ECHO THROUGH ANTIQUITY 2013
On the 2nd of July 2013, I flew from Manchester to Izmir, scene of much recent rioting. Some reselling website had managed to put me on two GermanWings flights connected by a 1 hour transfer time at Stuttgart. It seemed a bit tight but GermanWings when I enquired assured me it was fine to check your bag through (like in the old days) which was (again like in the old days) free.
Click a chartlet to get to a particular leg of the voyage.
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Manchester to Izmir
Stuttgart is a bigger airport than you might imagine, and I had to wait for a bus to take me from the apron to the terminal. Once in the building, I had to run, and I was glad I didn’t have to wait for a bag at Reclaim and then check it in again. I would not have made it.
I landed at Izmir at 2.30 in the morning and made my way to passport control, to be informed I had to buy a visa. The man at the visa desk wanted 15 euro. Cash only, euro only. Debit card, no. Sterling, no, Kunas, no. Francs, no. After a reasonable amount of raised voices and gesticulations, the Bey of Border Control organised a young surly ground-staffer to accompany me through baggage reclaim to the arrivals hall, where at least 10 ATMs were lined against the wall. We tried most of them. Most only offered Turkish shillings, which I knew by now was not what my man at the visa desk wanted or would accept. Some allowed you to choose euros, but then didn’t have any.
In the end, “I got lucky” and I returned, accompanied by my young guard, to the visa desk, where the loud old man was happy to take my 15 euro and give me back my passport, which he had insisted to hold onto. Now adorned with a large blue stamp, I took my passport back to the entry guard and he stamped the stamp.
I was now in the reclaim hall, which was crowded since various other late flights from Germany had all come in – the Turkish diaspora on the move. I found the conveyor where the Stuttgart bags were emptying onto and was relieved that bags were still being spewed out. No sign of my bag, though. The conveyor stopped and I asked at Lost & Found. It was the same grumpy young man who had accompanied me to the ATMs. His name, believe it or not, was Osman. He said go to another belt. I did, but the digital sign overhead said it was an incoming Frankfurt flight and there was no sign of my bag.
I returned to Lost & Found and Osman took my details and said they would send me an email as soon as they had further information. By now it was 4.30 a.m. I found a bench and went to sleep to wake at around 7.00 as dawn broke and the airport became busier. Around 9.00 I received an email from Osman. The email correctly identified my bag and all the details of my flights and had an attachment. The attachment opened but seemed to be blank. I emailed Osman back asking him to transmit the information in another form.
I had checked the incoming flights schedule and noted nothing due in from Stuttgart all morning. I got some breakfast and then at around 11.00, decided to enquire further at Information. Information in the arrival hall was unmanned, but upstairs in departures they were helpful. I explained I had heard no more from Osman since emailing him back, which in fact is how things stayed. They put me through on the phone to Lost & Found in the baggage hall, and a female voice told me my bag had been found, and to go down to Information in arrivals, and she would bring me out my bag.
Sure enough, a pleasant young girl was waiting for me when I got back to the Information desk downstairs. However, she had no bag and asked me to accompany her back into the baggage hall to check whether any of the lost bags found and there were in fact mine. She didn’t think so. She was right.
I returned to the other side of ‘the fence’, and, as I had seen that the first flight in from Stuttgart had an ETA of around 4.00 p.m., I went upstairs to the restaurant area above arrivals, where I had spotted some more comfortable cushioned benches in a quite secluded niche. I slept another few hours.
When I awoke I again went to Information in the departures area. It was now manned by two different ladies. They said go to the desk downstairs. The desk downstairs was unmanned. I went back upstairs. They checked and said yes your bag is coming in at 4 p.m. on Pegasus from Stuttgart. Go downstairs around that time and they will help you. I did and now there was somebody there and I explained my predicament, gave him the numbers and details and said I thought it would be on the Pegasus flight now. He put me through to somebody in Lost & Found. He couldn’t find my bag.
By now, I was starting to get just a little worried. The man on the line then asked me which flight I had come in on. Ah… ha… GermanWings. Not Pegasus. And my bag had come in after all. They would bring it out.
Izmir to Corinth
I walked out along the main quay wall of the marina, looking for John’s Echo on Berth 18, which turned out to be a spanking X-55 with a carbon ‘rig’ including a Park Avenue boom and a fully-battened main. John may well have told me last year that was what he had, but it hadn’t registered. My bed was made in the aft cabin, we had a beer, went for a swim in the marina’s pool and then strolled to dinner, where we were serenaded by some local folk musicians, who only stopped their singing when interrupted by the muezzin. I enjoyed the local Pide dish.
The Meltelmi had been blowing hard all day, so my delays at the airport had helped us decide to delay our departure by a day and we agreed to get up at 5.30, when the wind was forecast to moderate. The next morning dawned calm and after fuelling up with diesel and water we were out on the bay under engine by 6.15.
We motored for a few hours and then the wind started to pick up. As we passed the island of Chios, we switched off the engine and were almost immediately reaching at 8 knots in 10 knots of breeze heading due West across the Aegean to the strait between Andros and Tinos. As the wind built, so did the speed, rarely falling below 9 knots. By late afternoon, we were surfing into the strait at 12 knots plus in a nice F6 with two reefs in.
The other side of the islands, the wind died and we shook out the reefs, John made dinner and I washed up, a ritual which was to repeat itself for the next three days. John likes things spicy, and so do I. Thank you, John.
Our progress West continued at 8 knots plus. I went to bed and at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning when I came on watch John was sailing close hauled in the general direction of the southern end of Aegina at the mouth of the Saronic Gulf.
I tacked under the island – slight turn of the wheel, rush to the winches, throw the jib sheet, grind the new sheet, dash back to the wheel – well outside the shipping lane, and ghosted up at 7 knots along the island in the general direction of the twinkling lights of the demurred merchant fleet lying off Piraeus. We were on port for the first time. After spending a half hour or so north of the island in light variable winds trying to pick a route West again, a new breeze filled in and pretty soon we were doing 8 knots once more.
John took over and when I surfaced on deck again, John had just switched on the engine as we approached the Corinth Canal in a F3 that was now coming from dead ahead.
The canal is narrow and always only open to one-way at a time. We went alongside and were immediately told to hurry up. 10 minutes later we were motoring into the canal, basically a deep groove of perhaps 100m maximum depth straight through the rock of the isthmus – shades of IK Brunel, crossed by numerous old metal bridges, one featuring a queue for bungy jumpers. The crickets in the trees on the early lower slopes welcomed us with an incredible racket.
Corinth to Valletta
I was again first to retire for the night and John sailed on into the Gulf of Patras. The wind had built to about 14 knots and we were once again bombing along at a comfortable 9 knots. When I came back on, John had just cleared through the strait between Keffalonia and Zakynthos, and the wind had gone round through the West to South West. For the second and last time during the trip we were close-hauled on port, but with the expectation that as we sailed away from the islands now behind us, the wind would switch back again to the North, which it did less than half an hour after John had retired, freeing us immediately.
The course was now 245 to Valetta and we were about half way. With the jib sheeted wide via a turning block on the rail and the main well eased, the speed picked up further. The autopilot had been given us trouble since we had left Turkey and had by now packed it in as good as entirely. The moon was full, the sky clear and soon Echo was surfing down off the rhumb line at 10 knots plus when wind speeds hit 18 knots and heading back up the rhumb line at 9 knots plus when the wind eased to 14 knots. I was having fun. The moon moved through the South and by 4.00 in the morning was directly ahead of me on my course, facilitating my steering no end, offering welcome relief from the mesmerizing effect of the big digit B&G displays on the mast under the boom. John took over and I went to sleep straightaway. I was just a bit tired!
The next daylight period, we swapped helm regularly keeping the average speed above 9.5 knots. That evening as the sun dipped ahead of us in the West and the moon came up behind us in the East, I was on first since I had slept more than John in between my stints. We continued to hit 10 knots regularly; 18 knots wheel hard to port; 245, 243, 241, 15 knots wheel back, 239, 245, 249, 253, and so on, and so on.
John came back on at 1.30 and we careened onward, but unfortunately all good things come to an end and during John’s watch the wind slowly petered out, so that when I emerged from my bunk at 6.00, the engine was on once more. The sea flattened out and we chugged the last 120 nautical miles to Valletta, and the autopilot might have done a better job of keeping us on track, getting in at 6.00 p.m. on Tuesday evening.
Berthed on Pier A in Grand Harbour Marina, the bimini, patently connected to the Park Avenue boom by the use of moulded-in grooves, is giving us good shelter from the sun and there is time to reflect. Instead of the muezzin, here they fire their cannons five times a day. 84 hours; 670 nautical miles; average speed 8 knots exactly. Quite a ride!
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