still working because Perdika suffers from the same illness as the rest of Greece. Lack of money. If something breaks, it has to stay broken and so walking back at night becomes more or less ‘interesting’ depending on the phase of the moon.

Aris has lived here for most of his life and has seen few changes. Once he took his boat out into the bay to fish for sardines to sell to the local tavernas but now, well past retirement age, he contents himself with gathering shellfish for bait and then lowering a line into the water from the rocks at the end of the headland. His pension amounts to just pennies so it’s a time for celebration when a fish bites. Despite his apparent poverty, he is one of the happiest people that I have ever met.

Just 100m away is irony at its most bitter. ‘Lucky Me’ is the name emblazoned on the stern in bold Cyrillic script and I can’t decide if the owner of this so called super yacht is too dumb to realize the contrast between people like Aris and himself or realizes and just doesn’t care.

The boat is a statement in elegance, sleek and black, looking like something that a James Bond villain would own. So of course I had to do some research. Built in Italy in 2016, it was originally owned by a charter group who rented it out for a cool two hundred thousand pounds per week. I think that needs repeating. Two hundred thousand pounds for one week. Almost the cost of the average house in the UK for one week of sailing from one port to another, walking ashore and sitting and eating at the same tavernas at which I eat and drink. It’s just mind boggling. But the story gets better.

Lucky Me was then sold to a private owner for a mere 25 million or so.

This 56m behemoth which remember is sitting in a tiny Greek fishing port carries 50000 litres of diesel. Just to save you the maths, that’s £75000 of diesel. Just think of that the next time you call into the petrol station and ask them to fill it up. The James Bond villain connection continues when you learn that the new owner hired an Israeli company to install a maritime cyber defence system.

Why on earth would he fear a cyber attack cruising around the Greek islands? Unfortunately, Google had taken me as far as I could go and there doesn’t seem to be a record of his identity anywhere. But of course, you would expect that from someone who is planning to take over the world, Mr. Bond.