I glumly cleaned up Iraklis and walked away from her, leaving the poor thing broken and forlorn at the quayside, waiting for someone to come and fix her gearbox. I settled down at Petro’s with a kanata of retsina, and as Mine Host did not have much business he sat with me for a while. He gave me his world-standard sardonic smile.
“How was your big boat? You got towed in, huh?”
I nodded, and said, a little defensively, “Gearbox. No idea what went wrong... I could only go astern.” He nodded.
“S’always problems, that boat. Gets towed more than a caravan.”
I thought about this a moment.
“It’s had engine problems before?”
“That boat? Always! Engine, gearbox, electrics... s’a pieca shit. Las’ year the oil leaked inna the bilge an’ got pumped in the harbour... the cap’n spent two days in jail. The owner don’ spend no money. They gotta name for it... stead of Iraklis, they calls it ‘Horror-klis’. Nobody in Poros gonna drive that thing.”
So now I knew why no-one else was qualified to drive ‘The Big Boat’. They weren’t stupid enough!
* * *
Three days later there was a powerful blow and strong rain overnight, to which I was awakened in the early hours by unsecured shutters crashing against the windows. Blasts of enraged wind buffeted my house high on the hill, sending chilling jets of air squirting into the room at every ill-fitting window-frame. Salvoes of heavy rain flayed the roof-tiles, and the flash and grumble of thunder stalked the mountains around the bay. The noise in my un-insulated apartment resembled that in a speeding underground train.
Sensible people would have burrowed deeper into the duvet and luxuriated in being dry and snug on such a night, but I love dramatic weather and take a macabre interest in its effects. Hastily donning my waterproofs, I hurried down to the quay to see what was going on and help out if anyone needed a hand. After years of dealing with my own maritime mishaps, I find it utterly delightful to assist other people by way of a change, and a higher altruistic plane is always achieved when I perform in full waterproofs; thus I was in a state of beatific smugness (a good trick if one can manage it) for the next hour or two as I assisted fishermen and yachtsmen to sort out various predicaments in the driving rain and gusty wind.
On the North Quay there was a real shemozzle for a while, a motor boat having dragged her anchor and fallen across two charter yachts. It took until after daybreak to get that sorted. Then several grateful boats offered me coffee in their cockpits… coffee which the wild weather dictated had to be laced with something to keep out the cold… and we chatted away the early hours contentedly. It was some time after the first ferry from Piraeus had chugged in before I got ashore again, reflecting as I did so on the astounding number of wonderful and varied folk I would never have met if someone hadn’t made a cock-up in a boat. I’ve seen common endeavour for the preservation of fibreglass unite people across any social barrier you care to name… national, cultural, social, class, economic, even soccer… and I cogitated upon this phenomenon as I pushed my way along the North Quay through the still-boisterous air.
Sailing is a definitively international pursuit; and it is socially varied too. The racing scene, with its jet-set image, luxury sponsors and hallmark events like the America’s Cup, has a strong whiff of elitism about it, but there are far more do-it-yourself types out on the water than plutocrats, and even the rich chaps with their carbon-fibre speed-machines need lots of proletarian grunt to wind their winches. The result is that the sailing world throws together people from all backgrounds. In a yacht-club, or even some marinas, you may find stratified society; but on the harbour-wall you meet the world.
Yet, as much variety as there is in the waterfront world, you do need a catalyst to make the final bond. Like does tend to cling to like. Racing men don’t have much in common with passage-makers, family cruisers or live-aboards; people sailing their own boats keep a very leery eye on charterers; all the rag-flappers combined are united against motor-boaters, and the divide between any type of leisure-boater and professional fishermen or ferrymen is generally of Berlin Wall quality. But the one place all these disparate users of the waters cannot avoid interaction is in harbour cock-ups, and the upshot of this is that you can meet an amazingly catholic selection of people in the sailing game, but mostly only in times of crisis!
One is attracted to people who acquit themselves well in adversity, whether in terms of skill, imperturbability or simple good nature. Having passed through the fire in company, and seen one another in misfortune, one recognises qualities in people one would otherwise probably never have even looked at. It is the ‘Band of Brothers’ syndrome: ‘For he that shreds his boat with me today shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition!’
As I pondered this it struck me abruptly how many of my friends I had first met when the wind was piping and the fibreglass flying, friendships often begun at odds but fashioned into bonds by mutual suffering. It occurred to me that, in such circumstances, I had even exchanged civilities with jet-skiers; and upon that very shocking thought, I believe, I formulated my Second Law of Nautical Recreation… ‘One meets a better class of person in collisions’.
* * *
The sense of virtuous accomplishment which I accumulated from both the morning’s events and the formulation of a new nautical axiom left me feeling as perky as Pinky’s brother, and I also found myself exceedingly keen on the idea of breakfast. I set off for George’s Cafe beneath a scudding sky of low, grizzled cloud, the tail-end of the gale ripping through my hair and beard.
As I reached the ferry quay I met Shergar coming the opposite way on his little gorilla-bike with, behind him on what there was of the pillion, Miss Iceland! She gave me a great, cheesy grin and a wave as I stared open-mouthed.
“Oi, Captain!” bellowed Shergar, with an unmistakable smirk, “You’d better get up home. There’s something going on up at your house!”
I waved acknowledgement and trotted up the steps. It is quite a way up, for a seafaring gentleman like me who enjoys his table; and the direct route from the Heroes Square is pretty steep. By the time I arrived at the house, marginally concerned about what I might find there, I was drawing breath like a blacksmith’s bellows and feeling distinctly over-heated under my waterproofs. I was, thus, not quite the calm, collected chap I might have wished to be as I entered the avli and found Clemmie sitting on my steps, doing Cheshire Cat impressions.
“Wha... how... Clemmie, dear girl! How the devil are you?” I panted.
“Top hole, Skip. In the pink. How about you?”
I gestured to my sweating face.
“Even more... in the pink... as you... see...” I puffed. “What are you doing here? Err... delighted of course... pleased to... see you...”
“How very flatteringly you put that! Well recovered... we’ll make a pretentious bourgeois upstart out of you yet! Wellllllllllllllll...” She looked at me appraisingly, “I have about ten days before I have to go to Turkey, for the Ephesus visit, don’cher know, sooooo... I came back to see if you were telling the truth.”
“I doubt it!” I said. “I’m sure I would have remembered. About anything in particular? Or are you after The Truth... is there a God? Why are we here, what’s it all about, all that stuff? I charge extra for that.”
She stood up, pursed her lips as if mulling something over, and rather suggestively scratched the door of my room.
“Have you ryally got a sextant in he-yar?”
I nodded.
“We’re not talking about one of those plastic things, are we? You have a real, live sextant? Brass, glass, enamel? Sort of thing Ahab and Horatio Wotsit would recognise?”
“Made by Cooke of Kingston-upon-Hull, serial number 5904. With an eight-by-thirty monocular sight for stars. I can even work Venus in daylight on a clear day.”
“Ah. Tempting. Very tempting. Because, you see, I ryally would like to learn astro-nav.”
“Ah ha
! Well, I’ve got everything you need, including Nories tables, a star-finder and this year’s nautical almanac. And a short-wave radio, for the time signals.”
Clemmie sighed theatrically.
“Oh, you silver-tounged devil, you. What’s a girl to do? One tries to be virtuous, one tries to be good, but it’s a wicked world, full of things we want...”
“I’ll have to get a chart and some parallel rules... they’ve got them in the chandlery...”
“Oh! There you go again, talking dirty!” She grinned. “Is it a deal then? You’ll teach me?”
I tugged my forelock and bowed my head.
“Most ’appy to be of ’umble service to yer Ladyship!” I servile-ed in my best Faaarmer Joiles accent.
“Jolly Dee. But there’s just one thing...” She grinned impishly and looked me straight in the eye. “Regretfully, one has to stoop to grubby commercialism when dealing with the lower classes... and you really are a fearful oik, you know. Pater always insisted on paying the menials… God knows why, but there you are; but he also said a lady shouldn’t carry cash. Can I pay with Sexual Excess?”
I opened the door to the room and waved her in with a flourish.
“That,” I said, “will do nicely!”
CHAPTER FIVE
PERIPETIA
An unjustifiable but heartfelt digression on Greek light, visibility and ancient mariners... Ayios Yeorgios, and musings on the utility of rocks... High Noon in the Plum Pudding Club... Choras... Serifos by night... Sifnos by day... the consequences of dolphins... Irakleia... boiling old goats, the desirability of... anemos-ity and indecency... sweet sorrow.
About half way between the Peloponnese coast at Poros and the chain of islands which mark the western edge of the Cyclades1 is a high, rocky island called Ayios Yeorgios, or Saint George. Scarcity of fresh water and the lack of safe access means that it is uninhabited, apart from a large flock of very hairy, horny goats; another of hairy, horny sheep; and... briefly, on very calm days... a hairy (and let us charitably infer no more) goatherd; yet despite the lack of facilities or society, Ayios Yeorgios is a most valuable chunk of rock. I feel a digression coming on.
* * *
The air in Greece is famed for its clarity. The Artist’s Light, they call it; and indeed there are days when one can see a hundred miles if one can get high enough... I have seen Mykonos from the heights behind Galatas, which is almost ninety miles. But those days occur mostly in the winter, or in the later autumn and early spring. When the weather gets warmer, the visibility drops dramatically as a gentle haze invades the atmosphere.
This is in no way like fog, mist or pollution... well, not once you get out of Athens, anyway. The sky still radiates pure blue, the few clouds are perfectly defined. Nothing hinders the cataract of radiant heat crashing onto the dry rocks from a blast-furnace sun overhead. When close in with the land, the large buzzards can clearly be seen wheeling lazily high on the crags over the harbours. It is close to the horizon that the air becomes less distinct... not unpleasantly so; it is a rather warming diffusion of light which enhances the colours and softens the features. In summer, this haze turns the Aegean into a magnificent impressionists’ canvas, giving the islands and mountains an ethereal quality. You might think of it as excellent value for Monet.
Yet however this haze enhances the scenic qualities, however it delights the artist and the visitor, it can be a bit of a pest for sailors. The only time you can clearly see where you are going is the winter, when the weather can be very rough and pretty chilly. As the conditions become calmer and more congenial for sailing, the horizontal visibility drops away until, by the heat of early summer, a large island can sometimes only be seen at six or seven miles; even less on occasion.
All this barely matters today, since almost every boat has a satellite-navigator, but in 1985 very few yachts had them and even commercial ships had the old orbital satellite systems which sometimes left them without a fix for hours at a time. If you couldn’t see the next island, you needed to proceed on dead-reckoning,2 extending your course from the last-known position by estimating speed, drift and leeway whilst wondering vaguely where it was going to lead you.
Dead-reckoning is an imprecise science even for modern vessels, which have current atlases, tidal charts, reasonably reliable compasses and speed-logs; but no such luxuries assisted the Ancients, of course, as they forged the earliest maritime trade routes through these waters, or launched the odd thousand-ship excursion necessary for retrieving ladies of questionable virtue from the Trojan side of the tracks.
The Ancient Greek navigators had nothing but their eyeballs, and the direction of the sun to guide them... they hadn’t even developed maps. It was strictly daylight navigation only when they crossed any open water, with one eye firmly fixed on the nearest shelter at all times. In fact, the difficulties these chaps faced are now enshrined in one of our most cherished axioms, “the face that launched a thousand ships.” It did indeed launch them... ancient navigators were so wary of the sea that they pulled their ships ashore when they weren’t using them; and, since they didn’t have very good anchors either, that included most nights when they went to sleep.
Contrary to the popular belief in The North that the Mediterranean is a benign lake, it is in fact a capricious, giddy-headed schizophrenic; and to people who were still slightly behind the eight-ball with regard to physics and thermodynamics the Aegean’s moods were so inexplicably fickle that a quirky, bored and irascible God stirring up the sea with a big fork was probably the most logical idea the Ancient Greeks could have come up with.3
So the Ancient’s dilemma, still familiar to yachtsmen until quite recently, was a dichotomy. The good weather and long days for daylight navigation occur in summer, when the visibility is often rather poor. And this, coming finally to the kernel of this latest outrageous digression, is why Ayios Yeorgios is esteemed far more than its barren inaccessibility would suggest.
The island is a great sentinel in the middle of the forty-something miles of otherwise empty sea between the Argo-Saronic islands and the Cyclades, a way-point at which the half-blind navigator can either renew his confidence in himself and his calculations or, alternatively, put his affairs in order. By the time the Peloponnese side fades from view, Ayios Yeorgios is just appearing. By the time it fades astern, there will usually be only a short time before the Cyclades come into view. With a lighthouse at each end to guide the night-time voyager, Ayios Yeorgios stands, like a great traffic policeman on eternal overtime, pointing the way from the marinas of Athens to the islands for yachtsman and dividing commercial ships left into Piraeus or right to the north Aegean, Dardanelles and Black Sea.
Clemmie and I, contentedly navigating with the sextant, had no essential need of Agios Yeorgios, and so I apologise for the above digression and can only mitigate my sin by asserting that the island did serve as a check on our celestial fixes, which helped to give my pupil early confidence, and that therefore, like countless sailors before us, we smiled our acknowledgements as Mucky Duck sailed slowly past its triangular southern peak.
* * *
Mucky Duck was a modern forty-foot Gib-Sea sloop which I had acquired by Machiavellian means. In need of a boat for a week or so, and feeling that I also needed to re-assert myself after having been duped into taking Iraklis on the Grave-Robber, I had done a deal with Spiros.
I was already designated to take Mucky Duck from Alimos to the port of Pythagorion in Samos, a large island hard against the Turkish coast, to start a charter just before Orthodox Easter. Samos is right next to Kusadasi, which is the Turkish port adjacent to the ancient city of Ephesus; and that was where Clemmie had to be in about ten days’ time. So, knowing that Spiros wasn’t going to pay me much for the Grave-Robber, and wasn’t going to do even that until it suited him, I cornered him in a Piraeus waterfront shebeen called the Plum Pudding Club and made him a proposal.
My suggestion was that, in lieu of half of the wages owing to me from the Grave-Robber, I
should set off with Mucky Duck early, and take my time about the journey. The owner of the boat was in Western Australia (whose state emblem, the black swan, inspired ‘Mucky Duck’, which is evidently what passes for wit in those parts) so he wouldn’t know where the boat was. I didn’t say a word about Clemmie, but rather let Spiros think that I would be improving my chartering curriculum vitae by reconnoitring ports and bays, the better to delight his clients. I would then prepare the boat for charter and stay to hand it over to the clients in Pythagorian at no extra charge.
Spiros bargained back at me, of course... this is simply Greek. You always haggle, no matter what. It is expected; it is ingrained. For a Greek, accepting a deal without an argument is like breathing in and forgetting to exhale... it is an entirely automatic reaction. Hagglers are not resented, but rather admired... astute foreigners soon learn that they may be very well liked, but they will never be truly respected if they don’t bargain effectively.
“But Julian!” he expostulated, “I only owe you for four days... you are asking me for a free nine day charter for two days’ pay!”
“You owe me for five days, and you weren’t going to pay me anyway; so the rest is interest.”
“Good Gods, how much interest are you charging?”
“As much as it takes! Come on, Spiro... it saves you money, and doesn’t cost you anything. And I’ll be able to do a better job with your next clients. I’ll also do some tidying up on the boat... rope work, that sort of thing, so the owner is getting a deal too.”
The Trojan Walrus Page 10