In a letter published in the Sunday Mail (February 1), Renos Lavithis sets out to persuade us that “Marinas Are the Way of the Future”. I wonder… For many years this particular magic bullet has been hailed as a solution to some of this island’s ills, and has been embraced enthusiastically by politicians and businessmen alike.
While the former are renowned for quick-fix solutions, I am surprised that the latter should, as hard-headed men of commerce, allow themselves to be swept along on this wave of euphoria. Personally I remain unimpressed for the following reasons.
The coast of the Republic of Cyprus is predominately south and west facing; only a small section faces north in Morphou Bay and five miles faces east, south of Famagusta. Therefore, with the exception of Larnaca Bay, and some of Limassol Bay, it is a lee shore – it faces the prevailing south-westerly wind.
There are no inlets of note, nor are there, with one exception, any islands behind which one might shelter, to either ride-out a blow or anchor for a calm night’s sleep. The beaches are stonily uninviting and the few that are of sand are buoyed-off for the protection of land-based swimmers.
The attractive coasts for a cruising yacht lie in the north and east, and are, therefore, off-limits for vessels normally berthed in the south. Why this should be, since we can take our cars into the north, is beyond me.
What about the rest of the eastern Mediterranean that can be reached by a yacht on a 48-hour passage from Cyprus? To the south, the flat Egyptian coast and the Nile Delta offer little, unless one is prepared to moor one’s boat in Alexandria Bay to explore the antiquities that lie inland – and hope to find it still at anchor when you get back!
In the east are the coasts of Palestine, Israel, Lebanon and Syria. In view of the perpetual upheavals in those countries, not an alluring prospect. In any case most yacht insurers limit their cover of the Mediterranean to those waters west of longitude 35°E which rules out all of those coasts; unless one is prepared to pay the excess premium or is foolhardy enough to sail there uninsured.
What about the south coast of Turkey which lies enticingly close by? Sadly, a study of my Imray Turkish Waters Pilot reveals a paucity of information concerning this area: only 21 pages of the Pilot are devoted to the coast from the south-west tip of Turkey to longitude 35E, compared with 146 pages extolling the west coast facing the Aegean – coasts that are almost identical in mileage. This indicates to me where the Turkish sailors’ preference lies. Incidentally, as a comparison, south Cyprus rates just three pages in the Pilot!
Clearly then Cyprus doesn’t begin to compete as a cruising base with the delights of the west coasts of the Adriatic and Turkey or the Aegean islands. So where are these fleets of yachts to come from to fill our new marinas? If foreign boats are unlikely to venture so far east from the Aegean only local yacht owners remain. I admit that the few Marinas we have now are crowded and have waiting lists for berths, but I don’t believe that there will be sufficient local demand to warrant the extra berths now planned in the enlargement of Larnaca and Paphos Marinas and the proposed new builds at Zygi and Limassol, not to mention rumours involving Polis and Ayia Napa!
What about the ‘live-aboards’ and the real yachtsmen: sea gypsies who cross the Indian Ocean and brave the pirates of the Red Sea to find haven in sunny Cyprus, where English is spoke and Marmite can be found on super market shelves?
Thankfully they’ll still be around – if the currency in their pockets can stand up to the mighty euro – but their numbers are few and will make little impression on the explosion of marina-building we are promised.
So my advice to those starry-eyed optimists, who believe that more marinas will solve this island’s shortage of visitors is: save the money! Spend it on desalination plants. Otherwise, in a few years time, there won’t be enough water on this island for the few existing yachtsmen to swab their decks once a month.
Michael Duddridge,
Maroni, Larnaca
