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

Stop For Beauty

By Scott Dodgson

There are two great aspects about sailing: Sailing and enjoying the destination you sailed too. Personally I find going out into the bay and sailing around for an afternoon boring. I love sailing, but I need a destination. Sicily is the ultimate destination. Forget about their reputation for crime. Most of the stories along with the movies mask the warm and generous people of Sicily. Don’t get me wrong, there is petty crime and until recently a war between the people and the mafia which seems to have settled down, Sicily is wonderful and should be at the top of your list for vacations. I found the fuel dock and settled in for a two day stay. Carlos, the owner of the fuel dock, went beyond simply helpful and invited me into his family. I bought five hundred dollars of fuel and paid in dollars. This is pre-Euro when every merchant seems to have his finger on the currency exchange. If played right Carlos could make an extra five to ten percent on the dollars. With this unspoken advantage to Carlos, he generously let me stay on his dock for free. I wanted to check in with the Port Captain and get my papers stamped making me legal. Carlos insisted I didn’t have to anything, but as I explained I would get into trouble down the road if I didn’t have the necessary stamps. We piled into his Mercedes and sped around the port. He pointed out all the important sites of Palermo, both new and old. At the Port Captain’s office Carlos introduced me to his cousin, the Port Captain. We shared a coffee. When I asked about the papers his cousin said, “Why? Everyone in Sicily has a brother, uncle, aunt, cousin, sister in America. We even celebrate thanksgiving! Sicily is the fifty first state of America!” He stamped my documents reluctantly but with a smile. Carlos took me by the train station a few blocks from my yacht to show me where I would meet Laura and her friends. There is a grand circle around a huge ornate fountain. The traffic is chaotic, aggressive and loud; lots of horns, arm waving and screaming. I saw an old woman attempting to cross the street. The racing cars nearly killed her several times within seconds. Carlos nearly hit her. Then I saw one of the most amazing events I’ve ever seen. A beautiful statuesque, Sophia Loren look alike, wearing a large hat sunglasses and high heels stood into the street without looking causing the traffic to skid to a halt as if Moses were parting the Red Sea or in the case the traffic of Palermo. The tones of the horns turned from aggravated to adoring. Carlos stopped and said, “Bella. Bella. We stop for beauty in Italy.” Welcome to Sicily.

Target Practice

I headed east under grey skies free off the machinations of amateur and undisciplined crew. The sea was soft and murky. The wind moved at a barely discernable five knots from the north. It was just enough to keep the main and mizzen full, but not enough to keep the 150 Genoa from collapsing and filling with an awkward thud. The frantic pressing forward to reach Greece and pick up my charter gave way to gentle acquiesce of a turtle’s never ending pace. Before leaving I contacted my Chef/mate girlfriend Laura. She was back packing with two girlfriends through Europe while I made the crossing. We would meet in Palermo Italy in four days. To say the yachting world is a man’s world would be an understatement, but Laura with her beauty, genuine smile, and vivacious personality fitting into this world and its demands was simply natural. She made life fun and hardship a joke. My guests loved her cooking. She was in fact better at chartering and entertaining than I. Over the last two years she carried the brut of entertaining guests. Our team work was flawless. While attending to my duties as a captain, sailing and maintenance, she carried on with the small talk. She made friends easily. Every evening after dinner I would appear in the cockpit with the guests and do what I like to think of as performance art. I would tell stories. When the final story had been told, the last of the dishes and brandy glasses cleared, and the guests stumbled off to their cabins to sleep we would retire to our cabin and make love. I was in love. I was deeply in love. I had two more days of sailing then two days of waiting then I could pick up my beautiful dream come true. I was nestled into the cockpit with a clear view of the sea thinking and yearning over our rendezvous when I spotted a yellow light directly on my course. I grabbed my binoculars and zoomed on the light. At first I thought it was a barge, but I couldn’t see the tug’s tree of lights. Could it be a barge just floating alone in the sea? I checked my book on navigation lights. If this had been a question on the captain’s examine I surely would have gotten it wrong. I altered course. Then searching through all the pages of arcane but important information I found that a submarine when on the surface was only required to have a yellow light. The closer I got I made out sub’s tower. There were no markings. I waved to them as I passed. Brilliant a sub, one more interesting if not obscure sighting in the world of shipping and navigation added to my list. So I went back to pining and dreaming. The next day I was dozing in the cockpit. The sun warmed my face and my dreams about seeing Laura again grew into full blown fantasy. The submarine surfaced to my port scaring the shit at of me. What they did they want? They hung around for thirty minutes. I called them on the radio. No answer. Then they slipped beneath the surface of the sea. The next night I caught site of the yellow light following my course. Honestly, I found it unnerving. My dreams about Laura turned into questions about her commitment to me. Maybe she found a boyfriend on her journey. I imagined some suave Frenchman with whose only attributes were my flaws, plus the newness of her adventure. The next day I was sailing down the coast of Sicily just minutes from the commercial port of Palermo when I spotted the submarine’s black tower off in the horizon. I imagined they were using me as target practice, but what they didn’t realize it was my heart they were shooting at with their fake torpedoes.
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