May , 1997
Newsletter # 6 Almeria,
Spain
Dear Friends:
May has rolled around again
and it’s time to leave the boat for a month. This time last year we were in Tahiti, since
then we have sailed about 18,500 nautical miles. We sailed 5,000 miles of that since I wrote the last newsletter
in Aden, the weather could not have been different - we swapped the Pacific and
Indian Ocean Trade Winds for the head winds of the Red Sea and the
Mediterranean. But mostly this letter
is concerned with what we did on shore in the Old World, not our time at
sea. After we left Aden we sailed
directly to Port Suez, at the south end of the Canal. This took sixteen days.
The Trades stayed with us for the first few hundred miles but after that
we had persistent NW’ly winds - dead on the nose - with a typical
velocity of 25 kts. After a couple of
days of beating to windward the old Genoa jib blew to smithereens. I was attached to that sail; we rounded Cape
Horn with it set in 1992 and it had sailed many tens of thousands of miles. It took a couple of days before the weather
moderated and we could safely lower it and set the Yankee jib. When we got to Port Suez the log showed we
had sailed 2,200 miles to make good a direct passage of 1,300 miles. In Port Suez I got in touch with Jim Meehan
of Shore Sails, who built the old jib, and asked him to air freight a new one
to Israel, which he did in about a week.
Our agent in Egypt was the Prince of the Red Sea, a charming old man and
his son. He arranged our Canal transit
and tour of the Cairo Museum and the Pyramids at Giza. The museum with its priceless collection of
antiquities was fabulous. The Pyramids
were simply impressive - all that labor for the glorification of one man (per
pyramid). The touts selling guided
tours, camel rides, trinkets, etc. were an unremitting nuisance. Robert, who had joined us in Thailand,
decided to tour the Med by bus after we arrived in Port Suez ( the Red Sea does
that to you). Fortunately we met a
Dutch yacht which we had first encountered in Sri Lanka, the captain was
planning to refit in Cyprus and so one of his crew took Robert’s place. Our new crew member is young English woman
called Celia who has been bumming round the world for the last three
years. Celia joined us in Port Said
after we made the two-day trip through the Suez Canal. We had to pay baksheesh to the pilots and
tender operators - we had laid in a stock of Marlboro cigarettes just for this
purpose.
We were greeted off the
Israeli coast by a small gunboat as the sun rose. After some questions on the radio they waved us on to
Ashkelon. The marina is home to more
than a dozen liveaboards, we arrived just in time for the weekly barbeque. After a couple of days we got the message
that the new jib had arrived at Ben Gurion Airport, I rented a car and Celia
and I drove off to get it. We arrived
at the airport in a torrential rain storm, dealing with the bureaucracy took
all day, but we finally left with the sail.
I had to pay 25% of its value as a deposit on custom duties, which I was
told would be refunded when it was inspected on the boat. It was duly inspected but getting the money
back was difficult. I finally wound up with a check, written in Hebrew, which
was cashable only at a certain bank in Tel Aviv. To make a long story short, my name was incorrectly written in
Hebrew and when the teller looked at my passport the bank would not cash the
check. Finally, with the help of a
local businessman, I signed the check with the name on it (Eric Patrick in
English!) And I wound up with 3000 shekels in cash. The next day we all drove to Jerusalem where the money changers
outside the Temple gave me greenbacks for the shekels. We had a wonderful day in Jerusalem because
the tourists had been scared off by the threats of violence associated with the
Jewish plan to build new houses in east Jerusalem. The sites and restaurants
were relatively empty and we had a great day.
We even visited the two tombs of Jesus, one inside the walls and one
outside - there is a great deal of uncertainty about where things actually
happened 2000 years ago. The next day
we drove to the Dead Sea and Masada.
The latter is very interesting, particularly as we made our ascent by
the ramp erected by the Romans to storm the place, not by the cable car used by
most tourists. The region is stark, to
say the least, and it is staggering to think of the effort needed to erect the
ramp in about three months, it rises several hundred feet from the desert floor
and is still usuable after 2000 years.
On the way back to the marina I got caught speeding by the cops, but
when they discovered I was a visitor I was let off with a warning. The next day we left in fairly grungy
weather for the short hop to Cyprus. We
tied up in Larnaka, on the Greek side, Cyprus being an island divided between
peoples of Turkish and Greek ethnic origin.
It was a public holiday when we arrived, it celebrated Greek
Independence Day. This may help explain
the enmity on the island; how many countries have a holiday celebrating an
event in another country (when the Greeks overcame the Turks)? We stayed three days, I got lots of Xerox
copies of charts for the trip west, in Cyprus “Copyright” means it’s alright to copy! From Cyprus we sailed to Antalya, on the
Anatolian coast of Turkey. Another hop
of three days but with its share of heavy weather - we sheltered for the night
in Limassol Harbor before we could weather the western end of Cyprus. The marina at Antalya is about five miles
from the old town. A cosmopolitan
collection of cruising boats wintered there and we arrived in time for the
wind-up party of the social club. When
a couple from New England discovered Walter and I lived on Long Island the wife
confessed to having attended Patchogue High School - small world! A few days later we went to a dinner party
at the jazzy restaurant on the marina site and I wore a tie and blazer for the
first time since the circumnavigation began.
The archeological sites in the vicinity of Antalya are fantastic, most
of the ruins are of Roman origin. We
rented a car for a day and visited three sites. Perges covers an extensive area, much of the public baths with
its complicated heating system remain.
Fragments of statues, columns and mosaics literally lie under your feet
as you walk among the ruins. At
Aspendos the amphitheatre looks much as it did in Roman times - they could put
on a play tomorrow with seating for about ten thousand people. Side is a seaside resort full of restaurants
and souvenir shops but the remains of an old temple are next to the shore on a
beautiful cape. The place was swarming
with tourists, mostly German, and I imagine it is pandemonium at the height of
the season.
From Turkey we faced a
thousand mile leg to the island of Malta.
This took us eight days. Much of
the wind was on the nose with gusts as high as 40 kts, we were reefed most of
the time. Occasionally the wind dropped
to nothing and we had to power. As
someone remarked in one of our cruising guides “In the Med you power from gale
to gale”. On moonless nights the fiery
comet Hale-Bopp hung over our starboard bow.
When we got to Malta we noticed several strands had broken on the
bobstay (7/16" diameter wire rope) and we had to have a rigger make us a
new one. Malta has been a fortress for centuries. As you approach the harbor vast sand-colored stone walls loom up
on every shore. Behind the ramparts one
can see the dome of the cathedral and the towers of numerous churches. We went for lunch at the yacht club which is
housed in one of the old forts on Manoel Is.
The walls penetrated by the narrow windows that overlook the water are
five feet thick. It was a short bus ride or a 45 minute walk
from our berth on Msida creek to Valletta, the Capital. The old, narrow,
streets are crowded with shops and restaurants punctuated here and there with
graceful plazas. We visited museums,
the fine arts gallery and the underground labyrinth which comprised the
military control center in WWII. The
rooms have been restored and filled with period equipment complete with
mannequins dressed in uniforms of the day.
The island and its defenders were awarded the George Cross, Britain’s highest civilian award for
valor, after the intense German and Italian bombing during the war. The story of the blockade and the ships that
ran supplies to Malta is a central theme of several exhibitions. The day before we left was another of my
39th birthdays. Celia and Walter
planned a surprise party by inviting several couples we had got to know on
adjacent boats. Unfortunately I spotted
the cake they had bought when our agent came to get paid and they watched with
trepidation as I cut it up into large slices and suggested we should all eat
(along with the usual rum). The guests showed up a little later but there was
enough left to get the party going.
After we cleared Malta we ran into a NE gale which whisked us to Bizerte
in Tunis in a couple of days; downwind sailing for a change. Bizerte is a small, pleasant, town with an
old walled section containing the Casbah.
The highlight was a visit to Tunis by means of a one hour bus ride. The Bardo museum has the most amazing
collection of mosaic from the Carthaginian and Roman periods which I have ever
seen. Many of them are huge, forty feet
square, they were often mounted vertically so they could be viewed easily and
were virtually complete. The subjects
were mostly Gods and their associated legends or local scenes showing people at
work or fishing. Many used such small
fine stones to form the picture I was reminded of the pointillism style of
French impressionistic painting. I was
also struck by the thought that the scenes were so pastoral for era one thinks
of as fairly brutal. In contrast, the
Fine Arts Museum in Valletta had a good collection of Italian classical
paintings, many of them depicted in gory detail martyrs dying in every
imaginable manner and, of course, numerous version of Jesus Christ hanging on
the cross. The Bardo also had some
rooms from old Islamic mosques containing the most elaborate stone
carvings. After the Bardo and lunch in
Tunis it was a short taxi ride to Carthage; the center of the empire that was
ultimately conquered by Rome about 200 BC.
The place is sprinkled with ruins, including the old circus where, according
to the guide, the still visible tunnels are the ones used to let lions loose in
the ring where they ate Christian captives.
There is a plaque celebrating two Christian lady saints that the lions
refused to eat in 203 AD, thus convincing the frustrated spectators that maybe
their religion had something after all.
Our six-day trip to Almeria
in Spain was plagued by long calm spells under engine and occasional head
winds. Ironically we had waited an
extra day in port for a forecast gale to clear the area. After clearing with the authorities in
Almeria we moved down the coast to a charming marina in Aguadulce, where the
boat will stay for four weeks under the care of Celia while Walter and I fly to
New York.
Until the next time, best
wishes from
Eric

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