Tuesday, November 15, 2022

Postcard from Portimao - Postmarked 15 October 2022

 I didn't know what I was getting myself into. How could I have known beforehand? Now that it's over and done with, I can reveal to you all about one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

Have you ever heard of the sport, Ultimate Frisbee? I admit that I had heard of it once a few years ago but I had absolutely no idea about the game, the rules, nor about the worldwide community of passionate players.

 


Imagine a team sport that is very competitive yet has no referees. No umpires. All fouls or infractions are called by the players themselves and then quickly resolved themselves. The two (or three) players party to the infraction, talk it over quickly, using hand signals (there are about 40 of them) so the other players on the team also understand what is taking place, and then they agree on how to proceed. Another interesting reason for the hand signals is because players from opposing teams may be from different countries and not share a common language!

This team sport is called Ultimate Frisbee, or simply, Ultimate, for short. As you may recall, I had expected to be cycling with Marc for two to three weeks in the south of Spain immediately following my sailing adventure in the Argolic Gulf in Greece.

Marc, however, two weeks prior informed me that he would be flying to Sardinia for a month after only five days of cycling with me in Spain. Something about a woman. 

 


Of course you've heard the expression, when one door closes another opens? No sooner was I out a cycling buddy, I received an offer to be a scorekeeper at both the European Ultimate Beach Club Championship and the World Great Grand Master Ultimate Beach Championship, both taking place, consecutively, in Portimao, in the Algarve, Portugal.

Of course, I accepted the invitation that came in through that open door. While at home, everything in Europe appears to be so close together geographically, but when in Europe even traveling from one country to its neighbour may take some time. Thus, after a five-day unplanned visit to Sevilla and two more days in Lagos, I arrived on schedule in Portimao to learn about my scorekeeping responsibilities. Those two city visits en route may land in their own postcard one day soon.

 



With 900 players representing approximately 60 clubs from 25 different countries playing on 12 sandy courts for three days straight, you may imagine all the logistics that are needed to manage even a half-day of games and their results. Plus of course the fifty volunteers and staff, including scorekeepers, medics, I.T.,  meal preparation, the media, etc.

By now you must be wondering how complicated can it be to keep score? Each scorekeeper starts the game by blowing the whistle and yelling "Play" or something similar and then starts the stopwatch. So far, easy-peasy. I like to give the two teams a five-minute advance warning, too, as they are all on the field warming up by then, and they love to have enough time for a team huddle before the game officially starts, to boost their energy and team spirit. We also have to keep track of who scored and who assisted each goal plus the time of the goal, and then change the score on the scoreboard. We have to keep track of the time elapsed throughout the game.

 


The teams flip a couple of frisbees before the start of the game to choose who starts on the offense and we note this, too. At the half time, at 25 minutes, or when one team reaches seven points, the teams switch sides as there may be wind or sun which favours one direction or the other. There are many other timing rules to know however I will spare you any further details. Enough to understand we are blowing the whistle regularly to keep the game moving along.

However trivial all of the above may sound, it is this that I found both mind-blowing and heart-warming: one team's players sometimes congratulate the other team's players during the game after a well-played goal. When a player calls a foul on another player, say for interfering with a shot or a catch, the player calling the foul explains what he or she feels was the foul and the other player will agree or else explain why what happened was not a foul. There is never a fight or raised voices, even in an important game where every goal scored can ultimately determine the winning team. After about 30 seconds of negotiating they agree on a resolution and the play continues. We scorekeepers do not mix in. In my seven days of scorekeeping, on only one occasion the two players were remarkably making no progress after a full two minutes of "arguing" so I blew my whistle and yelled, "captains." I remain uncertain if that was a legal call, but every player on both teams was relieved as the two team captains got on the field to weigh in and 10 seconds later a decision was agreed on.

The players from both teams often mingle on the field (ie., the beach) and chat about the last time they met at another competition or about a game earlier in the day. Or they horse around with each other, like kids playing on the beach. They often give each other advice for improving their playing. This takes place both before and after the game is played, or during the game as the players on the sidelines don't always stay close to their own teammates.



Another oddity which I've never witnessed elsewhere: after the game is over, all the players from both teams huddle in a large "spirit circle." They alternate in sequence a player from each team, so that every player has on his or her left and right a player from the other team, their arms are all interlocked behind each other's backs, everybody facing inwards. Each team awards a small meaningful gift to whom they have voted the best player from the other team and to the player from the other team who has shown the best spirit.

 


In this sport, the object is not to win the game at all costs, but rather to win the game with the best spirit. How many times did players thank me and my partner scorekeeper (it takes two scorekeepers to keep track of all the details during each game) for being volunteers, I lost count? We were always greeted with enthusiasm both on the field and at random encounters in town in the evenings. In fact, some of my fellow volunteer scorekeepers were players themselves on teams that did not qualify for this championship. They wanted to witness the games without having to pay all the travel expenses, as all the room and board expenses were paid for the volunteers. Thus, I met dozens of players from all over Europe, the States, Canada and Japan. I can count some of them now as friends.

It is a passionate worldwide community. The Japanese team had a relatively high expense to participate due to airfares (I suppose) and were short a couple of players. Thanks to a worldwide Ultimate Facebook group, a German and an American joined their team, having already met the team's members at a prior championship. I am under the impression that many of the teams had to borrow a player or two in order to compete with enough players, usually 15 per team, although only 5 at a time are on the field during the game.

To cap off the three or four days of games, at the end of each championship, the biggest disco club in town, The Mixx, was rented at night for a big private party for all the players, volunteers and staff. Similar to what I witnessed during the games, everybody mingled, danced and drank with others regardless of team membership, country of origin, etc. The very competitive spirit on the field is present but always within the context of the sport remaining non-contact, the rivalries friendly and the spirits high. And it is these high spirits that warmed my heart continually, that were contagious thankfully, but not because of what I have shared with you, above. Rather because we so often lack such high spirit in our daily routines and now I am invigorated, I am reminded that I can smile even more and congratulate my friends for a goal well played, and to pay it forward, as it were.

 


My only sad moment was in saying farewell to all, the morning after, when nearly everybody departed Portimao. In my case, I wasn't going home however, but on to Madrid for another adventure with no set end date.

Retirement is highly underrated!

Frisbee Barry

Monday, October 10, 2022

Postcard from the Argolic Gulf - Postdated 30 Sep 2022



At first blush it would seem preposterous that I would return to Greece to go sailing with Kosta. As I recall from my first (and only) sailing expedition with him, five years ago, the cabins were tight and the bathrooms were tighter still (use your imagination). On the other hand, what a fantastic opportunity to visit so many ports without having to unpack and repack my luggage at each stop as one has to do on a road trip. My last adventure with Kosta was for five days, so I doubled down and suggested that we sail this year for ten. I invited some others to join in and before I knew it (months later), we were all aboard, meeting the sailboat in Poros, a most lively town on a large island about an hour away by "fast ferry" from Piraeus, the famous port that serves Athens.



Kosta's sailboat, the Kime, which means Wave, in Greek, is a 38-foot catamaran with four cabins below deck. Each cabin has a double bed, some shelves and a tiny porthole which is more for air ventilation than for peering out. In fact, I have to admit now, that it is spacious enough if you are solo, and as long as you only use the cabin for sleeping and nothing else. Back upstairs, there are two large areas for sitting or eating on deck, one inside which is practical if it is raining or cold (not often the case in Greece), and one outside which fortunately is covered by a bimini to keep ourselves from broiling under the very hot Greek sun.



One of the advantages of sailing with Kosta is that he is as active as I am. At nearly every port that we docked, we either rented bikes or hiked up a nearby mountain, usually in the afternoons. One memorable hike was near Astros, a charming town, four kilometers walk from the marina. The entire uphill portion of the 14-km hike was on a dry creek bed. It was rather steep, about 900 metres up over 6 km (this calculates out to 150 metres elevation gain -- a 45-storey building's worth --  for each km walked). The creek bed, at the bottpm of a canyon with nearly vertical walls up to the ridges high above, was strewn with huge boulders, mostly bunched up in cascades to form huge obstacles, each about 10 - 20 feet high, between short strectches of flat hiking. These cliff-like rocky structures transformed this climb into one of my best hiking experiences. It was loads of fun scrambling up the rock faces, often at a faster pace than simply walking. It reminded me that I need to return to rock climbing again after the long lull caused by that spooky pandemic.



It was a typical Greek scorching hot day, although mercifully a couple of degrees less extreme in the mountains than in town below. The weather called for short pants. The only downside were the hundreds of prickly and thorny small bushes that reached out from the edges of the trail or from between the rocks that we were scaling which frequently scratched my legs. You know that you want to avoid these nuisances as many of the scratches drew blood!



Once we eventually reached the summit, a two-km walk on top of this mountain range followed, between grazing herds of bleating goats and sheep. Before long it was time to follow the trail back down to Astros. Nobody warned us that we were about to walk down the face of a 2,500-foot cliff. If Kosta hadn't promised us that he had done this once before, I would have bet a year's pay that only mountain goats and suicidal burros would venture down the narrow path etched into the cliff face. If you look at the photo below you will be hard-pressed to even imagine, let alone actually see, a path down from the summit, switching back from left to right and right to left along its descent. It was exhilirating. It was exciting. And it is unforgettable. Now I long to find more such hikes and simply skip the casual ones, starting today.



After a few days of sailing in the Mediterranean Sea and the Argolic Gulf, I more fully appreciated the freedom that sailors enjoy: unlike on the restrictive, crowded one-dimensional terrestrial highways, at sea we are free to sail in two dimensions, in any direction on its surface, and at any speed with hardly any concern for traffic. When it gets very hot, we simply find a bay, drop the anchor and dive off the boat for a swim. We did this every day, taking advantage of the warm, clear blue waters and regularly swam about 500 metres to a beach where we chatted, skipped stones along the water's surface and then swam back to our sailboat. A kilometer swim each day in the healing salt water is likely more healthy than jogging or weight training. With perhaps only an exception or two in decades, I hadn't skipped stones since I was very young and the joy of (again) perfecting the art quickly brought back to mind my fondest childhood memories of summers on Nantasket Beach, on the South Shore of Boston, where I "grew up" on the Atlantic Ocean. 



In case you haven't inferred, each of these beaches is deserted as they are inaccessible by car. At times the bays where we weighed anchor had other sailboats parked as well, however we were usually the only swimmers. It is cool to be able to see clearly 20 meters down to the seabed but I suppose it may be scary for most people to swim in such deep water. I was wondering if maybe it's not the depth, however, but the fear of scary marine monsters that may be lurking below, waiting for their chance to snack on an unsuspecting human above.



Did you notice that I referred to the Mediterranean as healing. I am uncertain how well documented the healing powers of salt water are in the medical literature, however, I am convinced that a daily swim in salt water will cure all dermatological problems. Pimples gone, dry skin no longer, toenail fungus healed, itches and scratches disappeared. If you forgot that I revealed to you how my legs got scratched up the day before while hiking, my legs did remember for me: each scratch was burning in the salt water, feeling as though razor blades were maliciously cutting up my legs. I imagine that this is the first symptom of speedy healing and so, in my own mind, I transform the discomfort of a thousand cuts into little pleasures. These are some of the reasons why I always imagined that I would return to my childhood summers by living again on the sea, once retired, somewhere in the world. At least for part of the year. This is a work in process, of course, and this season's progress is marked by ten days of sailing in Greece.



Naturally, one of the benefits of living on the seashore again will be a visit from you!

Barry, retired but not yet retarded 😂

Friday, June 24, 2022

Postcard from Sicily - postmarked 09 June 2022

This past week I experienced first-hand the meaning of the saying, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!" I am fairly certain that this wasn't my first such experience however it so very easy to forget yesterday's suffering while enjoying today's pleasures.



The first day of a week's cycling in Sicily greeted us all with very hot temperatures of 30C at 9am, climbing to a steaming 36C by mid-morning. Ouch!

Three days previously, to help overcome jet lag, we spent our first day abroad onboard a privately chartered sailboat. The hot sun broiling us from above was countered by the cooler sea breeze blowing all day from one side or the other. Cold drinks, lots of inactivity punctuated by a refreshing swim in the 200-foot deep Mediterranean waters, gave us good reasons for not realizing that it was actually scorching hot.



The next morning , we took a bus to the base of Mount Etna. There, at over 1,000 metres ASL, we had effectively left the high heat below. We had been advised weeks before to wear long pants and to take a jacket as we should have expected temperatures as low as 5C near the summit. However, on account of the heat wave blanketing all of Italy, it never got cooler than about 20C. Black lava covers the entire mountain, some of it is fresh from April's eruption, while the greater majority is left over from past eruptions. Etna is still active today: When hiking closer to the summit I could hear the mountain rumbling continuously as the smoke and steam belch from the crater at the peak. The top 1,000 metres is off limits to hikers due to the high risk of another volcanic eruption without warning.

 


The landscape looks exactly like images of the moon's surface that we've all seen many times by now, the only difference being the colour. I reached about 2,400 metres elevation when hiking up. Here and there along the slopes are smaller volcanos from earlier eruptions. Many are too steep to climb down into, or up onto, but some others provide a safe access. While standing at the bottom of one of these smaller extinct volcanos, everything is silent. The sounds made by Etna pass overhead.

Here's a cool fact: there are glaciers buried everywhere beneath our hiking boots. In different places, due to the shifting ground, parts of some glaciers are forced to the surface. You may see hot volcanic steam or smoke coming out of the ground a few metres to one side, while there is snow exposed on the other side.

We started our cycling week inland in the mountains, in Caltagirone. Every town we cycled through, or spent the night in, is special, with its unique arrangement of narrow, black (think lava), stone streets and various restaurants, cafés and shops lining them. Our first day of cycling was planned to be 65 km in length with 1,200 metres of net elevation gain. If you aren't clear what this means, let me explain: On flat ground, my group can ride 100 km without a problem. Once you mix in some climbing, it's wise to reduce the distance in proportion. Normally, our trajectory would be considered challenging but doable. However, with the temperatures at 36C starting at 11am, little breeze if any, and a clear cloudless sky, we suddenly have all the ingredients for heat stroke!


In these conditions, it is imperative to drink about a litre of water per hour, even if not feeling thirsty. If your lips or mouth are dry, you need to drink regardless of thirst. Even so, the day was grueling, if not tortuous. On the one hand, the stunning views out over the panoramic valleys of mostly dry farmland (must be between growing seasons now), the mountains in the distance, the narrow stone wall-lined roads nearly always void of cars, and on the other hand, the extreme heat, our relentless thirst and fatigue, it was often confusing to know whether to feel elated or exhausted. Our climbing speeds were most often embarrassingly slow, 7 or 8 km/hr, on account of being overburdened from the unrelenting heat and broiling sun. Shade stops became the norm, every half hour or so.

 


Even with all the precautions, two cyclists in my group suffered from heat stroke, became delirious (in my opinion) but insisted on finishing the ride, whatever it took: stopping often, walking the bike whenever going uphill, keeping the speed and effort low. I frankly feared for their health and safety, but was sadly unable to persuade them to abandon their first day's ride. Happily, they both arrived intact, two hours after the rest of us, at our next stop, in Palazzolo. Most of us felt completely normal again after a rest and a cool shower, allowing us to enjoy the town's sights and a well-deserved dinner and cold beer al fresco.

 


Wash, rinse, repeat. Seven days and evenings of cycling, novelty, surprises and the occasional serendipitous moment. The perfect formula for exploring eastern Sicily! Stay tuned for more Sicilian adventures :)

Barry