Here’s the scene. We’re spending the day in Mallorca with two friends from California before they set sail on a handsome yacht which they charter for one week every summer. It’s a proper sailing yacht, not a gin palace. Forty-metres long and with a crew of six. They take the same group of friends away each year but this time there’s a wrinkle. Ash from an erupting Mount Etna has closed Sicily’s Catania Airport and so two of their Italian guests are literally going to miss the boat.
“So why don’t you come for a night?” asks H.
Unfortunately, we already have plans, having promised to see people we love for dinner the next night at a cool beach club, so there can only be one answer. “What do we need to pack?” I ask a little breathlessly. Then I remember the other half once spent an entire 12-hour Greek ferry trip spewing into a supermarket carrier bag. But he’s already doing a hornpipe jig (that’s something to behold). So it seems that we are good to go.
I have been on boats before. Just this past Christmas I sailed to and from Mallorca, though it was on a Baleària car ferry and most of my fellow passengers were nice truck drivers. We still hang out together.
The plan is to meet at 09.00 sharp the following morning in Port Adriano and then sail to Menorca (having only lost my Menorca virginity the week before, I am delighted at the thought of having a second bash so soon). We get to the dock early – no risks to be taken – and I just pray all the time that Mount Etna is still doing its impersonation of my partner on a Greek ferry.
Off we go. The captain explains that there are some simple rules. No shoes – definitely no cha-cha heels on the teak deck. No oily suntan sprays (the teak again). And if you swim in the sea, shower at the back of the deck to avoid salty feet marking – you guessed it – the teak. Really, wouldn’t it make sense to put down some nice teak-print linoleum? Would save a lot of bother.
I think we prove to be good guests – I forget about the salty feet business only once and the captain gives me a bit of a look but somehow doesn’t make me scrub the deck.
H and her husband M are skilled at this yacht business. They have planned the menus weeks in advance, had the wines they love delivered to the boat, thought about at-sea entertainment. It’s the sort of meticulous preparation that makes it all look effortless. We sail around the coast of Mallorca and then, in the late afternoon, over to Menorca, dropping anchor as the light fades. In the softening glow the nearby cliffs look charcoaled onto the horizon. Above us the stars seem to be winking at me.
Then my dear friend Etna comes good again. Catania Airport is still closed. “Would you like to stay another night?” I think you know what I replied.
We end up spending three days on the boat, time for life to slow, for long and funny conversations. To find joy in such unexpected things. M encourages me to jump off the boat (in a friendly way), to slide deep into the dark water. He also gives me diving lessons (Tom Daley has nothing to fear). There’s something about jumping into the unknown that’s addictive. I go again and again.
When I was a child and jealous of a friend’s endless fancy holidays, I remember my dad helping me rethink the issue. “When you get to do these things one day they will feel very special. It’s OK to wait,” he assured me. I thought about his wisdom as the tender took me to shore in Mahon. I had had a blast. I had drunk in every moment. I was grateful to my dad and my hosts – but mostly Mount Etna.
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