Thursday, January 26, 2012
Risktaking, and memories of Giglio and Porto Santo Stefano
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The maritime tragedy off the coast of Italy continues to haunt me, and I am not alone. All of us who take occasional adventure cruises near icebergs, whales and strange parts share the concern about risk taking.
.
Risk taking is a natural for any New Yorker who leaves the safe haven at home to venture abroad. Simple walk along a sidewalk has the risks of cracks, careless fellow walkers and bikers. Crossings present a further escalation, in deciding whether to wait for the lights, and how long. Next level in personal risk is biking and driving, amplified by endangering others; we remember the suicidal bike messengers on our streets up to the 1980s, when technology took over document transmission. One reminder is the broken bicycle frame painted white and locked to a lamppost on west side of 3rd Avenue and 17th Street, to remind us of a bicyclist crushed to death by a truck.
Next comes the risk of harming fellow travelers who have entrusted their wellbeing to your care. We must overcome our inner Fangio that overwhelms male drivers now and then, and accounts for traffic deaths and speeding tickets. Then we come to professional risk takers, viewed in ascending order: cab drivers, bus and train professionals, some licensed, and finally,at the top of the line, airplane and ship captains. Their vehicles permit , even command, the use of point-to-point automatic steering, to help overcome the risks of long exposure, fatigue and distractions. Airplane pilots are protected from public contact, while ship captains are expected to mingle and explain. This accounts for Captain Francesco Schettino, 52 (a dangerous age) now and then showing off his skills in steering the huge Costa Concordia Mediterranean cruise ship close to the rocks of a volcanic island, Giglio, rather than staying in the secure 200 foot deep channel in the middle of the 11-mile narrows between the island and Porto Santo Stefano in the safe Tyrrhenian Sea, a terrible showing of high risk middle-age male bravery, like walking in a hail of bullets, forgetting about exposing 4,200 passengers and crew, a $400 million vehicle, and 500K petrol gallons of spillage, a human as well as natural disaster.
It makes me shiver, because we know that coast well, having spelt several weeks over a period of four years, in the 1960s and '70s on Giglio, a non-touristy natural paradise in the seven island Tuscan Archipelago in the Tyrrhenian Sea, thought to be named for the Medici family’s symbol of lilies, but more likely owing its ancient Latin-transliterated Greek name to the goats who roamed the conical volcanic pine forested mountain. It had many rulers, was known as an Etruscan and Roman stronghold (mentioned in Julius Caesar's De Bello Civili and other histories), taken over by the Medicis in the 1200s, and used as a fortress against incursions by Saracen pirates, well into 1700s.
We knew of it from the tales of an adventurous Reader's Digest bookman, son of farmers in Kenya, whose family visited Giglio during the murderously hot African summers. In those days we were adventurous, travelling with suitcases that we could carry from plane to train, bus or car, and so, after arrival in Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport, we easily shifted to a CIT bus to Porto Santo Stefano, an oceanside resort with a promenade reminiscent of a Raoul Dufy painting, halfway to Florence, expecting to catch a traghetto (ferry) to Giglio Porto. The island then had two hotels (later, also a camping site for Montedison workers’ vacations), and we were hoping to get a room at Le Palme, the cheapest (no real bathrooms, you stood on stones), or the other (name is lost but it had some facilities). Reservations? we were not sure that Le Palme even had phones.
After an hour's ocean ride in the wave skimming boat with donkeys, bicycles and a single car, we reached Giglio Porto, a tiny but busy commercial port , and a taxi took us to the sea side village, Campeche. Le Palme welcomed us, though no one spoke English, but there were a half-dozen pleasant tourists, and the family of an AlItalia pilot and his German wife took us under their wing. Soon we had a simple room , a meal and a bottle of local wine, shelved after use and marked with our name.
The beach was gorgeous, decorated with a small 1700s military fort, called the Medici Tower,the base for water board experts. One, a former Italian underwater swimming champion, went out every morning to spear fish for our table, then spent the afternoon drinking wine and receiving accolades. In the evening we all gathered in a local hall, for snacks and glasses of local grappa and conversation (our broken Italian was cherished), while the children gathered around two tall pinball machines, watching the tricky path of the balls gathering points, and cheering the competing local champions.
Our beach days included climbing to Giglio Castello, 500 meters above sea level, a tiny primitive poor town of wives and children of seamen, retired sailors and surviving widows, some living in mountain caves transformed into rooms and apartments millenniums ago. They produce olives, figs and some local wine, the basics of Italian agriculture. The Castello’s church is supposed to have a treasure, an ivory statuette by Giambologna, the Tuscan sculptor.
The town was poor, and you could buy a home for $500, until the hippies discovered the Castello. The whole island has only 1,500 permanent inhabitants, and is 23 km square (10 miles), the 23 mile coast is rocky, except for some sandy coves of which that of Campeche village is the biggest and best, popular with water board enthusiasts. The water was crystal clear until in 1973, the Mediterranean spit up lots of tar and pitch, the waves leaving a black line and we and the AlItalia family (our friendship has lasted through the years) ceased to visit Giglio. Magari, it was fun.
The maritime tragedy off the coast of Italy continues to haunt me, and I am not alone. All of us who take occasional adventure cruises near icebergs, whales and strange parts share the concern about risk taking.
.
Risk taking is a natural for any New Yorker who leaves the safe haven at home to venture abroad. Simple walk along a sidewalk has the risks of cracks, careless fellow walkers and bikers. Crossings present a further escalation, in deciding whether to wait for the lights, and how long. Next level in personal risk is biking and driving, amplified by endangering others; we remember the suicidal bike messengers on our streets up to the 1980s, when technology took over document transmission. One reminder is the broken bicycle frame painted white and locked to a lamppost on west side of 3rd Avenue and 17th Street, to remind us of a bicyclist crushed to death by a truck.
Next comes the risk of harming fellow travelers who have entrusted their wellbeing to your care. We must overcome our inner Fangio that overwhelms male drivers now and then, and accounts for traffic deaths and speeding tickets. Then we come to professional risk takers, viewed in ascending order: cab drivers, bus and train professionals, some licensed, and finally,at the top of the line, airplane and ship captains. Their vehicles permit , even command, the use of point-to-point automatic steering, to help overcome the risks of long exposure, fatigue and distractions. Airplane pilots are protected from public contact, while ship captains are expected to mingle and explain. This accounts for Captain Francesco Schettino, 52 (a dangerous age) now and then showing off his skills in steering the huge Costa Concordia Mediterranean cruise ship close to the rocks of a volcanic island, Giglio, rather than staying in the secure 200 foot deep channel in the middle of the 11-mile narrows between the island and Porto Santo Stefano in the safe Tyrrhenian Sea, a terrible showing of high risk middle-age male bravery, like walking in a hail of bullets, forgetting about exposing 4,200 passengers and crew, a $400 million vehicle, and 500K petrol gallons of spillage, a human as well as natural disaster.
It makes me shiver, because we know that coast well, having spelt several weeks over a period of four years, in the 1960s and '70s on Giglio, a non-touristy natural paradise in the seven island Tuscan Archipelago in the Tyrrhenian Sea, thought to be named for the Medici family’s symbol of lilies, but more likely owing its ancient Latin-transliterated Greek name to the goats who roamed the conical volcanic pine forested mountain. It had many rulers, was known as an Etruscan and Roman stronghold (mentioned in Julius Caesar's De Bello Civili and other histories), taken over by the Medicis in the 1200s, and used as a fortress against incursions by Saracen pirates, well into 1700s.
We knew of it from the tales of an adventurous Reader's Digest bookman, son of farmers in Kenya, whose family visited Giglio during the murderously hot African summers. In those days we were adventurous, travelling with suitcases that we could carry from plane to train, bus or car, and so, after arrival in Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport, we easily shifted to a CIT bus to Porto Santo Stefano, an oceanside resort with a promenade reminiscent of a Raoul Dufy painting, halfway to Florence, expecting to catch a traghetto (ferry) to Giglio Porto. The island then had two hotels (later, also a camping site for Montedison workers’ vacations), and we were hoping to get a room at Le Palme, the cheapest (no real bathrooms, you stood on stones), or the other (name is lost but it had some facilities). Reservations? we were not sure that Le Palme even had phones.
After an hour's ocean ride in the wave skimming boat with donkeys, bicycles and a single car, we reached Giglio Porto, a tiny but busy commercial port , and a taxi took us to the sea side village, Campeche. Le Palme welcomed us, though no one spoke English, but there were a half-dozen pleasant tourists, and the family of an AlItalia pilot and his German wife took us under their wing. Soon we had a simple room , a meal and a bottle of local wine, shelved after use and marked with our name.
The beach was gorgeous, decorated with a small 1700s military fort, called the Medici Tower,the base for water board experts. One, a former Italian underwater swimming champion, went out every morning to spear fish for our table, then spent the afternoon drinking wine and receiving accolades. In the evening we all gathered in a local hall, for snacks and glasses of local grappa and conversation (our broken Italian was cherished), while the children gathered around two tall pinball machines, watching the tricky path of the balls gathering points, and cheering the competing local champions.
Our beach days included climbing to Giglio Castello, 500 meters above sea level, a tiny primitive poor town of wives and children of seamen, retired sailors and surviving widows, some living in mountain caves transformed into rooms and apartments millenniums ago. They produce olives, figs and some local wine, the basics of Italian agriculture. The Castello’s church is supposed to have a treasure, an ivory statuette by Giambologna, the Tuscan sculptor.
The town was poor, and you could buy a home for $500, until the hippies discovered the Castello. The whole island has only 1,500 permanent inhabitants, and is 23 km square (10 miles), the 23 mile coast is rocky, except for some sandy coves of which that of Campeche village is the biggest and best, popular with water board enthusiasts. The water was crystal clear until in 1973, the Mediterranean spit up lots of tar and pitch, the waves leaving a black line and we and the AlItalia family (our friendship has lasted through the years) ceased to visit Giglio. Magari, it was fun.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 1:40 PM 
