Indian Ocean Drama - 5. Orc Chapter 5

Twenty minutes later, Sebastian returned, and he was not looking very happy at all. “Xander is furious with me, he said he has been waiting for nearly two weeks for a reply to his email, requesting the travel information that I promised” Sebastian explained. “You have some major work ahead of you brother, to make up for that big mistake” Joachim said, and Louis agreed.

“Anyway, he is on his way, he will be catching a flight in 1 hours’ time, that will take him to Naples, and I have chartered a plane to fly him to the city of Cagliari, and a chauffeur service will collect him from there and bring him to the marina, where we can collect him” Sebastian explained.

“What time will Xander arrive in Sardinia?” Louis asked, “Well it is 3 ¾ hour flight from Zurich to Naples, and a 1hour flight from Naples to Cagliari, then a 1hour drive East to the marina, so he should be here by 3pm at the latest” Sebastian replied. “Good that gives us plenty of time to explore the island” Louis said, as the twins stood up and made their way towards the aft platform.

When Sebastian and I arrived at the tower, the twins were happily chatting to the two stonemasons, “You know this was built in around 1640 AD, so I am surprised that it is still standing, we are just grateful that these two men have put a lot of care into restoring it” Sebastian said as we entered the old building and walked towards the four men.

Sebastian introduced me as his husband, and the man that told me off, apologised for being rude earlier, and I just waved it off as nothing to worry about, which Sebastian translated for them as don’t worry about it, all forgotten, which Joachim whispered to me, translating to English for me.

For the next hour, we were given a detailed tour of the ancient tower, by the head stonemason, with Sebastian translating everything for me, and we were amazed at how much research he had done on the place. I suggested to Sebastian, that he get the stone mason to record it all down, so we have a record of it, and Sebastian responded, by saying that the stonemason already has it in a folder, but he has memorised it all, and that he would be honoured to present it to me as a welcome present.

I was very touched by this, and I shook his hand in thanks. After the tour, we headed outside, and walked further along the island, towards the south end, stopping at the clearing. “You know this is going to be way too small a area for the tower to put here” Sebastian stated, “Yes dearest, I already worked that one out, what about in the bay just there, it might be deep enough to put it there, and the island will protect it a fair amount from bad weather and strong winds” I responded, and after looking at the bay, he called the ship on his mobile.

“Captain, can you organise a team who have open water diving qualifications, to do a dive for me, on the East side of the island, in the centre of a semi protected bay?” we heard Sebastian say, “Good, thanks for that, bye” Sebastian responded, before ending the call.

Sebastian continued to stare at the site that I suggested, and he smiled before facing me, “thankyou sweetness, you have possibly found a worthwhile solution” Sebastian said as he held my hand and looked around the island once more. “The dive team will be ready to leave in 1 hour, so lets’ head back, then we can join them on the boat to the bay” Sebastian suggested, and we did just that.

Just over an hour later, after some morning tea, we joined the three-man dive team, and headed off towards the bay on the east side of the island. “What I am looking for is a roughly flat area of sea floor, that is not more than 9 metres deep at high tide, which we are approaching in half an hour” Sebastian said to the diving team, as they finalised their scuba gear, “Yes sir, 9 metres max at high tide, with a flat bottom” the lead dive member said in response.

About ten minutes later, the two divers surfaced and returned to the boat, “Sir, most of the bay is approximately 6 metres deep, with a slight slope, then over there it drops steeply from 6.5 metres to about 20 metres” the lead diver said to us, as Sebastian grabbed the marker buoy, and handed it down to the diver, “Just mark the flattest part at six metres, and that will do” Sebastian said, and about ten minutes later the marker buoy appeared, which is tied to a heavy lead weight on the sea floor.

“I would say that is about 120 metres from the shoreline” Louis commented, “Agreed” Sebastian said, “So, what are you going to do about the 3 metres difference?” I asked, “Easy, that equals to one level, which will now be above the water line instead of below” Sebastian replied. “The administration level” I asked, and Sebastian nodded yes and smiled.

“We still have four days till the ship arrives, so we just have to relax and wait for it to arrive” Sebastian said, and he indicated for us to return to the yacht. Once we were onboard, we watched a movie, before having a late lunch, and at 2.30pm, the Captain started up the engines, and we set off back to the marina, to collect Xander, who I hadn’t seen since the wedding.

It was as we were leaving that I first noticed the huge signs on the end of the jetty, which was in Italian, English and 3 other languages, two of them I guessed to be French and German, the last one I was not sure, but it could be Spanish.

“Lascia stare quest’ isola area protetta dalla fauna selvatica, I trasgressori seanno fucilati”, I said out loud, hoping that I pronounced it all correctly, and the look on Sebastian’s face was priceless, as the twins burst out laughing, and Sebastian quickly jumped up to look at the sign.

“Trespasses will be prosecuted, you rascal, not shot” Sebastian snarled, and I just tried to look innocent as possible, which had the twins laughing some more. “Very funny, but well done on the Italian, you had it almost correct, just have to watch the pronunciations a bit that’s all, but you got all the words right” Sebastian said, before sitting down again.

When we arrived at the marina, it was just before 3pm, and because we are such a large yacht, we docked at the very end of the Marina, near the entrance. About ten minutes later a white limo arrived, and a very tall teenager stepped out from the back door, with a backpack in hand, while the driver removed two large suitcases from the back.

“Wow, he has grown so much” I commented, as we stepped off the yacht to greet Xander, with the twins squashing him in a group hug, “Hey. let me breath will ya” Xander complained, and I pulled the twins apart, so Xander was no longer being squashed, and I stuck out my hand to the teenager, who slapped it away, and gave me a huge bear hug, “Hey, how about you let me breath” I said to Xander, which had Sebastian laughing.

“Family tradition I am afraid, so you have to put up with it” Sebastian said before giving his young cousin a hug and ruffling up his hair, “Hey not the hair, I just had it permed yesterday” Xander said in a serious tone, which made the twins roar with laughter, and they each grabbed a large suitcase, and we headed towards the yacht, where Mrs Cooper, Wyatt and Xavier were waiting to greet Xander.

“You are in the same suite, across the hall from Mr Sebastian and Mr Lewis” Mrs Cooper said, as she gave Xander a warm hug, while her nephews took over carrying the suitcases from the twins, and soon we were on our way again. “So, what are we doing in Italy, is this something to do with what I read in the newspapers?” Xander asked.

“Yes, in a small way it is, we were going to go to the Falkland Islands, but that was before an attempt was made to try and kidnap Lewis, so we decided to head for the Med, were we have access to a lot more things, including security” Sebastian said. “By the way, don’t forget that Kylie will be ringing me late tonight” I said to Sebastian.

“So, what are we going to do here in Italy, just cruise the Med for ever?” Xander asked, and I chuckled at this, “Would help you get a beaut tan, keep all the girls happy eh” I said to the teenager. “All the boys you mean, I am gay, just like you guys, but I haven’t done anything serious yet, just experimenting a little, and I don’t have a boyfriend either” Xander announced, which caught all of us by surprise.

“Well as long as you are careful and take precautions at all times, no matter what the other guy says, we are happy for you, no matter who you are with” Sebastian said to his cousin, “Thanks Seb, that means a lot to me” especially after everything that has happened in the past few years” Xander said.

When we approached the island and began to slow down, Xander looked out the window, but he was looking the wrong way, which had me chuckling, “Try looking out the other side, you goofball” the twins said in unison, and Xander hurried over to the other side of the yacht, “a very small island, with some sort of old tower at the top” Xander said, ‘That’s right, and it belongs to us, welcome to Isola di Serpentara” Sebastian said.

“Hey Seb, why does the sign say, trespassers will be shot” Xander said in a serious tone, and keeping a straight face the whole time, “What” Sebastian shouted, and he jumped up to have a look, then realised he had been tricked once more, with all of us laughing. “Not very funny cousin, not one bit” Sebastian complained.

“See that watch tower, it was built in around 1640 AD, we have some stone masons, who are carefully restoring it back to what it used to be, and they have done a magnificent job too” Louis said to Xander, “wow that’s is like, well over 375 years old, that is ancient” Xander said surprised, “That it is, and that is why we needed to restore it, and protect it, so hopefully it will last for another 300 or so years” Sebastian replied.

The stonemason’s boat was gone, so we presumed that they would be back tomorrow, as we stepped onto the jetty, once the yacht was tied off, and we headed up the track, so Xander can have a look at the island and the watch tower. “What are you going to do with the island, if it is a wildlife protected area?” Xander asked, as we approached the door of the tower, “We will keep people off the island, and protect it as best as we can. Eventually, I will employ some keepers, to watch over the island, when we are away” Sebastian replied.

After viewing the watch tower, we walked towards the far end of the island, passing over the cleared area, that would not have anything on it, as Sebastian had thought he would, and on our return journey, Xander stopped in the middle of the cleared area. “This would make a great spot for a keeper’s cottage” he commented, and Sebastian smiled, “In deed it would, lets discuss that over some afternoon tea back at the yacht” Sebastian replied, as we continued.

After some discussions, we as a family decided that a simple two bedroom cottage, with solar panels on the roof, and a small wind turbine, for power supply, two poly water tanks that can be filled from a hose and pump from the yacht, to supply fresh water to the cottage, and a biodegradable toilet system for all human waste, and the grey water from the sinks will be used to water plants around the cottage.

We decided that the cottage would have a steel frame, that it will be bolted down to the rock surface, and will be double insulated, with double glazing, to keep the temperature inside comfortable all year round, and that the outside panels will be fire resistant corrugated iron sheeting, coloured grey green, to fit in with the shrubs and other plants on the island.

After some searching online, we found the ideal cottage that fitted the specifications for the island, but it is made in Australia, so Sebastian decided to call them early tomorrow, so as to reach the company before they close for the day, their time, and arrange for the cottage to be built, and put on a cargo ship, to be sent to Italy.

When the cargo ship finally arrived a few days later, it set it’s anchors on the Eastern side of the island, as instructed by Sebastian. We went onboard the cargo ship to check out our new floating home, and as expected levels one and two are in three sections, so they can be assembled under water, one piece at a time, but what really annoyed Sebastian was that the other four levels were in two sections, instead of 4 separate sections, which put paid to his plans of having the administration above the water.

I suggested that we look at other possible locations, and as I stepped over to the side of the lounge and looked out, I could see that the water was deep just between the larger rock and the island. Sebastian, come and look at this, we may have a solution” I said to my husband, and I pointed the area that I thought was deep.

Twenty minutes later we had a diving team in the water, and they swam over to just south-east of the large rock, and they reappeared five minutes later, and swam over to the jetty to shout out the report of depth of the water in that area. “It is 8.5 metres sir, and it is on a quite large shelf, with a gradual slope down on the edge” the senior diver said to us.

We sent out a small boat with a depth ranger, used usually for finding fish, and it was confirmed that there was an area of about 180 metres diameter, just 320 metres from the pontoon that links the large rock and mooring jetty, to the island, which is perfect, although it would mean that the top section of the tower would be clearly visible from the main island of Sardinia.

It took a total of four days to get the lower two levels into the water, with the three sections on each level connected and secured to the ocean floor, once that was done, the 3rd level was added, with the top one metre of it being just above the surface. When it was connected, all the water that is in the elevator and stairwells were pumped out and dried, which took another three days to complete, to ensure that there would be no sea water remaining to cause any rust.