Towards Cyprus

May 29, 2001 Rome-Antalya

I set off alone bound for Finike to prepare the boat before the rest of the crew joins me for a cruise that should end in Cyprus. During the winter I placed an ad on "Bolina on line" to find a crew worthy of Gattadapelare. The "legendary first mate" won't be coming this year and a good replacement is needed. But out of the numerous crowd of applicants, in the end only Gino and Marcus remained. Gino had the chance to meet him a few days ago during a visit to Rome. He comes from Brussels where he works as an interpreter. I had a good impression of him; positive, and not trivial. I think he'll be a good travel companion. And so here I am in Antalya where I arrive at 18:00 after a Rome-Istanbul flight. The Perla hotel is located in the Citadel and the garden is cool and surrounded by old walls. Lemon trees shade the breakfast tables and a small, clear pool refreshes the eye.

The hotel structure is old, but harmonious within the citadel walls. Certainly not attractive for the demanding tourist, but capable of caressing my oriental fantasies. The room is inhabited, at night, by other shy beings.

May 30, 2001 Antalya-Finike

I reached the Finike marina with a small public transport. The sight of my boat suspended on wooden stilts awakens emotions and memories. Finike, arrival and departure port of a new journey. Panta rei! The day passes in the heat and in maintenance work. I drink a lot. I dine alone at the marina trattoria.

May 31, 2001. Finike

Maintenance work continues. I replace the toilet bowl and repair the keel which, under the weight of the boat on dry land, has opened along one edge. I work calmly. Tomorrow Elke, Gerlinde and, on the same flight, also Gino will arrive. There's a village festival along the piers. The twofold face of Turkey, ancient and traditionalist, modern and western, expresses itself in the behavior of couples and in the clothing of women.

June 1, 2001, Sunday. Finike. I await Gino's arrival while working on the boat. I'm not satisfied because I can't completely seal the crack in the keel. A shadow of moisture that still filters from the bilge prevents the fiberglass from adhering well. I add more layers of material. In the afternoon I have Gattadapelare put in the water and buy a new battery. The idea that the engine might not start when needed frightens me. It's true that with a sufficient and prepared crew the engine is not indispensable, but one of these conditions has never occurred. Of course I'm not talking about the preparation, which has always been of a good level. The day passes between work and waiting for Gino. Finally a phone call informs me that the plane has landed. The ladies are heading to the Perla hotel (will they like it? I doubt it, but it's already booked.) and Gino is coming here.

Finally he arrives at 20:00. We dine to the sound of oriental laments in a place on the pier and make plans for tomorrow. We want to reach Antalya early.

June 2, 2001. Finike-Antalya. 58 miles

We sail. After eight months of inactivity the keel of my boat greedily cleaves the waters of the sea. In these months some balances have profoundly changed and a new phase of Gattadapelare's journey in the Mediterranean has begun. The plan to reach the Red Sea, and from there to Aqaba, is now abandoned. I intend, after the stop in Cyprus, to return to the Aegean and find in Attica or the Peloponnese a permanent base for the boat. This will happen within a couple of years. Then we'll see. We set off at 10:00 after struggling with the furling jib which refused to start working again after eight months of rest. We set course east on a clear and calm day. We sail and motor with light breezes along the coast. The sea is so inviting that the new sailor urges me to be towed for an improbable shark fishing. I tow him for a quarter of a mile at three knots and then we swap roles.

It's a good opportunity for Gino to take possession of the boat. He later confesses to me that the idea had crossed his mind, but since it was Gattadapelare he changed his mind. What could he have meant? The catching of a little tuna excites Gino's photographic sense and my appetite. The sailing proceeds calmly and Gino and I have time to get acquainted. Sailing is a wonderful catalyst and creates or destroys friendships. I feel as if I've known Gino forever. Without a detailed nautical chart, entering the Antalya marina is more of a hypothesis than a certainty. We arrive while there's still light and have the ladies reach us by taxi. Their experience with the Hotel Perla and with the owner, as feared, was not exciting. They are enthusiastic, however, about another little hotel they found near the port and which costs the same as the other.

So they gladly give us their reservation at the Perla and all together we go to dinner on the bastions of the old crusader port.

June 3, 2001- Pentecost Sunday. Antalya-Aspendos-Perge. Today and tomorrow we don't sail. We want to visit two wonderful archaeological sites a short distance from Antalya. For this we rent a car and under the hot but bearable sun we first visit the ruins of Perge and then the well-preserved theater of Aspendos. Here they are setting up the stage for the performance of Aida and an enormous pharaoh is being erected before our eyes. Places and times adapt poorly to Egypt, but after all we are in the East and to Western eyes everything blurs into a single scenario. We ate very well in a trattoria along the highway. Genuinely Turkish cuisine and good white wine. On the way back we choose the hotel where we will spend (perhaps!!!) a few days playing golf. A nice anonymous, international, aseptic hotel on the seafront.

I think of the charm of our Hotel Perla, a genuine caravanserai, hosting turtles and cockroaches, with creaky stairs and bathrooms without locks. There's no comparison!

June 4, 2001.S.Quirino di T. Antalya- Telmessos.

We head uphill to find the ruins of this ancient city that hosted Alexander the Great. It's up in the mountains, among woods and pleasant valleys, at about 800 meters above sea level. But first we go to see some caves that hosted less famous people who lived in prehistory. From the coast that we climb to reach the entrance we dominate the plain below. The summer heat makes the air shimmer and the song of the cicadas accompanies our laborious walking. Sitting in the shade of a skinny tree we let ourselves be caressed by the breeze rising from the valley and try to catch the notes of Pan's flute. The cave is cool and dark and conveys sensations of primordial existences. We eat again in a trattoria along the road. Trout meunière and wine. But everything has a different flavor from those of the Black Forest. Not the food, but the air, the atmosphere, the local smells, condition the taste.

We learned long ago not to return home from our travels carrying with us the foods we liked on site. They never taste the same. The ruins of Telmessos are hidden among the trees and among the rocks. Few things remain of a great city. The theater is well preserved and in a splendid position. High up, flanked by a tall wall of reddish rock, it dominates, looking toward the sea, the plain below. In the evening Marcus arrives from Rome. We men sleep on the boat, the ladies in the hotel.

June 5, 2001. St. Boniface - From Antalya to Alanya. 70 miles.

A t 9:00 the whole crew arrives and we set off heading southeast. The weather is very nice. We pass in front of Antalya which appears high on the rocky coast. After a while the coast becomes low and sandy and will remain so for many miles. The wind, at first a modest breeze, strengthens. It comes from the northwest and pushes us between a broad reach and a run. We also keep a bit of engine on because the leg is long and the crew is not prepared for the "sufferings" of so many hours at sea. So we proceed even at 8 knots, which doesn't prevent a notable, and presumably fast, little tuna from letting itself be caught. The ladies behave very well. At some moments Gattadapelare is well heeled, so much so that in the cockpit the leeward position is preferred for dozing lying down. We spend the day talking, sleeping and doing calculations on course and position (a task assumed by Gino).

Evening falls, the sun sets, the moon rises and a silvery highway ahead of us shows us the route. Finally we see, high above the sea and skillfully lit, the medieval fortress of Alanya. It rises on a rocky cape behind which the city hides. The port also hides and we spend two hours looking for a reasonable anchorage. On one side the swell is so strong that we have difficulty disembarking the ladies, entrusting them to the sturdy arms of willing Turks. We take refuge in an inner basin, dark and uncomfortable, where we finally anchor, keeping a few meters from the inconvenient quay. We reach Gerlinde and Elke at a restaurant, as agreed. The ladies have already chosen a cheap hotel nearby, where Marcus also takes refuge. So Gattadapelare is all for Gino and me. During the night I hear the wind. Yesterday a shroud came loose from the turnbuckle and I saw the mast flex.

A sensation that disturbed me. I'm not very sure about the work done in Marmaris. I fear that the turnbuckles were not tightened well and that under wind I might lose the mast. I toss and turn in the bunk listening to the wind and thinking that tomorrow we have 70 miles to do to arrive in the evening at a port I know nothing about. I don't have a serious pilot book nor do we know anything about what the weather will be in the coming hours. Reluctantly I decide to turn back and leave the boat in the Antalya marina where I can have, in view of the next season, a serious check done on the rigging. Tomorrow morning I'll talk to Gino about it.

June 6, 2001- From Alanya to Antalya- 70 miles.

And so we will do. Gino has great adaptability. He agrees to give up the most interesting part of the cruise for the sake of my peace of mind. We leave the others at the breakfast table and set off with rough sea and wind as yesterday. Only that today we have it almost head-on. The encounter with a large turtle that lets itself be almost caressed marks the transition from the shelter of the promontory to the annoyance of the spray. We bear away a little to take wind and sea better and we are also forced to make a couple of tacks. Antalya is exactly at 12 o'clock. The hours pass slowly and rather painfully because there's no curiosity of novelty on this leg. Yesterday's little tuna is destined for two different meals. At lunch pasta (Gino says excellent). The hours pass. It's cool and we dress heavily, also using our foul-weather gear. Finally at two in the morning we enter the marina.

Tired and vaguely dissatisfied.

June 7, 2001- Antalya-Alanya.

We have Gattadapelare hauled out and drill the keel to let out all the water in the bilge. Everyone looks at me with surprise and disbelief. How can I explain that I want to dry the bilge completely so I can seal the keel without problems of residual moisture? I intend to undertake this work in October when I return and I want to be sure I won't fail again. After completing the formalities for leaving the boat in Turkey, the so-called transit log, we take the bus to Alanya and let ourselves be pampered by a sort of steward who distributes, on request, glasses of fresh water. At Alanya we climb up on the rock to see the sunset. The descent through the medieval tumbling houses envelops us in the atmosphere of dark times made of crescents, scimitars, quartered infidels and other things like "mamma li turchi".

Instead we meet a little boy who, having learned we are Italian, asks about Juventus. We spend the night in the well-known hotel.

June 8, 2001 From Alanya to Girne (Turkish Cyprus) The

catamaran trip ends in a little more than four hours. In Girne at the Hotel British, Elke, Gerlinde and Marcus are waiting for us, having arrived here yesterday. The little port of Girne is very picturesque, rich in restaurants and venues, and crowded with rather quiet middle-aged tourists. The rest of the country doesn't have much to offer. We celebrate the reunion with abundant libations of raki. Gino is a rare example of a teetotaler sailor. Better that way, there are fewer of us to share.

By taxi we go to Bellapais. Here Lawrence Durrell lived and wrote, English by birth and Cypriot by adoption. His book "Bitter Lemons" describes these places through the loving eyes of a northerner imprisoned by the scents and atmospheres of an island oriental by geography, Christian and Muslim by history, gothic and Mediterranean. A bridge between two worlds bound to a common laborious, conflictual destiny. The remains of the abbey of Bellapais dominate the plain that ends in the sea. The monks who lived here were so pleasure-loving that they incurred the punishment of Richard the Lionheart. But how can one not justify their fault: the place is beautiful and invites sin. Later we wander around the port and finally dine at a place on the quay.

June 9, 2001- Island of Cyprus- Turkish zone. We rent a car and go to visit the island. Our freedom of movement is limited to the Turkish zone. But, we're told, this is the most beautiful part because it's less polluted by tourism. Indeed along the road that runs east along the coast of that long peninsula called Karpaz we encounter only rare cars and no place where we can have lunch. The roadway is little more than a paved path and driving on the left, in the English manner, presents no problem. You always travel in the center of the road. We cut across and see the sea from the south side of the peninsula. Our goal is Famagusta. Just the name evokes battles between crusaders and Mohammedans, between Christians and Muslims, between Venetians and Turks. Here Mustafa Pasha had admiral Morosini flayed alive after conquering the last Venetian bastion defending the island.

The old part of the citadel is enclosed between ruined defensive walls.

Numerous facades of beautiful Gothic churches are what remains after the destruction wrought by the victors after the siege of 1571. Some have been transformed into mosques and appear as unreal architectural grafts. We reach Nicosia and the sadness of its reality split between two enemy worlds. We don't like this atmosphere of hatred and expectation of bloody events. We leave it without any regret to return to the tourist pleasantness of Girne. Aperitif with raki. We dine at the same restaurant

June 10, 2001-Sunday. Nicosia-Istanbul-Rome Departure at dawn. Gino travels in first class with the VIPs, we, simple tourists, in second. He loses his luggage. We don't. Gerlinde leaves us in Istanbul for Vienna. Gino in Rome leaves us for Brussels and for Maria.

BUT WE KNOW THAT WE WILL ALL MEET AGAIN TO TREAD THE BOARDS OF THE DECK OF THE OLD GATTA.

AND SO: FAIR WINDS FOR THE COMING MONTHS AND SEE YOU AGAIN