Mediterranean Summer (20 page)

Our weekend stay in quaint Porto Azzurro kept us from Portoferraio on the other side. It suited me, at least visually, since it offered the feeling of being in a remote island location. But this was both a curse and a blessing—a curse because if I had to do any major last-minute food shopping, the better resources were on the other side of the island; a blessing because our anchorages during the weekend gave meaning to the boat’s namesake, serenity, by shielding us from the crowded little beaches in the secluded bays of the islands. Although I had enough in the yacht’s stores to put together serviceable meals,
la Signora
told me upon arrival that she and her guests would be going onshore to dine one night at a friend’s summer home just up the hills. I began to wonder if she had seen a bit of my annoyance from the previous week and she understood I needed to be kept abreast of her schedule.

On a lazy Sunday, we had a guest at the mess table.
Il Dottore
came below to spend some time with the help—and to satisfy a basic need. He had, on other occasions, demonstrated an ability to carry himself with an easy grace when he came forward to spend some time chatting with his crew. But on this day, it was the aroma of simmering tomato sauce wafting up to the deck and carried downwind to the cockpit that prompted the visit. This reawakened his dormant desire for a pasta fix. As part of an effort to control his weight,
la Signora
was adamant about how often pasta would be served to the owners and their guests—never, unless she specifically requested it. But boys will be boys, and while
la Signora
was napping on deck,
il Dottore
tiptoed down the crew ladder to sneak a bowl with the crew. Rick offered to set him up with better china, but he refused. Everyone was a little nervous at the table, but the boss made easy small talk. Ian and Nigel looked like schoolboys in front of the principal, guarding their every move, while Kevin was proud to host him in the forward section of the yacht.

As he left the table,
il Dottore
gave some compliments, saying how fortunate the crew was to have pasta
fate bene
—made well—with the right amount of sauce, heat from the chiles, and cooked al dente. I especially noted what he considered al dente, since preferences differ and it is completely subjective. Then
il Dottore
enlisted us in his conspiracy. While climbing up the crew ladder, with a wink through his glasses, he declared, “No need to trouble
la Signora
over this.”

The amber glow of the island as the sun was setting was a magnificent sight, one of the many unique pictures one catches only at sea. It was the end of the weekend, and my only regret was not having had a chance to visit the house where Napoleon served his first exile. Scrawled on one of the walls in his own hand, said the pilot book, were the words: “Napoleon is happy everywhere.”

We were heading back to the anchorage in front of Porto Azzurro. As he drove, Patrick scanned the horizon, the way an experienced sailor checks virtual latitude. Suddenly he called for the binoculars.
Il Dottore
quickly handed them to him from the chart house. This could mean something important, the boss obliging in respect to the watch of his skipper. Patrick saw her, far off in the distance, like a seagoing apparition. Yes, it was
Carina,
sailing proud with all her sails perfectly trimmed. Patrick’s nemesis was under way a few miles off our quarter stern. He took it as an unintentional taunt and remained quiet. We saw her as a thing of beauty.

Eight

The Battle of the Fishes

Porto Santo Stefano and the Argentario Coast

I
was exhausted. After three sixteen-hour days, I wasn’t in a rush to go anywhere. A quiet Monday at anchor would have been perfect in this beautiful part of the world. The owners quickly left when we got back to the anchorage and even skipped the parting line. Something about having to take off in their jet before dark. While Kevin drove them to shore in the launch, Patrick announced to the rest of us that we would have a leisurely dinner on board and then set sail that night. “Leisurely” was easy for him to say; I still had to cook the meal.

The weather fax showed an excellent forecast—no sea or wind warnings for the next few days. We’d be heading slightly southeast, almost paralleling the Italian coast, until we arrived at the two harbors of Porto Santo Stefano, huddled below an island-like block of land called Monte Argentario. A unique geographical feature on this side of the regional border between Tuscany and Lazio are the three isthmuses that connect Monte Argentario to the mainland. If all went as planned, Patrick explained, this would give us an early-morning landfall. Rick, who unlike me was always itchy to move on, asked, “Why don’t we leave now?”

As I was cleaning up the galley after dinner before we were under way, I asked Patrick why he liked night passages so much.

“Fuel economy,” he answered matter-of-factly. I didn’t think that was the entire answer.

“And to get a better berth at the marina. The harbormasters, but more important, the customs officers like the early arrivals. They’re less suspicious of boats that arrive at the top of their day,” he said. In the first-come, first-served world of private boating, the early boat really did get the best berth at the dock. “Also, we don’t lose a day in order to make repairs, get parts, or do any provisioning,” he added.

But I knew that even the most seasoned, hardened sailor has this thing for sailing under a blackened sky, lit only by the moon and stars.

That night, close to midnight, with our bearings set for a direct course toward Porto Santo Stefano, we were destined for a great seven-hour passage. The weather was perfect for sailing—only a moderate breeze—and because of the downwind point of sail, any chop in the water would not be uncomfortable.
Serenity
would almost be able to surf as she moved in the direction of the waves. We began to glide through the water at a comfortable six knots, the same speed we would have maintained had we gone under power. With the wind blowing over our starboard side, we also had the right-of-way over both sail and power vessels. Together, the favorable conditions were a rarity in this part of the Mediterranean, and a cruise like this was a perk of the job.

I volunteered for the fourth watch, which would have me on deck from four to six in the morning. I came up to the cockpit and looked out in all directions. It felt a little eerie, as if we were the only vessel on the sea. The few sounds breaking the stillness of the night were those coming from the gentle simmer of the wake just behind us, the occasional splash of a small wave against the hull, or the creaking of the lines stretching and the wooden masts bending. As the boat made way, she slowly rolled from side to side, maybe a degree or two. I couldn’t see more than a few yards off the rail, but it was enough to stare at the surface of the water, which reflected the ambient glow from the navigation lights, red on the left side to port and green on the right, starboard side.

A starry night in a near-silent sea, it was incredible how many luminous stars filled the night sky. What could be more seductive? The astral storyboard above that was laden with mythology and astronomy made me wish I knew more about the constellations aside from the two Dippers.

The stellar ceiling also made me think of a scene I witnessed while I was having an after-service drink in the bar at one of the restaurants, La Contea, where I had worked. The owner was escorting an American couple to the door after their dinner. He didn’t speak English and they didn’t speak Italian, but that didn’t stop them from complimenting the meal. Judging from their smiles, he knew they were happy, so he kept saying, “
Grazie, grazie.
”

“But how come no Michelin stars?” the wife asked just as they were approaching the door.

The owner understood “Michelin” and remarkably found a small reserve of English words to make his point. “Stars?” he asked. “Come with me.”

He took them just outside the front door of the restaurant and pointed up to the night sky.

“Look up,” he said in broken English. “I have all the stars I need!”

Midway through my watch, about five in the morning, Ian came up on deck. He took the helm from me while I grabbed the binoculars to watch for ships. We were making small talk about Antibes, chuckling about the daily ritual of sailors in the bars, when I finally asked him what he had been doing before coming to the Côte d’Azur.

“I was a manager at a company that makes reproductive prostheses for breeding racehorses. Kind of a niche business.”

I held back the impulse to laugh. He assured me that his company was one of the best in the business. I was glad I hadn’t laughed because it was clear that he took his job seriously.

“But I was bored,” he said.

Right then, the wind got shifty and the sails started to luff.
Serenity
started to slow down. Ian stayed on the wheel as I went forward to deal with the flopping foresail. As I began to take the slack out of the line that controlled the sail’s trim, I had only one wrap on the deck cleat, not thinking in the dying wind that I might need two. All of a sudden irregular gusts made the sail luff with more vigor. I started to haul faster to get control of the sail, but the wind increased, and in no time the rogue line came off the cleat and in its violent shake caught my head in its path. Within a fraction of a second, it wrapped itself twice around my neck like a boa constrictor. I remember the next few seconds only as a blur of terror.
I’m going to die
I thought.

I knew enough about the power of the wind and sails that any more tension in the line and I’d be strangled or left with a broken neck. My body went limp, no doubt an involuntary reaction to the fear. I don’t know how, but I pulled up from deep within me my high school training as a lifeguard—in the event of a lunging victim, one can escape by pulling the victim underwater, then push up from under. I knew if I could relax my neck and shoulders, I could get my hands between the rope and my skin. I needed to move fast, and with the next shake of the line that gave any semblance of slack, I grabbed both wraps and pushed up. The rope coils rubbed and chafed my nose and ears along the way. Pain meant nothing to me. With every inch upward, I could think only of the moment when the rope would be fully off my head and I would be out of danger.

When it was finally off, I crumpled to the deck. I fought off the urge to faint by staying focused on tightening the line and securing it to the cleat. Once that was done, for the next few seconds all I could think about was how close I had come to an early death.

When I got back to the cockpit, I explained to Ian what had happened. During the gust, he had his hands full dealing with the main-sheet and didn’t hear or see anything.

“Good thing I stayed on course, mate,” he said. Good thing indeed. The wind trued itself and saved my life that night. A few minutes later, we changed the topic to what kinds of giant sea creatures lurked in our path.

I woke up about
two hours later to my anchor chain alarm clock, the rapid-fire noise of the large steel links banging against the pipe as the hook was dropped. Realizing we were in port, I went up on deck to help the crew back
Serenity
into her new temporary base. I wanted to know more about Monte Argentario, so I checked the pilot book to get a general sense of what was going on in this part of Italy and to locate our whereabouts on the harbor map. I also asked my crewmates if they knew about the region.

This luscious area of secluded anchorages, beaches, and clear water encompasses two main harbor villages—Porto Santo Stefano on the north side and chic Porto Ercole on the south, both having been protected from invasion by the mainland town of Orbetello. Throughout this southwest section of Tuscany the fertile areas of the Bolgheri and the Maremma produce prized Sangiovese and Merlot grapes in what has become one of Italy’s most important wine regions. Long stretches of the protected coastline thwarted any development, giving way to national parks and nature preserves. Off the coast and within sight lie the lower islands of the Tuscan archipelago—the scuba-diving haven Giglio and its little sister island Giannutri.

After lunch I decided to go for a walk around town to survey the shops and markets to see where everything was and what ingredients I could find for upcoming meals.

Of the two marinas in Porto Santo Stefano, we parked in the one that seemed farthest from anything, and with
Serenity
’s length and the amount of water depth she needed because of her keel, we were far out on the quay. That translated into a long walk on foot carrying heavy bags of food. Before we left Antibes, Patrick asked if I wanted to convert one of the refrigerators into a freezer so that I could stock up once and just defrost food as I needed it. This meant I could carry more and shop for less. I declined, opting to use only fresh ingredients, especially since so much was available in the markets and shops. Plus, I believed that everyone on board—owners, guests,
and
crew—should benefit from my foraging onshore.

Now, as I walked down the quay passing gift shops and
caffès
but no markets, I wondered how far I would have to go to find what I needed. I strolled over the curved incline that separated our marina from the next, and to my surprise I found an empty harbor. There were old metal sheds and piles of worn nets on the cobblestoned quay, service vehicles parked around, a
cantiere
—shipyard—and the smell of fish, signs of an active fishing economy. I knew I was getting closer. Finally I spotted a few fish stalls across the street from the main quay. I was surprised that they were open during the afternoon siesta and excited to see what each had to offer, but disappointed in what I found. There wasn’t much on the ice tables, and the messy condition of the stalls was far from inviting. Strange, I thought. This is a wealthy area. Maybe picky shoppers had come in the morning, and with the volume of business it was hard to keep up with the housekeeping. I figured I was seeing all that was left until the fleet’s new catch came in.

I ventured away from the harbor and into town. It appeared as though every Italian town has a Caffè Sport, and here I found one. A pick-me-up after the night passage was in order, the heat of the afternoon quenched with a cappuccino
ghiacciato
—iced. After engaging the barista in a little chat, I asked if there was an open-air market. There was, daily, I was told, except for Sunday, some days better than the others. On my way back to the boat, following a different path, I finally found the shops I was looking for. Signs over gated and shut bakeries, a
latteria
for dairy, butchers, and grocery shops were everywhere.

“David, we’re over here!” Patrick’s voice called out from under a
caffè
awning as I reemerged on the quay. Most of the crew sat around an outdoor table. I could see from their flushed faces and happy manner that Ian and Nigel had already downed multiple beers. Patrick offered me a drink, but I knew that even one beer would put me to sleep. Ian, slightly slurring his consonants, declared that the
caffè
would be the “official extension of the crew quarters,” a pronouncement Nigel quickly seconded. The guys had been at sea long enough that they yearned for a shore-based rally point. The establishment was called Il Grottino—the Little Grotto—an apt name for a little hideaway almost directly across from our
passerelle.
The guys had already acquainted themselves with Salvatore, who owned the
caffè
with his brother, the two also being the afternoon and evening staff.