Deciding to follow his family's traditions, he dropped out of university in 1928 and started a seafaring career, rising up the ranks in merchant ships.
These were reprinted in the book Poems (Ποιήματα) in 1939, which was well received by figures such as Seferis, Andreas Karantonis and Konstantinos Tsatsos.
Antoniou started writing this in late 1933, whilst he was on the Peleus, visiting villages in the Bay of Bengal.
He continued working on this poem through the years, and the last part is a homage to Peleus, which was sunk by the German navy in 1944.
[2] His obituary in Nea Estia notes that Antoniou's exotic imagery contrasts with another seafaring Greek poet, Nikos Kavvadias, in that his verse includes more of a "contemplation, humanity and meaning" regarding the experience of being at sea or constantly travelling, thus adding a layer beyond the façade of the exotic imagery.