Thursday 17 August 2017

Anxiety

Having just written a lengthy blog about Albania and my anxieties - I managed to lose it all. So this is an attempt at a rewrite.

As we came into port yesterday in the pretty port of Sarande I was overtaken by a huge wave of anxiety, paralysing. This is so unusual for me I found myself quite unprepared for it and unable to respond apart from going below deck to try to think what had happened.   It was a much more forceful episode than my 'normal' pre-holiday packing nerves, where I find myself wandering round the house aimlessly and repetitively, worrying about things I know are irrational but still agitated. This time, my route was interrupted by Andrew losing his 'foreign' wallet and we spent our fins hour at home searching fruitlessly everywhere. It turned up in the end in his bumbag inside his suitcase, safe but rather inaccessible.
I thought I had escaped my worries but they were just lying in wait.
So - we finally managed to leave Gouvia Marina later than planned because mysteriously the water taps wouldn't work so we couldn't fill the yacht's tanks. The reception girls refused to believe it, treated our captain as if he knew nothing..... In the end, from a different pontoon, we found the water, completed the paper work and set off north.
Past the extraordinary Jeff Koons boat, past the beautiful bays and headlands, past the high peak of Mount Pantokrator where we had been two days before, and away from beautiful Corfu.
Into Albanian waters.
Why should Albania make me so uneasy?
It is a small poor country right in the middle of the European continent, hoping to join the EU one day, but still held back by its dreadful decades under communist rule and then the despot and ductatir Enver Hodja who died only about 20 years ago. It is very left-behind, racing to catch up, but with a long way to go. Today by a main road we saw a goat chomping on a hedge with an elderly goatherd in attendance. The Albans have flooded into Greece where they have a terrible reputation as thieves and robbers. All the copper communication wires were stolen from alongside a railway. And the theft blamed on the Albans. We have seen them clustered at Athens bus station - dishevelled, dirty, clutching cardboard boxes tied up with string, and rough bundles of belongings. None of this is bad but it is all in 'the past' for us, we are accustomed to smoother things. The Greeks will allow that one percent of Albans are 'good' but the rest are all terrible.
It was (is?) a police state.
It is like Tintin country, and looks risky......
Even our own Foreign Office advises caution if you are planning to visit.
I have never before knowingly met an Albanian.
So - it's to be approached carefully.
You can add in to this my anxiety about being in a very small boat in a treacherous sea - and of course the boat is safe and the captain and crew skilful and experienced - but it turns out I am what they call 'an anxious passenger' - there it is.
We headed into the lovely bay of Sarande with its tall apaertment blocks parading up the hot hillside, and pretty palm-fringed beaches. The skipper radioed in for a berth - but we had to wait. It's not a large place and the quay is really designed for ferries and small cruise-ships. It's not ideal to berth a yacht among such large vessels as any slight mistake by one if them could be disastrous for smaller boats. We were told to wait - and eventually, rather chaotically, and watched by the police out if the corner of their eye, so to speak. We backed in, and we were to be held steady by our own anchor from the bows, dropped in line with our allocated space. In we went. But our skipper dropped anchor too early and we were just a bit too far from the high concrete quay. The height of this landing made me quake - another peril to be faced. But it was clearly best to go out and start again.....
At that point, and for no reason that I could have explained at that moment, I had to go below and sur quietly alone, so I missed all the fun of doing it right.
Then I had to face that gangplank..... It rose from the stern of the Lady Olivia at a steep angle up to the quay, sliding backward and forwards and side to side with the swell. Moreover, it could not be fixed because it might all to easily grate against the yacht's rails and lever them out. So although I 'know' I could walk it, would have someone to hold my hand, could take my time - still I was reduced to blubber inside.
It makes my cringe to think about this. I feel small, stupid, useless, unworthy. A long list of critical and humiliating feelings.n

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