UTC 1540

The entrance of St. Lucia marina, Napoli, Italy… 

We are again in front of the Napoli centre, after making the circle  Procida, Ischi, Capri, Sorento, Castellammare di Stabia, Napoli… 

It has taken us 10 days to make this circle — spending and balancing the time doing actual sailing, and visiting the land… —the time spent is practicing the  ‘man over board’, and visiting the most interesting landmarks…  and then, to gain some time — making some short, but real night passages… 

The experiment has proved that 5 people on board can survive — we started the trip with 5 people on board, and the same 5 arrived at the final destination! ;- ).  Still talking to each other, still smiling! ;- )

I hope my friends enjoyed it — because I’ve really did!  From them, I’ve learned a lot about ’new Russia’ — talented,  focused, matured, well educated young people…  With quite of experience of being around the world… With wide range of interests — besides their professional interests — music, literature, photos, travelling etc… 

They are young,  a bit younger then I was when I’ve left Russia for Canada, many, many Moons ago…  And at certain point I thought — if they were not going to be ’squeezed out from Russia’,  may be Russia would have been able ‘to bounce back’ and to survive… ;-) 

They left today back for Moscow. Again, there are two of us — the boat and myself.  Some schedule maintenance is due. Some re-stocking, cleaning, etc are also pending.  

But the most important and ‘pressing’ at this point — to make the decision where to go.  There is no much left from the season 2019. 

And I have to make the decision quickly — where exactly to go, North, South ? 

The information I collecting from my sailing around friends — is a bit controversial at this point… 

But  one of them, who sailed around the Med for many, many years  told me ( when I started to complain about the weather patterns,  no decision where to go, etc ) — ‘ What is you problem ?   You have Swan. All you need — a few hours weather window, to leave the harbour and to set sails… After that — you may go any place you want… ‘.  He is right. He knows what he is talking about — he is sailing Swan himself…  So, as resting between maintenance — back to Piloting books,  e-mails, planning. 

That is all at this point. 

Everything is good on board. 

Talk soon, 

M.