Manfredonia, farewell to commander Paolo Basta aka “U Pagliettere”
Paolo Basta, aka “U pagliettere”, one of the most famous fishing boat commanders of the Siponto navy, who for the last sixty years served on the most important fishing boats of the imposing Manfredonia fleet, has left us suddenly.
His passing occurred, precisely and unexpectedly, just as he himself experienced the sea, his immense love, when, in the blink of an eye, a dead calm sea turns into a storm under the whipping winds of the sirocco or mistral.
Sea storms were a challenge for Paolo that he absolutely had to overcome, so much so that his courage was inextricably linked to an impotent physical strength, an excellent knowledge of the winds, of the wave motion, of how to ride the wave to avoid finding himself capsized in the sea.
When the weather conditions at sea did not promise anything good and made sailing and fishing inadvisable, on the dock, those who remained moored would say: “P’ stu timpe, pe’ mere’, ste sicure Pavolocce U Pagliettere”.
And they were not wrong, it took a lot of courage to work with a force 7/8 wave, when the sea water literally rose up on the boat, filling it with water, and then flowed out of the side vents.
Imagine all this at night, with the sea rough and in complete darkness, when those who worked on the stern, to select the caught fish, would tie their lives with a rope, to avoid drowning if they were ever thrown into the black, icy waters of the Adriatic.
That straw-colored straw hat, inextricably worn on his head to protect it from the sun, had given rise to his nickname and characterized him. He began to go to sea at a very young age. After his military service in the Navy, in 1953, he embarked as a cabin boy, then a sailor, a naval engineer and finally, for a lifetime, a fishing boat captain, free to decide routes and fishing spots.
He knew the Adriatic Sea inside and out, especially our Gargano, Tremiti and Pelagosa seas, from which he managed to extract, more than any other, large quantities of fish of the most varied and prized qualities. His abundant and varied catches, as commander of the fishing vessel “Cosimo e Damiano”, are memorable.
When the catch reached the Manfredonia fish market for sale, dozens and dozens of plastic crates were displayed on the platforms like “works of art”, containing scampi or, in nautical jargon, “scamponi”, which, due to their size, were actually lobsters.
Not only scampi but other types of fish such as: John Dory, dentex, monkfish, large cod (pappandune), normal and small cod, squid and baby squid, scorpion fish, cuttlefish, octopus, in short, hundreds of boxes, in just two or three catches or “burdete”.
In the 1980s, shipowners fought over him to have him in command of their fishing vessel, but when the call came from his two cousin shipowners, the brothers Vincenzo and Paolo Castriotta, he didn’t think twice about accepting and taking over the helm of the Cosimo e Damiano for almost twenty years.
He could have written a long book about his intense seafaring life, transferring to posterity the emotions, the joys and why not the fears that the sea had transmitted to him in his long life as a sea wolf and I was ready to collect just a few contributions of his seafaring life.
The agreement had been reached, a month ago, after he greeted me, smiling, with three kisses on the cheek and a crushing handshake. I was supposed to interview him in the cabin and at the helm of a fishing boat on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday, which fell on June 29, the day before his passing, evidently unaware of what the good Lord would have ordered him this time, that of directing the bow of his intense existence towards a new sea, in which there are no storms, therefore, waves or impetuous winds but only peace and serenity, those of the paradise in which he will surely have landed enjoying the light of God.
Antonio Castriotta
