From freshwater sailor to saltwater sailor – part three

Adriano Gatta, from Brescia, DOC, class of 1956, free-rider, mountaineer, former judo national team member, photography enthusiast (the photos accompanying the story are his), wrote to us telling us his story as a former “repentant” motorboat racer. We offer it to you divided into installments (find the first one here and the second one here), as newspapers once did. Here is the third part of our “summer tale” for you.

I begin to tour the lake far and wide and above all I stop to sleep in the very few bays in which you can bottom out or at the buoy or in the very few and very expensive( you read that right-very expensive-not cute !!! ) equipped harbors, obviously in the upper lake since we were sailing and since starting the engine was a jackpot, often done with the crank like the Balilla of 80 years ago.

Then in 2001, annus orribilis for my son’s schooling, vacation time skipped, and a friend in September suggested we rent a 44′ in Croatia; I eagerly accepted. I had been wanting to do this for years but did not feel able to take a boat by myself even though I had an unrestricted license for 10 years already.

With Roberto on board it was a different matter and so I accepted; that first experience was followed by others: in four years all of Croatia from north to south to Dubrovnjk.

But I was always with someone to help me, even though I was the commander( only because I was the only one with a radio operator’s certificate). It was not enough for me, but especially not enough for Marghe, my wife who, as a condition for following me on my sailings, set three conditions; two cabins, bathroom and a decent kitchen.

Here in 2002 I got an opportunity, the big leap; with part of the severance money( I had changed firms) I got a Sun Odyssey 32,’ placed it in Salò, where they recently made the new marina and I also use it as a lake house.

Wheel steering, a cool thing, although this will horrify purists, a convenience and then I get an overused gennaker, walled on the anchor’s nose, which for sailing downwind in the Afternoon Hour is the best.

Of course I change the name, which was originally BABY(…o but they all happen to me…this one belonged to a bachelor who used it as a pied-a-terre) and, of course, I call it BRAVO PAPA’ 2. I do 10 days around the lake sleeping in a different place every night. I also combine sailing with hiking in the mountains overlooking the lake; with the ski mountaineering members we combine the sailing with a ferrata in Riva del Garda or with a rappel to the Bs dela paul (swamp hole) at the Manerba Rock or a ‘hike in the mountains of the Upper Garda Park. We certainly don’t miss the wind, indeed with the pel駻 I often go out with two hands of reefing; some problems with anchorages, almost impossible in the upper lake with the sheer depths and also difficult in the lower lake because of the change of wind during the night and then, above all, without anchor windlass. But what I miss is the sea with its spaces, its horizons, its waves, its silences, its really dark nights….like those of my beloved mountains…..

Go there, if you have never tried it, go sailing on Lake Garda; for a sailor it is a must-do experience.

Gigi, a friend who-having always been a proponent of “Iron Iron” sailing switched overnight to sailing by buying himself, blessed him, a Gran Soleil 50’on which, for the past few years, he has been inviting us to spend some weekends in Liguria and Capraia-asked me, in 2012, if I could bring him the boat from La Spezia to Nettuno where he would join us with his partner and two other friends to vacation in the Pontine Islands and Ischia.

For the past two months, I have been on mobility because the company I used to work for incentivized those close to retirement, like me, to stay at home and I, after doing some math in my family, of course eagerly accepted, except then to find out that Prof. Fornero informed us, crying !!!!!!( She ? And what were we supposed to do ?) that the years of contribution became 42……..azzazz..

it goes well,I have time, it’s summer, in the gym I’m done with judo lessons to my boys, so I decide to accept the offer; but alone ? I don’t feel ready yet….a 50-footer…..

I am helped by the usual Roberto(Bobo to his friends) who volunteers to come with me and my wife, and so we set off. We take it as an advance of vacation, during which I dabble in making calaverne( leather and hide work) and splices on the Golly to the delight of Gigi, the commander.

La Spezia, Capraia, Elba, Giglio, Giannutri( with a full moon……breathtaking), Neptune and then again the Pontine Islands, Procida and Ischia…..a dream vacation…a dream that slowly takes shape…….

The following year (i.e., summer 2013) boating vacation, again on the Golly in the French Riviera……beautiful, wonderful company but, the Italian islands……at least for me, are something else.

Back on the lake and….

END OF PART THREE (the fourth will be online on Wednesday, August 13)

REREAD THE OTHER CHAPTERS OF THE SUMMER STORY
Part 1
Part 2