Three Ways to Capsize a Boat - Chris Stewart [16]
It seemed to me at that moment as if everything was in harmony: the food, the colors, the people, the hot sun, the view of the little harbor and the blue sea below … as if I’d passed through a portal into a different, more congenial dimension.
Tim was a walker and a climber and lover of the mountains, and was writing a book about the mountains of Greece. I dearly wanted to go to the mountains, too. One thing that we both emphatically agreed upon was that we always—and neither of us ever made an exception to this rule—traveled alone. So when Tim told me that he was planning to go for a ten-day journey into the Pindos Mountains, up near the Macedonian border, I thought about it for a bit, and then said, “Can I come along too?”
He looked at me in surprise, and hesitated just a moment before saying, “Yes, why not? That would be very nice.”
“And come to think of it,” I continued pensively, “I’m going to need somebody to help me bring the boat down from Kalamaki to Spetses. Are you a sailor?”
Now, to a seasoned nautical man, the business of sailing a Cornish Crabber single-handed down the Saronic Gulf in the summer would offer little difficulty … but you never know, and besides it would be nice to have some company.
“Never been on a sailing boat in my life,” he replied, blinking hard, “but I’d be very happy to give it a go.”
In Praise of a Bucket
A WEEK OR so after our lunch with the Joyces we got under way.
Tim had a good idea to start off with, suggesting that we take the ferry, rather than the hydrofoil, back to Athens, in order to stand on deck and get a good look at the route that we would be taking with the Crabber, when and if it were ever ready. We duly took note of every islet and peninsula along the way—and noted, too, that one island looks much like another from the sea. But it was a fairly straightforward route: sail close to the shore and keep the land on your left—or your right, that would be, coming from Athens.
Once at Piraeus we took the bus along to Kalamaki Marina. It was a Monday and by the time we got to the yard it was long into the searing heat of siesta time, a time when the Nikoses would never deign to work. But there was the trikiklo, and as we approached the Crabber we heard the sound of banging—the universal concomitant of men and work—coming from deep in the bowels of the boat. And then red-beard-Nikos, caked in engine grease and soaked in sweat, a truly disgusting sight, clambered out of the hole where the engine lived, and announced: “That’s it, man. Noo engine in. All we need now is get the boat rigged. I reckon we get it done tonight, you fill up some gas, and tomorrow morning you sail away to Spetses.”
I figured that the way to get an undertaking like this on the move was to throw some cold beer at it, so I took the trikiklo to town and bought a couple of crates of Marathon.
When I got back, the frenetic pace of the work had subsided a little, as the Nikoses and Tim were squatting in the dust in the shade of the boat, deep in discussion of the antifascist poetry of Seferis and Gatsos. At least, that’s what Tim said. They were all talking Greek, Tim with an easy fluency that made the Nikoses seem even better company in their native language. I felt the smallest bit left out.
“Right,” I shouted. “Enough with the literary seminars, let’s get this boat rigged.”
Little by little, by judicious application of warming beer and the sharp side of my tongue, I managed to get them moving. By the cool of the evening we were ready to raise the mast. We hauled it up, gleaming with a dozen coats of oil, tightened all the ropes that held it in place, and then fitted the boom. At last the Crabber started to look like a sailing boat. I climbed off her time after time just to go and stand at a distance and admire the sight. Night fell, and at last she was all set to go. The plan was that the Nikoses would make the arrangements with the harbor crane to put her in the water first thing