The only variation in this hot, howling wind in several days is when it changes direction. Instead of blowing us all off the quay it now blows us against it, with such violence that the local chandler does a roaring trade in fat fenders as the boats rasp and scrape against the concrete quay. Nobody is going anywhere.
28
In Pursuit of Propane
One evening, during an amble round the old town, we decide to seek out some authentic Sardinian cooking for the following night. As well as saving on fuel, a meal out will also mean a really cold bottle of wine. To preserve what little propane we have left for cooking we are still turning off the fridge at night.
As we wander between restaurants, reading the menus on the windows, we notice a small lock-up shop with an assortment of propane bottles near the door. Stretching his English to the limit, the very helpful young man inside says he might be able to fill our bottle for us, but he would need to see it first. Could we bring it round tomorrow for him to have a look at? We smile at him wolfishly and ask what time he opens.
As we totter down the quay with it at 7.45 next morning a voice from one of the boats calls, ‘Would you like to use the trolley?’ After days of sheltering from gale-force winds together there is a comradely, multi-national atmosphere among the yachtsmen lining the quay: Australian, Dutch, English, Danish, French, German, Austrian, American. We have shared information, advice, books, opinions and sugar melon; also a supermarket trolley which has been rumbling back and forth along the quay since our arrival bearing water containers filled at the fish dock tap, diesel cans filled at the service station on the main road, provisions from the supermarket and spare parts from the chandlers, all in preparation for the moment when the wind stops blowing to excess and we can all continue our journeys.
The trolley is tempting because the gas bottle is large and heavy. Unfortunately the shop is reached via steep cobbled streets with narrow lumpy pavements so the only option is to carry it suspended between us using a piece of rope each as a handle. We get along fine as long as we keep in step. The only problem occurs while crossing the nine-lane Via Roma. It is the morning rush hour and quite awesome. We break our rhythm running out of the path of a trolley bus and the bottle takes on a momentum of its own. It sends us staggering drunkenly across two car lanes before we get it, and ourselves, back under control again.
We arrive at the young man’s shop at the same time he does. He inspects the bottle and looks thoughtful. Yes, he says, he can fill it, but not until after the shop closes. What he will have to do is transfer gas from another bottle into ours and to do that he needs to be free of interruptions.
Joyously we thrust our empty bottle towards him and ask if he could possibly do a second one while he is about it. He agrees. However, there is another vital question to which we need an answer before we stagger across the highway and up the hill a second time. Even empty, a large gas bottle is heavy. Filled with 28lbs of liquid gas it is deadly. Before presenting him with the second one we take the precaution of establishing that he is prepared to deliver. Tomorrow morning, he says, at nine o’clock.
By the time we have returned to Voyager for the second bottle, roped ourselves to it, made our assault on the Via Roma and climbed the hill to his shop, the morning is quite well advanced. When we get back down to the front again we are in need of refreshment and stop at one of the street cafés. It is not one we have ever stopped at before and the man serving is unknown to us. He puts the drinks on the table but before David has finished saying, ‘Thank you,’ the man growls, ‘Pay me now!’ We have no idea what it is about us that displeases him but it is the only time in the entire Mediterranean that we are asked to pay in advance.
Meanwhile, we hope the young filler of gas bottles turns out to be as able as he is willing. We also hope he keeps his word regarding delivery since the wind has dropped and we should be able to leave tomorrow, although we shan’t be heading for Greece as originally planned. In the light of the unseasonable and unpredictable nature of the weather we have decided to abandon our progress east. We are currently sheltering four days out of six because of gales or the threat of gales and in fourteen days on the Sardinian coast we have been able to travel on only five of them. The further east we continue, to Sicily and Malta let alone Greece, the more pressure we will end up putting on ourselves to get back to Gibraltar by late September in preparation for an Atlantic crossing.
When we worked full time and had only weekends and annual holidays in which to sail we sometimes ended up struggling through bad conditions because we had deadlines to meet back home. We don’t have to do that anymore so it seems foolish to impose unnecessary stress or risk upon ourselves. Sicily, Malta, Greece, and even Turkey which we also long to cruise, will all still be there another year. In the meantime, the Balearic Islands are among the Mediterranean’s most popular cruising grounds, yet we’ve seen relatively little of them beyond Mahon. We have therefore decided to have a leisurely pootle round the islands of Menorca, Mallorca, Ibiza and Formentera and then make our way comfortably to Gibraltar in time to make the most seasonable passage to Madeira.
That evening we sit over the menu in the small, modestly-priced restaurant we had identified the previous evening as serving Sardinian food. We choose what is described in the English translation as ‘fish soup’. What arrives is a huge dish of hot shellfish in a thick tomato, onion and red pepper sauce, with neat wedges of coarse-textured bread thrust into the great pyramid of crabs, prawns and mussels. It is delicious, especially with our first bottle of wine in some time which is properly chilled. David even manages to spare the tablecloth.
Next morning at nine, a small three-wheeled van trundles onto the quay and our gas bottles are unloaded. A number of yachtsmen appear to congratulate us on finally getting them filled and remain to chat. The young man’s bill must have taken him ages. It is carefully made out in English, explaining how much gas has gone into each bottle (the second one not having been quite empty) at how much per litre, down to the final item ‘Transport Free’. David counts out endless lire notes into his hand.
When bottles like these are filled at a bottling plant the pressure is regulated and the weight of the liquid gas is carefully monitored to allow room for expansion in changing temperatures. With the method used by the young man this is not possible and they can over-fill. With the wind gone the morning is even hotter than ever and in the short time that the bottles stand on the quay, while the bill is explained and settled, the heat is enough to make the gas inside them expand. One of them begins to hiss and then a jet of highly explosive gas streams from its safety valve. The sunlight catches it and reveals a rainbow-coloured fan of dancing molecules, like those trapped in a soap bubble, only moving much, much faster.
A moment before, there had been a crowd of people on the quay. Now there is only David and the young man in sight. The latter takes a small spanner from his pocket and carefully reduces the pressure on the valve with the delicacy of a bomb-disposal expert. David watches what he does, then gingerly carries both bottles into the shade on our deck. Use one for a day, explains the young man before he leaves. To reduce the pressure. Then use the other.
David stows the bottles in the gas locker, connects one and we turn on the fridge. Then we make one last life-threatening dash across the Via Roma to the supermarket to restock it.
29
The Courtesy of Strangers
There are many places which are memorable for all sorts of reasons. Those you remember with the most affection seem to be the ones where the people made you feel good about being there simply by the way they treated you.
Cagliari is like that: the helpful staff in the tourist office and the supermarket; the workmen in the Arsenale coffee shop; Sandro bringing a Roman amphitheatre to life; the museum curator eager to improve accessibility for visitors; the young filler of gas bottles and the people in the streets who unstintingly gave us directions – sometimes offering assistance without even being asked, simply becaus
e they thought we looked lost. They have been kind, courteous, patient, helpful and scrupulous in their dealings with foreigners, yet in a quiet and unobtrusive way.
There is also the family that arrived on the quay at sunset the evening before we left. It was a Friday, and the end of what must have been a very hot working week even for Sardinians. They were a middle-aged couple, the woman rather bad on her feet, three young adults and a small boy. They smiled and nodded good evening as they passed, admired the boats – discreetly avoiding, as locals always did, people’s living quarters – and then two camping chairs creaked open.
At an appropriate distance from the boats, so as not to intrude on anyone’s privacy, on a public quay their taxes would have paid for, the man settled his wife in one of the chairs and then seated himself in the other. The younger family members stood around them.
It was one of those glorious high-summer evenings when a massive sun, blazing like a foundry furnace, sets the whole sky on fire and turns the sea to molten gold. Wordlessly the family watched until it disappeared below the horizon. Then they folded the two chairs and went home as quietly as they had come.
30
Nora
After stowing the gas bottles and filling the refrigerator on Saturday morning we set off for Nora. We lunch on the way and anchor off the western side of the Capo di Pula peninsula three hours later. It is a strange experience. To our right is a beach packed with people: swimming, sun-bathing, laughing, shouting, listening to radios and slapping on suntan oil. To our left are the ruins of a city begun by an ancient civilisation more than 3,000 years ago.
In one sense the two scenes could have come from a sci-fi film, where the protagonist is caught in a tear in the time-space continuum. In another sense, the people on the beach are of course the missing element in places like Nora, where you tread carefully and even talk quietly, as if you are somewhere sacred. Whereas at one time even these revered of old stones once rang to the sound of people like those on the beach: shouting, laughing, slapping on oil, listening to music and generally enjoying themselves; only not if they were women of course. And given the Phoenician and Roman propensity for travel and colonisation, including Britain’s shores, their blood inevitably flows through the veins of quite a few of us who tread old stones like these; and for whom, could we but know it, this is as much a visit to the old family homestead as academic interest in an archaeological site.
David rows us ashore. Rising sea levels mean that the seaward perimeter of the city is under water, and we peer down over the sides of our dinghy at ancient paving stones. Founded, like Tharros, by the Phoenicians, settled by the Carthaginians and subsequently occupied and expanded by the Romans, Nora was abandoned around the third century AD.
Ashore we wander through its streets and the substantial remains of the amphitheatre with its mosaic floor, the ruined temple, shops, houses, warehouses and thermal baths, and wonder what living in the patrician house must have been like. And having lived during the late twentieth century in a village where the mains backed up every time there was heavy rain, I’m always impressed by the efficiency of Roman drainage. We are the only people here this afternoon and find it an atmospheric place, especially at its eastern shore, standing on a paved street and gazing out past tall pine trees and broken columns at the shining sea that is slowly claiming it.
By evening we are back at Malfatano, attached to the same patch of sand which saw us through a Force 9 gale. Only there is no roaring wind now, just the keening of a young seagull standing on a rock. It goes on for hours. Its mother watches over it discreetly, but refuses to feed it. It is time for the kid to support itself.
Our own dinner is underway in the galley when there is a phutt! out in the cockpit. This is followed by a loud hissing noise and it is coming from the gas locker. The second gas bottle cannot wait a day to have its pressure reduced in the recommended manner and there are a few moments of frenzy as David applies a spanner to the pressure release valve and then changes over the connection so that we can start using it. After husbanding our propane supply for so long, we are now profligate with it: fridge on high, hot baths, coffee and pancakes for supper, anything to reduce the pressure in the gas bottle.
31
Sardinia to Menorca
We need fuel and water for our return to Menorca and arrive at Carloforte’s fish dock at lunch time. It is also Sunday. A couple from another boat help us tie up. As we untie and push their boat off for them, they tell us the fuel dock will open again at 3pm. We cook Sunday lunch and observe the arrival of a motorboat with two young men on deck. The one at the helm switches off the engine then both men step ashore and walk across to the kiosk to see what time it opens. Their boat begins to drift away. We attract their attention and they run back to it shouting instructions and two young women emerge from below and rush about looking for rope.
Neither the fuel dock, nor the service station behind it, opens so we settle down for the night. We dine on pasta with meatballs in tomato and basil sauce and gaze out across the bay at low hills that are dissolving into soft curves of blue-grey and brown. As sunset approaches, small local boats return from a day’s fishing or a family outing and there is much unloading of children, dogs and the day’s catch.
Although the diesel pump opens at 7.30 next morning we don’t get away until after ten. A local boat that we help to tie up gets served first. Then, after our fuel tank is filled the operator tells us he only accepts cash so we have to move the boat along the dock away from the pump while David walks into town to find a bank. The first cash point rejects his card, the second displays a notice saying the machine is not online. He trudges between the two until one of them finally produces some money.
By the time he returns the supermarket along the quay is open so I get bread, milk and one of its tasty little pizzas each for lunch at sea. Unfortunately, in the meantime a super yacht has arrived, filling up not only the fuel pump area but all the rest of the dock as well, thereby wedging us in between itself and a newly-arrived boat belonging to the Guardia Costierio, the Coastguard. We wait for the super yacht to finish taking on its 2000 litres, but it still shows no sign of leaving as its skipper seems to have been sent off to get cash, too. He is gone a long time. We begin to think we shall never get away from Carloforte’s fuel dock but finally the pump attendant and six coast guards take pity on us and lever us out.
The forecast is for south-easterly light-to-gentle breezes and a sea ‘slight with ripples’. By 2pm it is virtually windless but with the sea heaving. Why it is heaving when there is hardly any wind we do not know, and can only assume it is the result of distant storms. A thunderstorm is forecast for later.
Since we are motoring and producing plenty of battery power I have decided to finish our latest newsletter. As the turbulence increases, however, sitting below and staring down at a computer screen produces the first stirrings of seasickness so I abandon the newsletter. Ultimately we pitch and roll, shimmy and fishtail and then rock so rapidly from side to side that all our bones get knocked just trying to sit still.
At least the wind rises a bit and is from behind, so we maintain a good speed. Eventually the sea calms down but it is still a strange evening, with a surface wind blowing in one direction, high cloud travelling in another and the sea running counter to both.
Heavy cloud obscures the setting sun until the last ten minutes, but they are amazing minutes. Two strips of red cloud divide the blazing sun into three hot gold ingots. Slowly the cloud vaporises into a ring, like Saturn’s. When the sun reaches the horizon all the cloud disappears and for a few moments this vast red pulsating orb, with liquid gold inside it, hovers on top of the sea. The impression of it actually resting on the water is so strong that I could swear there are waves bobbing behind it. Then it goes down, leaving me with a sense of abandonment, and vaguely apprehensive of the coming night. However, apart from a single echo on the radar screen, 11 miles to port, neither of us sees anything all night, least of all the forecas
t thunderstorm.
Our last watch changeover is at 7.45am and David has barely had time to settle into our bunk when I tiptoe down and whisper, ‘You asleep yet?’ over his closed eyes. We are always very tired at the end of our last watch and normally I would not have disturbed him. That’s why I only whispered. Had he been asleep already, I should have left him to his rest. We see dolphins on a regular basis, after all, whereas the craving for sleep sometimes becomes all-consuming. But this morning some instinct sends me down to fetch him. And if I hadn’t, he would never have believed what I told him when he got up.
They have come leaping from the north and we stand on the foredeck as eight of them put on a show. What we must look like from behind on these occasions, wearing various bits of night attire or sometimes only Factor 50+ and sunglasses, bottoms-up over the bow rail, only a distant tanker captain with powerful binoculars could tell us.
Individual dolphins of the same species are sometimes recognisable from one another by size, colour or scars. Often, one will be larger than the others, have scars on its skin from fights, fishing nets or a boat’s propeller, or appear to be the dominant member. Some of today’s group look similar to those which performed for us on the way out – in particular, a large pale dolphin and a small dark one – and indeed we are back in the same vicinity. As soon as they get into their act we are sure it is them, only now they are better than ever. It is as if they had carried away the raw routines from their last visit to us, choreographed and rehearsed them, and returned with a polished performance.
Turtles in Our Wake Page 12
