Beautiful Life

One of the hundreds of feet of exquisite Arabic carving in the Palacios Nazaries in the Alhambra.
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As much as I fight it, I am a planner.  More than two years before beginning this adventure, I began planning it.  I toyed with where to go, when, and for how long.  I consulted travel agents and well-traveled friends for advice.  I took notes from various tourism websites.  I even made a spreadsheet that functioned as my all-encompassing preparation.  Yet, I told myself that all of this was still just a guideline.  I could change my flight dates or destinations as the winds blew me in new directions.  However, for the most part, they blew me where I had planned and when I had planned it.  In mid-September that changed.  Winds from down under blew across Europe and with them came an exciting new opportunity.  The Bella Vita, a 46-foot catamaran, would be sailing my direction, and she had a bed which needed filling.  So, on the island of Sardinia in mid-October, just two days after my 30th birthday, I traded in my carefully orchestrated “guideline” for a pair of sea legs and quite literally lashed my destiny to the winds of the Mediterranean.

The stonework is outstanding, but the mosaics are not to be overlooked either.
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For three weeks this vessel was my everything.  It was my accommodation, my kitchen, my entertainment, and, of course, my transportation.  And aboard it was my temporary family, Pete, Sharon, Tom, and Harri Crossley.  We had never met and between both email and phone likely shared no more than an hundred words.  However, we did share common friends back in Noosa, Australia.  The Reed family, my hosts for Christmas 2007, recommended them to me and me to them, so there was no question of compatibility.  They greeted me with the generous courtesies of a private cabin, more-than-fair financial contribution, and the use of anything onboard.  As pleasant as my greeting was, I am happier to say the natural rigidity of formal introductions did not last long.  The relaxed atmosphere I associate and love about Australia and Aussies quickly became the dominant mood aboard the boat.  I was not only free to read, play the guitar, or nap on the trampoline when I wished, but I could contribute to the cooking, cleaning, or other duties without the immediate objection, “you don’t have to do that.”

I will forever be Fidel.

To give an idea of the size and intricacy here, I have my camera as close as it can get and my macro setting as high as it will go.
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As time passed, I became more integrated with the facts of life aboard Bella Vita.  However, two of them came almost immediately – one in the middle of my first night, and the other days later on the Spanish island of Mallorca.  To get from Sardinia to Menorca, the closest of the Balearic Islands, an overnight sail was required.  With an ocean, sea, or other water crossing that cannot be accomplished in a single day, night shifts are needed to man the boat.  With a cat of this size, only one person at a time was necessary, and my time happened to be from 2 to 5am.  Aside from the disturbance to a deep slumber or the anxiety of not spotting a ship on a collision course, I found the experience gratifying.  I sat at the helm or nav station and relished the newness of the moment.  Here I was, a landlubber, sailing a boat with no land in sight and completely responsible for its well-being and the safety of the four sleeping soundly in the hulls below.

Patience. That is the word that comes to mind when I saw these three consecutive stone arches cut to the detail smaller than a fingernail.
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We stopped at all three Balearic Islands, Menorca, Mallorca, Ibiza, but it was Mallorca to which we dedicated the most time.  From the Port of Soller we rented a car to explore the mountainous northwest of the island that has long been a favorite destination of Europe’s hiking community.  We walked through the pedestrian centers of several small villages, but it was in Valldemossa that fact of life number two sunk in.  Every Bella Vita crew member receives a call sign, but no one picks his own.  Several names had been suggested by this point, but the debate came down to two:  “Fidel” or “Che”.  Perhaps it is the global infatuation with Che Guevara, or the fact that he died prematurely, but I was pulling for him.  However, it didn’t matter what I wanted.  The beret I tried on outside a shop and the Che pose I attempted did not help my case.  Instead, it sealed it.  The dark curly hair, scruffy beard, and militia-green cap I frequently don won out.  I was and forever will be call-sign “Fidel”.

Looking out onto the old Arabic section of town named Albaycin.
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As I mentioned earlier, I am a planner.  But with sailing, there is at best a goal or eventual destination.  For the three weeks I was onboard, we had hoped to reach either Gibraltar or Casablanca.  We hit neither.  We pinballed down the Spanish coast hitting towns like Alicante and Torrevieja, but it was from Cartagena where I had to say farewell.  Just a few days after my one-year travel anniversary and two-plus weeks of being adopted, I decided it was time to part.  I had a rendezvous date in Athens rapidly approaching and something nearby long-desired that could not be ignored.  It was six hours by bus and I spent just 36 hours in Granada, but that was more than enough time to see the imposing towers, stunning gardens, and miraculous palaces of the Alhambra.  It is safe to say I have not been wowed by the intricacy, delicacy, and patience of such stonework since the Taj Mahal.  Solid marble carved into thin screens with struts no thicker than a pencil.  Entire rooms inscribed and inlaid from floor to ceilings so tall the details fade into shadows.  And always the water.  Flowing down handrails, bubbling out of fountains, or just trickling through the carefully tended gardens, there is always a tribute to water’s tranquility and serenity.

The magic of Alhambra has always lived in the water.
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I am now in Greece with entirely new stories to share, but I am pleased to write that my time with the Crossleys may not have come to an end.  Soon after I left the family, I received an invitation to re-join them on a later leg of their journey home to Oz.  Recently, I find as I sleep or daydream the images that come to me are those of clear, blue water, sport fishing, and island hopping around the Caribbean, so I believe I will see them again.  As I round the Mediterranean during winter’s inevitable approach, I will think of the warm beautiful life that waits for me an ocean away.  I know to get it I have only to raise my bed sheets to the trade winds and let them do the rest.  That and tell Tom he needs to get the heck out of Fidel’s bed.