Retracing the route of Odysseus, that cunning and capable mariner immortalized in Homer's epic poems, seemed like a noble quest back at the Flocafe in Piraeus, Athens' port. With one bottle of ouzo behind us and another just arriving, our band of six made the decision to head for Troy on the northwest coast of Turkey. From there we would follow the wake of Odysseus to Ithaca, his home island on the other side of Greece. We would visit lands where historians believe he called and look for evidence of his visit carved in rock.

As sailors, we were also searching for something else, something more elusive: the scent of his unbreakable spirit. That, we knew, we'd find only on the protean surface of the sea.

Chasing history is fraught with risk, especially in the moody Aegean where the sailor's saw, ''there's either no wind or a gale'' is distressingly accurate. Just days into the trip, my 47-foot sailboat, Quetzal, was pinned to a decrepit, pock-marked concrete quay on the island of Andros. Aeolus, the Greek God of Wind and Odysseus' old nemesis, was whooping it up, hurling 50 and 60 knot gusts down the steep slopes rimming the harbor and mocking our tight schedule with each fearful blast.

A few slime-covered inflatable fenders and a spider's web of chafed mooring lines secured to wobbly lampposts were keeping Quetzal from being dashed against the rocks. Feeling kinship with poor Odysseus and lamenting another lost day, I retreated to a nearby taverna to ride out the storm.

You may recall Odysseus, the King of Ithaca, as one of the heros in the Iliad, Homer's poem describing Greece's 10-year siege of Troy around the year 1200 BC. The war began when Helen, wife of the King of Sparta and said to be the most beautiful woman of her time, ran off with the Trojan prince Paris. There is nothing like a jealous husband with good connections for starting a war. During the long fight Odysseus proved brave and crafty, coming up with the idea of the gift horse that eventually led to the fall of Troy.

Unfortunately for our hero, his troubles were just beginning when his small fleet of 12 ships, loaded down with the spoils of victory, turned homeward. The Odyssey, describing his 10-year voyage home, is the best sea story of all time. Wiley Odysseus survives encounters with Polyphemus the Cyclops; Scylla the six-headed sea monster; those tricky Sirens, Circe and Calypso; vengeful Aeolus and a host other mortals and immortals before eventually return home to his devoted wife Penelope.

Scholars debate whether Odysseus was an actual person or a product of the poet's imagination. Most likely, he was both, which makes following his circuitous route from Troy to Ithaca open to interpretation.

Most classicists have Odysseus careening all over the Mediterranean Sea, from Troy to the Pillars of Hercules, to the coast of Tunisia, and onto Sicily. And while I love this fanciful idea of him visiting far-flung lands, it's not practical. Historian and sailor Tim Severin believes that Odysseus' wanderings were modest in miles but no less adventuresome. He built a replica Greek galley and pieced together a logical route that places Odysseus primarily in Greek waters. This was the route we hoped to follow.

SETTING SAIL

My crew assembled at Marina Zea in Piraeus and soon the skyline of Athens retreated into its own smog. Gliding along under spinnaker, I laid out our course. The plan was to sail across the Aegean to Troy, on the Turkish coast just south of the Dardanelles Straits. Then we hoped to sail south to Crete, stopping at several islands along the way before finally turning north into the Ionian Sea and finishing up in Ithaca. We had three weeks to complete this 800 mile ``odyssey.''

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