The Cabin Boy’s Letter V: From Stromboli to Etna
Day 12 – Towards the maw of Charybdis
This morning we left behind the stunning shores of the Lighthouse of the Mediterranean, having conquered the slopes of Stromboli volcano. And we were heading to the last of the furnaces of Hephaestus: Etna, the highest of the three volcanoes of our particular route of fire and ashes, but first we needed to overcome one of those points marked by their difficulty in every marine route: the Strait of Messina.
Now domesticated, in mythological times, this place that separates Sicily from the Italian peninsula and the Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas, was imagined as the den in which two monsters, Charybdis and Scilla awaited submerged making large swirls that could swallow the fragile boats, the ancient greek sailed those times. The Argonauts clashed triumphant there, while Odysseus lost half of his crew on his way to Itaca. OK, I’ll leave the mythological theme, so yo can’t complain again that I don’t spend enough time talking about the boat and navigation.
As we approached Messina, Diego explained us that we were going to experience changing currents that create pretty strong swirls once we entered the strait from its northern entrace, the narrowest one, being the distance between the two coasts just over a mile and a half. In that small passage we were going to find large cruises, swordfish fishermen’s boats and ferries that connect Sicily with Italy. So, Diego said, sailing was going to be a complicated experience (not as much as it was for Trojan wars’ hero, that’s for sure). So as we came closer, with still quite good wind conditions and the best sea, Diego and his father made us go over every maneuver we might need later.
Happily, Diego took care of the most important thing to cross smoothly Messina this very morning. It turns out that the current dynamics of the Strait, correspond almost exactly to the tides schedule in another Strait: Gibraltar, and with these data in one hand and the prediction of when the north wind would blows in our favor, Diego had already drawn the best route and only needed us to keep track to the traffic entering the Tyrrhenian.
The day has gone by very fast. At all times there was something to do and the conditions kept changing, from moments of dead calm navigating with the engine on when we could even have a snack on deck, to moments of shifting winds in which we were changing from sailing upwind to do it downwind and always with the engine running to pull it in case we needed it.
It was already getting dark when we left behind the narrowest part of the channel and headed to dock at the Marina Nettuno, in the city of Messina, where I write these lines.
We’ve had a day full of experiences and emotions and now we´ll have a full night ahead to recover from the effort of climbing Stromboli, because tomorrow we aim to a 3,200 meters giant which will close the route of the volcanoes: Etna. As usual, I am the first to surrender to slumber. Our almogávares seem willing to climb two more Strombolis … in fact I think Fran climbed those two Strombolis, as he kept running up and down to get the right shot with his camera. And father and son are not that tired as they keep reminding stories from the sea and famous sailor’s anecdotes.
I ‘ll sleep reconciled with myself ‘cause I think these last two days I’ve been closer to the level this Mediterranean adventure demands from anyone and it seems it’s been months since the “Napoles Mess”.
Day 13 Messina – Riposto
Today has been a fairly quiet day. In the morning, while Diego studied the weather forecast and drew the route with Carlos, who has shown an expertise in this aspect as he is used to similar preparations to plan his flights, the rest of the companions (me included) wandered around the port and had some small sample of Sicilian character.
On our way back, Diego explained us that we were not going to moor at Taormina, which is where we planned to start the climbing, because there is no port or marina at that town, so we needed to sail a little farther south till the town of Riposto.
Anyway, this change hardly altered the plans, because both town were just a few miles away from each other, so we sailed parrallel to a coastline increasingly mountainous as we approached the volcanic giant Etna. The orography just left a narrow strip of land next to a non stop grey beach occupied with buildings with no separation between one town and the next one.
Fran decided to dedicate the whole day to shoot some resorce shots of navigation, so Carlos and Raul had triple dose of pulling ropes while Fernando and I watched them from offscreen and the Admiral explained to me when they did well and when they didn’t.
As we came close to Riposto, Diego showed us the procedures for communicating with a port at the ship’s arrival. It’s all very patterned to avoid problems caused by the different languages. Fran shot it too. I’m sure there is going to be plenty material to aseemble a very decent movie.
Tomorrow we have to get up early again, the ascense to Etna isn’t as complicated as Stromboli was, but it is longer. Besides, being such an active volcano, we have to be ready to change the route if some paths are gone , and that could make the trip longer. So, tonight everyone is getting to bed sooner.
Day 14: Climbing the Etna
We have started the day with one of those logistic sessions previous to a mountain expedition that are rarely shown on TV, with Internet searches for some sort of transport from Riposto to Sapienza Refuge, the starting point of the ascent route.
Finally the only solution we could find was to hire a car to drive the five of us up until the Refuge. The road was nice while there still were trees, although we drove slowly because there was an awful lot of traffic. It’s clear that making this first Corona de Aragón Route in summer has had some adventages, such as the good weather (and a very nice tan) but has the problem of saturation of tourists everywhere.
When we reached the Refuge I was surprised by the scale of Etna, three times the Vesuvius, and also that what they call “refuge” is actually a big shopping center for tourists, with a station to take the funicular to a second refuge.
The Almogávares Team ignored the Funicular (It seemed so comfortable, sigh…) tied their boots, got ready their backpacks and started a a “little trip” 14 km long and 1,300 meters up. What else could I do but follow them…
The first stage is very similar to Stromboli, because the path is also full with small loose rocks and volcanic ashes that makes it hard to climb its stepests slopes. I have followed Carlos advice to focus on small goals and not on the full mountain: “get to that turn left” “count a hundred steps” and so on. This time I’ve kept my own pace and ignored every time Fran needed to stop to set the different “scenes” for their recordings. If I show up on the documentary at last, it’ll be just as a part or the tourists (search the blue hat Uncle Peter gave me).
Following those two advices, I have arrived to our second stop almost at the same time that the rest of the group, from this last funicular station the top of the volcano is still 5 km away. The friendly Sicilian people, offer special 4×4 buses to get the tourists to the mighty volcano craters. I recognize that the temptation has been great, but the truth is I was enjoying the experience and the almogávares of the expedition, now four of them since Diego seemed posessed by Sir Mallory’s ghost, made it very clear to me that getiing on one of those buses would be the equivalent to grow feathers, beak and nonfunctional wings …
Etna has shown itself benevolent in this second stage. With a much better track (although the dust kicked up by the superbuses was a bit annoying) and less slope. So, sooner than I thought once we reached the last refuge … gone in the 2002 eruption and substituted by a mobile one.
From there you could access several of the craters in a lunar scape that covers the whole sight and giving the feeling of being in another world, without vegetation, with dark ash recently dropped, with the feeling that the soil is restless. There you can find such strange things as ice under a layer of solidified lava … . Pretty cold up there (3000 meters high is quite high), something you don’t expect in a volcano…
On the way down we used some mechanical help (the funicular) because we stayed a bit longer than planned to enjoy a not so common experience.
Back to the boat, the water, even the dirty water of a port, cleaned our full of ashes sight, we ate what Fernando had prepared us and surrender to the weariness promising him to tell him everything tomorrow
Tonight we have not talked much.
Juan Sebastian Pym
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English