I’ve been trying to keep the outside of the yacht clean and failing miserably. Every time I scrub the topsides down, the next light wind or short rain-shower deposits a new layer of fine, orange, Saharan dust on the topsides. This is then deposited, from the little rivulets of rain, into tiny pools where it morphs into a fine orange clay-like moraine. And so I repeat the process. Except when we are at anchorage - which is quite often now – when we don’t have the water to spare. We now appear to be sailing on an EasyYacht.
My main reference for the next part of our journey – around The Middle Finger - is Patrick Leigh Fermor’s book, “Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese". [Alix: PL-F books were incredibly popular in the Oxfam bookshop where I work in Cirencester]. It’s a very good read because it is intensely descriptive of the landscape and its unique people. I’ve only really pulled out a few historical bits here. And I’ve only managed to read half of the book so far. I’m a bit of a slow reader and get easily distracted - there’s sail trimming and navigation to be done after all.
To give you an idea of how Mr Leigh-Fermor is a far more descriptive writer than me, this is how he describes the Saharan dust in the arid landscape of a Mani summer:
“The salt encrusted along the whiskers and eyelashes of our companion, the taste of sweat in our mouths and the African wind that seemed to be burying us at the bottom of invisible dunes, trebled the rapture of those long icy draughts."
See, that’s much better than my whining-on about dirty gelcoat. We are not quite at the height of summer yet here, requiring icy beer. The sun is not that hot, there’s still snow on the highest peaks, a cool, katabatic wind blows often and there’s a need for a sweater or fleece most of the time [Alix: and socks]. In terms of the dust, it explains quite easily to my mind, how the ancient ruins that we have been visiting had got buried under feet of earth over time. It’s a wonder there’s any topsoil left in north Africa.
We slipped our lines at Kalamata, because chief weather-forecaster [Alix - and passage planner] Titley had spotted a good weather-window lasting a few days. That would allow us to not only pass easily around Cape Matapan (the southern tip of Mani peninsular, and the second most southerly point of mainland Europe), but also Cape Maleas (the third and easternmost finger, not in the Mani, but where Odysseus got hit by his first storm and ended up in Africa with the Lotus Eaters!)
I’d been bigging-up that Odyssean trial, but failed to appreciate that I’d now put the fear of God into First Mate, and she was now overly worried about imminent shipwreck or marooning. Or ending up in Tunisia. And she has also been chatting to many sailors out here who have, only very recently, been beaten up by strong head winds and dangerously large waves around the cape, only to turn and run back to port. It pays to be cautious, and having our Greek visas means we can take our time and not push it too hard.
Just to prove I am not making up this risk, I repeat here the ‘Note’ on the Imray Chart that relates to rounding Cape Maleas:
“When N and NE winds blow, avoid the coast of Malea. The winds in the area are usually blustery and violent gusts. The "pilot" of 1910 mentions that: "sudden gusts are sent down the mountains with N winds, which are strong enough to rip your sails apart to break the mast or even to cause the boat to capsize. You should keep a distance of at least 3 NM from the coasts, and even then be ready to loosen your sails. The steamers should also keep their distance as the waves close to the coast are regular and accompanied by a strong current."
We decided to break up the journey. Our first stop was half-way down the western shore of the Mani, in Limeni bay. It’s a large, open bay and doesn’t offer much shelter from winds or swell from the west, so we had to pick our moment. We anchored in a little bay on the south and took a long line ashore, which we tied to the rocks at the edge of the village (of the same name) perched almost over the water’s edge. The square buildings and church-like fort are all stone-built and seem to have been hewn out of the rock from which they arose.
The capital of the Mani, Aeropoli, lies just around the headland to the south. (We had visited it briefly last week after our trip to Mystras (see ‘The Last Emperor’.) South of the road that runs east-west linking Yithion with Aeropoli - along the last passable valley - lies the infamous, mysterious and almost impenetrably mountainous ‘Deep Mani’. Many of the villages here are perched on the hills and cliffs, and would have only been accessible by boat until maybe recently.
And this is where Missy Bear was headed. We left Limeni and headed south to round Cape Matapan. We rounded it without incident in calm weather, then anchored in the well-protected bay of Porto Kaiyo (Cayo) on the eastern side of the peninsular. I will let Mr Leigh-Fermor lend some flavour to the scene:
"Liméni, the cradle of the [Maniot] Mavromichalis family below Aeropolis in the long gulf of Vitylo, is one of the only two safe harbours of the Deep Mani. But communications to Liméni are cut off by mountains and lack of roads from the extreme south, leaving only Mezapo and Yeroliména. Both of them are hazardous in foul weather. Ships must then load and unload as best they can in the little desolate bay of Porto Cayo, just over the saddle of the Taygetus. The single office of these inlets in the past was to afford a fair-weather refuge for the Maniot pirate ships.”
We weren’t expecting to see any pirate ships: the four boats that were chasing us southwards were just other yachts with the same view on the weather as Alix, we assumed. And I wouldn’t call Porto Kaiyo “desolate”; I would call it remote, secure, presently tranquil and beautiful.
So, what is the Mani, and who are the infamous Maniots? The origin of the name ‘Mani’, albeit disputed, seems to come from the ‘Castle of the Mani’ or ‘Le Magne’ in French. The exact location of this fortress is also questioned, but it was built by William II de Villehardouin, who was part of the Frankish dynasty that ruled most of the Morea after the sack of Constantinople in 1204 (see ‘The Island of Pelops.’)
As to who the native Maniots were or are, we have to go much further back in time. The story is that they were originally of Doric Spartan stock. Sparta is just up the road - near Mystra where we made a visited a few days ago. The Spartans were a fierce force of fighting men, and totally unlike the other fledgling democratic polis. This may explain a lot of what comes next.
Subsequently, and because of its geography and terrain, the Mani became a refuge for waves of immigrants or refugees. As Leigh-Fermor explains, the first ones were probably fleeing harsh treatment in Sparta itself. Then the Roman Augustus left these people to their own devices, partly because they helped him fight Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Actium (near Preveza). But those privileges were dissolved by Diocletian. More Spartans fled when the Visigoths flooded in at the end of the 4th century. Newer refugees fled from the invading Bulgarian and the savage Slavic Meligs. The Frankish invasion of the 13th century caused more refugees to head south into the security of the rocks. And then when Mystras fell, even more arrived.
This mélange of people managed to come together to repel the Ottomans, unlike the Greeks in Asia Minor and Crete, who failed to and then had to seek refuge in what now may have been truly called the Mani. The Ottomans left the Maniots to rule themselves, probably because it was simply too difficult to try and control them.
And it was not really worth it – it is not a prosperous area and there are few natural safe harbours. Instead, the Ottomans installed a Maniot ‘Bey of the Mani’, who was supposed to rule and to pay a tribute to the Ottomans. But it is said that this may have paid only once ever (and that by flipping a farthing disrespectfully in the direction of the empire’s tax collector.)
But then the Maniots did not have much money to tax. They were so poor that they made much of their income through piracy. Their sorties were blessed by the local priest! They were a real pain to the Venetian and Ottoman sailors. But equally, the Venetians and Turks were quite happy to buy – and then sell on - the poor sailors or passengers that the Maniots had recently captured and enslaved.
The Maniots were a hardened people. They retained their early faiths and superstitions and were converted to Christianity as late as the 9th century! Their land was mountainous, poor and arid in summer. There was plenty of space, but not much useful room. Squabbles for local territory were inevitable, and that begat the infamous feuding and vendettas between warring families or clans. The fierce Spartan warrior DNA or culture shone through.
Leigh-Fermor explains at length how the families built taller and taller towers (like the competing families in Bologna, Italy). But the Maniot towers had slits for windows from which to snipe at their neighbours, and tower roofs from which to bombard their lower neighbours’ houses with canon shot!
The main role of the women was to give birth to more male offspring, which they called “guns”. The feuds were inherited and scores were known to be settled 40 years after the original offence was taken, and often in far-off lands following some detective work.
I walked up to one of these Maniot towers when we were anchored Porto Kaiyo bay. It was a remote one and outside any of the small hamlets scattered around the hills. It was built by the Grigorakakis clan on a low saddle of land at the end of the peninsular and between Porto Kaiyo and Marmari. It was featured in a famous feud of the early 19th century, of which I know nothing. What I do know is that the panoramic views it offers - both east and westwards - are fine, and enhanced by the colours of blooming yellow Spanish gorse and purple lavender.
I will let Leigh-Fermor describe how these vendettas could be concluded, if it wasn’t the complete annihilation of the opposition:
"Final peace—which was appropriately known as agape—was concluded at last by a meeting in the rouga of both sides. There in the middle of the ruins they would quite literally kiss and make it up; embracing, drinking to friendship from the same cup, and paying reciprocal visits of ceremony. The agapes were quite often lasting.
The Turkish threat, again, would reconcile all parties, and sometimes supernatural intervention would call a cease-fire. The most famous case is the appearance of the Blessed Virgin to the Mavromichalis and Mourtzinos families in the middle of a battle with the warning that a Turkish host was approaching. They crossed themselves, embraced and advanced to meet the enemy side by side.
The longest truce of all was the general tréva called by Mavromichalis on the eve of the War of Independence. Everyone, in these times, went heavily armed. They would sit talking in the rouga in the evening with their guns across their knees, and before celebrating Mass, priests would carefully lay their guns across the altar at a handy distance.”
Knowing what I do now, it feels almost inevitable that the Maniots would be the ones to kick-start the War of Independence in 1821. It had actually brooded earlier when a Russian called Orloff promised the Maniots help, but showed up with far too few troops. Petros Mavromichalis, head of his famous Maniot clan, was a troublemaker who the Ottomans had made into a Bey to help keep him onside. But it was Petrobey (as he was known) who led the first assault on the Ottomans at Kalamata in 1821. Tsimova was named Aeropolis - ‘town of the war god, Ares’ - in his honour.
One really sad thing about Greek independence is that it didn’t unite Greeks. This is especially true of the Maniots. These people were fiercely independent and still living in their towers from the dark ages. The idea that they were going to fall into some new nation state and kow-tow to some new imported head-of-state now seems totally fanciful. In fact, Maniots shot the first head of state, which ushered in the Bavarian King Otto as his replacement. And Otto tried hard with his Bavarian troops – often receiving a bloody nose - to crush those unruly Maniots.
Only a common enemy seems to unite the Greeks. And then only temporarily, so that they can get back to their daily inter-clan or inter-party civil wars. When one talks of ‘victory’ in wars, it depends on what defines 'victory', and to which party you talk.
But for the crew of Missy Bear, victory that day meant simply getting around the bottom of the middle finger safely in calm seas.
