A tornado crossed part of the lagoon yesterday morning, and part of Sant’ Elena was in its way, And all of our boat club.
The office is gone, the two buildings and sheds where our boats were kept are gone. And the boats are pretty much gone, too. I don’t mean “gone” as in lifted to heaven in the rapture, I mean it in the sense of smashed to various bits. Because we were in a phase of demolishing the old clubhouse in anticipation of a new facility and all our 34 boats were outside.
The man who operates the winch to put the boats in and out of the water was in the metal container that served as his temporary shelter at the water’s edge. The tornado rolled it over a couple of times with him in it, and two men managed to get him out. He was rushed to the emergency room with a gash in his head and two broken ribs, but at least the container wasn’t tornado’d into the water with him in it.
Trees snapped and uprooted, but no further victims, as far as I know, unlike the previous tornado in 1970.
When the tornado struck, we were at the Rialto market where our attention was mostly dedicated to the price of cherries. It rained, but we had not even the slightest hint that devastation was being wrought just over the way. We had a blast of rain, but there wasn’t anything about it that made you think of anything worse than your wet feet.
We got the news from a friend who was at San Marco, and who had seen it. Then the phone calls began to spread the word. At that point I was on Murano with a friend, so I wasn’t able to go help with the first load of work, But Lino was there all afternoon, along with almost every club member who was available.
I’m still trying to get a grip on all this. Because this morning has dawned cool, clear, and dazzling with cloudless sunshine. Translation: The perfect day to go out in a boat.
The website of the Remiera Casteo has photographs and film of what the tornado left behind.
YouTube has a number of clips of this event but here is one of the best. If the video isn’t shown, here is the link: http://youtu.be/KFCaI_L_K4s
Due to a small technical tangle, I couldn’t add much illustration to my post about the America’s Cup.
Now that the tangle has been untied, here goes:
The American contender on the left strolls past the Italian contender on the right. It’s nice to see where some of those millions earned from software and handbags has turned up, in case you ever wondered.Possibly the first time the Cup has been displayed in a gondola, but it was excellent to see it in the flesh, so to speak.Two fans at the finals. Boats? Don't bother us.More excitement in the stands.The only participants who had more fun than the winner were the police. I’m imagining they had to draw lots to choose the men who got this assignment, otherwise there’d have been violence.They totally loved doing this. All this white water was only a tiny fraction of the waveage created by all the official boats from every branch of every conceivable service, often going very fast. Which brought to mind the oddness of using so many motors at an event devoted to sailing -- though no odder, I suppose, than the motors required to conduct horse racing and skiing.It was a good day for selling flags of the competing countries.The window of “Alice in Wonderland” was loaded with a flotilla of vitreous craft in full sail, not to mention assorted marine mosaics. The stationery and school-supplies store got in the groove.The dancing-gear emporium did what it could, but the idea of rope and toe shoes makes me feel strangely apprehensive.The boutique-soap-and-mystic-lamp store did a neat job of mystically floating the boat on a mystic pool of vapor.A rusty anchor is always appropriate.Even cooler is the pair of ancient diving boots. I could use some of these on the vaporetto.The funky-clothing store made AmCup garb out of I'm not really sure what.The lady who makes wedding favors sailed far into the past with this baby. Stand by to repel boarders.Her best touch was the silver-coated shells. The globe was nice, too, lest we forget that before fiber-optic catamarans there were real ships that did real things.Fireboats hurling water are extremely entertaining when they're not actually facing a fire. And as several wags on the shore remarked, if the crews got soaked, well, they're used to it.The schooner that started it all: "America" in 1887. Of course, she also sang all the verses and the chorus of "You could never afford this, and even if you could, you probably wouldn't know what to do with it." But she sang it in a very different key.
So the Costa Concordia ran aground (January 13) and the administration here instantly went into several varieties of fits to show how eager it was to ensure that no such catastrophe could ever be inflicted on the most-beautiful-city-in-the-world by one of these leviathans, whose number is increasing at a Biblical rate.
Passengers see a ship. The anti-ship cadre sees a potential disaster. The city government sees a floating Brink's truck loaded with money, without which Venice can no longer survive. You decide.
Mission: Banish the Big Ships from the Bacino of San Marco where they might well run into a section of historic and irreplaceable real estate. I haven’t seen any calculations on the odds of this risk, but they may be similar to the odds of winning the lottery.
Lots of people who buy a lottery ticket think/hope that the probability of winning could be pretty good. In the same way, lots of people who see the big ships passing think/fear that the probability of a huge catastrophe could be pretty good. The distance between “could” and “might” is hard to measure when emotions run high.
The mayor, of course, promised rapid solutions, to be followed, naturally, by immediate results (hence the use of the word “solution”). As expected, “rapid” is morphing into “eventual” on its way to “maybe” and then — who knows? — “never.”
The Petroleum Canal, which has already done so much damage, is the right angle on the left of the frame. The proposed new extension to the cruise port is the slightly sagging line connecting it to Venice. The idea would be to assign either the arrival or departure of a big ship via this route,thereby halving the number of transits of the bacino of San Marco.
The first proposal launched — and so quickly as to have barely resulted from first thoughts, much less second thoughts — was to dig a new canal. The environmental damage this would cause is so vast and so obvious that it’s hard to believe it was even discussed. A large amount of information demonstrating what a terrible idea it is was instantly thrown in front of this notion to prevent its going any further (latest detail: deepening the Canale di Sant’ Angelo would mean having to tear out and reposition somewhere else a certain quantity of important cables buried there, not to mention the high-tension-wire pylons flanking it). Even the cost of this undertaking hasn’t caused this notion to be officially abandoned, but its momentum seems to have slowed.
But if a new canal makes no sense, the proposal made a few days ago obliterates the line between creative and cuckoo. I wouldn’t even have mentioned it, but I wanted to show how really hard it is to come up with an alternative to the present system.
Ferruccio Falconi, a retired port pilot (who you might think would be more familiar with the lagoon and its behavior than most), has pulled the pin on the following idea and tossed it at the groin of common sense.
He proposes gouging out the mudbanks between the island of Sant’ Erasmo and the inlet at San Nicolo’, an area known as bacan’ (bah-KAHN). On the map, it looks like useless empty space longing for a purpose in life. But it already has a purpose — two of them.
This view shows the lagoon inlet at San Nicolo' on the left; in the middle is the island created for the MOSE project, which has already affected tidal behavior. "Bacan'" is the beige area in the big channel to the right, a swath of mudbanks with a temporarily exposed islet fronting the lower edge of the island of Sant' Erasmo. (Photo: Chris 73, Wikimedia Commons).
Its first purpose is the same as that of similar areas which compose the bloody-but-unbowed natural lagoon ecosystem. Mudbanks and barene, the remnants of marshy wetlands scattered around, are an essential component of the lagoon environment. You may not care about clams and herons and glasswort, but these formations also slow the speed of the tide, something that ought to interest people ashore in the most-beautiful-city at least as much as the vision of a ship heading toward the fondamenta.
Its second purpose is as one of the all-time favorite places for thousands of pleasure-boaters to spend long summer days swimming and clamming and picnicking.
Doesn't this look neat and tidy? Eight ships all snugged up together. While constant dredging would undoubtedly be required to keep the area from refilling with sand and mud, that effort would be helped by the vortexes created by cruise-ship propellers. (Photo: Il Gazzettino)
But according to Falconi, the creation of a basin where nature never put, or wanted, or intends to keep one, would be the perfect place to park the cruise ships. Ergo, there would also have to be the construction of a huge jetty.
As simple geometry, it looks okay, though I failed geometry. But apart from the problems the size, weight, and propeller-power those eight little rectangles represent, there is also the inconvenient fact that Sant’ Erasmo is an island, raising the issue of by what means the floating Alps of the sea would be provisioned, and how the passengers would arrive and depart.
Simple: By boat. Thereby increasing by several powers of ten the amount of waves (motondoso) caused by the multiplied number of motorized craft running around the area (barges, taxis, launches, and scows carrying trucks). Motondoso has already damaged a lot of the lagoon, so this new activity would eradicate a new chunk of what’s left. The summer motorboats are already sufficiently destructive — why would even more be seen as a good thing?
This idea is yet another example of the point where Feasibility and Desirability break up, despite the best efforts of people with assorted motives to make them get married and have children.
The "Ruby Princess" backing out of its berth at Tronchetto, like its companions, scours up a lot of sediment, not all of which settles back where it came from.
The following letter to the Gazzettino (March 29, 2012) gives an excellent analysis of this suggestion (translated by me):
LAGUNA CROCIERE E GRANDI NAVI (Lagoon, cruises, and big ships)
I read in the Gazzettino of the new proposal to “save” the cruises.
One appreciates the fantasy that unfortunately is right in step with the temerity of certain choices which we see at all institutional levels in the management of this problem.
To excavate bacan’ at Sant’ Erasmo to make it feasible for the big ships to maneuver and moor, ships which are tending to get bigger, would signify changing the hydrodynamics of the North Lagoon.
The creation of the new island in front of the inlet (at San Nicolo’) has already caused an increase in the velocity of the incoming tide, creating hydrodynamic imbalances with important consequent damage to the city.
To create a basin of 12 meters (40 feet) deep, at the least, to move and accommodate ships would make even that piece of lagoon into a piece of the sea.
Perhaps the fanciful pilot who has come up with this “loveliness” has forgotten about the abyss in front of San Nicolo’ with the resulting collapse of the bastions of the Fort of Sant’ Andrea a few years ago.
One understands that unfortunately the mentality still hasn’t changed: One tries to resolve a problem creating others. Or to put it this way: the application of the theory that has created MOSE: one creates a “solution” which, to talk about it, resolves the effects but not the cause.
The question arises spontaneously: Is the port worth the city?
(signed) Manuel Vecchina, Venezia
Excellent question, but don’t put it to Falconi. He’s already got the answer.
Here's a view of the area where the eight ships would park, with Sant' Erasmo in the background. Low tide reveals how much mud and sand there is, and how far below the surface it is. Guess Vittorio Orio will have to find another place to work on his mascareta, to make room for the Queen Victoria, the Norwegian Gem, and so on.A winter view of the same area, seen from the shore of Sant' Erasmo. It may look empty, but you should just see how much life there is bustling around in there.And here's a glimpse of how much life is bustling around the surface on a typical summer day here. Actually, this is nothing -- there are boats anchored all over bacan'.Egrets like to eat too, but if the big ships move in, all this will wash out to sea and the birds will have to bring their lunch with them.By "big ships" I mean something like this.
The Venetian lagoon is one of the most important coastal ecosystems in the entire Mediterranean. A century ago there were 35 square miles of salt-marsh wetlands in the lagoon; due to erosion by motondoso and the tidal force increased by the Petroleum Canal, by 1990 there were only 18 square miles left. Now we have MOSE, the floodgates whose installation required extreme deepening of the inlets, creating even stronger tidal flows.
In little more than 30 years, some 25,000,000 cubic meters of sediment have been flushed out to sea. At the current rate of erosion, the World Wildlife Fund has estimated that by 2050 there will be no wetlands left. So Venice is spending masses of money to rebuild a batch of them where they’ve been eroded away. Where they will be eroded away again. Now we want a fantasy port to speed up the process which is turning the lagoon into a bay of the sea?
I sometimes think that if these people want to change the lagoon so much, why don’t they just drop a bomb on it, and get it over with?
The fort of Sant' Andrea was built in the mid-1500's to defend the approach to Venice from enemies entering at San Nicolo'. The cannon were placed at the waterline in order to blast out the hulls of any approaching enemy ships. At low tide the cement apron is easy to see.
The reference to the Fort of Sant’ Andrea in Vecchini’s letter recalls the fact that some years ago (even before MOSE) the force of the tide was eroding the island beneath this historic structure, and the walls of the entrance were beginning to sag and open up. Solution: Throw masses of cement on the shallow lagoon bottom in front of it to stop the slow-motion collapse. When we row past there, we have to avoid what is essentially a broad cement shelf reaching outward from the fort. Of course I’m glad it’s there. I’m just saying.
Venice wanted the ships, but playing with them and their effects is beginning to look a lot like getting into a game of strip poker with no cards at all.
Out in the lagoon, there's plenty of room to go around. On land, the situation changes.
Some time ago I embarked on a series of what were going to be five posts, each dedicated to one of the classic senses, and how I indulge them here.
I haven’t yet shared my thoughts on the remaining two (sight and touch) and I’ll be putting that off for a little while longer.
What has pushed ahead of them in line are few non-traditional senses which have inordinate importance here. If you awaken these senses, the benefits ought to be many, such as helping to increase your enjoyment of Venice and, at the same time, minimize your impressive ability to spoil it for others.
By “you” I originally meant “tourists,” and much of what I’m going to say is, in fact, aimed at people who are just passing through. But I have to say that Venetians themselves can be astonishingly oblivious to the world around them. I just want you to know that I recognize that, in case anyone is tempted to retort “Well what about them?” Fine: They’re guilty too. But this is their city, and their country, too.
So today I present the sense of space. There isn’t much of it here. The city covers only about two square miles, and I estimate that 97 percent of that area is occupied by buildings or water. So you can see how tricky it’s going to be to fit everybody, particularly 20 million tourists or so, into a town not much bigger than New York’s 41st Precinct.
And it’s not useful to imagine there’s any difference between “public” and “personal” space. All the space here is personal. I mean public.
This street, Ruga Giuffa, is actually something like a major artery. The value of not taking more than your share of space is easy to see here.
Venice has always been crowded — in fact, it was once almost three times more populous than it is now. But that didn’t particularly bother anyone, if the songs are to be believed.
There are many which praise some aspect of the city’s beauty or the beauty of life here. I’m not aware of a modern song praising Venice. (I do not regard “Ciao Venezia” as a song, even if it is transmitted by human vocal cords.) Maybe I should try to write one.
Anyway, one particular Venetian song (which naturally sounds better in Venetian) contains this refrain: “Long live this great immensity/only Venice is beautiful/only our city.”
“Great immensity”? Besides being redundant, it seems crazy. This is a city that’s all twisted up in lots of skinny little streets and random knotty open spaces swarming with people pushing children in strollers, dragging overloaded shopping trolleys, brandishing large open umbrellas, or merely groups standing stock still at the exact point where there is no room to get around them.
The “immensity” praised in the song about Venice refers, I believe, to its environment: the lagoon. Anyone who has ever gone out in a boat even a quarter mile from the city realizes that this extraordinary city is floating in the center of a vast amount of water and sky.
My experience, and — I deduce — that of countless Venetians who have come before, shows that the lagoon is not only the matrix of the city but the only known antidote to its compression.
A not unusual sight on the biggest vaporetto there is, the #1 local going down the Grand Canal. Theoretically, the correct thing would have been to have made a pile of his baggage in the outside area and stayed with it. What the picture doesn't show is that he or his things are occupying all three seats, and the aisle.
But even if your only chance to feel this spaciousness is from a vaporetto (which will be crowded….), I hope you will somehow feel the enchantment and, yes, immensity of the city’s surroundings.
In any case, you’ll have to go ashore eventually, which is where your sense of space is going to have to get to work. Because your awareness of where you are, and what you do there, is going to have a really important effect not only on how you feel about Venice, but how everybody around you — especially any Venetians, if you care — feels about it too.
I respectfully recall to your attention the fact that Venice, small as it may be, at its apex was both the home and the workplace of almost 200,000 residents, not to mention an uncounted number of visitors, here on either business or pleasure or even displeasure. Among other things, Venice was a major port for pilgrims headed from Europe to the Holy Land. They could have been here as long as a month, waiting to find a berth on a ship (no reservations, obviously). This was much longer than the average modern tourist’s visit, and there were periods in which there were 50 ships leaving in a single month, or roughly two a day. (Not made up.) Which adds up to a fairly crushing quantity of people.
Furthermore, if you think the city is crowded now, spare a thought for the old days, when everyone who had a choice lived as much of their lives outdoors as they could. Except for sleeping and eating, families (which were numerous) spent most of their day out in the courtyard or the street, or somewhere other than home, where there also was no space.
This lady decided that her carryon bag would be more comfortable on the floor in front of the central seat rather than in the aisle. You want to sit there? Good luck with that.
And then there was the cargo: Vast amounts of often really space-intensive items being offloaded and transported from A to B. Bricks. Blocks of marble. Lumber. Bales of wool. Imagine yourself walking down a street behind three people who are carrying enormous wicker backpacks loaded with coal. So it’s always been pretty cramped here.
Nevertheless, today we have all sorts of modern ideas about comfort and manners which make Venice demanding in an equally intense way.
Having said all that, I’d like to offer a few fundamental suggestions as to how to minimize the crampage. If you accept them, you have a chance at making life more pleasant for you and certainly for everyone around you. If you don’t really care — and there seems to be an abundance of visitors in this category — then you may fire when you are ready, Gridley.
Equal time here for Venetian transgressions: The woman on the right has claimed the space (single seat and open area) intended for people in wheelchairs with a friend. Since her trolley needs all that space, the tourist in the wheelchair has to sit half-out in the aisle.
There are three situations in which you have no choice but to share space outdoors: Walking, standing, and sitting.
Walking: To keep everybody, including you, moving in even some semblance of progress, try to imagine that you’re driving your car. The same general rules apply here when you’re walking.
If you’re moving slowly, keep to the side. Do not make sudden stops. Do not make sudden turns. Do not stop in the middle of the street and just stand there. Check your rear-view mirror often, because it’s very likely somebody is coming up behind you intending to pass you. In which case, move aside and let them. You’d be astonished at how many people do not do any of those things.
Forget the car metaphor and keep in mind that you are living in three dimensions. Fingers: Tempting as it may be, try to avoid suddenly pointing at something, no matter how surprising or beautiful it is; for some reason, a person pointing is often indicating something dangerously close to eye level. Elbows: If you stand somewhere with your hands on your hips, you’ve just taken space away from the persons on your elbow side for no clearly necessary reason.
If somebody wants to get past you, they will most likely start with a polite “Permesso.” (Or “con permesso.”) Venetians may say this as many as three times; if there’s no reaction, they push. The international language. If it happens to you, there was a reason.
Standing: If there appear to be too many people, you can be sure there will be far too much of their stuff. If you need to stop to check your map or hold an unscheduled meeting of the family committee, make an effort to put your boxcar-load of baggage somewhere out of the way. Slalom races are fun if you’re aiming for a medal in the World Cup, but not for somebody trying to get somewhere that’s important to him, like his accountant or home to his kid who’s running a fever.
This curious construction behind the wheelhouse is, in fact, an excellent place to stash your baggage. Just so you know.
On the vaporetto, try to organize your bags in as little space as possible. A person (for example, me) shouldn’t have to explain that you could put your smaller bag on top of your larger bag, instead of next to it. I mean, when you think about it.
If you’re carrying anything larger than an empty messenger bag, handle it with the awareness that wherever you put it, it’s taking precious square inches away from somebody else. I know it’s really hard to haul all that baggage down cramped streets and over bridges and so on. I know that there is little or no space on the vaporettos for anything larger than you, and often not even that. But the fact that many people devote more attention and concern to their steamer trunks or Himalayan-expedition backpacks than they do to their fellow passengers is something that baffles, and can often irritate, any nearby Venetians, especially if they’re trying to get past you (see: “slalom,” above).
What to do?
First: Minimize the space you occupy. For example: Do not put your suitcases/duffel bags/backpacks on the seat next to you. Seem obvious? Apparently it isn’t. “Hey! Empty space! It’s mine!” Actually, it’s not!
For a while, these signs were up on many of the vaporettos. As Einstein said, Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. Judging by the public response (which was nil), this design is so simple that almost nobody understood, it.
Second: Take off your backpack. They’ve even made it a rule on the vaporettos, but the simple sense of this little act continues to elude nine and a half out of every ten people. If it’s on your back, take it off. Even a daypack is a huge nuisance to everyone around you. You may think it’s part of you, but the only person who wouldn’t annoy their fellow passengers with something protruding from his or her spine would be the hunchback of Notre Dame. If you can take it off, do so immediately and put it at your feet. Or in a corner. Or maybe don’t even bring it. How far could it be to the next oasis?
Third: Get out of the way. Every day, oblivious people stand right where everybody else needs to pass. On the street, on the vaporetto, wherever. On the vaporetto dock — particularly, for some reason, at the Accademia stop — masses of eager people who want to get on fill the entire area needed for the arriving passengers to get off. If there is an explanation for this, it will have to come from the realm of astronomy, where matter retains all sorts of contradictory characteristics. Here, though, matter occupies space.
Then there are people who find a spot that works for them and just……you know…..stand there….as if nobody else existed. They block doorways, they block aisles. It’s not as if their kid is having an asthma attack and nothing else matters. They just stand there. Even the fact that you have to contort yourself to get past them doesn’t make any impression whatever. That’s where they are, just deal with it, Maude. I have never understood what attracts people to standing in the vaporetto doorway. Go out, or stay in. Why are you trying to do both? Are you not able to decide where you want to be?
Then there are all those time when you must force your way onto a vaporetto because it’s crammed with people in the open middle space where boarding and exiting takes place, while the interior of the boat is almost empty. I realize that visitors want to be outside where they can look around and take pictures. If you’re determined to stay outside, please do everything in your power not to block the only area available for getting on and off.
I cannot grasp the idea here: We'll just sit here blocking the street right near a corner. No one else exists.
Sitting: People between the ages of 12 and 18 seem to have decided that the floor is their tribal territory. Sitting or sprawling in groups on the ground anywhere that appeals to them is not merely the best thing ever, it has become something like a right. I’ve seen teenagers literally lying on the ground where lots of people need to walk. One memorable pair of girls (American) was stretched out across the wooden dock in front of the ramp leading to the vaporetto dock. Hundreds of people needed to walk there. (See: “slalom,” above).
It all seems so obvious.
But wait! — I hear you cry — what about all those rude Venetians who do all those rude things (except for sitting on the ground), as if WE didn’t exist?
I know. I know they’re there, and I know they do those things, and they don’t have any more of a good excuse than anyone else.
I know theyalso position themselves in the exit area of the vaporetto dock so that they can get on the vaporetto first.
I know they somehow manage to slither past you to claim that minuscule empty spot in front of you. You might feel that they’re jumping a queue, but they don’t see a queue. I have finally concluded that a person who does this has decided that since you’re not occupying that space, that means you’ve relinquished it and it’s available to anybody who wants it. Now I actually do it myself because it makes sense to me — seeing how little space there is around.
So what solution is there to the problem of trying to put 100X of people and things into just 1Y of space?
Be aware. Be courteous. Create as few problems for other people and you will simultaneously be creating fewer problems for yourself.
That’s the only possible solution.
Just like on the highway.
There's not an abundance of space in the canals, either, and parking your boats like this is guaranteed to cause problems. No tourists are guilty of creating this situation, I just wanted to show another way in which ignoring other people can make life challenging. It annoys me, not because I need to pass through the eye of the needle here, but because I simply can't grasp the concept at work. .
To drive a barge here you need a Ph.D in geometry, and a tote bag full of tranquilizers. And the tide chart, too.
Or you can just go back out into the lagoon, where you can breathe.
