19. A Day at the Races

Things have changed here now. The infection rate has soared and most of the country has gone from ‘yellow’ to ‘red’ in terms of government enforced pandemic restrictions. This means that there is a permanent curfew and all non-essential establishments are closed. We are supposedly only allowed to leave our homes (boat in my case) to buy ‘essential supplies’ or to walk or run in the immediate vicinity. You are also meant to bring a form stating why you have left your home and that you understand the restrictions in force. For me this means a 600 meter lunch walk along the water front next to the marina, 600 meters back and then repeating this another nine times.

I am still enjoying myself though. The weather is better than in Sweden and when I am not working I can watch Netflix, HBO and Chelsea and further prepare the boat for the Atlantic.

Before Italy went ‘code red’ I got the opportunity to spend a day on a catamaran with some of my new neighbours. Sandy and Helga from South Africa, Werner and Eivy from Belgium and Maik from Germany. We left the marina to test Sandy and Helga’s new water maker installation on their Lagoon 400, Carla. The water maker worked perfectly which meant that we also had time for a lunch at anchor and to watch some racing in the bay.

The Liberty Bitcoin Youth Foiling Gold Cup has been going on in Gaeta for a couple of weeks. An international sailing competition with Persico 69F foiling boats designed for a crew of three. This means that a bunch of young athletes have been hanging around the marina and the cruisers here. We have gotten to know the US team consisting of Langston, Riley and Anna and their coach Sally. All roughly the same age as my kids but they have been perfectly OK with hanging out with us cruisers. I guess we are all sailors and adventurers, just with a different balance between these two labels. In fact, Riley and Anna are qualified for the Olympics in Tokyo in the Nacra 17 class and Sally is a two time Volvo Ocean Race participant and will coach the US Olympic sailing team.

It was great to see these carbon fibre monohulls take off on their foils and our American friends were clocked at 28.1 knots in no more than a moderate breeze in the bay. This was also the last day of the competition and the youngsters decided to buy us all burgers and beers for an evening onboard Carla.