Rise to a challenge
Recalling a time when a cruise meant getting away from the tourist trail, not getting on it
In the maritime sense the word ‘cruise’ has taken on a different meaning. There was a time when it indicated a modest form of boat-bound pottering that spoke of nosing into tiny bays, dropping hooks both of the anchoring and fishing variety. By contrast, just the other day a friendly couple confided they had signed up for a cruise that involved rattling around the western Mediterranean in what once would have been known as an ocean liner.
Now, I’m not against such forms of cruising in principle but I must admit that such cruises hardly ignite much in the way of enthusiasm in my heart.
I recall sitting at a waterfront bar in the Windward Islands a few years ago in company with other sailors. A bus pulled up and disgorged a small horde of people, plainly not local. Amongst the throng was a man wearing an orange shirt of blinding luminosity bearing the words PETER – YOUR TOUR GUIDE. Responding to obviously prearranged signals from him, waiters and waitresses emerged from the shadows, their trays laden with unidentified edibles and beverages. Peter bade the troupe enjoy the repast and went on to explain how the bar had once been a boatyard and was now a favourite among the yachting fraternity. Following his gaze, heads turned in our direction as if we were features of some interest. I had to suppress the temptation to say ‘Ahoy, me hearties’ and break into a hornpipe.
Fortunately, we were not occupants of that improvised zoo for very long. Less than half-an-hour later, now replete with both an unidentified gruel and a real taste of entirely counterfeit Caribbean life, the visitors were gone, no doubt to experience the wonders of another tourist feature.
Contrast this with another occasion, some thousands of miles and more than a decade before when Shindig was in Cagliari, southern Sardinia. We were joined by great sailing friends who I shall call Greg and Juliet to protect the innocent.
Greg is never slow getting to the point. ‘Do you have a route planned? he asked.
‘We thought the Aeolian Islands,’ said my wife, Chele.
The gleam in Greg’s eye was disconcerting. He had just won the Three Peaks Race in a boat of my design. ‘They have volcanoes there,’ he murmured with the sort of relish a gourmet might use in anticipation of a fine dinner.
‘If memory serves there’s even an island called Vulcano.’
And so, it was that a few days later we anchored in Porto di Polente, with the sulphurous waft of rotten eggs carried on the breeze and the slopes of Gran Cratere looming not far distant.
‘No more than a couple of hour’s stroll,’ observed Greg. ‘First thing after breakfast then?’
Climb every mountain
Now, I don’t know about you but one of the most agreeable aspects of at least offshore sailing is that it all happens at sea level. Granted you may have to climb some steps to enter a yacht club or find a supermarket but generally it’s a horizontal world without perpendicular challenges. I explained my thoughts to Greg.
‘It’s not that high’ he said. ‘The cruising guide says just 400 metres. Snowdon is over twice that and Etna is even higher.’
I suppressed any thoughts about masochistic tendencies and agreed numbly to the challenge. The ladies declined, claiming they had other plans.
So, not long after dawn on the following morning Greg and I found ourselves rowing ashore and making for a path that disappeared upwards at an astonishingly dispiriting angle. The climbing itself was simple: one foot in front of the other, being the appropriate technique. However, the breathing was trickier, and my body spent the time it took to reach the deserted summit complaining of its abuse. I would have sat down but for the yellow patches of crystalized sulphur that bedecked the area. Anyway, I was thinking…
‘Anyway,’ said Greg as if in anticipation. ‘Having come this far, I think the least we should do is walk around the rim.’
It was probably light-headiness that betrayed me. I heard a disembodied voice, vaguely recognisable as my own, blurt that pride demanded we did just that. So off we trudged, picking our way through the scoria and livid patches of sulphur, to circumnavigate the crater to arrive once more at the head of the path that had brought us up there. The heading photo shows the view of the anchorage from the crater’s rim. Not a cruise ship in sight. But I bet there is now.
‘One of the most agreeable aspects of offshore sailing is that it all happens at sea level...’