Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan this week announced the end of COVID lockdown restrictions for most parts of Turkey including Didim, where Flying Fish is undergoing final preparations for departure westward and the continuation of her circumnavigation. Didim is also the location of an archeological site, the Temple of Apollo at Didyma, where pilgrims consulted an oracle and received a divine prophecy of future events. Some divination would be helpful in these uncertain days. Released from lockdown, I spend the day wandering among the marbled Doric columns of the Didyma ruin and reflect on the bizarre history of this place. Maybe the oracle will tell me how the proverbial winds will blow for Flying Fish in the coming year.

Didyma was once the most renowned sanctuary of the Hellenic world. Some of the earliest archaeological pieces discovered here date back to the 8th century BC. In its heyday, the colossal Temple of Apollo was larger than even the Parthenon in Athens. Its size and influence grew around a small natural spring which was believed to be the source of the oracle’s prophetic power.

Apollo was one of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology. He was the son of Zeus, the king of the gods. In the Iliad, Apollo is a healer. He cured people during pandemics, yet he was also a god who could bring about disease and death with a shot from his arrow. Apollo was a god who could spread disease, but he could also prevent it. He was a god of limitless power.

Apollo was said to have been born under a palm tree on a floating island named Delos in the Aegean Sea. When his mother Leto gave birth “everything on Delos turned to gold and the island was filled with ambrosial fragrance. Swans circled the island seven times and the nymphs sang in delight.” Apollo’s birth fixed the floating island of Delos to the bottom of the ocean. It lies 100 miles due west of Didyma and Flying Fish.

I became fascinated with Apollo because of his distinction as a patron and protector of sailors, a duty he shared with Poseidon. In mythology, Apollo is seen helping heroes who pray to him for a safe journey. Once, when he spotted a ship of Cretan sailors caught in a storm, he assumed the shape of a dolphin and guided their ship safely to Delphi. When the Argonauts were foundering at sea, Jason prayed to Apollo for help and the god used his bow and golden arrow to shed light upon an island where the Argonauts found shelter. Apollo helped the Greek hero Diomedes escape from a great tempest during his journey homeward, and he sent gentle breezes that helped Odysseus return safely from the Trojan War.

If a god had such powers over mortals then surely, it was thought, he could also foretell the future. Temples to Apollo were built throughout the Aegean but among the most extravagant was the grand temple to Apollo built over a sacred spring in the Anatolian region of what is now Turkey. Rows of Ionic columns were ornamented with reliefs of griffins and gorgons. A frieze above the columns featured monumental heads of Medusa. At the entrance to the temple there was an altar for Apollo, which, according to Greek historians of the second century AD, was made of the blood and ashes of sacrificed animals. A festival was held each year in Didyma called the Didymeia. Pilgrims walked 20 kilometers along the Sacred Way from Miletus to Didyma to participate in the celebration of Spring. Poets, musicians, and artisans strolled among the courtyards. A theater and stadium at the temple hosted events. Believers consulted the oracle. In the oracular procedure, reconstructed by historians and archeologists, a priestess inspired by Apollo sat on a foundation above the oracle spring. It is likely that the priestess delivered Apollo’s predictions in classical hexameters, as at Delphi. Nothing was written, however, and there was no record of whether the oracle predicted what would happen next.

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The Temple of Apollo at Didyma was plundered and destroyed in 494 BC by the Persian king Darius, known for his skill of deception and of lancing his enemies. (In an interesting footnote, Darius was said to have been crowned after winning a wager with three other candidates for the monarchy. They agreed to meet before daybreak, each on his horse, and the first horse to neigh at the sunrise would be named the new king. Darius cheated. His servant made the horse neigh by letting the animal smell scent rubbed from the genitals of a mare. The horse’s neigh, accompanied by lightning and thunder from a storm, convinced the other candidates to accept Darius as the new king.) During the raid of Didyma, the Persians carried away a bronze cult statue of Apollo and it was reported that the sacred spring ceased to flow. The oracle was silenced. Didyma remained a ruin until 331 BC when Alexander the Great, who by the age of 30 had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world stretching from Greece to northwestern India, conquered the Persians and re-consecrated the Didyma site. Callisthenes, the great-nephew of Aristotle and historian of Alexander, reported that the spring had once again begun to flow. The temple itself, however, seemed forever doomed.

Caligula had the heads removed from various statues of gods located across Rome and replaced them with his own.

^{Cassius Dio, Roman History Book LIX}

Didyma was looted again in 277 BC, this time by the Galatians as they raided Greek cities in Asia Minor. Then pirates plundered Didyma in 67 BC. Julius Caesar declared Didyma a refuge for people facing persecution but still, the Temple of Apollo lay in ruin. Another Roman emperor, this time the notorious Caligula, also tried to resurrect the Didyma Temple of Apollo. Historians focus on Caligula’s cruelty, sadism, extravagance, and sexual perversion, presenting him as an insane tyrant. Once, during some games at which he was presiding, Caligula was said to have ordered his guards to throw an entire section of the audience into the arena during the intermission to be eaten by the wild beasts because he was bored. Caligula had the heads removed from various statues of gods located across Rome and replaced them with his own. He began referring to himself as a god when meeting with politicians, even dressing occasionally as Apollo. Meanwhile, Didyma languished.

The Roman emperors were not yet done with Didyma. In 303 AD, the emperor Diocletian sent a delegation to Didyma to ask the oracle what he should do about the growing number of Christians within the empire. The Christians were accused of upsetting the gods and preventing accurate prophecies. The oracle’s supposed response inspired Diocletian to launch the most severe and systematic religious persecution of Christians in Roman history. They, too, were thrown into the arenas with wild beasts. This marked the end of the oracle. And in 1493, an earthquake destroyed the Temple of Apollo at Didyma. It was never rebuilt.

Modern Didim is now a place fueled by a tourist industry that has gone into stasis during the COVID pandemic. Vacation villas pave the hillsides. Massive hotels remain virtually empty. The ruin of the Temple of Apollo at Didyma is incongruously located in a high-density neighborhood of modern apartment complexes. It is difficult to reconcile the immense history of Didyma–funded by the riches of Croesus, destroyed by Darius, resurrected by Alexander the Great, defiled by Caligula–with the current reality of people going about their business in Didim. There are banks and real estate offices, a home goods store, gas stations, mobile phone stores, and recently re-opened cafes and restaurants. And then, as you pass the Mine Market Liquor Store located near what was once the Sacred Way, there is the monumental Temple of Apollo. The ruin has been sparsely visited since COVID. It is as if daily life during the pandemic has made it too difficult to revisit the past. I walk alone among a great field of fallen columns. In the southeast corner of the ruin, next to the screaming face of a carved gorgon, I see a sliver of green among some moist ground. It is the sacred spring emerging from the earth.

SOURCES

• “Didyma” Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service
• “Didyma” The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion, Simon Price and Emily Kearns
• “The History of Apollo’s Temple at Didyma, As Told By Marble Analyses And Historic Sources“, Barbara Borg and Gregor Borg, Martin Luther University Halle Wittenberg
• “Darius I” World History Encyclopedia, Radu Cristian.
• “Hymn to Delos”  Callimachus, Greek poet and scholar at the Library of Alexandria 310–240 BC
• “The Iliad” Homer 

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Please subscribe at the bottom of this page so that you don’t miss a new update, and consider sharing this post with others who might enjoy following the voyage of Flying Fish. I welcome your comments.

I hope to be underway aboard Flying Fish in late March 2021. Once the voyage restarts you can follow the daily progress of Flying Fish into the Mediterranean, and onward, by clicking this link: https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Flyingfish

To see where Flying Fish has sailed since leaving Key West in 2017, click here: https://cruisersat.net/track/Flying%20Fish

Instagram: FlyingFishSail
Facebook: Jeffrey Cardenas

Text and Photography © Jeffrey Cardenas 2021

^{Let this be a time of grace and peace in our lives   –Fr. John Baker}

Okay, full disclosure: Sometimes I do not know which is the correct way to turn a wrench. I think with a different part of my brain. I can sail upright through a gale. I can calculate in an instant the photographic exposure of a bird flying against a fading sunset. But ask me to change the impeller on a diesel engine and I’m a deer staring into the headlights of an 18-wheeler.

After four months on the hard, Flying Fish was re-launched last week in Didim, Turkey. Sailboats, like all machines (and many people), do not work well after sitting idle. It’s the Tin Man syndrome. It requires attention, motivation, and lubrication to start moving again. Complicating things is the fact that my beloved 46-foot cutter is not a simple sailboat. Systems designed to make sailing more efficient and enjoyable often bring about the exact opposite result. In an effort to attract buyers, marine manufacturers stuff modern sailboats with features many sailors like me are challenged to repair themselves. And it is not just the sophisticated stuff like air conditioners, computer-driven engines, and high-tech navigation systems that baffle boneheads like me. It’s the simple stuff, too. Like why put a threaded shaft bearing that needs frequent maintenance into an area of the bilge that is inaccessible with a wrench? Or, why design an engine that requires partial disassembly to service a simple but essential engine cooling impeller.

When standard engine service is necessary on a new vessel, Certified Factory Authorized Technicians are often required or warranties will be voided. That level of service can be tough to find in remote places like Fatu Hiva or Pukapuka, or Sumatra. So when I pass through major population centers I have the engine on Flying Fish serviced by pros. Earlier in my voyage, a Certified Factory Authorized Technician I hired in New Zealand asked me, “How do you access the impeller?” I said, “You’re the one making the big bucks. You tell me.” Soon there were two Kiwi technicians onboard scratching their heads. And then there were four of them–all Certified Factory Authorized Technicians. Bewildered, they then called in a carpenter with a reciprocating saw who said, “These guys tell me I need to cut a hole in the cabin floor (a gorgeous new teak-and-holly cabin floor) for them to access the impeller.” I said some bad words and pointed the Certified Factory Authorized Technicians, and their carpenter with the Sawzall, to the dock.

A kind sailor named Matt Stence from the sailboat Nimbus was watching the departing parade of mechanics. He said, “Hey, let me try.” With his face squished against the engine’s flywheel, his shoulder in the bilge, and his hand bloody and bent at an impossible angle, Matt blindly removed and replaced the impeller on Flying Fish. There is a place in heaven for people like Matt Stence. I have never been able to reproduce his effort.

Eighteen months and 750 engine hours later, it is time to replace the impeller again. Flying Fish is in a reputable boatyard with trained Certified Factory Authorized Technicians. “It is a difficult job,” I tell them when they arrive. “It’s not impossible but I cannot figure out how to do it,” I say. “It will only take one hour,” the service manager assures me. He tells me to watch and learn. Four mechanics open their toolboxes and roll up their sleeves. I feel their confidence; there are no reciprocating saws in their toolboxes. But the mechanics cannot access the impeller with a blind hand under the engine as Matt Stence did. The lead mechanic asks for more tools. Then he begins to remove the heat exchanger, essential for cooling the engine with seawater. This will allow him to access the concealed cooling pump and impeller. He unclamps a hose and suddenly there is a fountain of seawater in the engine room. “Close seacock,” he tells an assistant, who tells the service manager, who translates and then asks me: “Where is seacock?” When the seacock has closed the ingress of water is stopped. I feel chest palpitations. “Is everything okay now?” I ask. “Yes,” the service manager says, facing the engine room “Is okay, except for a little fire.”

A little fire…?

The seawater leakage has shorted exposed wiring in the alternator.

“Please sir,” the manager says urgently. “Turn off electricity.” I pull the master switch to shut down the batteries.

“A little fire?” I ask again, incredulously.

“Is okay,” the manager reassures. “No fire, only sparklets.”

Sparklets…?

In the end, the issue resolves amicably and professionally. The technicians address my concerns and disassemble, clean, and test the alternator. The seawater impeller is replaced. The engine is cleaned and reassembled. No human beings were harmed in the making of this drama.

I understand that it is on me to maintain and fix what breaks aboard Flying Fish. It is the captain’s responsibility, especially if he is sailing shorthanded, to see that his vessel is seaworthy. Some sailors have it–they can build a boat with their bare hands and fix anything that breaks with their eyes closed. And some captains like me have trouble remembering which way to turn a wrench. There are resources available to me when systems become too complicated for my artistic-oriented brain to compute. The kindness of strangers like Matt Stence is one welcomed resource. There is also a helpful organization called the Island Packet Yacht Owners Association, men and women who have seen and resolved nearly anything that could go wrong in both simple and sophisticated boat systems. You never know how many friends you have until you need help on a boat, and the long-distanced IPOYA members have always had my back. There are circumstances, however, when you need boots on the ground right now and you have to call in the calvary.

Today is one of those days. The mission is addressing the shaft stuffing box bearing that allows no access with a wrench. The bearing needs adjustment because if it is too tight it can burn up the shaft seal. If the bearing is too loose the ocean can enter the sailboat and everything gets wet as the boat sinks. I go online to look for ideas of how to adjust the correct tension on the two large bronze nuts of the stuffing box bearing. The yacht owners group has some excellent suggestions. Try heat and penetrating oil, is one idea. Another Island Packet owner writes that he tightens and loosens the large nuts on his bearing by pounding on their edges from above with a hammer hitting a crowbar. It works for him but not for me. I have visions of the crowbar slipping off the nut as the force of the hammer drives the crowbar through the bottom of Flying Fish. There is one more option and it saves the day–using resourceful local boatyard engineers. They are going to brainstorm the problem and make a tool from scratch that will adjust the shaft bearing nuts.

The three engineers arrive, walking shoulder-to-shoulder like the Ghostbusters down the dock. They introduce themselves. “I am Mehmet,” says the first one. “I am Mehmet,” says the second one. “I am also Mehmet,” says the third, who speaks English. “We are the Three Mehmets,” he says proudly. “In Turkey when you are in the company of three people named Mehmet it is a sign of good luck! Make a wish and your wish will come true.”

Meeting people like the Three Mehmets, and receiving the kindness of strangers from around the globe who help me in a time of need, makes me realize that my wish has already been fulfilled.

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Please subscribe at the bottom of this page so that you don’t miss a new update, and consider sharing this post with others who might enjoy following the voyage of Flying Fish. I welcome your comments.

I hope to be underway aboard Flying Fish in March 2021. Once the voyage restarts you can follow the daily progress of Flying Fish into the Mediterranean, and onward, by clicking this link: https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Flyingfish

To see where Flying Fish has sailed since leaving Key West in 2017, click here: https://cruisersat.net/track/Flying%20Fish

Instagram: FlyingFishSail
Facebook: Jeffrey Cardenas

Text and Photography © Jeffrey Cardenas 2021

^{Let this be a time of grace and peace in our lives   –Fr. John Baker}