11:00 AM local time, Saturday, August 17 (0900 August 17 UTC) 38 27 N 014 57
E. Temp. 79, Humidity 68%, Cloud Cover 10%. At anchor in front of the town of
Lipari in the Aeolian Islands, Italy.
Greetings from the crew of Maverick.
Our choice to call at Catania on Sicily was based on two needs. One, we
wanted to consult electronic technicians to see if our radio, radar, and
autopilot, among other pieces of equipment, could be repaired. Secondly, we
were to meet with Fred Feller and family, who were bringing some parts from
the US. It was really great to see friendly faces from home. The Fellers are
the only people, aside from Theresa and Caroline, who have traveled abroad to
meet us. This special effort on their part, plus a fee which was really quite
modest, assures that their photo with the Captain will be displayed with
honor on the pages of our website. They were so delighted with this that we
have decided to make the same offer to all of our readers. Write
terrulian@aol.com for details.
The Fellers had studied some Italian but didn't remember anything other
than "ciao," so we gave them some of our language advice. The first thing to
do when you're not understood is to speak slowly and shout. The other person
will soon switch into the same mode. If this doesn't accomplish what you
need, the next thing is to loudly yell, "Speak English! What're you, stupid
or somethin'?" This simple trick has gotten us more than half way around the
world.
What we determined from the technicians, at some expense, was that,
although they could make the repairs, they 1) would charge us more than the
original cost of the equipment, 2) could not guarantee their work would
render the various instruments usable, and 2) couldn't complete the repairs
until the end of August as all of Italy is on vacation and therefore parts,
though available, cannot be obtained. This practice of everyone closing up at
the same time, not limited to Italy, is not only not the American way of
doing things, it is rigidly stupid, indolent, and inefficient, and I have
felt this way long before it actually caused me any personal inconvenience,
as it is an offense to commerce and trade. Any Italians out there want a
piece of this? So we are ordering new stuff from the US and are looking into
having it shipped to Spain where we can pay VAT of 16% on it, according to
their reading of the "Yachts In Transit" provision of law, which is more
generous than Egypt's, where the tax is 100%.
But not completely satisfied with this outcome, the Captain, who, if you
weren't able to deduce this from our dispatches, is a licensed HAM, assisted
by Chief Junior High Frequency Gizmo Specialist Terry Shrode, determined that
they could make a jury-rigged antenna with parts already on the boat. The
problem with our radio was that the antenna tuner, which was not disconnected
from the antenna during the lightening strike, had a bunch of fried
thingamajigs inside. Hey, I'm a licensed AMATEUR radio guy, not a licensed
professional. What needs to happen with the kind of antenna we use is that
the length of the antenna has to have a certain mathematical relationship to
the frequency on which we transmit. Since we use the backstay as our antenna,
its length is impossible to adjust. What the antenna tuner does is fool the
watchamacallits in the radio into thinking that the antenna wire is the
length it should be, even though it isn't. Sadly, we must live our lives in a
world where even radio equipment is dishonest in its dealings with other
radio equipment. Anyway, it's a simple matter to bypass this deceitful box,
figure the math and construct an honest antenna for a certain frequency, the
downside being, you need a different length wire for each frequency. So we
made up two, one for our email contact in Brussels, and one for our morning
weather net in the Med. We hoist the wires up the mast with a halyard, and,
bingo, we have email. Slap me five, Radio Man.
Having met with our friends, obtained the diagnosis on our electronics,
and made our antennae, we were about to leave Catania when we saw a weather
fax showing a front approaching and also heard predictions on the radio of
gale force winds in the vicinity of the Strait of Messina, not a good place
to be in a blow. So we delayed our departure until the weather system came
through and this gave us the opportunity for some sightseeing. Catania sits
at the base of Mt. Etna, and in fact much of the stone used for the
construction of roads and walls is basalt. So that was our first destination.
Etna has had a major eruption since we left home and we were able to see the
results of that as well as take a four-wheel drive van up to a place near the
summit, where nature has left a big fat ugly mess.
We also went to Syracuse, where Athenians made fools of themselves in a
disastrously unsuccessful attack in 415 BC that so weakened them that the
outcome of the Peloponnesian War was, though almost a decade away, a foregone
conclusion. Nicias, the general who was ordered to lead the attack, had
opposed it for good reason but was forced to bear the burden of a policy he
had realized was foolish. He was captured and executed. Thucydides has the
play-by-play.
Finally sailing from Catania, we were happy to have a nice southeasterly
to blow us right up to the Strait of Messina. For about an hour. The wind
died, turned around on the nose, and blew 25 to 30, or at least that's what
our newly rebuilt wind instruments from Signet said. I would have called it
18. As the Captain retired for the night with the words, "You have the
bridge, Mr. Shrode," we were tacking and behind schedule to get through our
window for currents in the Strait, or so we thought. The Captain has been
relying on a computerized tide program, and the currents in the Strait of
Messina are linked to the tides at Gibraltar. But when Mr. Shrode approached
the Strait on his watch, we were still within the window yet the current was
already adverse. A glance at the Admiralty Tide Tables, which we have on
board and which in the past have been consistent with our computerized
program, showed a difference from the computer of five hours, almost an
entire tide. Fortunately, the conditions by the time we got to the Strait
itself were benign and unlike Odysseus we lost no crew.
From there we motored to the island of Stromboli, an active volcano
rising right out of the sea. Another aspect of the month of August being a
vacation month for Italians is that all of the anchorages and towns in the
Aeolian Islands are ridiculously crowded with holiday-makers who are busy not
being able to ship Maverick's electronic parts. In addition to that, none of
these places have what you would normally call anchorages. They are shelves
off the islands that are small and in general about twenty feet deep, after
which the bottom drops off precipitously to two hundred or more, and they are
completely exposed open roadsteads. So what you have is a very uncomfortable
and unsafe situation. That night on Stomboli was a restless one for the
Captain because after we got ourselves pretty well situated a charter boat
pulled up about half a boatlength away and, while still moving forward and
giving little thought to swinging room, the devil-may-care skipper let go his
anchor and dropped out about half the scope he needed right on top of it,
disdaining the practice of setting it. I should have said something but
instead I just kept getting up throughout the night about every twenty
minutes to see whether the wind had changed. Later, another boat anchored in
a position directly over our anchor, which meant that getting our anchor up
would require his moving. We had planned to leave before dawn to sail around
to the other side of the island where the eruptions that occur every few
minutes could be seen dramatically in the dark; but we abandoned that plan
when it meant awakening our neighbor at three AM. I'm sorry to say that the
Italians seem to have the least boat sense of any sailors we've encountered
on our voyage. Great do-wop singers, though.
The next day we sailed to Lipari, another of the volcanic Aeolian
Islands, which according to some are the "Wandering Rocks," or the "Rolling
Stones," of the Odyssey. We again found crowded anchorages and captains
standing on their bows fretting over their situations. We elected to anchor
instead near a megayacht in 75 feet. 75 feet weeds out the riff-raff and so
there is no crowding, and after anchoring in over 100 in the South Pacific
the crew of Maverick was not intimidated by the depth. So we are currently
situated in front of the castle that overlooks the harbor at Lipari, and at
night when all the powerboats and ferries stop running, leaving us rolling in
their wake, it's pretty nice. Last night there were a lot of fireworks and a
loud band at the castle until 4:30 in the morning, but even so the Captain
slept better than the night before on Stromboli, knowing that Maverick was
safe. I think these islands would be a lot more pleasant to visit in a
different month, but I sure wouldn't recommend that anyone come here in
August.
ADDENDA
It's easy to buy horse meat steaks in Catania, and the restaurants that
feature this delicacy often have a nice picture of a horsey out front.
We met a couple, Joe and Floy, on a boat named Lizabeth, who have been
cruising the Med for twenty years. When Joe, who's from Kansas City, pulled
up beside us in Lipari and asked how much water we were anchored in, and we
told him 75 feet, he said, "What the HELL are we DOING here!" This is the new
Maverick motto.
Dave Tolmie writes in to say he has met Jerry Ragavoy and he declared, after
a few refreshments, that Dave sings better than Howard Tate. However, I
happen to know he wasn't speaking of the singer Howard Tate, but rather the
hairdresser by that name, who is, to be fair, still a pretty good singer and
an excellent Greek scholar. Dave's favorite coming home song is "Tie A Yellow
Ribbon," and it is said that his rendition of it will make grown men weep.
For photos, previous dispatches, maps, and more visit www.ussmaverick.net.
Next report [more or less] from this location:
Just One More Train Ride, Joe
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