BATTLE FOR BEACH 8

Never sure how to take being trained. I’m just not comfortable around people whose sole purpose is to know more about something than I do. It makes me nervous. I guess I’m just out of practice. I think the last person who taught me something useful was my driving instructor. Everything since then - largely useless - has been picked up through trial and error. Mainly error. So it feels quite novel to be in a small boat in the middle of a harbour being shown how to make it go and, more importantly, stop, without killing everyone involved. 

We’ve hired a Yellow Boat for the day on the promise of accessing one of twelve Beautiful and Secluded Beaches just up the coast. Beaches that no one without a boat, or hooves, can reach. But first I - and my fellow trainee, a wiry cockney with a nicotine croak and scarlet polo shirt - need to learn the ropes.

I don’t much like our teacher. If Ben Affleck was asked to play a Greek sleazeball this is probably how he'd do it. I don’t think he likes me either. I suspect he’d just as soon drop me to the bottom of the harbour in concrete flip-flops as teach me how to use his boat. 

Anyway, unlike my co-trainee, I have prior boating experience. Which is why I’ve not bothered looking at the video before we came, and he has. We’re shown how to moor the thing off a Beautiful and Secluded Beach. I ask what happens if the anchor gets stuck. Scarlett lets slip that the video covered that and sends his eyes briefly skyward. Point made. He gets to drive the boat back to shore, I don’t. I take this as our mentor acknowledging my innate nautical aptitude. Or possibly he wants me dead.

With the transport covered, it’s time to think about the destination. I do the math: twelve private and secluded beeches. Twelve Yellow Boats, eight Boulevard Boats (the competition across the harbour). Twenty boats in total. That’s three fifths of a Beautiful and Secluded Beach each. But I want a full one. I scan the quay and notice that five Yellow Boats are already out, with another preparing to cast off. I can’t make out how many Boulevard Boats are still in berth, but it’s reasonable to assume a similar proportion have put to sea. That’s ten boats chasing twelve Beautiful and Secluded Beaches. There's still a chance (a 16.7% chance to be precise), but there's no time to waste.

The family embarks hastily and we edge out into the harbour, past the lines of luxury yachts. What are they doing? Don’t they know there are Beautiful and Secluded Beaches to be had? I wonder fleetingly where people find the time to make so much money while spending half the year floating around the mediterranean. I assume that below deck there are people on mobile phones barking instructions to a small army of people busily doing really profitable things. And when they’re not barking they're too busy worrying about whether those really profitable things are being done really profitably to worry about getting to a Beautiful and Secluded Beach. I hope that’s what’s going on anyway. I’d hate to think you can be rich and relaxed.

Clear of the harbour I open the throttle on a northerly heading. Ahead there is a line of boats, two Yellow, one Boulevard. The Boulevard Boats have smaller engines, but come equipped with complementary iceboxes, so we should be able to outmanoeuvre them on the basis that a) we’re quicker and b) less likely to be distracted by pleasingly chilled refreshments. With a south-westerly helping us on our way we make good progress, and Beaches 1 and 2 appear to port, both occupied by what appear to be guests from an adjacent hotel. I make a note to let Ben Affleck know that someone’s suddenly built a hotel next to two of his Beautiful and Secluded Beaches which were formerly inaccessible to anyone without a boat (or hooves).

A Yellow boat is moored nearby and I marvel at its spectacular lack of ambition. There are ten more Beautiful and Secluded Beaches out there, one of them - Beach 8 - immortalised as one of the many locations used to murder Caption Corelli's Mandolin. And he’s settled for Beach 2! I slow a little as the boat pitches and yaws in the wash of a passing ferry, spray breaking the bow to the consternation of the recalcitrant crew clustered amidships.

To stern I notice two more vessels rounding the headland, at least one a Yellow. I open the throttle as we round the next point and come upon another Yellow Boat, hugging the coastline and turning into what I take to be Beach 3. I set course for intercept, but within seconds the enemy craft changes course and heads seaward, spotting, as we have, another vessel already anchored in the cove. Meanwhile the two approaching boats are coming up on the starboard beam and we decide to go for broke and set course for Beach 8 at maximum speed. That’s when I notice a splash of Scarlet in the closest of the two. We’re going flat out, but he’s gaining as we plough on past Beaches 4 through 7 and enter the approach to Beach 8.

The sea is choppier now, the mounting swell raking up and down the great fissured slopes of limestone on our port side. Gradually the shimmering slivers of headland separate and slide apart as we turn into the bay. Scarlet changes course and crosses our wake, heading landward. I too begin to turn, just as we catch our first glimpse of Beach 8. Unoccupied.

I fancy I see a sly grin on Scarlet’s face as he draws level. I fancy I see the glint off his skeletal knuckles clamped onto the throttle, and hear a demonic bronchial cackle as he pulls ahead. I notice him preparing his anchor and momentarily release the helm to do the same. The Greeks fought for it, the Italians fought for it, Nic Cage fought for it, and now I’m fighting for it. I’ve come 2,000 miles for this and endured a full 20 minutes of training. Beach 8 will be mine. Scarlet is already lowering his anchor, but ours is tangled. And when I finally cast it overboard I notice the other end’s not fastened onto anything. Goddammit, why didn’t I watch the video..!

"Uh oh!"

"What?"

I turn just in time to see a huge motor yacht glide effortlessly into the bay. Our boats heave and churn in the discharge of spent power as it slows and settles, its anchor already clattering down to stake its claim. The passengers weave smoothly around the decks like a work of fiction; and we look on invisibly from behind the footlights as the landing party assembles, and Beach 8 slips away.

"Charming. Shall we go."

"I Guess."

We haul anchor and head out, closely followed by Scarlet. I wave, he waves back. He turns south, we turn north and find a small rocky cove halfway to Beach 9 and tie the boat to a huge boulder. We all swim, and feed the fish with bread crumbs. Below the boat something silver catches our eye. It’s several metres down but I manage to scoop it off the seabed and recover it to our Yellow Boat. It’s huge and seems to belong in another world, like only something fished out of the ocean can. An armoured plate from a warrior turtle. The scale of a sea dragon. After the activities of the morning, it’s a relief to come across something so unfamiliar. 

When we fly home we wrap it in several towels but it doesn’t survive the journey. When we unpack we find it splintered and broken and, for the first time, notice its foul smell. So it's consigned to the wall next to the garage with all the other shells, pebbles and assorted marine mementos where, like the rest of us, it fades beneath the clouds.

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