Of big ships, sun beds and beach traders

Yesterday the big ship arrived.  

It must have come in the night and because it was too big to get into the harbour had moored out at sea, far enough away to avoid the stares of the inquisitive but closer enough to invite intense speculation on the beech as to who might be on it.

Now the harbour here at Alghero is a busy one, and it’s full of pleasure craft, some fishing boats and commercial cruisers designed to take you round the island and seen the coloured caves.  We flirted with the idea but at €45 each it was always going to be a trip too far.

So instead we settled on the beach and gazed out at the tall ship and joined in the speculation, but in the way of these things the discussion didn’t last long.   Such is a beach holiday that there are too many other things that take over, and any way after a while it becomes too much effort.  Instead it is easier just to settle back let the sun beat down and enjoy the distractions.

Of these there are many.  They begin with watching our neighbours set up for the day.  We have opted to sit on the free beach, which is a first.  Usually we pay our euros and take our place on two of the sunbeds with umbrellas that march from the water’s edge back to the road.  Here there not many of these parts of the sand where you pay to sit and tan.

I was always dismissive of them having spent many years on beaches in Greece, where the beds are rusty and the umbrellas patched and in constant danger of falling on your head and where the owners plonk them where the fancy takes them.  All of which fits that casual way of beach life that I like.

In Italy the beds stretch out in uniform ranks, red for one owner, yellow, green and blue for the neighbouring ones.  You might be forgiven for thinking this was sun and sand by numbers and in a sense it is.  But there are advantages, for you are not just paying for a spot in the sand with an umbrella and beds.  There is much more.  Always a bar, and lavatory, a play area for the small children with board games as well as beach ones and on the large beaches keep fit teams who come with loudspeakers music and a team of fit gymnasts to put you through your paces.

But in the free beach it is all more relaxed and laid back.  You plant your umbrella where you can, and there is an art in placing it in the sand, which involves placing the arm firmly in the sand and then rocking it from side to side while pushing down.  The more organised even have a tool for doing this, but then there are special bits of kit to cover all eventualities on the beach and I suppose that is the difference between us from the north who spend perhaps a week on a not very warm and sometimes wet British beach and here in the south where every day from late spring onto late September is an opportunity to sit beside the sea.  Of course like everywhere the high season is August and so we have slipped in just a little earlier this year.

And I have to say that there are fewer people around than I am used to.  I guess like all of us across Europe people are reacting to the economic climate.  Even the beach sellers do not seem as many.  Usually on any day on the beach they are everywhere, selling everything from a massage, to towels, clothes and odd collections ranging from cheap watches, imitation designer bags and toys. 

The economics of it has always interested me.  And still I am not sure whether these people buy the produce themselves or just work for a Mr Big.  On the rare occasions one of the sellers is prepared to open up it is always understandably difficult to get details from them.  But they work on a wide band of prices, and if you are prepared to haggle you get the price down, but only to a point.  

I remember one such negotiation which lasted for a full twenty minutes, with the conversation floating between Italian, and English, much posturing a few appeals to respective deities and then the deal was struck.  Both sides had come to the that point where the price had fallen dramatically, so that we got a good deal and he the trader was still within his profit margin.  All were happy.  The price had been cut from €30 down to €10 we had what we wanted and some where a little further along the beach someone else was paying €30 for the same article.

Meanwhile the coconut man had arrived with his tray of coconut slices, announcing his presence with a hand bell and that distinctive cry of “Coco Bella” and as ever a joke and lewd comment at the young couple who spoke no Italian. 

And in all of this, the big ship had been forgotten.

Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson