WeatherUnderground reported, "89 degrees, but feels like 101."
Everything was still. It was hot. The Otranto Bay was flat and glassy and warm. Everyone was swimming.
As the afternoon wore on, the clouds on the northern horizon turned dark. Was that thunder? Look, flashes of lightening. And then, the wind. Thunder, lightening, wind and a few drops of rain.
But it was the wind that stirred the stale air and we could breathe again. The wind dried out the air. The doors and window banged into the night against the apartment walls. No longer humid, no longer hot, we closed all the doors and shutters and drew up the quilt on the bed. And all the next day, the wind blew and the next. Restaurant umbrellas flapped like huge birds ready to launch. Large waves crashed into the bay rocks and beach.
No swimmers, no fishermen, no swirling swifts.
The Otrantini live with the wind, be it tramontana, maestrale or scirocco. They say, "nasce, pasce, more...it's born, it lives, it dies." A three day cycle. Then, it is over and calm returns.
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