Sunday, May 5, 2013

Don't Try and Stop Me Smee

Marina di Ragusa
2013 05 05

We awoke this morning to find our Meredith moving ever so slightly against her lines.  This was surprising as since we have returned to Sicily it has been the custom for us to wake to a gale. Just about every morning here in Ragusa by the Sea the weather has grown to full gale by sunup.  Most nights it just blew a gale all night long. 

Winds have blown in the 40 to 55 knot range much of the time and the highest recorded here since our arrival is 69.   

Our limited experience in the Med has taught us not to sail the Med in May.  It is warm but viciously windy.  We are tied up at the Porto Turistico Marina di Ragusa and will be for much of the rest of May.  Here there are bars, pretty women, six pack abs on all the local men, restos and groceries.  Here we stay.

There is a different point of view of course.

Many of the other boaters stayed in MdR over the winter.  They sought sun, warmth and gentle clime.  Their reward was continual overcast, bitter cold, rain and ceaseless gale.   Many of those boaters, wrongly blaming Marina di Ragusa for their discomfiture, are anxious to get out of here.

And so to Smee.

Our first day back at the boat it was announced that the "fleet" was departing the marina and by week's end there would be no boats left.  We would  be alone our friends told us pityingly.  Somehow they failed to detect that a few less boats might be viewed by some of us as a good thing.  Some of us realized that with the loss of the fleet all that hot water in the showers would soon be ours.

Alas the showers still run cool.  In the twenty days since our return nary a vessel has departed.

You see to leave MdR you must sail your boat.  And it has not been good sailing weather around here.  This is more so for the aging boaters here who over the six nonth winter break have suffered a loss of confidence in their skills pretty much proportionate to the number of brain cells killed off with the excessive drinking that accompanies cramped damp quarters, dark windy freezing temperatures and lack of entertainment.  

It is one thing to dust off one's skills but first one must find them.  First sail can be daunting.  It usually is aboard Meredith.

Still, there is no denying people are fed up.  Each day new pledges to leave "day after tomorrow" are solemnly sworn.  Some days at Happy Hour there is not even offered a perfunctory "Hi how are you?" before the speaker launches in his oath to leave on the next tide.  "By Thursday the 'fleet' will have left.  You will  be alone".

Yeah, well.  

It is all just like that marvellous scene in the movie Peter Pan with Dustin Hoffman playing Hook and Bob Hoskin as Smee.  Hoffman declares he will kill himself and puts pistol to brainpan.  "Don't try to stop Smee!!" Hook states with great emphasis.  When Smee takes no action Hook asserts with greater stridency "No, I mean it Smee.  Don't try to stop me!!"  Finally, aware that no one will stop him Hook is forced to plea "Try to stop me Smee.  Right Now"

So here we are living in Never Never Land and everyone is away on the morning tide.

And Don\t Try to Stop them Smee.


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