Life at 45 Degrees

Dinner that night was farfalle pasta, mixed with tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and some herbs, served alongside crusty bread and a white wine from Frascati. Paolo, Simone and myself sat around the table, while a fourth place was unused – Dad had been impossible to rouse earlier.

Once we’d finished eating, I cleared the plates away, only to hear a yelp from Simone as the wine bottle launched itself across the table and into the wall.

At that precise moment the dinner table, along with us, the kitchen and pretty much everything else in our immediate presence, was tilting at a 45° angle.

Before now my experience with sailing has been limited to pleasant day trips, not week-long journeys across open, international waters. You could say that I was receiving a crash course in long-distance sailing, except that I’d not like your choice of the word “crash”.

Sailing is both a cruel and rewarding sport. Those who know what they’re doing will come across as masters, controlling wind and water with a nonchalant flick of the wrist. On the other hand, if you don’t know what you’re meant to be doing, you just appear drunk.

While Paolo and Dad skilfully trim the gib and winch sheets in high winds, Simone and I have extreme difficulty in our attempts to stand up from the table and pour a glass of water.

When the conditions are especially rough, I just lie in a cabin beside some bags and hope that I do a much better job as a piece of luggage. To date it has been my most successful role onboard.

However, the kitchen has become an arena where we test our sea legs against increasingly difficult culinary challenges. The overall champion is Simone, who reached a dizzying peak when she baked a loaf of bread while also forming a triangle with the kitchen bench and floor.

Beyond the cabin lie other challenges that bear a greater degree of danger than simply cracking an egg on your chest.

Our journey began in the port of Civitavecchia, just outside of Rome, and from there we used friendly winds to run the length of western Italy towards Sicily. Here we would need to pass between the Messina Strait, a narrow stretch of water that lies between Sicily and the toe of Italy.

Through the Strait lay the Ionian and its promise of three days with nothing but sea and sky. However, our earlier good luck was swept away by dark weather in the Tyrrhenian Sea, and the smack of angry waves threatened to turn Fèlicité into a piñata. The only sane choice was to pull into the Aeolian Islands and find shelter in the harbour of Lipari.

Lodged between active and extinct volcanoes, Lipari is the world’s largest source of pumice – a large proportion of which frosted the skies in a choking cloud as we sailed around its mines. Not being in the mood for having my lungs buffed, I took shelter below decks.

Once beyond the veil of shards, we drew up into Lipari’s crowded harbour. The congestion was made up of hobby sailors, wealthy cruisers and commercial boats of various sizes and finding safe anchorage was difficult. Our first anchor spot was challenged by a tanker delivering water to the island, so we had to move (or face the wrath of thousands of thirsty Italians), but not before I’d had a chance to swim in a healthy slick of diesel.

We remained at anchor for the next day, waiting for the weather to politely adjust itself on both sides of the Messina Strait. Also, we needed to wait for the slim window when the current worked in our favour: if we did not enter the Strait at around midnight, our sails would not have the strength to pull us through.

But first, so as to simulate our own delay before reaching the Strait, I feel the need to change the subject.

It is easy to understand why the ocean plays such a prominent role in human culture. There is a liquid presence beneath my feet that seeps up to take over my every waking moment. The ocean is always reminding us of its dominance by juggling Fèlicité around, like a cat with string. Thus a vessel, which while moored may appear impressive, is reduced to a bundle of twigs held together by fibreglass. As far as the ocean is concerned we and the boat are always just sinking very slowly.

When alone on watch during the day, I gaze out into the waves and see them transform into rolling lengths of blue and white yarn, wrapping and warping amongst one another for as far as the horizon allows. Leviathan clouds made their own passage across the sky, moving in such a way that I can almost hear their own form of whale chorus, while the water below remains empty. Rarely, the plump wash and slap of the ocean is broken by the sudden appearance of life – most of the time a ray or jellyfish – as if the sea itself is winking at us.

Earlier on the day we were forced to pull into Lipari, Dad and I spotted some dolphins leaping out of the water. Under Dad’s instructions I crawled up to Fèlicité’s bow and hung over the edge, camera ready. As predicted, one dolphin took a liking to our boat, and swam right up to play at the bow beside me. It corkscrewed agilely through the froth, turning to look at me, and at several points leapt out of the water to form a muscular horseshoe before it shuttled back into the deep.

Nights at sea are altogether different, with the lack of sun making me feel even smaller in the expanse of a black and silver dreamscape. Without trees or buildings to defeat it, the moon dominates a section of the sky, and its gunmetal glow gives the impression that we are floating in an immense, walled tank. Yet, when the stars come out they defy the moon, and the dazzling swirl I experience when looking up at them resets the unbound nature of the sea.

As you can imagine, the nocturnal sea holds its share of tortured souls. In the waters near Calabria, you can hear the cracking voice of a man who desperately seeks another by the name of “Maaaaaaaaaario”. His frequent pleas have become pop-culture in these parts, and his antics extend to playing Arabic music and whistling over the airwaves. There is also another, creepier voice: a falsetto that offers illicit pleasures to anyone who is willing to “remember the monkey”.

And so, on the borders of midnight, we arrived at the western mouth of the Messina Strait.

The Strait is a busy boulevard, a lifeline pumping people and industry between Sicily and the mainland. Its narrow entrance is flanked on either side by whirlpools, including the famous Scylla and Charybdis. According to Greek legends, these two monsters sat on either side of the Strait, devouring ships that came to close; it was often the case that avoiding one monster led a ship straight into the maws of the other. Maybe it is for this reason that sailing through the Strait is not recommended.

Whoops.

The best way to describe entering the Strait at night is to imagine a computer game. Stretched across the dark is a strip of casino-grade lighting: white, gold, orange, green and red, all twinkling and blurring in the salt-spray. Though the strip appears unbroken, this is only an optical illusion, and the narrow opening into the Strait slowly reveals itself as a blankness pushing out through a curtain of light. This is your target, but there are still challenges to overcome.

Whilst avoiding the deadly whirlpools, your vessel needs to stay clear of ships; ferries and tankers regularly zip across these waters, and they have no concern for a silly little boat that may get in their way. Unfortunately, at night the only way you can determine a ship is by three tiny lights, which may shine out sharply in empty oceans, but are completely swallowed up by the visual cacophony of a city.

We did have one helpful tool at our disposal though, a computer screen that showed the location of ships, as well as their trajectories. Thus, entering the strait required a team effort of reading the screen, and then determining which of the million lights belonged to the tanker. Depending on their angle of movement, a ship may appear to be still until, too late, it detaches from the crowd and slides like a ghost into your path.

Fèlicité glided between the two towers that mark the entrance of the Strait, and into liquid steel waters. Immediately, cannon ports fired silent ships at us from either side and their dark shadows loomed to intercept us. Simone held the computer tablet tight and called out their location whenever her eyes decoded their camouflaged presence. We pushed on, deeper into the channel, but our passage was not as quick as we’d hoped; for some reason the tidal flow was not in our favour, despite our correct timing.

We had no choice but to continue forward, crawling through the sluggish waters. More and more lights crowded our sides. One sneaky ferry slipped clear through our defences, and Paolo quickly pulled Fèlicité around to let the fiend pass across our bow.

And then, as soon as it’d begun, the ordeal was over. The Strait widened on either side, as if it was some monster drawing back to rest, and the naval traffic dribbled to a close.

We were through and out into the Ionian Sea.

It would be two more days before we saw land again.