April 6th 2012

NOT FOLLOWING

We need to get off the boat. Tomorrow we’ll head for Albania, we think. We probably shouldn’t. Albania? Can we handle it? Are we in any state to try? Our advice is that they’re great people, very funny, but we might get hassle at the border. If the guards are being a pain, we’re told to mention the EU, as Albania want to join. It’s worked for others, they back off if you threaten to make a fuss. So, Albania. By bus. Just the Captain and I, or should I say Mark and Captain Doyle. He’s relinguished command for overland travel. I’m in charge, somehow. He’s sleeping it off. Dan is gone as are the Dutch ladies and gentlemen. They had docked at Aegina to pick up Fred’s wife and a friend of Pete. They arrived yesterday but only Luca’s left. Captain Luca, Pete gave him command for the last leg. His first command, fabulous. He’ll do a transatlantic this winter for sure. From La Rochelle in France to the Canary Islands. Then either straight across to St Martin, eighteen days at sea using the twenty two knot trade winds, or down to Capo Verde, off the Ivory Coast, and then across. Luca already has his day skipper ticket. He’s gained a lot of sea miles on this trip. As have I. There’s plenty of sailors out there who haven’t accumulated this amount of miles in years of weekend sailing. On many occasions in the last month I didn’t think I’d go for a transatlantic. If you ask me now, of course I’d do it.

The Dutch left town quickly. And Dan and Tom travelled together, a bus to Athens and a flight to London, Dan heading on via Belfast to his home in Monaghan. The French lads didn’t hang around long either, Helouise remained with us for an extra day. That was the day I wasn’t drinking. During the daytime, at least. Even at dinner, we only had a glass of Ouzo, and then went back to the boats, intending to have an early night. Dan and Mark were still up, just about. Helouise reckoned she had a bit of wine left, might as well finish it. She had a lot, and we did. And one from Dan’s stash. Another hoot of a night, another early morning. I’d promised coffee, and was woken by voices from a strange direction. A new arrival had moored beside us. The boss of this base and her crew. Another Stuart. They had just brought a fifty footer in, having hit huge seas at the mouth of the Corinth Gulf. Fifty knots at least, they described waves made that boat look small. I didn’t feel that these guys were prone to exaggeration. A celebratory beer for them, I stayed with coffee. Mikey picked Helouise up and I went with them to the bus station. She’s gone to Istanbul. Where east meets west. When they’re choosing where to go on a night out in Istanbul, they say “Europe or Asia?”, meaning which side of town. It reminds me of the different mentality I found in Turkey. I’d been describing our job to my friend Yalcin in Fethiya, clearing up his misconception that we were all being paid, and well paid. On hearing that only the Captain gets a wage, and all the fuel and provisioning has to come out of that, he wrinkled his face and said, “But you told me it is a big company. How can that be? Surely a company can’t get so big unless it treats it’s employees fairly?” Sound man, he doesn’t know capitalism.

So we’re all flying the coop. After focussing for so long on our final destination, now we have to organise getting out of here. Ross is staying, he’s working here for the season. Mikey has a house here. I was in it today, a house! Couch, tv, walls, windows, quite the novelty. Bobby lives on the other side of the bay, I saw his papers in his car. His name is Roberto. A son of refugees from Franco’s Spain, he tells me in his delightful cockney accent, “Oi ain’t even fackin English, Oim fackin Spainish, inni’!” The nannies have arrived, the girls who’ll look after the kids holidaying here whilst their parents get drunk by the pool. Polite English girls, In my best Dublin accent, I said “Howaryis!” to a couple of them. They replied “Yasas!” Surely they don’t think I’m Greek but then they wouldn’t be expecting a drunk paddy, would they? Land is dangerous, I repeat. Eighteen hours drinking in a day, days running into each other. I’ve kept to my average number of sleeping hours. Four per night. Awake for twenty hours each day. For more than a month now. We need to get off this boat.

But it is nice here, lazing on the deck, watching the girls figure out how to walk on a gangplank. It’s second nature to us, their challenge isn’t helped by the fact that there are lines everywhere, the boats are still tied up for winter, ropes criss-crossing all over the place. Still, funny to watch them. One of the girls is a honey, cute with a sparkle in her eye. I asked Mark, “Anyone here you think would make good crew? He grinned, but not for the reason you may think. “That girl, yeah, she could handle it, she’s got that look about her.” A good soul behind a pretty face on board would make for a different journey. He tells me a story from Lipari. A girl crewing with them was being hit on by some tourist. The skippers had to be restrained, they wanted his blood. There’s a sense of protection between us, we’re in this together, a tight bunch. And good crew can be hard to come by, some people just don’t make the cut. Where I stand on this, how I’m seen, I wasn’t sure. When Mark introduced me to Bobby in Turkey he’d said, “This is my, my, I don’t know what he is!” Maybe I’d been a passenger up until then, changing course to photograph the sunrise over Santorini, talking too much, a distraction. After dealing with tough seas on the shorter trip to here, he seemed proud to introduce me as his crew. When all the sailors were swapping stories, and being slightly dismissive of our plight in the Corinth gulf, he demanded their attention. “Yous have all grown up sailing, like myself. All your lives on the water. These guys, my guys, have never, ever done anything like this! Now that commands respect!” I smiled for my Captain, my friend Mark. When we got to know each other, we worked on the road around Ireland, swapping stories on the long drives. He always said he’d get me out on a boat. A different kind of madness. And much bloody easier than carting a couple of tons of music gear around the place.

The town, well it’s more a village, is sleepy enough. They seem happy to have the Sunsail people here, I’m sure it helps the local economy in a big way. The harbour near the town square houses the local fishing boats, a fisherman was slapping octopus against the concrete. Again and again. It tenderised the meat, he told us. Recognising our surprise when he spoke English, he asked us where we were from. Smiling, he lifted his hand to show a missing half finger. “I gave my finger to Cork University Hospital.” There’s also a couple of yachts, including Bobby’s, and a lifeboat from a large ship. It looks like the front end of a submarine.  Mark told me the story of a retired British navy man who travelled the open seas in one of these. He was moored in a posh Spanish marina to the horror of the more snobby types there. Minding his own business, he’d become friendly with his neighbour, a retired navy man like himself. The marina operators came to his boat with an eviction notice. He complained that he hadn’t done anything wrong, and had paid his fees, so on what count was he being asked to move on. They were having none of it, insisting that he go, until his neighbour appeared on the deck beside them. He had his full Spanish Navy regalia on. Gold trim, medals, the lot. And a very long, shiny sword. “What are you telling my friend? You don’t have the right to do this! Leave him alone”, and he whips out the sword, “or I’ll cut you fucking head off!” Brothers in arms, mariners against the marina. Each looking after their own. The resort here is currently populated by four types of people. The nannies who have started arriving. Us, the delivery guys, although now there’s only a few of us left. Then there are the marina engineers, the mechanics for the boats. One looks a surly type, I wonder if he has good stories. The other marina guys are the instructors for the coming season. Sailors, windsurfers, blondie hero types. Are they that interesting? I always wonder when it seems that image is as important as content. But then I’m a musician, so what the hell am I talking about? Preconceptions, terrible things. Enough lazing, our last night here. Can we handle another one? We need to get off this boat.

18th March 2012

The day Mount Etna swallowed the sun.

The engine changes revs and I bolt out of my bunk and dress quickly for I know we are at the straits of Messina. The lads laugh as I climb out of the saloon as Mark had told Dan “This’ll get him up.” We’re tuned to the boat now, able to notice differences where as before only the skipper would. Sicily is starboard, the Calabrian coast ahead, we approach the entrance to Messina. Two huge pylons that used to carry the power lines that supplied the whole of Sicily announce the entrance. A very large modern cargo ship with a pilot boat in front overtakes us to take the shipping channel. We circle on the spot a few times to indicate that we have no intention of crossing in front of the massive boat. As we do this, the current takes us, pushing us into the strait a little earlier than we wanted. Luckily there are no ships coming out of Messina, our way is clear to cross at this, the narrowest point. We hug the shoreline of mainland Italy, surprised when a train shoots by, intrigued by the noise of the early morning traffic of cars and people.

The ferries that cross the strait depart with just a belch of black smoke as a warning. We can see cars still boarding the closest one as another, further along, leaves under it’s temporary cloud. It’s surprising how small a gap exists at Italy’s toe, but not as surprising as what greets us after breakfast.

Mark had told us that if we were lucky, Sicily’s massive volcano, Mount Etna, would be visible but that normally it’s shrouded in cloud. We passed by on the clearest day possible. It’s huge, over three thousand metres high, it’s peak dominating the north east region of the island. Massive, covered in snow or ash, we’re not sure. A recent lava flow is visible as is a small puff of dark smoke coming from the top, peaking white as the sun catches it. Then the smoke stack increases in size. And continues to increase. As we slowly pass it by, the tiny wisp grows into a full blooded ash cloud, eventually becoming enormous. The cloud splits, the heavier ash blowing east, the lighter water vapour climbing still. Etna puts on a wonderful show, blocking out the sunlight which had lit her slopes, and finally filling the skies above us. We watch her for hours. Unreal. Vulcano is a wee baby compared to this monster.

Eastwards of Catania we turn towards Greece. Adam is a long way ahead now, they hit Messina before us as seemed to take better advantage of the current. We travelled fast at times, the tide increasing our cruising speed by three knots at least but they must have arrives there at the perfect time. We had entered the Strait without much distance between us, but now they were barely visible. Etna’s cloud follow us both. A ridiculously huge ship on the southern horizon must be military, an aircraft carrier maybe. It dwarves a cargo ship that is at least half the distance away. Heading to Syria we think. I’d forgotten about all of that, and I hadn’t the opportunity in Lipari to read any news. Is there western involvement in the war there? What’s going on? The southern tip of mainland europe is north of us, to port. And for nearly the first time since France, the sun is blotted out, only this time by a cloud that came from within our earth. I’m not at all annoyed by this cloud. It overtakes us, looking strange overhead. We can see the weight in it, it seems to want to descend. I come up from a nap just in time to see the sunset. From our exact position, it looked like Etna had swallowed the sun hole, it sank right into the crater.

We are in a new sea. The Ionian. Each of the last two had different characters, I wonder what this new one will be like.