Normally, Agios Nikolaos (pronounced AY-os Ni-ko-lay-osh) is a sleepy Mediterannean tourist town. Tourists, many shades of red, wander in the blazing heat, biding their time between buffet lunch and buffet dinner. A motorized train picks up and unloads carts of wandering wallets at various spots of mild interest. You can take a ferry to Spinalonga, advertised as the last leper colony in Europe. You can rent scuba equipment, buy a towel with the island of Crete spun into the thread, eat a gyro, and easily pass a week or two in bland, hedonistic abandon. Nikolaos is not pricey enough to be exclusive, but it is just expensive enough to give off false airs of grandeur to those who stroll its streets with Nikons and crabby children in tow.

Beneath this, as in any sleepy Mediterannean tourist town, a working class pours your coffee, scoops your gelato and takes your reservations. And the thing is, Nikolaos, at an advertised population of about 20,000, is just small enough that most everybody knows everybody else--or at least a cousin.

When you take an evening walk with a local, you come to understand that your every action is being watched. Greetings are exchanged every thirty paces or so, knowing looks given off that you barely catch. But they have been watching the whole time. And they know what's going on.

The problem is, as in any tourist town, the economy is largely dependant on the steady inflow of tourist dollars. So, when a boatload of peace activists shows up, meets in the semi-secrecy of a hotel board room for four days, and goes through various scenarios of violence being acted upon them by Israeli commandos, the staff at the hotel really don't want to know about it. But they do.

When said peace activists' cover is blown, and they occupy a island-hopping ferry in the marina, and begin marching up and down the boardwalk, screaming "Shame on Papandreaou!" and "Free Gaza!"...well, now there's a problem. A town like Nikolaos, with 8-euro cocktails, lazy Tuesday night karaoke with a track list that ended in 1995, and no nude beach, simply isn't built for such expressions of solidarity with the people of Gaza. This isn't Athens. This isn't Syndagma Square. There's not even a hint of tear gas in the air.

So why don't the activists just leave, you ask? What does George Papandreaou, Prime Minister of this tourist colony, mean to them? They have already demonstrated their desire to flaunt Israeli law, what do they care about Greek law, which they perceive to be dictated by the Israelis anyway? Why not just make a run for the high seas? A midnight run, past the Greek coast guard boat stationed right next to theirs?

One problem is that the captain they hired, let's call him George, is a local, and Greek law is law for him. George knows the port authority grunts in the camouflage pants who watch over the peace activist's boat. He grew up with them, probably went to school with them. Maybe even shares a set of inlaws with the mustachioed fellow. He's a Nikolaotian, and wants to keep it that way. And while he's earned his stripes running yachts and ferries through the Gaza gauntlet before, if he goes this time he'll lose his job. He'll probably go to jail. So while the peace activists can go home, and do what it is they do when they're not sleeping on a boat, George has to come back to Nikolaos, and he won't come back in shackles. George is a legend in the Free Gaza movement, a lion of a man. But he won't sail illegally.

Miles Howe: You know most of the guards here?

George: Almost all of them.

MH: Have you been friends with them for a long time?

G: Yes.

MH: What do you think their feeling is?

G: They don't know. Almost all of them...they don't know what we are doing, and they don't know why these things are happening to our boat, right here, right now.

MH: They're just following orders.

G: Exactly.

MH: You've gone to Gaza. How many times before?

G: I've been in Gaza three times.

MH: You've sailed ships to Gaza?

G: Yes.

MH: You've sailed before from Agios Nikolaos?

G: I left from here, with the other ship, the Orion, but I didn't reach Gaza. But the other times I went to Gaza, once it was from Crete, in 2008, and the [other two times] it was from Cyprus.

MH: Do you have any plans to try and leave here, or is the Tahrir just going to stay? Right now there are 50 people from all over the world here who are ready to leave. If you leave, what's going to happen to you?

G: I am still a Greek person, and I must follow Greek rules, and the Greek laws, because Greeks give these laws. No matter if [the others] take orders from other people. But for me, I'm still a Greek, and I'm legal. For me, I'm going to keep work myself, and I'm going to work in the legal way. So, as things are now, we're still waiting for two papers...I must wait for these two papers to let me go.

MH: What are these papers?

G: We're waiting for a paper from the embassy of Comoros [under whose flag the Tahrir sails], and from our inspector, which is INSB [International Naval Survey Bureau]. And this, I think, is going to come tomorrow.

MH: What are the security measures in place? How can we be sure that we won't be sabotaged like the Irish and the Greek-Swedish boat?

G: There is no measure. We cannot ensure that. How are we going to ensure that?

MH: Security details? Lights under the boat? Scuba divers?

G: If we want to be safe, to ensure that, right now we should put divers under the boat. They should stay 24 hours under the boat and watch if someone is coming, or put cameras under it. Right here, I don't think they have many chance to come because now we know. So the port police is next to us, we are in a safe harbour. But nothing is for sure.

MH: You're the captain. At the port authority they've been saying 'This boat is not safe.' Do you feel confident that this boat can make it to Gaza on the open seas?

G: Yes.

MH: Under your command.

G: Yes. Otherwise I would not do this. What I'm doing is I coming up to check the thing I'm going to drive. If I feel nice with this, then I'm going to do it. If not, I'm not doing this.

MH: So you feel good about this boat?

G: Yes, of course.

MH: Talking to the port authority, they say you can own everything, sell all the Greek islands, but you cannot take the Greek soul. How do you feel in your heart about this? Do you want to go?

G: What do they mean by this?

MH: I know that Greek people have pride, and dignity, and even if the economy is hurting, now Greece takes orders from Israel, and I wonder how this makes you feel. You want to go, obviously. You want to be able to set sail. You can't, because you have to follow the laws of your country, that's understandable. But inside, what do you feel about Greece right now, about the law that doesn't let you go to Gaza?

G: I'm sure, that the Greeks, once they find out the things I know (about Gaza), then things will be changed. But until now, you cannot take an answer from them because they don't have the knowledge of what happens. They just follow orders.

Me? I'm a citizen. I don't work for the government. I work for Greece. But they work for the Greek government. But when all the people find out what is happening, then I'm sure that I must expect more things from them. I think what we must show now that what we do is legal. But these people, they don't know this. So we must find all the ways to make them see with our eyes.

The Tahrir promises to sail tomorrow, Monday, the 4th of July. The Spanish ship promised to sail out of Crete today. See freedomflotilla.eu for updates on the Spaniards.

Miles will be reporting regularly to the Halifax Media Co-op from the Canadian Boat to Gaza. Visit Dispatches from the Tahrir for updates.