Love Shopping

By Scott Dodgson

I rose early with anticipation that Laura (chef/mate/girlfriend) and her friends would be arriving by train from Rome in the evening. With the long cold hardship of Atlantic sailing a distant memory and the troubling crew long gone I was excited to have my most important and trusted crew member returning. Since leaving Trinidad four days behind schedule I was now two days ahead of schedule with only two more seas to cross and a mere 1200 nm to go. I felt good. The weather was warm. The skies were clear and had a full day to enjoy Palermo. The plan was to leave the next day travel through the Straits of Massena enter the Ionian Sea and make the western tip of the Peloponnesus in three days. From there weave my way down through the Greek islands to Rhodes, where I would have a couple of days to resupply and clean-up before embarking on a rather luxuriant sail up and down the coast of Turkey. Yesterday I related a story to Carlos, the owner of the fuel dock, about the arduous nature of shopping for a charter. In particular carrying bags of groceries in the hot climate back and forth from the shops to the boat, when I emerged from down below I found a ten year old boy named Geo sitting in a wheel barrel behind my yacht. He jumped up and presented himself in a rather formal fashion as my guide and grocery carrier. He looked like he had just come from central casting of a Fellini movie. He wore torn shorts and a dirty white T-shirt a size to small, but he radiated happiness. My general attitude towards kids is strained tolerance. I’d rather not have to deal with them at all, but I knew this situation was a thoughtful gift and probably had serious economic repercussions. So I invited Geo on board and gave him one of my crew polo shirts, a hat and a pair of cheap plastic sunglasses a richer American child had left on the boat. Geo was very happy. Scorsese would love this image of the big American captain walking past the Uzi carrying police guarding the entrance to the quay followed by a little waif pulling a wheel barrow. We crossed the busy Via Roma Avenue, when Geo asked if I wanted sex. He pointed out several ladies of the night lining the street at seven on a Sunday morning. It was clear Geo was going to be a full service guide. We walked through the tight little streets of the old city until we reached the Vucciria market. As I have written before this is one of the great markets on all of Europe. It has been extensively written about and filmed so I’ll refer you to this link. Geo and I filled up his wheel barrow with fresh vegetables, cured hams, four different flavored olive oils, cheese, a couple of chickens and six large swordfish steaks sliced before my eyes off a one hundred pound swordfish. With the wheelbarrow full and poor little Geo straining to push it we set off to return to the boat. Geo was giving it his all when I finally asked where I could buy some wine. “Vino?” Si! He knew just the place. He hopped into the wheel barrow hanging his feet over the front edge and directed me to turn right. Was looking for vino an indication of my hidden conviviality thus making it okay to stop working and let the big guy push the wheel barrow? So I picked up the handles to the wheel barrow and turned right. Geo chattered in Italian all the way along, until we came to a building that looked as if it were bombed yesterday. Geo opened a steel door in the basement and yelled. A very old bent over man emerged from the darkness with a glass of wine. He handed it to me and I took a sip. This was homemade wine, but tasted as if it were made by the finest of vintners. Bright red, fruity, cherry and apricot, with a hint of licorice this was good wine! It was even better with the price of fifty cents a liter. The old man, it turns out was Geo’s grandfather. You could see the love between them. I paid for two jugs or four gallons. So we set off for the boat, me pushing the happy Geo in a full wheelbarrow and his grandfather following behind carrying two jugs of wine balanced on a pole across his slumping shoulders. I unloaded the wheelbarrow, stowed the shopping and gave Geo his pay for the morning. I definitively over paid, but watching Geo pushing his grandfather in the wheelbarrow home was worth every cent.


http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/europe/italy/sicily/palermo/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo

http://www.eurail.com/

http://www.bestofsicily.com/wine.htm