Ta'Xbiex, Malta
November 15, 1998Dear Friends:
The Mediterranean Sea, we discovered, is composed largely of other seas, with names like the Ligurian Sea and the Tyrrhenian Sea. During the summer of 1998, we sailed (or more often motored) through many of these seas, visited 9 different countries, saw some spectacular sights (especially in Istanbul and Venice), made 62 passages and covered more than 3500 miles.
THE SAMOS SEA AND THE DARDANELLES We left Kusadasi, Turkey, where we spent the winter, on the fifth of May, heading north along the coast. It was early in the season, but the north winds that prevail throughout the Mediterranean during the summer were already blowing. When the winds were not too strong, we motored against them as far as we could, anchored, and hoped that the next day would be calm. If it wasn't, we stayed put, fretting because we had planned a very ambitious schedule for the season, and hated to leave anything out.
By mid-May, we had reached the Dardanelles. It was a thrill to sail up this huge crack between the continents -- Europe on the left and Asia on the right -- but it was slow going, because there is a constant current flooding through the strait from the Black Sea. We motor at about six knots, but we were often reduced to less than two knots over the ground.
Midway through the Dardanelles, the strait narrows to a few hundred yards. On the south side is Canakkale, where we tied up to the town wharf, and took a tour on the north side, the peninsula of Gallipoli. Gallipoli is covered with monuments commemorating the disastrous campaign fought here in World War I. Some of you have seen the movie with Mel Gibson about Gallipoli; we hadn't, so the history was new to us. The Allies tried to force their way through the strait, but in the end, after eight months, gave up -- after 110,000 men had died, including 66,000 Turks. The Allied forces were mainly "Anzac" troops from Australia and New Zealand, and everyone in our tour group (except us) was Australian.
The battle was remarkable, not only for the number of casualties -- more than half of those who fought -- but also for the respect that the troops in the trenches on either side eventually felt for each other. They traded cigarettes and chocolates, and sometimes fired at bees and flies rather than each other. When the Allies finally retreated, there were no casualties (rather than the predicted 40,000), because the Turks would not shoot them in the back. It was also this battle that made a hero out of a relatively minor officer, Mustafa Kemal -- who later became Ataturk, the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey. He correctly guessed the Allied battle plan, and held off the attack with his troops -- losing 97 percent of them -- until reinforcements arrived.
Our Gallipoli guide, Ali, was a retired submarine and merchant marine captain, whose grandfather fought on the Turkish side. His extensive military knowledge and obvious interest in the subject made his discussions of the battle very colorful and dramatic. He was fascinated by our adventure, and at the end of the day he invited us to his home for dinner. His wife, Aiten, greeted the arrival of unexpected guests with aplomb and grace -- and a delicious dinner. They live in a fishing village, but their house is rather grandiose; Ali obviously did well as a ship's captain.
THE SEA OF MARMARA AND ISTANBUL We continued up the Dardanelles the next day, and then into the Sea of Marmara, anchoring the second day at the island of Marmara, from which the sea takes its name. Marmara means marble, and in fact the whole island is made of marble. There were giant quarries near the bay where we anchored, with huge slabs of marble, and even the breakwater was made of chunks of marble. The next day there was almost no wind, so we motored some 60 miles, all the way to a marina on the outskirts of Istanbul.
We felt surrounded by history in Istanbul. This was the capital of the civilized world for many centuries, and there we were, "sailing to Byzantium." After Byzantium, of course, it was Constantinople, the "new Rome" and capital of the Byzantine Empire. And then it was Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. We saw impressive remnants of all these empires: we saw the remains of the heavy chain that the Byzantines put across the mouth of the Golden Horn to prevent the Ottoman boats from sailing in (to no avail, because Mehmet the Conqueror put his boats in at a small cove nearby and had them transported overland on rollers and slides at night, catching the defenders completely by surprise), and we walked along the old Byzantine walls, a much more effective deterrent until Mehmet got a Hungarian to build him the world's largest cannon.
It was raining during our first few days there, so we went first to the Covered Bazaar, since it was, indeed, covered. It was much fancier than we had anticipated -- a mini-city in itself, with more than 4,000 shops. We also went to the mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent, which our guidebook calls "the grandest of all Turkish mosques," built in the mid-16th century. It is huge, with four enormous minarets, big domes, and beautiful stained glass windows (done by one Ibrahim the Drunkard). In the mosque's graveyard, many of the stones had hats on them; a rarity now, because the practice of topping gravestones with fezzes or turbans was outlawed by Ataturk in the 1920s as part of his attempt to westernize Turkey. Another of his reforms, changing the calendar to a western one, was evident in the dates on some of the stones -- "born 1422, died 1943," for example.
When the weather cleared, we hopped the train again and again for more forays into the heart of Byzantium. We were amused by the entrepreneurs walking the aisles of the trains, with a fast patter and a wild variety of stuff for sale: cigarette lighters, extension cords, fountain pens, even beach balls -- in a city that has no beaches, but where everyone can dream of sunny expanses of golden sand. Someone told us that those who sold dreams did much better than those who sold practicality.
Everything about Istanbul seemed beautifully old, from the 12th-century walls to the 18th-century narrow wooden houses that line the streets. We saw dozens of sights, but the two which dominate the city as well as our memories are the Blue Mosque and Aya Sophia. The Blue Mosque takes its name from the beautiful blue tiles lining the walls. Approaching from the front, you see first a small dome atop the gate, then another gate, topped by another dome. Beyond that are more half-domes (or "semi-domes"), one after another, until finally you see the main dome, with forests of smaller domes to the side, completed by the six unique minarets -- designed, like the domes, to draw the worshippers' eyes heavenward.
Aya Sophia started life as a church, built by the Emperor Justinian; and not just a church, but the greatest church in Christendom for almost a thousand years -- from the time it was built in 548, until the conquest in 1453. Going in the main entrance, you first see only the brilliant colors of the stained-glass windows. Then you see two massive doorways, and beyond them a semi-dome with a gold mosaic of the Madonna and Child. Then you see another beautiful mosaic over another massive door, another semi-dome, and then what appears to be the famous main dome. But this turns out to be only another semi-dome, and continuing further you see, finally, the magnificent main dome, soaring above and seemingly held up by nothing. The secret, which has astonished so many people over so many centuries, is that the dome is built of special hollow bricks from a unique light, porous clay, and supported by massive pillars hidden in the walls.
And of course we saw Topkapi Palace as well. The palace is an "Asian" palace, composed of many buildings in a large complex, like those we had seen previously in Beijing and Bangkok, rather than a "European" palace, a single large building like those in St. Petersburg and other places in Europe. In the case of Topkapi, there are four courtyards, with various buildings around them. One houses the extensive rooms of the harem (the Sultan's private living quarters). Others house a huge collection of porcelain and glassware; a collection of imperial robes and uniforms, and the Imperial Treasury. Here we saw the famous Topkapi dagger, set with three large emeralds; the world's fifth-largest diamond; a figurine of a sultan sitting under a canopy, his body one enormous pearl, next to a figurine of a black eunuch whose pantaloons are also one huge pearl; and many, many other objects decorated with diamonds, pearls, rubies, emeralds, gold and silver.
We waited more days for bad weather to clear. At last, when the weather reports looked favorable, we planned an early morning departure. We awoke to the haunting sound of the muezzins around the city calling the faithful to prayer with their melancholy chants, their phrases beginning and ending at different intervals, like a round. It was the last time we heard that sound so provocative of the East.
THE BLACK SEA: BULGARIA, ROMANIA & THE UKRAINE Heading north, we wound our way from Istanbul up the 17 miles of the Bosporus, dodging all the big ships coming and going and an incredible number of ferries and other small craft crossing from one side to another, then popped out into the Black Sea. There was no wind, so we motored the rest of the day and night, to Varna, Bulgaria. We were greeted within minutes of our arrival by all of the officials, who told us that because of a recent agreement with the U.S. we didn't need visas, and there would be no fees or charges of any kind! What a contrast with Turkey and Greece, where we had to spend endless hours seeking out the officials, getting visas and "transit logs," and paying lots of fees.
Varna is very green, with lots of wonderful old-world buildings. We were a popular attraction in the little yacht club harbor ("yacht club" in this context meaning a sailing center, not a club in the American sense), especially on the weekend as people strolled along the waterfront. One of our visitors was Penko, the "founding father" of the yacht club, and once the manager. Now retired, he spends most of his time on his tiny cruising yacht, almost a miniature of Another Horizon. When he discovered that we planned to go on to Romania, he said, "Oh dear, watch out for the gypsies. They'll rob you, or the children will surround you and pick your pockets."
We engaged an enterprising taxi driver to take us on a tour of the countryside. He showed us the palace of the last Romanian queen, a fancy resort area, and the remains of a Byzantine monastery carved into the side of a cliff. Asen, our driver, interested us as much as the scenery. He crews on a tugboat when he's not driving a taxi, working hard to make a better life for his wife and child. He cannot afford to take any days off, he said, but he counts himself lucky because he owns his own house, inherited from his father and grandfather who accumulated property during the Communist regime when it was cheap. When he learned we were going next to Romania, he said, "Watch out for the gypsies; very bad, the gypsies!"
After three enjoyable days, we hailed the friendly officials to come check us out. Our friend Hristo helped us with our lines, Penko blew his horn as we backed out, and the fishermen and sailors on other boats smiled and waved goodbye; it was all quite touching.
In Constanta, Romania, we were directed to a spot along the wharf by a guard shack with two soldiers on duty 24 hours a day; oh well, we thought, at least we'll be safe. The officials, all with solemn faces, glumly issued us temporary visas and warned us about gypsies; "a difficult problem," they said, apologetically. The mood of Constanta seemed to match that of the officials: glum. There were no signs of rejuvenation, as was so evident in Varna, and there seemed to be no interest in tourists. We smiled and said "salut" ("hello" in Romanian) to the locals, but were greeted only with suspicious stares in return. Under the long, bitterly repressive Ceaucescu regime, they were forbidden to talk to foreigners, and we assumed that old habits die hard.
There was one friendly fellow, however, on the fishing boat tied ahead of us. He came by one evening and offered Tina a bowl of freshly caught anchovies. They are popular in Romania, he said, especially raw -- and proceeded to demonstrate by biting off the head of one, spitting it out, and tossing the rest, whole, into his mouth. Tina was so touched by his kindness that she accepted them with effusive thanks. "Oh, you like!" he exclaimed, and ran back to the boat for a bucketful more!
And the gypsies? The only one we saw was a poor ragged child begging rather downheartedly for money. We had seen more gypsies in Varna.
Leaving the phantom gypsies behind, we carried on to Odessa, in the Ukraine, about as far north as you can go in the Black Sea. In Varna, we had learned that a new marina had opened in Odessa just the week before. We found it, at the end of the ferry terminal in the commercial port; a lovely marina, completely empty except for a couple of local boats. We were, it turned out, the first yacht to call -- a fact that delighted the marina management, who took pictures, called the press, and kept giving us gifts, and disconcerted the officials, who were more used to processing big ships. They searched the boat, looking even in the bilge. Ukraine has a problem with illegal immigrants (partly because the country is doing so much better economically than its neighbors) but they finally decided we had no room in the bilge for stowaways -- too many bottles of wine.
Odessa was the beauty of the three Black Sea cities we visited. The architecture is stunning and in better condition than in Varna or Constanta, and the major boulevards are lined with cooling trees. The glory of the city is a marvelous old Baroque opera house, one of the finest in Europe, almost an exact copy of the one in Vienna, in fact, and recently restored to its original brilliance. We saw two performances, a ballet and an opera, which were not only very, very good, but cheap; we had the best seats in the house, for $10.
To see more of Odessa, we engaged a local travel agent, Ludmilla. Ludmilla was a middle-aged woman who seemed to reflect everything we liked about Odessa: charming, lovely, upbeat, with a gentle sense of humor. She told us the people of Odessa enjoy humor, and have an annual festival of humor, with performances of puppets, drama, musicales, opera and ballet. And everyone in Odessa is very optimistic, she said, which was borne out by the smiling faces of the people.
THE AEGEAN SEA From Odessa, we came straight back down the Black Sea (still motoring) and zipped through the Bosporus again, this time with the current. Istanbul flew by, its minarets a blur in the haze of dusk. We now had two and a half months to explore Greece, first in the Aegean, then through the middle (between the mainland and the Peloponessus), and finally the Ionian, on the west side.
We visited many Aegean islands, and after a while they all seemed very much alike, especially the Cyclades. Their names all end is "os," and for some reason many of them start with "s" (Skyros, Siros, Sifnos, Serifos ...). There is usually a main town, or "chora," on top of a hill or mountain (established there for protection from pirates and marauders), with a small, local archaeological museum, and often a castle, or "kastro." Dotted around on other hills are small chapels, always white with blue trim, and used only on the feast day of the patron saint of the family that built the chapel. On the shore, nestled around the island's harbors, are fishing villages, established in later, safer times. The villages are all full of charming whitewashed houses, donkeys, goats and olive trees in abundance. And surrounding them all is the Aegean, with its startlingly blue waters.
Despite their similarities, several of these islands have special memories for us. One such was Skyros, a small island with a tiny harbor where we found room to tie up alongside the wharf, right next to the ferry dock. We arrived in mid-afternoon, and were resting comfortably below, when suddenly the opening strains of Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (the theme music for the movie "2001") came blasting across the harbor. What on earth? We came topside to see a ferry pulling into view. The music seemed to be associated with the arrival of the ferry, but why? Visiting royalty, perhaps? The stirring music nearly brought tears to our eyes, but it was a while before we learned that a cafe on the far side of the harbor used it as an advertising device; every ferry that arrived was greeted by "Also Sprach!" The arrival of the ferry was always interesting anyway, as it disgorged an amazing array of tourists, Greek families coming and going from Athens, cars, and trucks crammed with chickens, goods and what-not.
We had an idyllic time in the neighboring islands of Paros and Naxos, with our youngest daughter, Holly, aboard, sailing, swimming and exploring the many sights. In ancient times, Paros was famous for its pure white marble -- the Venus de Milo was created from it -- and one day we explored the abandoned mine shafts, climbing down through two of them, flashlights in hand. In Paroikia, the main town and port, we found a marvelous old church, The Church of A Hundred Doors. It does indeed have a lot of doors, but apparently only 99 have been found. The story goes that when the 100th door is discovered, Istanbul (or as they prefer, Constantinople) will be returned to the Greeks. Don't hold your breath.
And then there was Serifos. This time Stephen's oldest daughter Elizabeth and her husband Charlie were aboard. We had a great time on the neighboring island of Sifnos before moving on to Serifos -- where our troubles began. It's a nice enough island in some respects: the chora spills dramatically down the steep hill overlooking the harbor, and there is a long flight of ancient stone steps up the mountainside, with a ruined 15th-century Venetian fortress at the top. But the holding ground in the harbor (heavy weed and a thin layer of sand over rock) is poor for anchoring. The strong northerly wind called the meltemi that blows throughout most of the summer built to gale force, and our anchor dragged repeatedly, forcing us to stand anchor watches -- someone in the cockpit at all times, day and night, watching ranges on land to be sure that the anchor was holding, and that other boats weren't dragging down on top of us. We sent Elizabeth and Charlie off on the ferry to see other islands, so their vacation wouldn't be completely ruined, then moved behind the little town quay, with long lines snaked through the other boats already there.
At the height of the gale, we had boats packed four deep behind the quay, bow to stern, like a bunch of puppies pushing into their mother's teats. Every day someone would try to leave, or other boats would come in, and frequently they would drag their anchor across someone else's anchor line -- frequently ours -- resulting in a general scramble and panic, with a lot of yelling and gesticulating before things got sorted out again. One Austrian boat took off at great speed with our anchor hooked in his; we were all yelling and screaming at him while the rest of our anchor line ran out like a harpoon line after the whale is hooked. He finally heard us and stopped just before he ripped the line right out of our boat. We were stuck here for twelve long days while the wind howled, blowing dirt and dust from the land and spume from the waves over the top of the quay.
ATHENS Finally we escaped, and motored all the way to Piraeus, the port for Athens. The dry heat, often near 100 degrees, was debilitating, but we managed to see the main sights: the very fine Archaeological Museum, with its gleaming gold Mycenaean antiquities; the changing of the guard at the Parliament building; and of course the Acropolis, reputedly the most important ancient monument in the Western world, with its complex of buildings surrounding the Parthenon.
Just west of Athens and Piraeus is a narrow strip of land connecting mainland Greece with the Peloponessus peninsula. Emperor Nero started digging a canal across it in 67 A.D., to save time bringing boats from the Aegean to the Ionian, but neither he nor his successors got very far. It remained for the French to finish the Corinth Canal, in 1893. It's only about 3 miles long, with sheer cliffs rising as much as 250 feet on either side, and only 80 feet wide (two times our boat length). Only small cargo ships can make the transit, and to judge by the amount of paint left on the walls, some are not quite small enough. We followed one through, watching his topsides come within inches of the walls.
THE IONIAN SEA On the other side of the canal, we tied up at a place called Itea to visit the center of the world, at least according to the ancients: Delphi. The Delphic oracle was always a priestess over 50 years of age -- apparently the Greeks had their doubts about the virtue of women under that age -- and she sat on a tripod at the entrance to a chasm which emitted vaporous fumes. When she inhaled them, they induced a frenzy. In this state, she would make unintelligible utterances in answer to a pilgrim's question, and these were then translated by a priest into verse. People took all this VERY seriously: battles were fought, marriages took place, journeys were begun and business deals were clinched on the strength of these utterances. The priestess ruled a sanctuary dedicated to Apollo, and the Temple of Apollo dominates the site, but lining the Sacred Way which leads to the Temple are many other monuments and buildings where various city-states kept their treasures. In the nearby museum, we saw some of these, including a full size bull -- made of silver and gold.
Back in Itea that evening, we were eating some of the local souvlaki (shish kebab) when we heard a band coming up the street. Behind the band were a dozen or so priests and acolytes, carrying banners, icons and incense, and wearing robes that looked like they were made of ermine -- terribly hot, we thought. Behind the priests was a huge crowd of people, many carrying lighted candles. A neighbor explained that it was the local church's "name day." Every church in Greece is named for a saint, and every Greek Orthodox person is also named for a saint. Your saint's name day is actually more important than your birthday, and when a local church celebrates its name day and its your name day as well, you are certain to be there. People travel many miles to be present at their name-day celebration. The band stopped in the middle of the main intersection, the priests sang a long chant, and then the procession moved on. Later that night, there was singing and dancing in the streets. Typically, it didn't start until 10:00 p.m., by which time we were (also typically) asleep.
On the western side of Greece, we entered a different world: no more strong northerly winds, and no more of the very dry, arid atmosphere of the Cyclades. The Ionian islands are covered with cypress and other evergreens, in contrast to the barren hills of the Cyclades; there's a soft, golden light instead of what one guidebook calls the "sharp, clear solar spotlight" of the Aegean; the water is clear, but sort of greenish (perhaps reflecting the green hills) instead of the unique blue of the Aegean; instead of whitewashed houses with blue shutters, the houses and other buildings are painted in tasteful pastels and earth tones; and there's much more of an Italianate character to the architecture. These islands were ruled by the Venetians for almost 400 years, and Italy is just across the way, a fact borne in on us by the large number of Italian boats we saw. It was August, vacation time for Italians as well as most of the rest of Europe, and they all seemed to come here to play.
The Ionian islands were even more crowded than the Aegean, it seemed, particularly with charter boats. One company alone, we learned, had 130 charter boats in the North Ionian, many of them "flotilla" boats -- boats that travel together, with a guide from the charter company. In Fiskardo, a tiny, quaint village on Kefalonia, where we met our next guests, the Lutens, we counted over 120 yachts. The crowding and the constant ferry traffic caused us some problems; once, the wake from a ferry boat popped our anchor loose, and we ended up on the rocks; another time, a charter boat got too close to our anchor line, and wrapped it around his propeller. We worked our way north, seeking less crowded conditions, and eventually arrived in Kerkira, more popularly known as Corfu.
Corfu turned out to be our favorite place in Greece. It was the background for Shakespeare's Tempest, and Odysseus' last stop on his journey home to Ithaca; Homer describes it as a "beautiful and rich land," and indeed it is, with green hills of olive groves and tall, slender cypress trees, and lots of flowers. There are spectacular hills, beautiful bays and coves, and lots of interesting things to see. We took a car tour to the top of the highest mountain, where there's an old monastery; through countless quaint, charming mountain villages; and on the west side, another monastery, a Byzantine fortress that resisted all efforts to conquer it, and a large palace where Kaiser Wilhelm once lived. Steve's son Thomas and his wife Kazu joined us here on a delayed honeymoon, and with them we toured Corfu's old town. It's very Venetian in style, with narrow alleyways and old houses in muted tones of ocher and pink, Georgian mansions from the British era, and Byzantine churches. We walked through the 12th-century fortress with its moat and massive walls; went into a famous sixteenth century church; and had a snack at one of the places along the fancy parade of cafes known as the Liston, modelled after the Rue di Rivoli in Paris.
THE ADRIATIC SEA: CROATIA >From Corfu, it was a two-day passage to Dubrovnik, in Croatia. In the middle of the second night, Tina saw some strange lights: flashing white lights and blinking red lights, something not called for in the Rules of the Road by which boats abide. Then there was a large bright orange light directly ahead, which looked like a fishing trawler. Perhaps the flashing lights were on buoys with fish nets, we thought (something we had seen before), so we kept trying to get around them. The more we tried, the more of them there seemed to be; and now they seemed rather high; perhaps marking a tower, or a drilling rig? But then one moved! We kept changing course, trying to avoid them in case they marked some kind of obstacle, but they kept moving as we did. At least the trawler seemed stationary, so we decided to head for it. But it was like no fishing vessel we had ever seen: huge, flat on top, a ghostly ship with strange lights all over it. Tina called it "the Darth Vader ship." Now we were really spooked, with strange lights flashing all around us, and a weird looking ship to boot. Finally, Tina figured out part of the puzzle: those are helicopters! Yes, Steve said, and that must be a small aircraft carrier, probably a mother ship for the helicopters. When we got to port, we learned the explanation: we had inadvertently stumbled into some large-scale NATO maneuvers!
The rest of the trip was uneventful, and we arrived at Dubrovnik early the next morning. We loved it, as everyone seems to. It was founded 1300 years ago, and was an independent city-state until 1806, the most important one on the Adriatic except for Venice. The old town is reportedly the best-preserved medieval city in Europe. The city walls are all intact, and no cars are allowed inside; you can walk around the top of the massive walls, with great views over the old city, the harbor, and out to sea. We could see where some of the buildings were still pock-marked with bullet and shell holes from the war in 1991, but most of the damage has been repaired, under UNESCO supervision, and the city is still as beautiful as ever, with marble-paved squares, steep cobbled streets, tall houses and fountains, all cut from the same light-colored stone. There's a wonderful pedestrian promenade right down the center, called the Placa, with a fountain at one end and a clock tower at the other, lined with churches, monasteries and palaces. Our friends, the Towells, met us here, and Gordon, who's an artist, was inspired to paint several scenes.
After a few days, we went on to a very sheltered anchorage on an island called Mljet (they somehow pronounce all those consonants without inserting any extra vowels), anchoring right under a ruined Roman castle dating from the third or fourth century. The island is now a national park, situated in a forest surrounding a large lake. In the middle of the lake, on a small island, is an abandoned 12th-century Benedictine monastery, and the park service ferries you out to the island so you can walk through it. It's a beautiful, serene place, and it was relaxing just to stroll through the grounds, imagining what the monastic life must have been like.
>From there we went to an island called Korcula (with a carat over the "c," so it's pronounced KOR-chu-la). The old town is another typical walled medieval town, our favorite after Dubrovnik. The walled part is almost round, situated on a peninsula that juts out into the sea. The walls are at the shore line, and all the streets lead from the walls up the hill to the central square, where the cathedral, the town hall, and the former palaces are located. There was once a very active stone carvers' guild, and the window and door frames are often highly decorated, with shields and coats of arms, the buttresses that support balconies sometimes carved with fanciful characters.
We were fortunate to be there for a special performance of a sword dance called the moreska, with a story about a princess being enslaved by an evil king and his cohorts (the guys in black), and rescued by a knight and his entourage (the guys in white). It has been performed for centuries, and only those born in Korcula are allowed to participate. It's very energetic, with two concentric circles of men moving in opposing directions and making constant contact with their swords -- a bit like fencing with twenty opponents. We marveled that nobody got hurt!
After a couple of days we went on to the island of Hvar. It's a picturesque place, with a Venetian fortress on top of a high hill which we enjoyed climbing to for the sweeping views. The evening, however, was NOT a happy experience. We were tied to the town quay, and there were strong southerly winds which set up a vicious swell. We rocked and rolled all night, and had to take turns standing anchor watch to make sure we didn't clash with the boats on either side. Early in the morning, at first light, we escaped, and had a rough passage through thunderstorms and high waves to a town called Trogir. We tied up in a marina, but it had no breakwater to protect us from the strong southerly winds, so the waves set up a violent twisting movement in the docks. We could hardly stand up, and the motion threatened to pull the docks apart. We (and the marina staff) had lines running everywhere, trying to hold things together. The Towells moved into a charming hotel (thereby cleverly escaping the weather problems) and left the following day to visit some of inland Croatia.
VENICE After a few other stops at Croatian islands, we headed across the top of the Adriatic to Venice. We had long dreamed of sailing into Venice, with St. Mark's Square looming ahead, the ferries and vaporettos crisscrossing our bow, the Lido falling to our stern -- a very romantic picture. And it was a very romantic occasion that we planned for this visit: our 25th wedding anniversary!
We pulled into a marina on the eastern end of Venice, a district (and island) called St. Elena. It was a perfect location to explore Venice, because it's a quiet sort of suburb, close to but away from the busy tourist center of Venice. There is a large park on one side where joggers lope along in the morning, young mothers push their prams in mid-day, elders sit on bright red benches in the late afternoon, and lovers wander in the evening. We stayed long enough to be recognized by the merchants of bread, meat, cheese and wine, and the trattoria up the street always responded to our phrase-book Italian with their own passable English. It was a good feeling to be part of the Venice community even while we were tourists flitting around to see the wonders of this incredible city.
Probably no other city in the world has inspired so many superlatives. It's built on 117 small islands, with some 150 canals and more than 400 bridges, and the typically Venetian narrow streets, winding between the canals and bridges. There are no cars, and all traffic is by boat -- which, being boat people ourselves, we found particularly attractive.
It's hard to believe a bunch of marshy islands in a lagoon could become the setting for such a wealthy and powerful nation as the Venetian Republic became. The secret, of course, was not the immediate environment but the strategic location of the islands at the crossroads between East and West. By the 10th century, Venice had become an important trading city and a great power in the Mediterranean. They prospered by supplying goods and supplies to the nobles and knights of the Crusades, and (to further their own ambitions) diverted the Fourth Crusade from Jerusalem to Constantinople. The Doge (the ruler of the republic) personally led that crusade, despite being over 90 and completely blind, and the Venetians not only kept most of the treasures plundered from Constantinople, they also kept most of the territories won during the crusade. Now Venice ruled Byzantium, and continued to dominate the Eastern Mediterranean for another two hundred years. It wasn't until Napoleon arrived in 1797 that the empire came to an end; by then Venice had become a byword for decadence and decline, and the ruling doge and his Grand Council simply resigned and handed the city over to Napoleon, ending almost 1400 years of independent existence.
The wealth accumulated by the Venetians is still evident in the impressive monuments and beautiful palaces that remain. We began at the Palazzo Ducale, the doge's palace and the seat of the republic's government. It's a huge U-shaped building attached to the Basilica (more about that later), considered a masterpiece of Gothic architecture. The tour takes you from a courtyard through a triumphal arch, then up the Scala d'Oro (Golden Staircase) to a series of spectacular, stunning rooms. Many of them are decorated (if that's the right word) with paintings, murals, frescoes, ceilings and friezes by Tintoretto, Titian, Veronese, and other famous Venetian painters. The Great Council Hall, where the council of over 1,000 members met, is a monumental room featuring Tintoretto's Paradise on one wall, one of the world's largest oil paintings at 25 by 81 feet. Other smaller but no less spectacular rooms housed various official bodies or waiting rooms for ambassadors, designed to impress them with the glory and might of Venice. Eventually the route takes you through quite a different area: across the famous Bridge of Sighs and into the prisons. These small stone rooms with heavy doors were used only for petty offenders; serious criminals were put at the bottom of wells! There are other relics of the darker side of the Republic as well: the torture chamber, the Inquisitor's Rooms, and at several places in the palace, the infamous hole in the wall called a lion's mouth, or bocca di leone, used to receive notes denouncing someone for heresy, tax evasion or other crimes against the Republic.
The next day, it was time for the other main attraction in the Piazza San Marco, the Basilica. It's shaped like a Greek cross, with five bulbous domes. As you stand outside, you're looking up at five giant arches decorated with beautiful mosaics and carvings. On the balcony above are the famous Quadriga, four magnificent gilded bronze horses, the "Horses of Saint Mark" -- stolen from the Hippodrome in Constantinople, and stolen in turn by Napoleon, but later returned. Above them are more arches, and above all that are golden statues of St. Mark and accompanying angels. The interior has a marble floor with complex and colorful geometric designs and scenes of beasts and birds, and the walls are covered with gleaming golden mosaics -- more than 40,000 square feet of them! Behind the main altar is the most spectacular sight, the Pala d'Oro, a panel consisting of 250 enamel paintings on gold foil, embellished with emeralds, rubies, amethysts, sapphires and pearls. Off to one side is the Treasury, with most of the booty from the raid on Constantinople, including chalices, goblets and lots of icons and relics.
That afternoon, we toured the Grand Canal, the city's main thoroughfare. One writer describes it as "the finest street in the world, with the finest houses." It curves through the city like a giant, upside-down "S," and is lined on either side with more than 100 palaces dating from the 12th to the 18th century. Some are notable for association with famous figures; others for historical events that happened there; but most just because of their spectacular beauty or impressive architecture.
The next day, for a change of pace, we toured some of the other islands within the lagoon: Murano, Burano and Torcello. Murano is where they make the famous glass, and we walked by many of the shops lining the canals and watched the glass blowers at work. Burano, a little further away, is a very colorful fishing village, with brightly painted houses, stalls selling the locally-produced lace and linen, and a tall, dramatically leaning church tower (Pisa is not the only Italian city with a leaning tower). Torcello, the furthest away, is sparsely populated, but still has a spectacular cathedral, the oldest in Venice, dating back to the 7th century.
On succeeding days, we visited the most important museum in the city, the Accademia; the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, completely decorated with Tintorettos -- more than 50 of them; and a huge church with masterpieces by Titian and Bellini. And then, one fine evening, to celebrate our Silver Wedding Anniversary, we splurged and had dinner in one of those palaces overlooking the Grand Canal. It was superb -- lobster, pasta, some enticing appetizers, a fine wine, two delicious desserts -- and what a setting!
SLOVENIA Directly across the Adriatic from Venice is another ex-Yugoslavian country, Slovenia. This tiny country has only a few harbors on its short coast, but we decided it would be interesting to call at one, to see what we could find. The town of Piran was closest, only 50 miles from Venice, so that became our destination. It's a charming, old-world town, "a gem of Venetian Gothic architecture" (to quote one guidebook), dominated by the Church of St. George, a Renaissance and Baroque structure with a tall, free-standing bell tower, high on a ridge overlooking the city and the sea.
The people seemed happy, friendly, and pleased to see us. The day we arrived, we noticed another sailboat coming in with an American flag, so after helping them tie up, we asked where they were from. "Florida," they said, but in heavily accented voices. They explained that they were actually from Slovenia, but had left Tito's Yugoslavia thirty-five years ago and resettled in Florida. They had recently retired and decided to come back to their homeland -- on a sailboat they had built themselves. What a way to come home! They were obviously excited and emotional, and we were very happy from them. Later, Tina asked the port police if they had many American yachts calling in Piran. "Rare," he said, "except today we have two! Although the others are really Slovenian," he said with a proud grin.
THE ADRIATIC AGAIN, AND ITALY >From Piran we started our long trip back down the Adriatic, through Croatia again, toward our winter quarters. By then it was late October, with storms moving through more regularly, so it was mostly a matter of waiting out the weather, and taking one more step when the weather permitted. Fortunately we were in secure marinas or anchorages each time we had to wait, so the only thing at risk was our patience. Well, sometimes our nerves; the wind blew so hard in Dubrovnik, the boat heeled at the dock!
When we checked out of Croatia in Dubrovnik, the young lads from Immigration and Customs, stamping our passports and ship's papers, asked us where we were from and how long we had been sailing. We explained that we had left San Francisco five years ago and had come across the Pacific and Indian Oceans and up the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. They stared at us, wide-eyed. Everyone assumes that an American yacht in the Med came across the Atlantic; the Pacific is almost off the globe to them. "Just the two of you?" Yes. "Any storms?" Nothing too bad. "How long before you are home?" Maybe a few more years. They laughed; this is beyond their dreams.
Angling across the Adriatic toward the bottom of Italy, we were startled when a jet fighter buzzed us at high speed. Then a helicopter and more military planes flew over, some of them dipping down to look at us more closely. When the second jet screamed over our mast, Tina asked, "Just where is Kosovo from here?" A quick check confirmed that it was just in the direction these planes were heading.
These were anxious passages for us, not just because of the weather and military action but also because of our engine. As in most of the Med, the wind was either on the nose or non-existent, so we had to motor most of the time. We had had an oil leak for months, and it had worsened so much that we had to stop the engine every six or eight hours to check the level and add more oil. And then the engine wouldn't start. Steve kept checking all the electrical connections, but could find nothing, so we sat in the cockpit glaring at the ignition while we slopped around in the swell. Usually after an hour and many tries, it would mysteriously restart. As if that wasn't enough, there also seemed to be something wrong with the fresh water cooling system. The water reservoir would suddenly go dry, and we'd have to refill it, sometimes repeatedly, but then it would boil over. And then go dry again. Consequently we had to check the water reservoir every hour to be sure the engine wasn't overheating. We should have been able to tell this from the engine gauges -- but they weren't working either. We kept encouraging the engine to keep going just a little longer, so we could get to our winter home, in Malta, and find a proper mechanic.
MALTA We stopped at a couple of places on the boot of Italy, and then (wonder of wonders) sailed the last leg of our journey, across the Strait of Sicily to Malta. As we approached, we were astonished at the extent of the fortifications that the island has erected over the centuries. They are formidable, and also rather comforting, as if they will protect us now that we are within their fold. And so we arrived at our winter destination, relieved that the engine survived, and for yet another year, so had we. We were quickly surrounded by friends, some of whom we hadn't seen in months or even years. Pleased and content, we popped the cork on a bottle of champagne. It was a lovely end to an exciting year.
Il-Milied u Sena Tajba (that's "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year," in Maltese),