Another Sicilian Job. Continued
I went into Cala D’or Marina expecting a confrontation with Leno, the Sicilian owner. I came out with a workshop and the use of the marina’s facilities to run my own marine electronics business. It was bizarre.
Miguel the office manager, took me to see the place. Through double glass doors, we entered a room strewn with dusty boxes, cables and other rubbish looking like an abandoned store. It was going to take some work to spruce it up, but it had great potential. Miguel said he would get the electrician Sebastian to clear his stuff out in the morning.
Sandy and her friend Mardy were in the tranquility of Cana Cavea when I returned home with the keys to my new realm. They immediately offered to clean and repaint the place, for a price.
Mardy, lived on a sailboat called Pundit in Porto Colom. A pleasant blond Canadian girl, she morphed into a female Captain Bligh when you crewed on her boat. Back on shore, she transmuted back to her charming self, a condition not uncommon to sailboat skippers.
The next day, my cleaner-painters and I went to inspect the premises. Sebastian, the young electrician, was clearing out his things. He wasn’t upset, but I apologised for getting him evicted anyway. In the afternoon, the girls gave me a price and promised to start the renovation the next day. Within a week it was cleaned, painted white and had a polished floor.
Among the rubbish was a three-metre long, glass-fronted cabinet. Cleaned up and positioned by the front entrance it doubled as a desk and a display counter. I filled it with my electronic stuff switches, push-buttons, connectors, diodes, transistors, integrated circuits on anti-static foam, transformers, potentiometers and knobs. Hardly any of this hardware was of use in boats, but it did look impressive.
Instantly, I was catapulted from pastoral Mallorca with unpretentious neighbours, into the ostentatious world of the nouveau-riche and floating gin-palaces. I wasn’t so happy to be back in the race. Still, success is not always won by hard work, it’s often achieved by seizing an opportunity as it presents itself.
I had to register as Autónomo (self-employed) and change the Ford Fiesta from Tourist to Palma plates. The bureaucracy was handled by our infamous Gestor in Palma – situated down Calle Olmos towards the Ramblas and turn right after the Military Hospital. A different world then, I was told when presenting my first tax return “Make it lower, you’ll get us all into trouble”.
When the Fiesta’s Palma plates arrived, I was to busy to change them, I meant to do it at the first opportunity. After a month the Guardia Civil paid me a visit in the marina.
“It’s time you changed those plates” They never visited me again, they didn’t have to.
In 1988, marine electronics capability was centred in Palma, and I was something of a novelty on Mallorca’s east coast. There were lots of things that needed fixing on boats other than electronics. As an ex-merchant navy engineer, I was in demand for work not covered, or wanted, by engine mechanics; or by those specialising in painting, anti-fouling, hull, sail and mast maintenance. However, crawling around in the bowels of a boat in Mallorca in August, or working on an anchor winch on an open deck, that was like the sun’s anvil, was no exotic pastime.
I discovered there were two distinct species of boat owner, the nice and the arsehole, and that they were fairly evenly distributed by nationality and gender. Leno, was a ninja when it came to dealing with the narcissistic.
One time I was in the marina office, a client entered and demanded to speak to the top man. Leno emerged from the inner sanctum.
“I have five yachts that need berths in August. What discount do you offer.”
Leno “We don’t give discounts”.
“For five yachts, you must give a discount”.
Leno “With or without your yachts, this marina will be full in August. Book now if you want the berths. No discount!”.
Using Leno as my spiritual guide, when being treated like a peasant by a boat owner, I would repack my tool kit. The conversation would then go something like this.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m getting off the boat.”
“You can’t. You haven’t fixed my problem”.
“Exactly, this is your problem, not my problem”.
One day an old German approached me and asked if I was Bernie. When I confirmed, he asked if I could fix a problem on his boat. I replied I was busy, but I would try to get to him by seven that evening. He thanked me and turned to go without the ‘but it’s very urgent’ routine. I inquired how he knew who I was.
He replied “I was told to look for the person in the marina with the most outrageous Bermuda shorts” and he finished by saying. “I was also told not to upset you”.
That evening, after I’d fixed his problem, we sat on deck for an hour or so in pleasant conversation drinking cold beers. It transpired he had been in Rommel’s Afrika Corps. He recounted to me:
“We could generally predict what the Americans or Free-French would do. But, you British when we did ‘this’ instead of doing ‘that’ you did something else”.
“Well! That’s because you thought the British knew what they were doing” I replied.
He looked at me trying to figure out if I was serious or if this was an example of British humour.
“Don’t worry about it Herman” I continued “The British have the same problem with the Irish”.
Whenever Herman had a problem, he was always at the top of my list.
Often when I was occupied in my workshop, people wandered in and asked if I sold boats. Initially, my response was simply “No, I don’t”. They then proceeded to use me as a tourist information service. As I came to appreciate the cost involved in buying and keeping a boat, my response changed.
“Do you sell boats”.
“No, but I give therapy classes” I’d respond.
“What do you mean?”
“Well. Come back tomorrow with 20,000 Pounds in two 10,000 Pound bundles. First, I’ll put one wad in my pocket. Second, I’ll sell you a box of matches. Third, I’ll ask you to spread the remaining 10,000 on the floor and set fire to it. If you can do that, then you get a certificate saying you’ve had therapy and are cleared to buy a boat. That normally got rid of them.
One day, I was asked to check a boat’s electrical alternator. It was in an awkward position, and I could only read part of the type number. I didn’t want to take it out unless I could solve the problem, so I drove to Felanitx to a place I’d seen called ‘Auto Electric Oliver’. I explained my predicament to the owner who took me to a storeroom and put four alternators into a box. We carried the alternators to my car, and he told me to take them away and bring back what I didn’t use. I drove off with four alternators and no money changing hands. I wondered why a stranger would let me do that. Still, if the owner had children they probably went to the same school as mine, the Guardia Civil already knew everything there was to know about me, so why wouldn’t he. Felanitx was a small town.
I did the job, brought three alternators back and paid for the one I’d used. And that’s how myself and Juan Oliver, electronics engineer, and Rock and Roll guitarist became lifelong friends. It turned out Juan had done his National Service as an electronics tech in the Spanish air-force. He was a certified Bosch agent with an electronics lab, and he had a better oscilloscope than me. He also had an Aladdin’s Cave of components.
Whenever I needed some special part, I went to Juan. If he didn’t have it or couldn’t get it, he’d direct me to some back street workshop in Felanitx. I’d say ‘Juan sent me’ explain the problem and voila problem solved. There’s not much you can’t find in Felanitx.
I quite enjoyed my time on boats even though, in the summer, it was hot, uncomfortable and challenging work. It was an experience. I whiled away my time in the marina during 1988 and the spring of 89. There were better ways to make a living. However, the opportunity that would present itself next was not going to be one of them.