antigua not antigone

The last night watching the sunset over Lord Nelson’s domain, the last night of the monster mosquitos of Antigua, and the last night of my sailing life distraction. Can I turn this distraction into the main life path? Can I crawl out from the debt that being a middle aged ski bum carries with it? Does it matter if I am continuing to follow my dreams? 

Anna Marie and I rolled around on the concrete dock, melancholy at our inability to change our fateful night of separation, as the owners of a 25 Million dollar boat step over our bodies. Nothing reinforces humanities feeling that they control their own destiny like buying a 25 Million dollar toy. 

The last days of sailing were days of lemonade – bitter to taste and a sticky mess when it spills. One can make their lemonade sweet or bitter according to their predilections – unless its pre-measured packets of crystal light – splenda-ed. 

Is one’s identity soley the sum total of their experiences or does it also include ones aspirations and dreams. Don’t the expectations, projections, education and enculturation paint and frame the experiences of life?  If one is thrown unwillingly into a sequence of events, isn’t it the unwillingness itself that becomes the identity of the experience and not the events that transpire? 

I finished “The book of Laughter and Forgetting”, thinking that it would act as a pick me up after two autobiographies of captains of the crown – sad soliloquies on navigators relentlessly driven to distant shores, then being snuffed out in a chaotic clash of cultures. Captain Cook and Sir Peter Blake were killed centuries apart – but their deaths seem the same product of hubris – the question is the hubris of the cultural machine or the individual drive? 

Any way the mood was no lighter after Kundera, stuck as I was on the splenda-ed upholstery. 

At some point – its not clear which day or mile marked the moment, but Dennis and Isabel were sitting at the dining table in the cabin, rooting through the first aid kits looking for penicillin to ease the consequences of their rutting. The mood on the boat changed to a civil war blue and grey as sides were made and allegiances drawn. Our identities and place on the mason dixon determined by what we called the infection. But the peace was strained and the lovers would never be the same… we crossed and ocean together, we made it to the other side of the blue – and this great achievement was being framed around the silly pelvic gyrations and their connection to our projections and expectations. We tried to eat, smoke and drink our way back to fellowship – but Antigua not yet in sight we could not get our apathy off the splenda-ed couch. 

On the last night of our transit, we had a little fete to celebrate Dennis’s birthday. After a dinner of pasta and artichoke’s with lefkada’n sausage, the spanish wine was downed. It was all good clean fun until Jorgo’s woke up with “Captain George” sharpied on his ass. The sun rose over falmouth harbour as we pulled in. Wisteria and crepe myrtle blooming around 3 billion dollar nautical playpen – our dwarfed little beetle shell encouraging a change in perspective. Maybe this isn’t the time for life decisions – maybe i should work that out as i get my relax on in the yucatan. But seeing that O.J. has a book and David Duke is debating history doesn’t encourage me rejoining the cultural mainstream. One thing that is certain, big boat – small beetle shell whatever – I will cross this way again, the salt will never be out of my blood and my life is forever changed from a fortnight of naked moonrises – denuded of cultural values, denuded of linguistic compromise and premeditation, going with the wind and come what may. We had a crazy day of cleaning the boat, chrome, the teak, all the cracks and crevices with a q-tip – but the funniest was the reverse image of “George the Captain” from the shower wall….

purpose or porpoise

The fourth day of any venture brings big changes. The fourth day of backpacking your muscles finally get used to the load and your feet begin to take steps on their own. The fourth day of climbing you get used to the fear. The fourth day in a foreign country and you get used to the linguistic nudity. The fourth day being blown across the big blue in a fiberglass beetle shell you start to wonder what other ways you could be spending your time and what exactly the point would be. We are crossing the atlantic, following the same route as columbus, Canaries to the leeward islands… along the route of the trade winds which have been dependable since 1492 and now flicker on and off like with the whims of an fluorescent bulb in the subway. Global warming and all that.

Our fourth day saw rosy fined dawn handing me a giant spliff as Yanev spritzed a new heineken in my ear. Jorges, Doobie, Yanev and I on the bow were debating the best type of fish – discussing hydrodynamics, the advantages and disadvantages of the swim bladder, aesthetics and of course gustability. Due praise was given to the Tuna: Yellow tail, blue fin, albacore, the various mackerel and jack, the rockfish, the sculpin, cods, grouper and basses.

We agreed it was the dorado that was the choice selection, call it Mahi Mahi or dolphin, we agreed it was the perfect fish. This conversation continued for hours as we all attended to various jobs. Rebuilding wenches and sanding teak as the afternoon wore on someone would scream out dorado with creamy volute sauce and we would all salivate like Pavlov’s dog.

At two in the afternoon we all gathered in the cockpit to have a bit of rum when the fishing reel went off – a buzzing sound as hundreds of feet of 50 lb. test ran with the fish back to africa. Four days and this was the first bite we had since Las Palmas. We had seen plenty of see life. Sperm whales, porpoise and dolphins, hundreds of turtles, flying fish and 50 species of sea birds. But no fish to eat. The spinning of the real was unmistakable, we had one now. You could see it breaking the surface behind us. It didn’t want to be caught.

Yanev, jumped for joy in the unmistakable way of someone who learned to dance at a kibbutz, screaming “I want to eat a fish, I want to eat a fish”. Yanev who is a marine culture fertilization expert by trade has jerked off millions of fish for enclosed tank fertilization – but he had never seen or eaten a dorado. Sure enough a dorado, Coryphaena Hippurus was our catch. This one was solitary but over the next few days we would run across enough of them so that all of us had had our fill. Sometimes they would come in herds trying to help the one caught, sometimes we would catch an independent bull or sometimes a couple, bull and calf. But our first, a 15 Kilo solitary male was mouth watering as our day was long. Yanev took to cleaning the fish, Jorgos to finding the sake and I to pressure cooking a kilo of sushi rice. We had nori, we had wasabi, we had frozen imitation crab, canned real crab, quail eggs and salmon roe. In short we had a feast – fish so fresh you could still feel it quivering as you cut off the filets. Jorgos did the first presentation, doobie the second and I the third. We had over twenty portions of various rolls and sashimi. We entered a weird fresh fish frenzy which is the only way to explain the photographs the next morning.

Fortunately we’re flying the “what happens of the boat stays on the boat flag” – appropriate for a ship that is registered in Las Vegas, so you will just have to take my word for it, but here is the dirty. When Jorgos, Dennis and I bought provisions we bought 8 bottles of the local Gran Canarian rum – don derado arehveas. The more than patient attendant at the super dino insisted that we buy at least one bottle of the 15 year old especial – well that was the first to come out, then some jack daniels and more of the don derado not so especial. Before you could say bloody jack flint there were six scurvy sailors hurling into a thunder squall pitching and rolling through four meter seas, the sky blinking from lighting on the horizon and all of us in unison singing out the greek lyrics to kabbadies’ story about the knife – Yanev spinning around holding the mainsheet like a dirversh slipped in a drunken fog; this mishap like all our slight errors in navigation wouldn’t show up for days but when it did it was giant.

Activities on board were postponed until sunset the next day when we all pledged never to drink and smoke hash again. That lasted for about an hour when we discovered we had not just one type of hash but three. Scientific minds pressed for a comparison test – could we drink the same amount with another variety and feel fine?

Things continued this way for several days – a morning sighting of 50 porpoises, an evening catch of a herd of dolphin, some one getting hit in the back of the head by a flying fish during cocktail hour, the love birds fornicating in various sail lockers and open deck spaces – all in all a pleasant if not expedient crossing. Finally on the seventh day things – especially the boxes of milk – began to turn sour.

We still hadnt hit the trade winds, we had wound around the horn of africa – just south of dakar but global warming, like a DEA agent, had intercepted our rendezvous with the trade winds. This has caused several inconveniences – mostly having to do with our supplies of food and diesel. Although we have about 10,000 sheets of nori – by now all the vegetables are gone and we were down to less than a kilo of sugar. The captain yelled out in his broken english: “
OK guys, from now on we are on the TV show lost and these kind of things, Hurley will be in charge of rationing the food and stuff like this”. He pointed to me, and wondered if it was the curly hair that got me the job. Alright, my job to ration the food – lets eat like kings, we can have the cans of spam tomorrow.

Yenev, the whirling breslev began to complain about his rib. He was bed ridden and evidently had cracked or broken one in his fall a few days before. As an acupuncture student I was also elected to make the diagnosis – and as the ships pharmacologist I was elected to make the treatment. Well there are some standards for orthopedic assessment – if you scream something is broken. It turned out that Yanev only ripped the intercostal muscles, this didn’t change the pain that he was experiencing but at least it lessened the emergency. Everyone was glad that I had tried three pharmacies in the grand canaries before I gave up on the emergency pain meds. The first two were staffed by sleepy old men who stuck to the letter of the law when dispensing meds, the last one with three Andalusians had a more poetic interpretation. They stocked me up with a variety of gel caps, pills, capsules, liquids and self administering intra muscular injections.

I pulled out the portable chemistry lab and concocted Yanev a cocktail that kept him in his bunk for 36 hours… evidently in this case red and white did not make monochromatic pink – Yanev could be heard laughing in his sleep, the captain and I exchanged glances knowing we had discovered a solution to our shortage of food… you cant eat if your sleeping.

Eventually Yenev was back on his feet, our supplies of meds doing much better than our supplies of food… We are about at day ten with ten more to go. The middle of the atlantic, nothing in sight but the big blue…

Its interesting to notice how three seasons of six feet under on a 36 inch plasma screen, pitching and rolling across the blue encourage questioning ones purpose. Should you go back to school? Should you take a job renovating a 75 foot schooner and sail it around for the next year while earning a captains license? Should you just fish a little longer and see what else you catch? Maybe its the aesthetic of watching the moon rise a little later each night, watching the 29 day progression to fullness while being pulled by a giant spinnaker with keith herring “best buddies” on it. Maybe it doesn’t matter… but everyone here would be fine if getting to the other side of the blue took another hundred days….

Sailing the seas of cheese at
19.09N
38.14W

changes in latitude and changes in attitude…

16th of November
11:23 UTC
26° 30.783′ N
14° 39.502′ W

Nothing like a giant Argentinean steak after days of partying… six swarthy scalawags – well some not so swarthy; Jorgos the skipper, Dennis pirate boy wonder, young Maria Isebella who who accepted Dennis’s invitation last night, Doobie and Yanev – two Israeli skippers that Jorgos invited and myself. We all met last night on the final evening of the WOMAD festival in Los Palmas – an African music festival that went three days straight – 50,000 of the most beautiful spaniards mixed with all flavors of africa. My spiritual guide for the last four days, Leiko – a beautiful spanish / berber girl with dark hair / green eyes and perfect english, had to go back to Tenerife – but the party raged on none the less. There is no way to describe the enthusiasm with which we partied for the last four days, nor the bembe achieved when we realized after 96 hours that we had single handedly increased the gross exports of Afghanistan, Morocco and Columbia by 15%. A chemical gran momento de pitufeos.

For the three nights of the WOMAD festival the official program went from 4 till 4, but of the 20,000 in attendance 10,000 stragglers would stay around in a palm cuffed plaza at the marina while the moon was carried past by the hash infused trade winds. There were 10-15 different drum circles each night that represented the syncopation of ever different African nationality. I neither need to say that the three nights of the WOMAD party were the best parts of the trip so far, nor say that the drum circles got my ass shaking – just imagine the cool african wind, the wines of spain and drums of africa and you know if I was smiling or not.

After three days of the music festival we carried the party over to the boat andean style – Jorgos cooking his wares while the rest of the boat dedicated rail after rail to Iannes and his departure. Its bitter sweet to say good bye to him – he is a great guy and dedicated skipper, his old school simplicity just couldn’t keep up with the technological requirements of todays super yachts. Best Buddies is a power station consuming thousands of kilowatt hours not just the one or two amps he is used to. But when rosy fingered dawn deposited a euro into the pay phone to call his cab – there were tears. It’s funny because a party for Greeks always begins with a fight – a clearing of the air of bad vibes so that the rest of the evening could be dedicated to truth and fun. The music was blaring all night and everyone had a great time – except for maybe all the other yachts in the harbor who were rocking to the sound waves from our Bose stereo.

Business hours began and each of us took a mission after Iannes left. Doobie and Yanev to a asian market to find some nori and sushi rice, Dennis to buy new pirate flags, Jorgos to customs to have the passports stamped, I to the pharmacy to pick up some staples. By noon we left the proper yachts with crews in matching outfits – six red eyed derelicts listening to hendrix, and hit the gas station one last time for the next month. 1645 liters of diesel later and we went on our way, Jorges took a nap during the fueling and told us all he had a dream that his father told him to hurry out to see because all the marine scientist of Europe were out investigating some new marine life phenomena…

Under this good omen we left Gran Canaria and headed out into the open ocean. We made our gift to the sea, each of us kissing an orange and tossing it to the guardian of our saftey. We hugged the coast of Africa to make our appointment with the Trade Winds, in 150 miles of heading south we hit the islands of cape verde and the winds should start to blow us east.

Our first morning at sea and everyone has settled into the boats rhythm. Just an hour out of Las Palmas our sea nymph Maria Isabella became sick, the children of the Torah obsessive about the boats safety features and Jorgos, Dennis and I into a sampling of the 75 grams of blond Moroccan we had. We enjoyed some comfort food the first night – Castilian Ham enriched meat-loaf, garlic mashed potatoes and tomato salad. It is amazing to see the change in peoples personalities as they return to their domain – a calm air takes over the boat as the mood shifts to see and the playful lolling of the waves of fate. A sperm whale guiding us when land was lost on the horizon.

Morning came to round of cardamom coffee and crab meat fritata – an easy 18 knot south-west breeze, reggae on the bose and everyone on the boat speaking a new common language made from the best of hebrew, spanish, greek and engish. We all began to respond to the boats heart beat and our lingua de mare eyes open as big as the atlantic. The smell of Mauritania in the air – everyone is smiling as open as their chakras. This is our destiny – we are at sea. No accidents is the rule that must be followed, and no one can go anywhere except where our vessel takes us. Blue water and big crossings, no dirt under our feet for 16 days – one cannot describe what is left on dry land and the nudity with which our party points to new ports and new worlds.

russian sex slaves and the gnome

Arrrgh a pirates life for me… thats what every strapping young buck who’s landlocked with wanderlust n vinegar running through his veins says before the boat heaves too…. But here I am anchored at the pirate haven of gran canaria and it dont feel so great. I am john the diplomat, john the tell iannes, john the tell dennis, tell stuart, cook some food, scrub some deck bla bla bla…. and not such a young buck actually, but at least we have the
havana club and an ice maker. Oh yea and I am john the almost sold on the black market as a slave boy… dunno if you got the news about the 500 Russian sex slaves that were rescued 100 meters away from me at the port of gran canaria… maybe it didn’t make the times or gotham. But i am getting ahead of myself… So here i am in a paradise, living my dream to some extent of being a modern pirate, came close even to stealing a boat, but why is it so sour? Could be the week old lemon juice mixed with the havana club, could be women that i would rather be with in my own comfortable bed, could be the muscle spasms from 3 weeks of trying to hold my insides in place, could be these two stinky dudes… could be that i am just tired of this boat, ok right, i said ship.. but we are anchored just outside of a stinky town in a stinky bay just across from tankers and freighters unloading their stinky contraband all night. It smells like horse shit. Imagine being anchored outside jersey city in a luxury yacht, no fridge, no water pressure, in an imaginary world where the ocean is made of horse shit…. you only have havana club… oh but wait, because of the melodrama between the greek skippers, you get to stay there like that for a week.  No customs check so no leaving the boat… Ok so the story… Iannes is singing the boyzuki now on deck, dennis is asleep so maybe i can get this out before they come down and check my shackles… i wish i could say i houdini styled my escape but the lock on my ankles was defective and I am typing with my tongue. 

So this morning when rosy finger dawn strangled the shit out of me jarring me from sleep, Iannes was down below listening to a CD bequeathed by Stavros as loudly as possible to piss off dennis, dennis on watch, was listening to some rebel rock on deck to piss of iannes. Yes, i am living with two angry teenagers…  So yea, its been a month of me on this boat trying my best to get into this illiadic rosy fingered dawn shit of homers and i am slightly disillusioned. Yea, i learned the brightest stars in the sky, i know the stories of the constellations that they are in, I have seen them change a million hues of red yellow and gold as the sun rises and sets over the azure blue ocean. Eh, whatever. Angry teenagers… It was halloween around sunset, sorry – rosy fingered dusk – and dennis comes on board wearing a giant fedora – replete with turquoise conchos – a leather jacket, some kinda pirate looking Capri’s (Capri’s? is it ok for a dude to wear those?) and his guitar… Stavros a very accomplished classical musician, calls out “Who fuck you, Malaka, getting on boat, make like this?” Stavros is a great guy – over the last 1500 nautical miles he must have made 500 jokes about stupid americans and their ice makers. So things started out rough for dennis, I’ll admit, but john the bartender mixed some drinks (no ice cuz the Greeks wanted to rough it) and we started a regular conversation. Dennis has experience with this boat, and he has experience with the gay couple that owns it – we all have a laugh at the boats name “best buddies” and try to go on.  But you can tell there is friction, its palpable.  Stavros makes comments about the rock star, Dennis about the old gnome… the escalation.But dennis is a rock star, 23, dreadlocks – plays guitar and has lots of meetings planned with agents. Like me and my half assed dreams, at least he is passionate. I dont say that as a defense for him, but at his age self perception and self image is everything. Plus he is an american so rushing in, gun’s blazing is de regour. Dennis has an investment of blood and labor on this boat. He met Jorges the original skipper in
San Diego and for a month helped Jorges commission the boat. Just so you know, commissioning a boat is not like getting a car registered. Not only do you have to get all the coast guard equipment on board, but you have whatever particular fetish aspect the owners personal phobias and paranoia’s take ( this boat has five EPIRB’s – two of which are stuffed inside the pink zebra striped pillows of the master stateroom) then you also have to do this thing called sea trials – a euphemism in the boating world for lets see if this thing works and floats.

Well Dennis was there for all that, acting like tom thumb keeping the boat afloat or the owner happy (you decide on the thumb). Dennis brought the boat from san diego to panama, through the canal, across the Caribbean, to
portugal – they worked out lots of problems from what I hear. Why nothing works now i cant say. Anyway Dennis came on board, saw the bent boom vang – verbal guns blazing. Its a good thing Iannes, Stavros and I lifted the 500 pound cracked boom off and carried – yes carried – the fucker to a welding shop before he got there. Another story. Well Dennis goes into this  “it hurts my heart to see the boat this way” diatribe – implying in some way that there was blame involved. Yes, but it’s done… Maybe it was my other blog, but did i tell you about greeks, their pride and the expediency with which certain ethnicities turn from being nice to killing you? OK, seeing the megamillion dollar boom vang bent like a pretzel, duck taped to the toe rail is a little crazy – its a running joke now.  So you laugh about it. But, there is only one way to end a gun battle;  if you shoot first your in a gun battle, and nothing smells like gunpowder to a greek more than an slights on pride – oh yea, second only to their relationship to alexander the great is the greeks pride in their seamanship. You get the picture. After a few less than happy accusations the malaka started to fly; voices were raised, cell phones came out to call greece, sat phones came out to call the states (sorry mom – i am actually alive if your reading this but a satellite phone seems so ridiculous), curse words were heard in all dialects and conflict resolution john decides that dennis and I should take a walk for a while.

It’s Halloween and there are bars – what the hell. Of course there were bars, then there were after hour bars and then there was the weird hashish dealer from midnight express – another story.  But Dennis’s first question when we get off the boat is “Are there guns on board?”  Flashes of charlton hasten, the NRA, and, if you know me, you know this is when i started to really drink. Stuck on this boat for 25 days and dennis is telling me that he and Jorges think that we are smuggling drugs, guns or slaves. Do i play this? I mean i am pissed at the discomfort of the last 20 days no doubt. Extremely pissed to see Iannes and Stavros throw out all the spices, butter and bacon. I mean what is there to cook without that? Kinda pissed about the boom vang blame but the evidence speaks for itself on that so i dont give a shit. Sure Dennis and I could cross the Atlantic alone, but what bout the karma? Dennis keeps insisting on the illegal trip…  Since Iannes has avoided every port of call that has digital passport control he must be smuggling drugs or slaves. Hmmm…. Well I know that almost all of the pot has been smoked in the 15 spliff per day community ritual that Iannes calls “Make like happy and these kind of things” and I know that there is no place on the boat i have not already cleaned three times – so that leaves slaves – and there is only me on the boat… Ok did i say i was drinking?  A quick referral with my resident experts, a check on market statistics in the slave trade and i am assured that my nearly geriatric ass is not worth shit, so I laugh to myself a little, just a little. 

Now rebel without a cause has an agenda, no doubt. He is a young turk, stuck in Europe, and this boat is both a convenient ticket home and his source of cash as a deck hand. Plus there is the perk of arranging all his record label meetings with the satellite phone. The picture of selling me, an over fed, long haired, leaping gnome as a slave – moves things from the merely entertaining to the totally absurd. All the nightmares i have had about death, all the anxiety, and it is gripping me like rosy fingered dawn grips the sense of poetry,  is suddenly making sense. I am in some kind of buddhist documentary about the psychological nonsense that just precedes enlightenment. Only its reality tv or something and i dont know where the cameras are. Hi mom – look i did get in touch.  So its about 6 AM on the first of november when we get back to the boat. It looks like a who concert without the lasers. Pot smoke that you can smell down the wharf rolling out of the boats companion way like a fog machine. My first concern is about the pot rations. Frowns on the Greeks however indicate someone had been sold out. Stavros has his bags packed and He and Iannes were saying goodbyes. Clearly neither of the Greeks, who were having their dream vacation on an American’s mega yacht, enjoyed  the little kid interrupting their vacation rustico – what could be done. Words were exchanged and blood was spilt. Don’t start a gun battle and expect it to end like a race at Saratoga.  Dennis, was apparently sent by the owner to find out why the boat skipped four ports of call and why every arrangement by the owners to have technicians available was avoided; why even Gibraltar itself the gateway to the atlantic was skipped when Iannes found out that Dennis would be waiting there. Things were fishy, that i have to admit, but hey its me john – Navigations systems failed, no food, no water, keep sailing? Can I fish for tuna? …OK! Especially if there are 15 perfectly rolled spliffs being handed to me every day. 

Well you dont have to be Dick Tracy to see there must be back story with the owner, manager, Iannes the temp skipper and dennis. I dont know what it is and I dont care. My guess after the drug dogs scene and the ensuing accusations is that it includes both drugs, guns and slaves. But, I liked Stavros, and I especially liked telling Dennis the little ben harper lick playing dread wearing child that the CD he was listening to was composed and arranged by Stavros. But guns on the boat? Fucker skyped his parents as soon as we got cell phone reception, “mommy I’m ok”.   Ask me if there are guns when your ready to use one… the 400 M-16’s with grenade launchers we were trying to smuggle from europe to Angola are under my bed, why do you think i took the cabin? So we said our bitter good byes to Stavros – ok he is lazy, but i was on a boat with him for three weeks – you can’t dislike a human you were with in a situation like this. Best, we cruised out of the harbor waving our good byes blaring a cd of Stavros’ accompanied with the greek philharmonic through the bose surround sound (which is still working) like a scene in apocalypse now, heading for the strait of gibraltar and the Sea of Cortez.  Now here in Gran Canarias, 685 nautical miles and 5 days later,  I feel like i have been baby sitting fighting siblings for five days. Its been alright for me – I caught three tuna and cooked them up nice.  Iannes smoking his spliffs on one end of the boat sending me to tell dennis something – Dennis smoking his hash on the other end of the boat asking me to tell Iannes something – both hoping for someone to get high with and me refusing to deliver the message unless the tribute is paid. So – eyes looking like burning embers and stuffed with tuna, we pulled into the harbor at Gran Canarias and here we sit while we wait for Jorges to come – at least a week – no refrigerator, no water pressure, but the slow trickle of ice cubes coming from the ice maker and lots of havana club. I guess i should admit that some of this is my own psychotic rambling – the shackles on my feet didn’t break.  None the less, here is sit, and I will be here, sitting, for at least a week. As it turns out Dennis isn’t working for the owner – if the owners interest were the issue we wouldn’t be sitting here for a week as the trade winds are already blowing and we have a birth paid for in Antigua.

These are small time lazy people arguing over propriety through messengers and ambassadors. Everyone looking to milk the bull. And all here in a pirates paradise, 100 meters from shore, thousands of russian slaves within eye sight, over a month on a boat feeling like an unmilked bull – and I can go nowhere -  except to the bottom of this bottle of havana club.  So my land locked friends,  when you look up at the moon, waning as it will do, wonder if I under the same moon, have found a way to get the guns the short distance to angola, wonder if i am having fun, and most importantly, wonder if the havana club has run out.

26 Oct 2006

26 Oct 8:36 UTC
38 06.650 N
00 14.150 E

Mallorca and land was short lived. I was flirting with a couple of the Norwegian crew on the 140′ mega yacht aviva and iannes was running down the pier screaming start the engines. Stavros shortly behind was waving his hands in the air to cast off. Not exactly sure what happened but original greek included lots of malaka. It was the first time i got to pilot the Best Buddies and hoist the sails, Iannes and Stavros thought it better to hide below while we past out the harbor.

Every muscle is tired from trying to hold my insides in place, the rocking motion of the boat is never smooth. One false move and your hurling across the bowling alley that is the galley of this monster vessel. At least the fish are bitting and we are eating well. Perhaps tonight a nice fricassee and some fava. Iannes and Stavros seem to have a different attitude about the trip than I. They don’t want any of the ships systems as they are faulty and causing more problems than they are worth. Yesterday we trashed 10 days of meat from the refrigeration system. Fortunately i have a portable freezer in my cabin stuffed with lamb. But the ice maker guys, where are the priorities.

We are about an hour away from the zero degree mark, Dan Brown’s famous rose line. Its weird to think about that being the demarcation of the orient and the Occident – or do they not have such a clear cut line to keep the population confused? A celebration drink would be in order – there are 4 half gallons of Gin on the boat and 12 sixers of tonic – guys what about the ice?

The boat was covered with the dust of the Magreb this morning – the seagull’s singing the prayer call – I will continue to fish

25 Oct 2006

10.23.068:00 UTC38°50′070008°21.240 

Just south of Sardegna, past the old lighthouse on Isle de Toro, crossing the Abyssal plain west of the Tyreanian towards the Balearics, Menorca, Mallorca and Ibiza. Our day yesterday on the Tyrennian was exciting. The night before, saturday night was punctuated by heaving to and the heaving of the boom against the vang. When i took my coffee on deck, i could see that the boom vang had been mangled into a 90° back scratcher. How much could a hydraulic boom vang cost anyway? This aerospace technology was about 6 feet long, looking like a giant shock absorber with a hydraulic inlet valve, controlled by a pump in the cockpit. The previous day while crossing the Ionian sea, a moderate squall and 4 meter seas combined to bend the vang slightly, it looked like it was just misaligned in the cylinder. I thought nothing of it, Iannes the skipper looks calm and it must just be misaligned.  I asked Stavros if we should loosen the vang hydraulics until we could address the situation and he shrugged his shoulders. I did so. Somehow 30 hours later that was proposed as the reason for the final mangling bend by Stavros. Then he extolled me on the virtues of never touching something you dont know about. But wait, hydraulic boom vangs? Haven’t we used these before? It finally dawned on me that I am the only one on the boat who has used them – and what a precarious position it is to be with people who hold “dont touch what you dont know about” attitude when crossing the Mediterranean. Diesel, generators, water makers, pumps, macerators, GPS’s and all manner of bullshit comforting systems on this boat that could go wrong and cause real epic situations. I have a screwdriver in my hands at all times and my companions long for the romance of days gone by – simple ships and simple men. 

I encouraged us to immediately take the vang off. As it turns out the gooseneck that attached the boom to the mast was also cracked. I had visions of the boom snapping at the mast as 900 square feet of sail and the boom swung forward propelling one of us overboard with the force greater than the best roman seize engines. The main sail on ‘Best Buddies must be at least 900 square feet. Yes thats larger than my apartment. But the force of 900 feet of sail cloth on that goose neck with the vang compressed and tweaked could have done anything. Pistons launched through skulls, a head trapped between the boom and the mast… I get crazy visions sometimes that tend to keep me out of harms way. The crack on the gooseneck goes totally through one of the two tangs welded to the boom. This is aluminum plate 1.25 to 1.5 inches thick – not thick enough however. A very dangerous situation and probably a 15 thousand dollar repair. 

It was blowing 25-30 knots as Stavros, Iannes and I went to the mast to try to release the vang. Meter and a half seas flying into our eyes, We pulled the vang off and made a new one out of one of the running back stays – though we had hardware to construct a more permanent solution. Stavros hitched the Vang to the toe rail on the port side with a blue rip cord then duck taped the pump end in place for good measure. Duct tape? The vang weighs easily two hundred pounds – its attached to the boat with duct tape. What was I apart of… I hastily sent off a short-wave radio email to the boats owner and took a swig of rum. 

Fortunately that one brief moment was the only time i felt scared physically. Now i wonder what Iannes and Stavros have planned. They want to have me as a scape goat for the broken boom? This thing is 500 pounds and 30 feet long, to have it welded will be a miracle. The boat cannot continue across the atlantic like this. But maybe that would be ok too. One thing is for sure, there is some bad mojo on the boat, every frigging system and feature has failed. Thank god that stavros insisted to iannes that we have an auto pilot and they installed on in the best greek fashion – attached with two locking ties to a piece of driftwood shimmied with two boatyard blocks into the cockpit. But it works. Except for 10 hours during the storm that we took shifts the ST3000 Pilot has been keeping us on course for four days. However I am reminded of what Haley said about greeks fixing a boat – an anchor is bent and what do you do? Back up a truck over it of course, likely destroying two homes in the process. But now Iannes is saying the refrigerators are broken or not working and we need to start getting rid of food. The freezer is not cold that is certain but could this be sabotage? 

Ultimately we will be stopping in Mallorca. It is according to some informants the location of the Nexus representative of Spain. The real – should i say, expensive but not working autopilot manufacturer. I cannot wait to get back into that electronic quagmire, but it seems small compared to the problem with the boom. Stavros first tried to convince me in the best diplomatic ways that we should only stay in Mallorca for two days to keep moving, but later in the evening he was acceding that 4 where possible for all the repairs we had. Iannes, Staves and I have been taking GPS fixes from one of the hand held GPS every four hours and plotting it on a paper chart. Thats fine – but this boat has a megamillion dollar plotter with maps for all the waters we are in – eh, technology and that word starts good dinner conversation with the greeks- 

Sunset Tuesday24 Oct 16:28 UTC39° 18.4633° 31.967 

Eight hundred and eighty six nautical miles from the start of this journey in the sleepy harbor of levkas. Things have gone haywire on the boat, I am not sure if Iannes is intentionally breaking the ships systems as an excuse to renege on his delivery or just trying to remind himself of the mariners ways from ancient times. Last evening Iannes pulled everything out of the refrigerator and put it into a casserole – that during choppy seas this afternoon was dumped onto the galley floor. I have had coffee and olives all day and despite that have enjoyed the boats topping wave after wave – especially now as the sun sets on Mallorca just twenty miles away. 

I woke this morning from a nightmare that the boom had broken totally off – the same pounding and heaving as before was there as my eyes opened – I ran on deck and everything seemed fine but the boom was resting on the bimini cover and limp as a dead fish. I guess we will see what happens. The short-wave radio transmissions with the navigation electronics manufacturer is not looking promising as they want to send the owner of the boat a whole new system that he pays for and then after they examine the old system, they will determine if its covered under warranty. So that leaves the refrigeration, the generator, the bilge pumps and of course the broken boom to be repaired in Mallorca. We have two days. Half heartedly i searched through the boats schematics again today to prepare for the electronics jumble that i will have to jump back into – but first our port of call and a few rum cocktails with the locals… 

We will arrive in Palma late tonight, I doubt i will edit this at all.

If inclined – send canned meats and protection from the evil eye.

mal de mare ionia

2006/10/20 14:45 UTC
37 56′ N 17 21′ E
out of levkas finally as sun set, Ithaca, home of Odysseus then Cephalonia to port. Two hours into the Ionian Sea we hit a squall, 35 knot winds and seas up to 4 meters. For such a ginormous boat, this thing really moves – 8.5 knots plus all night. We should reach Capo Rizzuto by midnight and pass through the straight of Messina by sunrise.

Haley fled the boat as customs requested the official crew list – now only Iannes, the garden gnome and I eat all this food.

sent short wave fq 12.393 Mhgz 14:04:03 utc

In the strait of messina, north to the scilla and charybdis then west again south of the Eiolean islands to Palermo where we get a saturday night to repair the generator again. 100 km north is the island of ponza, go there.

36 30′N  16 E

drug dogs, passport control and a hasty departure…

Saturday October 14th 2006We have spent the last three days trying to repair the generator. Strange that I have been here a week and a half and not sailed this ship yet. Everything takes hours to accomplish here and you learn to slow down some. This is true not only of the type of repairs we are trying to do to the boats systems but any errands in town take hours. We tried to do some simple servicing of the generator and a minor repair to the exhaust manifold. After hours of work and a four hour test run we discovered the original source of the seawater leak we were trying to repair under the engine. To service these hoses we needed to hoist the engine and generator, this was further delayed by the need to build an iron scaffolding around the bulwarks for the bilges. Hours became days as i watched the soap opera of Gorges and Ianness trying to accomplish even the simplest task. Gorges said to me one Greek alone can accomplish anything but two or more together could accomplish nothing and this was proven out by lengthy debates about the best way to take off each screw and thousands of requisite spliff breaks. The drama took epic proportions when gorges came back to the boat with 12 Greek  undercover narcotics officers, two german sheppard’s and a judge. 
Allegedly Gorges was randomly stopped by officers and was carrying 11 grams of cocaine on the way to the bus depot where a part was being delivered by the Greek version of FedEx – bribed bus drivers. We were never really clear if the cocaine came in the package with the part or if he ever received a package at the bus depot. Gorges spent the night in jail and joined us Friday night the 13Th of October, the planned date for our departure from Levkas. But generator problems saved our ship from leaving on with such ill luck. The one day generator repair became three and we were living on a dark ship for two of those when we discovered that the starboard engine mount for the generator was no longer serviceable. The generator is necessary particularly for a boat of this size and power consumption. We could never charge the entire electrics of this boat of the 250 HP Yanmar diesel drive engine’s alternator. The Generator was important and could not leave port with out it. But at the end of Saturday night it was all fixed and you could feel the anticipation of leaving. Both for Gorges and Christin who will begin their vacation for a month as soon as we leave, and for us. 

Iannes, Haley or Australian visa hopper, Dennis the boy from
San Diego who I have not yet met, and myself will leave Levkas by Tuesday for at least 10 days and try to reach Gibraltar straight to save time. The only major problems we have left are minor. This boat being commissioned in the states has a number if systems that do not accommodate European facilities. The propane tanks have American threads, no one in the islands can fill these types of tanks. We have the option of getting a Greek regulator and bypassing the American system but then we would have the same problem we we arrived in the Caribbean. We need to figure out the GPS system for the plotter and the Nobletec computer navigation system. There was an existing GPS that functioned through the VHF radio and the Autopilot. That old GPS also plugged into the new Raymarine Plotter and the computer. There was a new Raymarine GPS and antenna that was also added as a fail safe that fed only the plotter and computer. At any rate neither antenna is working and we have been joking for the last 24 hours that if we need to we can get the phone number of the detectives who have been assigned to watch us for the next year. In fact we saw one of the earlier nights inspecting officers, one of Jorge’s arresting officers and a couple of young girls where evidently the cops where showing off where they had spent the night before. At any rate there is not much work left to do so we have decided to party tonight. Gorges being released and the drug dogs not finding anything incriminating on the boat have all raised our spirits and the night holds promise. 
The discos in Lefkas are not exceptionally exciting but the fervor with which those Greeks that do go out pursue their night life is exceptional. We went to three places last night where Iannes Haily and I were amused by the beautiful locals. We had hung out together some but mostly all ambled about the locals. I love Greek women.

We had some fun for a couple nights but the real weirdness came when Jorges began to suspect that I had turned him in to the police. I get the sense that Greeks could slice you open at a moments notice if they feel wronged. Well time passed and as it turns out Iannes probably turned him in and now the two of them have been fighting and we may not have a skipper at all. Haley was of course petrified by the whole thing and was counting the seconds for immigration to come check her visa.7:09 PM 
For three days I screwed around with the electronics systems on the boat; there is one digital instrumentation system and one plotter that has chart chips for all the waters we will be sailing. Normally the systems would share data without issue, failing over to gps locations from each other should there be a failure. The owner of the boat however who was impressed with the switchs that came in modern aircraft to switch between GPS’s, insisted that one be put in his yacht. That switch created the worst mess of wiring that I have ever seen. Nothing labeled nothing marked, everything fucked up. So we will set sail tomorrow for Gibraltar with nothing but a hand held GPS. Not that that is not safe enough, I have never even had that, but still on a 70’ yacht with 30,000 dollars of navigation equipment… wtf?

Today the tensions between Jorges and Iannes have tamed but I had a conversation with Jorges. He thinks that Iannes turned him in because he was charged with possession of 5 kilos of pot and that Iannes brother was arrested recently with two thousand kilos of coke. Iannes was supposed to be picked up by the police and when Jorges was walking down the street, they mistook the two. That was overshadowed however when Iannes told the police that one of our crew members had an extended visa. Oops now Haley has the prospect of a 1500E exit toll. Wow what drama. Meanwhile, the dogs come on the boat and they don’t find the 50gms of weed that Iannes has stashed.  
We took the boat out for a test sail today and filled up the tanks with 2500 liters of diesel. The boat is a real ship, it reacts so slowly to the wind and is so slow, but it has a masterful sail plan and I am sure we will be having a good time.

The night is looking like a real winner, already I was bought two glasses of bourbon by a Brit here for the winter, and she wrote me a formal letter of introduction with a wax seal and everything. Of course, the letter is to another bar in
Gibraltar but what can you do.Iannes said that he will probably get off the boat in ‘Gib’ … then what Haley and I sail alone to
Antigua? 
So its out to party tonight, do a little disco and relax…Then tomorrow I bid farewell to Jorges and Kristen until November when they will meet me in
Antigua.

What a story… Iannes and his weed, Kostas the musician who looks like a garden gnome and Hally the stow away off to Gibralter… 
More in ten days, if I can transmit by the ssb…sooner

revolting flags

As I left the majestic hotel tessela, I was thinking about the twist and turns of life. What is the draw of the oriental – or to orientalize? My new friend Peter Lamborn Wilson says in Sacred Drift: the “romantic perception deliberately distorts, but does so in the interests of freeing the very means of perception from the oppression of consensus and the deadly humdrum of mere accuracy”. As I closed the book on my morning reading about muslim heretics, 6 crazy greek telecom repairmen in their green euro dickies, much cooler than american dickies, chain smoking as if they had never left the bar the night before, growled in a friendly but greek way to me, that i had to pay for the coffee. Its 8 AM only the man who caught me the night before in the refrigerator is still on duty – so I have to make other arrangements for paying my bill. The second night here in Corfu and I had a dinner with the boat owner and his family, along with both Captain’s – Gorges and Iannes, and the Guest. Went out for just one drink, and had a caprianna with some locals. My hand is steady as i say in a greek way, perhaps next time i pass through these parts I can pay completely for the room. Thursday night, after having dinner on the boat, I went out with the of duty Captain, Gorges, and then ended the night at a brit ex-pat bar, ‘Skippers’ – Only maritime Welsh and Brits hang here for the rum and throwing darts. One particularly salty dog, Edward, more worn than a seasoned storm sail, claimed to have a very old caravelle that was used for piracy. He explained that he drank the local spirits only for diplomacy and preferred irish whisky. He couldn’t hold it very well.  Saturday morning after having a quick breakfast i loaded my large duffel onto the moped i had rented and went over to the boat. It was raining as i got on, Gorges and Kirsten were sleeping in the bow, I dumped the bag and brought back the moped. My greek moped vender and wine merchant told me to leave the moped in the back yard by the wine press. He had the capability of producing about 500 liters of wine at a time. Iannes got to the boat about 10AM and Gorges and Kirsten didn’t wake up till 1:30 – They just had their first rest since moving the boat over in February from panama. Clients every week for the whole summer. It wasn’t till about two that we started the engines, Iannes smoking spliff after spliff.  39°38.896N

19°51.077E 

The 240HP yanmar purrs, we cast off, and we leave Corfu’s Gouvia Marina at 2:30 PM. The rain begins to come down pretty hard and visibility is dim. Not so dim however in leaving the harbor that we cannot see Edward passing by, returning to port from his day sail with five of the local surly tart’s. The boat is outfitted with a new school chart plotter – radar system so that you can overlay the radar readout with the charts. We hear on the VHF that there is one boat missing, a floating container and a person who fell off a tanker somewhere in the waters will will cross. Its 9 hours and 172 nautical miles to Levka, Iannes is still chain rolling spliffs for himself and I am wondering about his judgement. The rain stopped at about hour 6, long after dark. The clouds parted at about 8:30 so that we could see the one night waning moon. Iannes wanting to prove himself worthy of taking over the boat, pointed Gorges to the first second of two green harbor lights and the sand drift, clearly marked as moving on the charts was in the way… OK judgement… Gorges threw the boat into reverse and pumped the bow thrusters to keep us from meeting sand with our shallow 6′6″ draft. That was exciting – or so i convinced myself at the time,  i could see the sand bar in the moon light but evidently Iannes and Gorges were speaking greek.  Gorges navigated us under the small rotating draw bridge and then into a 70.5 foot birth that was 19 feet wide, this ship is 70 feet including the anchor off the bow and has a berth of 18′ – that was quite a ballet for a 52 ton ship. I think technically from my experience, not too much maybe – 52 tons makes a ship.  Gorges’ father Dimitrius came aboard to tell demitrius he could park a ship anywhere but he needed to trim his beard, we all cracked open the wine and rum – several other current residents of the harbor came with rum too, and a swell time was had by all.At about 12:30 Gorges and Kirsten left for the hotel at the harbor and Iannes joked about him running us aground on the way to the Caribbean. 38°49.203N20°42.196E Monday October 9 2006Spent the entire day inventorying provisions cleaning and inspecting various ports, valves and crevices that this ship has. Tonight I make a grocery list for the first leg of the trip, feeding between 4 and 6. As it turns out we have a variety of salty stowaways that will be staying in the previously mentioned crevices of the boat. Some for visa reasons, some because they like the free ride to Tenerife.   Lots of workmen were scheduled to do work on the boat today. We need to shorten the head stay by 10 cm. and the sail maker needs to do some repairs to the main. We have some electrical work to do and minor gel coat work around the deck. We went Kirsten and I went several times to Dimitrius’ office but he only shook his hand in the air and said “yes, i think maybe tomorrow, i think its best, maybe too close to sunday for work”. I however am exhausted. Buying some small groceries today I tried to find some internet cards for the WiFi that is built around the harbor, but all the kiosk vendors said only “yes, i think maybe tomorrow, i think its best, maybe too close to sunday for work”.  The boat overall is in great shape, there is really no major issue to address. We have already changed the filters for the water maker, serviced the refrigeration system and gone through every galley space and cabinet. Only the wind direction indicator needs to be addressed but even that would be fine to wait until Antigua.  

I had dinner with Dimitrius and Kirsten as Iannes and Gorges were still in Athens getting the provisions for the trip. I now understand why this ship flies the flag of the Greek Resistance, Gorges comes from a family of infidels – and now i sleep on their ship.

Escape from Athens

9:30 PM

Now we are talking, after a mediocre meal, i found a place with live boyzouki, underneath the lights of the acropolis, the moon over head – this alone was worth the ticket from New York.

As it turns out, one of the reasons that the heretical ibn Arabi was decapitated by the orthodox caliphate was because he believed one could observe the glory of god by watching a beautiful 12 year olds face. I don’t know about god but sitting just two hundred meters from the Areopagus where Paul delivered his sermon to the Greek’s, I feel slightly heretical watching young girls dancing to the boyzouki. It must be for this reason that many aficionados call boyzouki more desolate than the most down and out 12 bar blues.

10:30 PM

I have found the hot spot – the streets are literally packed with kids, rebels and adults wishing that they still had a little rebellion left in them. Finally I have found someone I can speak my new testament Greek to, but there is something diabolical in the fact that he keeps charging me 8 euros a cocktail and replies only soon you will be saved. I would otherwise be able to pass for a Greek, mostly because i am chain smoking and have glued a rabbit pelt to my chest.

There is a certain palpable esotericism to Athens. Certain souls here have passed through forbidden gates, and you can see in their eyes their wisdom, you can feel the depth of their souls and the power of their otherworldly magnetism. This place is old, probably the oldest place i have ever been apart from Cairo. I think that the orgone energy of every living American could not equal a 95th generation Athenian who venerates an elder who happened to drink hemlock in the name of truth.

12:30 PM

At the airport now – could still be clubbing for another three hours but that’s what happens when you don’t fully research the logistics. Turns out that the last 10 kilometers of the train to the airport closes at 8 pm. I should have just stayed at the clubs… but as i was going to the airport my train stopped at some godforsaken suburb that even Alexander the great would have found remote. Of course there was a bus waiting at the end of the line, but when i asked the driver in my new testament Greek if it would take me to the airport he said only “The airport has not yet been baptized, you need taxi for salvation”. That was a 20 euro setback. The only upshot is that the bourbon at the airport is 6 euros less than the bourbon at the club. I ended up saving 60 euros for the night – i guess there was some salvation in the new testament Greek.