The Manhunt Part III

12/23/2013

When I stored my boat in the forest yesterday afternoon, it was with Mario’s blessing.  Mario is the pseudonym of the fellow who picked me up five hours late on Friday.  His cousins owned the property, it should be safe back in the woods.

This morning I woke up, checked the weather, checked facebook, and then went to my boat.  On facebook I had received the following message:

“ieri pomeriggio ho visto un ragazzo a piedi scalzi vicino un supermercato.... oggi vicino la mia spiaggia in pineta abbiamo trovato un kayak... facendo delle ricerche sembrerebbe il tuo se vuoi contattarci il n è 3288276345”

[Yesterday afternoon I saw a guy walking barefoot near a supermarket .... today in the woods near my beach we found a kayak ... doing research would seem your if you want to contact the n is 5558276345]

Apparently I come up high enough on Google searches that a few clues and a boat on the woods are enough to find me, cool.

I walked from the bed and breakfast to the woods.  I took some pictures on the way and went over a song in my head that I hoped to perform for this blog on the subject of how wonderful my trip is.

When I found my kayak and all of my gear missing, I stopped feeling that way.

This was my second crime scene since graduating from ranger academy.  This time there was quite a bit more to work with.  The pine forest behind the dunes was grassy with a sandy dirt jeep trail running through it.

Before approaching the spot where my boat had been, I took out my camera.

There were footprints.  I took pictures of two sets of fresh prints in the area as well as jeep tracks that went up onto the grass where my boat had been.  I broke a stick off to save the exact width of the tracks.

I called Mario.  He sounded hung over with only marginal levels of consciousness.  He would come by to help me in the afternoon.

I found a man on the beach carrying a bundle of driftwood back to his car.  He had not seen anything.  I found a pretty lady with an enormous dreadlock-mangy-explosive-bundle-of-love dog and another smaller meaner short haired one.

She didn’t know what happened to my kayak, but she did invite me to her Christmas party.  I don’t celebrate christmas. I think of the oppressive department store musical barrages and neighborhood celebrations in gaudiness as symbols of the roughly two thousand years of oppression my people have suffered at the hands of the church.  But, I was happy to consider her invitation because I needed smiles.

In fact, I think that if Jesus showed up at that moment and offered me a smile and redemption if accepted his faith, then I probably would have.  But he didn’t.

I went to the owner of the property, Mario's cousins.  They lived in a a big red house between the woods and a farm about a ten minute walk from the scene of the crime.  Maybe it wasn’t a crime scene.  Maybe they found it and moved it for safe keeping.

Mario had told me that his cousins spoke English.  And so they did.  Valerie and Max are a sweet older couple.  They only bickered a little.  

They had not seen my kayak.  But they did call Mario and told him to get his butt over there.  They also called Mickey, their son and the owner of the B&B that was hosting me.

Valery, English, also sat me down with some hot tea and milk while I struggled with planning a route through the challenges ahead of me.

Miki arrived and asked me “What did happen to your kayak?”

Valery cut in.  “What happened to your kayak?” she corrected her son.

I must have been feeling better because I laughed.  My mind was further calmed when we set into action.  We went to reexamine the crime scene.  We found the jeep tracks from the crime scene all over the dunes.  Someone had ended their joy ride of habitat destruction with a kayak theft.

We also found more tracks on the other side of the crime scene.  These were in the grass.  The blades were still bent and had sand on top of them, further indicating that they were recent and not randomly left there before the incident.

There was one last clue to follow up on.  Someone had looked at my boat yesterday and found me on google to say hi.  They left me there phone number.  I had prepared three questions to ask them.

What time did you see my boat?

Was everything neatly put away, or disturbed?

Did you see anyone joy riding a jeep through the dunes?

The last of course had a number of obvious follow up questions.

Mario had arrived, so he made the call for me.  I didn’t understand everything he was saying, and I didn’t even hear the other end of the conversation, but it didn’t sound like he was asking the questions I had prepared.

“We have your kayak.”  He told me.  The man at the other end of the phone was working, so I could only pick it up in the afternoon.  He told Mario that he had taken it because he was worried someone might take it, and so he thought it should be protected.

I waited Miki’s office and read about kayaking as the afternoon came closer.  Miki wasn’t there.  A chunky Indian man came in because he was curious.

“I don’t speak italian,” I told him.

“Where are you from?” He asked me.

“America.”

“I love Americans!  America has money and jobs.  Italian are racist.  America has many colors.  Look at Obama!  Italians are all mafia.”

I had made a lot of friends here in southern Italy and part of me wanted to say good things about the people here.  But most of me didn’t.  Without too much help the crazy Indian ranted for another twenty minutes or so before showing himself out.

The people who had my boat and gear arranged to meet us at the shopping center.  When they showed up, they looked like a couple of older hippies.  They had driven my boat to the mall on the roof of their car very slowly without tying it down.

I was not as gracious as I usually try to be, but nicer than they probably deserved.  I even smile as they took pictures of me posing with them next to the boat.

The hull is damaged with pock marks that tear through the gel coating and some of the carbon fiber.  Hopefully I’ll be able to partially repair it.

All is well that ends well.  I only lost another day.

Hopefully once Christmas is over random people will stop trying so hard to give me shoes.

Day 86

12/22/2013

My host, the same one who picked me up five hours late on Friday, managed to get me to my kayak for an 11:00 launch today, that is, only two hours later than I hoped.

But he also encouraged me to stay again at the bed and breakfast.  I had hoped to paddled 20 miles to Le Castella, but with the delay I risked getting there after dark.  So I paddled 10 miles to Vilaggio Carrao and the same bed and breakfast that was happy to host me again.

There forecast said there was a north wind, but this near the coast heading east I couldn’t feel it.  Above the beach that stretched along my entire rout was a forest interspersed by a couple of small villages.  Shacks that were undoubtedly hot spots in the summer were closed and sometimes boarded along the beach.

I passed lots of seagulls on the beach and a couple of ibises.

About a mile before my destination a small wave broke just before jostling me towards the beach.  Before I could point my bow out to sea I was hit by another, and then another.

I was on the sand.  A few more waves came and I managed to get out of it, but not without three or four of them crashing over my open cockpit.  Two inches of water sloshed around the bottom of my boat.  I took my pump out from under my seat and began to work it.

Huh, it was leaking.  While the majority of the water coming out of the mouth of the pump left the boat a small amount was sprayed through a crack in the side of the pump back inside.  It still worked, just not as well.

I made a beach landing, a little bit more smoothly than usual, and unloaded my kayak.  I carried all my gear and then my boat back into the woods behind the beach.

From there, I walked to my bed and breakfast and rested.

[gallery type="rectangular" ids="3201,3202,3203,3204,3205,3206,3207,3208,3209,3210,3211,3212,3213,3214,3215,3216"]

Nautical miles paddled: 10

Total since Napoli:  342.5

Current location:  38.910938, 16.817545

Day 85

12/20/2013

I paddled in a straight line to Catanzaro Lido, taking me three miles off shore.  The sea was glassy flat with wide gentle swells. The air was crisp and invigorating.  The sky, blue with a few white clouds floating on the horizon.

After some research I decided to replace my spray skirt with an akuilisaq.  The idea is similar, but they are looser and have a more traditional design.  Hopefully it will resolve the chafing and rotation problems.  I asked a friend of mine to see if he could find a sponsorship opportunity on my behalf so I can get one cheap.  We’ll see how it works out.

In the mean time, when the sea is flat, as it was yesterday, I paddle with my skirt free of my combing.  When I was about a mile out from port a fun tail wind picked up allowing me the thrill of catching waves.  In order to really get into it I put my skirt back on.  Fiery Pain!  The chafing was terrible.  I finally pulled through the gates of the port as a weakened cripple.

I sat in my kayak and rested.  Inside the enormous seawalls I saw a large open space of flat water with a few small anchored fishing boats.  One of them had a cabin with just enough room for  a person to stand in.

There was no dock so I pulled my boat up onto the beach next to a bunch more fishing boats.  Most of the boats were about as long as mine and painted white.  They were wooden, very wide and deep, had a couple of enormous oars and an outboard motor.  They mostly didn’t have cabins and were piled high with nets and other equipment.

A fellow kindly let me borrow his phone to call Mario, the friend who had hosted me the night before.  He had offered to pick me up and host me again.

In the mean time I needed a safe place to store my boat overnight.  I asked the wool capped fisherman who had lent me his phone what he thought about the beach.  He told me that an Italian would never steal, but there were a lot of Africans and Romanians about and that I could never be too careful.

Without getting into the politics of it, I decided to accept the last sentiment.  I found a boat repair garage. with a fellow reading a newspaper at its gate. I tried to ask him if I could leave my boat there overnight, but was unable to make myself understood.

I came back with my friend the fisherman.

“How long will you leave it here?”

“Hopefully I’ll be on my way tomorrow, but that depends on the weather and how my chafing is feeling.  If I don’t kayak tomorrow, then I’ll be here until Sunday.  I don’t paddle on Saturdays.  If Sunday is bad weather, then I’ll be here longer.”

He didn’t like that.  How long would my boat be here?  Why couldn’t I just give a straight answer?

Eventually he came to a decision, I could leave my boat there until Sunday for 50 euro.

“Thank you but no thank you.”

When my host showed up he talked to his friend who ran the dry boat yard at the top of the port.  I could leave my kayak there under lock and key and it wouldn’t be a problem.

My host drove me to his family’s summer home in village at the foot of a steep mountain.  The house has a beautiful wild garden with overgrown stone steps, deep overflowing clovers, enormous wild untended hedges and an orange tree heavy with delicious fruit.

My host had to go, but I should make myself at home and he would be back to pick me up the next morning at 8:00.

I did not have internet, and with my phone still broken I did not have any way to contact the world.  I rested.

In the morning I waited to be picked up at 8:00.  I still waited at 8:30, 9:30, 11:00, it was too much waiting.  It occurred to me that if someone wanted to kidnap me, all they had to do was drop me off somewhere and leave me there.  I didn’t think I had been kidnapped, but I did want to find a wifi connection and contact my host to see what was happening.

I wandered outside.  I found the beach and a fellow who would lend me his phone.  My host was sorry he was running late, but he would arrive around 13:30 and take me to his cousin’s bed and breakfast where I could stay for the sabbath, since the day had been lost anyways.

Oh well.

On our way to the bed and breakfast I asked if we could stop at a supermarket so that I could get food for the weekend.  I don’t cook or go shopping on the Sabbath.

“Don’t worry.”  He told me.  “My cousin will be happy to feed you.”

“Okay.”

The Sabbath was nice, except that his cousin didn’t feed me.  The B&B didn’t really serve breakfast, or any other meal for that matter, but I can’t complain since I had clean sheets and a lukewarm shower.  Above all, the price was right.

[gallery type="rectangular" ids="3191,3192,3193,3194,3195,3196"]

Nautical miles paddled:  14

Total since Naples: 332.5

Current location:  38.827297,16.635709

 

Day 84

12/18/2013

Yesterday the forecast was for force four headwinds today.  But when I checked again this morning they were force three improving to two in the afternoon.

So I launched.  The woman from the bar I had been blogging from hugged me and the captain of the port and a bunch of marines hung around to watch me leave.

At first the waves were four or five feet and the headwind unpleasant.  My route would take me around the coast.  The closer to shore I paddled the sooner I would arrive, but the more likely I would get hit by one of the enormous breaking waves.  

The entire coast for today was beach.  Hills behind the beach were bright green with grass, brown with fields of crops, or dark with forests and scrub plants.

The tall and jagged, grey and brown, forested mountains of Calabrai towered behind the hills, dominating the landscape.

As the the miles passed the wind and waves died down.  I’ve been using crackers for energy, and I’ve gradually migrated towards putting a pile on my skirt at the beginning of every hour and eating one every ten minutes.  My energy levels are better for it.

The last hour I stopped often, since I ran out of crackers, and my energy dived.  My shoulders hurt and I was tired.

I arrived in Bandaloto Marina and my journey for the day was at an end.  The entrance to the port had almost filled with sand, but a path had been cut through it, presumably by the sleeping bulldozer on the bank.

I found a dock worker.  “Hi, I’m Dov.”  I explained in my rudimentary Italian how I had kayaked all the way here.

Usually people are impressed and ask me “How long have you been paddling?”  and “Where will you finish?”  But he just said “okay.”

Huh, that meant he probably didn’t believe he understood me.

“Can I leave my kayak here overnight?” I asked in Italian.

“Ci.”

“Can I shower?”

“Ci.”  He gave me a key.

I also got internet.  While I sat working on my blog a local boater approached me.

“I heard your story. If there is anything you need, please let me know.  I have a boat here.”

“Does it have a cabin?”

“A small one.”

“Can I sleep in it?”  Usually I don’t ask directly for a place to stay but let people offer instead.  He sort of had offered.

“Yes!”

My new friend also took me to the supermarket, taking a shortcut through a river in his jeep, and was happy to treat me to my evening’s beans.

“And most importantly ...” he told me as he showed me around the cabin, “here in this chess box is my stash of weed.  I insist that you help yourself.”

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Nautical miles paddled:  19.5

Total since Naples: 318.5

Current location: 38.591145,16.568372

 

Day 83

 12/16/2013

The next port was ten miles away.  I expected force four headwind all day, brutal but feasible.  I expected to be on the water for four to five hours, which meant I could start a little late.

The night before it had rained, and inside my sleeping bag seemed to be gradually soaking up more and more water.  I didn’t know if my sack was leaking or if the rain was causing substantial condensation.  I bought the sack to replace the tent that was stolen from me in Barcelona.  As I lay there on the beach next to a small fishing boat, I grappled with the idea of finding shelter.  I went back to sleep.

The glowing hands on my watch read 4:30 in the morning.  Since I didn’t have far to go, and I told myself that by sleeping in my bag I could dry it out before storing it, I went back to sleep.

At 6:00 the fishermen came to take their boat out.  Since I had gear hanging on the side of it, I got up and started my day.  Besides, it was important that I pooped before the sun came up and the back and forth water would no longer be a viable option.

There was no force four wind.  So I decided to start right away.

Everything was ready, and a fishing boat was coming in to the beach.  They were calling to me.  How could I help?  What should I do?  Another man on the beach was running and showed me how to help them get the fishing boat in.  A cable ran from the sea to a rusty metal cylinder on an axle.  At the top there was a metal loop and the fisherman picked up a six foot metal rod and ran it through the loop.

The two of us then pushed the rod, turning the cylinder.  The cable wrapped and pulled the fishing boat.  The fishermen down near the water put smooth logs under it so that it wouldn’t drag in the sand.  As we pulled it onto new logs they ran to the back to pick up the old logs and moved them forward.

Up at the cylinder we huffed and puffed and pushed.  The man I was working with was smoking, which made it harder to breath.

After a number of rounds, the boat was sufficiently high on the beach.  And I had warmed up after a cold night in a damp sleeping bag.  

I launched from the beach without taking on too much water.  I scraped the hull on the sand only a little.  I might be getting better at it, but I’m not sure.  I ended up hitting the waves backwards, but I’d like to think it takes talent to launch like that.

At first the sea was calm and the cloudy dawn was beautiful.  Rays of orange light pierced the clouds near the horizon and illuminated the sea.

Ten miles should take about three hours.  The first two were easy and pleasant.  The third was full of the fource four wind.  It drained me.  By the time I pulled into the Roccella’s port, every three strokes I wanted to take a break.  And once I was on the dock, I lay there dreaming with my feet over the edge in my cockpit, without any sense of time.

Eventually I found my energy and pulled my boat up.  I went to the captains office run by the coast guard to ask if I could leave my boat in the port overnight and maybe find out about a shower.

“What’s your boat number?  Can I see your passport please?”  The woman asked me.  Uh oh, she was going to try to charge me.  Rats.

I gave her my passport and began filling out a form that wanted to know my port of departure, and all sort of other information.

I did the best I could while I waited for my passport.

Technically, I might not be in Italy legally.  When I entered the EU I was granted three months.  But my passport was old and has lots of stamps in it.  Maybe they wouldn’t find the right one, where I entered Norway in August.  That was less than three months ago, right?

The captain came out with my passport and asked me to confirm that the Norway stamp was the most recent.  I did.  He also told me that I should write Israeli next to my nationality on the form.

I had written American and given them my American passport.  I’m proud to be Israeli, but it bugs me that they can access that sort of information about me.

“Where are you headed when you leave Italy?”  He asked me.

“Greece.”  I showed him on a chart on the wall where I plan to make the crossing.

“You’re not allowed to do that in a kayak.”  He told me.  “It’s not possible.”

“Okay.”

“We’re done here.”  He said.  “You can shower over there.”  It seemed as though I was off the hook.

An older man walked with me to the shower building to unlock it.  The bathhouse was full of old bicycles, but there was a path between them to a shower.

“Aqua calde [hot water]?”  I asked.

“Ci.” he assured me.

I put my pack down next the shower and the man was trying to say something to me.  Was he asking how long I would be?

“Venti minuto [twenty minutes].”  I told him.  No, that wasn’t it.  He was asking something else.  He rubbed his his index and middle fingers against his thumb.

Oh, that was it.  “Quanto costa [how much does it cost]?”  I asked him.

“However much you want to pay.” I understood from his Italian.

I knew my own international symbol.  I pulled my empty pockets inside out.

He understood and said that was okay.  My shower was cold.

That night I slept in the Lega Navale offices in the port.  It had been a long time since Lega Navale had hosted me.  Life was good.

 

[gallery type="rectangular" ids="3148,3149,3150,3151,3152,3153,3154,3158"]

Nautical miles paddled:10

Totall since Naples: 299

Current location:  38.328465,16.43339

Day 82

12/15/2013

Today I paddled from Brancaleone to Locri. At first the sun was bright, the day warm, and the sea so calm I could have nodded off during one of my breaks.

I thought I was making pretty good speed, so I took out my GPS to check. It didn't turn on. I opened up the back and took out the batteries. One of the connections was rusty, so I cleaned it, with my shirt.* And then tried to turn it on again. I saw the Garmin logo, then the screen went blank. I tried a second and a third time with the same result.

In the afternoon a headwind picked up. I paddled under a bank of clouds. The bright green mountains and their jagged red peaks darkened foggy and gray. I got rained on, and the temperature dropped below t shirt levels. In my t shirt, I was cold.

At 14:00 I arrived in Bianco and decided it would be a good place to stop. I could have continued for another two to three hours to arrive at a town with a port, but without any lights or gps I didn't want to risk paddling in the evening in the cold.

I pulled up towards the beach, scraped my hull while getting washed up onto the sand, then grabbed a hold of said sand so as not to get pulled back out. After that a couple of waves dumped enough water and sand in my boat to anchor me and I got out.

I tell my kayaking students that whenever they do something that fails spectacularly they should tell anyone who saw it that's exactly what they were going for.

I walked around town looking for a wifi connection, and couldn't find one.

I did find an orange tree with fruit hanging over the sidewalk. I climbed up on a car to pick the ripest one. It was a really tasty blood orange. Juice dribbled down my beard and fingers leaving them sticky. The color of blood oranges freaks me out a little.

The supermarket was closed, but I found a small flea market where I bought some homemade pickled peppers stuffed with tuna. They were spicy. Without internet or all the data saved on my GPS or my smart phone, I'll have to stop at the port tomorrow to try to learn what's ahead. Tonight, it looks like I'll be sleeping on the beach.

The few people I have managed to casually tell my story to preferred to believe that my story about kayaking from Barcelona would have made more sense if only I spoke better Italian. So they nodded and smiled.

When I look in the mirror I see my wild hair, unkempt beard, wool hat, tired eyes, and bare feet. I see a fellow who could have been an extra on Northern Exposure, and I know my life is going in the direction I had hoped. I'm an adventurer exploring the world.

Other people see something else. Two women who I happened to be walking behind crossed the street to let me pass. An older lady who was walking in the opposite direction kept at least 10 feet between us as she went well off the sidewalk. I don't like that I scare people, but I choose to blame them for being scared and not having watched enough Northern Exposure as kids.

*I washed my shirt last Tuesday.

 

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Nautical miles paddled: 18

Total since Naples: 289

Current location:  38.236571,16.270035