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family memories

Posted on September 28, 2011 @ 5:45 pm by massimo | Filed under: advertisement,ancona,blog,fun,holidays,illustration,mediterranean,news,people,sailing,wordpress

My parents, a couple of true sea lovers never owned their own boat, yet they often arranged our family holidays on board their best friends motor-cruiser. Well knowing that such kind of  holidays would make priceless memories for me and my sister, they managed to get everyting right, in order to avoid any possible annoyance: the chosen destinations were always reasonably close and the motor-cruiser capability let 4 adults with their 4 children, to cohabit without particular problems during the navigation.  As 7 or 8 years old kids we used to play below deck during the passage,  were trained to sleep two by two in the berths, or allowed to steer for a while. Great fun!  Would be my parents tricks useful to some travel advisor at hand, in order to arrange super special holidays for parents and childs?  I don’t know: yet it was exactly during a recent night-cruise, that these memories could’nt wait anymore: the boat pushed by a gentle and stable breeze under the light of a benevolent moon, having nothing do but gazing at the whispering sea, I experienced that peculiar meditative attitude that every sailor, under similar circumstances, had surely learned. “Why “-I wondered- “I am so invariably at ease while on board whatever boat or ship?”  ”Where does my sense of  well being when resting in a narrow berth during a rough navigation, comes from?” Off course, you see, the very obvious answer is deep in my childhood.

narrow escape

Posted on July 29, 2011 @ 2:40 pm by massimo | Filed under: advertisement,beach,blog,boracay,cheap,fear,illustration,island,mythology,news,package tour,philippines,sailing,wordpress

Andrew was an Australian I met in Boracay. He lived in General Luna, Siargao Island main town, fronting the pacific Ocean. Andrew owned a paraw and he used to go sailing in the Siargao sea, among  unpolluted and enchanting islands: Dinagat, Dako, Anahwan, La Januza. “An obsession!” he claimed. His tales were so enthusiastic that Gino and I could nothing but leave Boracay, go to General Luna, rent a paraw, and go sailing togheter with Andrew. In a nut shell,  there is a special feeling when you realise that you are sailing the immense and powerful Pacific Ocean on board a paraw: such a tiny boat,  a sort of unravel threat! And really our last navigation was threatening. In the late afternoon we found ourselves a mile off La Januza; we decided to head back to General Luna, at a distance of around ten  nautical miles. The wind was dropping; we tacked upwind but I suddenly  realised that the rudder blade was off the hull: its precarious tin pintles had given up. Meanwhile the gentle and constant wind pushed us towards the open sea! No wonder that we felt lost and panicked: no water or food on board, no compass, nothing but a piece of rope to bind ourselves to the mast. In the sunset light we saw Andrew’s paraw sailing home fast, getting far, while on the opposite side the unreachable La Januza looked a mirage. But, hurra! Neptune and Eolus themselves woke up togheter to save us: after a 20 minutes long hopeless drifting, the wind changed and we finally managed to land in the dusk  in La Januza beach. The island people who had previously noticed our drifiting were waiting for us. Perhaps I spent my life dearest night inside a rented room on that remote little island. The next day as soon as we had the rudder repaired, we sailed back to General Luna where an amazed Andrew was waiting for us. What else can I say? For sure our short tour had not been  a cheap package holidays!

Illustration Friday topic is: obsession

christmas at sea

Posted on December 31, 2009 @ 10:50 am by massimo | Filed under: blog,books,fear,illustration,music,news,sailing,travel,wordpress

The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;
The decks were like a slide, where a seamen scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor’wester, blowing squally off the sea;
And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.

They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;
But ’twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.
We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,
And we gave her the maintops’l, and stood by to go about.

All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.

canned food!

Posted on July 26, 2008 @ 6:06 pm by massimo | Filed under: blog,croatia,food,fun,holidays,illustration,mediterranean,news,sailing,wordpress

I’m going to be off-line till mid august. I’ll be sailing on board the Natahel, heading east to beautiful Kornati Islands. and further south to Korcula…I guess I’m going to have plenty of canned food and this is a pity: actually, I can’t stand it, since I love …

split tongued spirit

Posted on May 24, 2008 @ 4:28 pm by massimo | Filed under: blog,boracay,fear,fun,holidays,island,news,philippines,sailing,swimming,wordpress

Swimming in open sea is my favourite sport: yet it scares me a little. As soon as I jump into the water, some sort of split tongued spirit talks and says out of the vast sea: “maybe you could sink and die”. When the spirit talks louder …

elettricity

Posted on May 10, 2008 @ 5:54 pm by massimo | Filed under: blog,fear,illustration,indonesia,island,news,people,philippines,sailing,travel,wordpress

Lightnings are electrical discharges, giant sparks of electricity, from mature storms. Lightnings cause a lot of electric current to pass through water; wooden boats are not safe at all since the vast majority of lightning injuries and deaths occur on small boats with no cabin…
The short sea …

captain

Posted on August 19, 2007 @ 9:13 am by massimo | Filed under: bargain,blog,cheap,fun,illustration,indonesia,island,news,people,sailing,travel,wordpress

The Mentaway Archipelago located  in the Indian Ocean, at about 100 miles off Sumatra’s west coast, used to be  far off beaten tourists’ routes…
A small cargo ship,  a tramp steamer almost, shuttled among those islands, carrying stuff of all sort and a few passengers. Coming …

remember

Posted on April 28, 2007 @ 3:15 pm by massimo | Filed under: ancona,art,blog,fashion,fear,fun,illustration,japan,mediterranean,news,sailing,travel,ukiyo-e,wordpress

Maybe I should put forward for this week’s topic my whole blog! Actually every Aynaku’s post relates to memory so I consider that my most recent submission should make no exception, and be one of Aynaku’s most typical. My very first time on board a sailing boat is firmly fixed …

messages

Posted on March 10, 2007 @ 11:11 am by massimo | Filed under: blog,books,fashion,fun,illustration,island,mediterranean,people,sailing,travel,ukiyo-e,wordpress

“I must down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife; And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, And quiet sleep and a sweat dream when the long …

sailing ships…

Posted on November 18, 2006 @ 12:18 pm by massimo | Filed under: ancona,art,blog,fun,illustration,news,people,sailing,ukiyo-e,wordpress

My grandfather was born in 1898. In his younger days he watched more than once the sailing ships at anchor in our hometown harbour. In his spare time he enjoyed oil painting, wasn’t so bad a painter …

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