The End of the Sailing Season

Next day, Sue’s hunting instinct overcame her finer feelings and she was back fishing, although I’m not entirely sorry to say without success.  It was another wonderfully mild and sunny day and with all our sails set we glided up to the fleet of Roman yachts sailing off Porto di Roma and the mouths of the Tiber and the Fiumicino canal.  It’s been such a great season that neither of us wanted it to end and we were tempted to just keep on going.  But we have things to do this winter and all good things must come to an end, so we headed on in to the marina.

This winter is going to be very different from the last.  Apart from the fact that we have all the facilities we need within a few hundred metres and the joy of slowly exploring Rome, there are at least thirty English-speaking cruising boats in here for the winter and a very active social life developing.  We have a morning VHF radio net mainly used for organising social activities.  Two American cruisers have negotiated a “happy hour” at the nearby Gran Cafe which offers us drinks at half price from five to eight pm.  Others are organising yoga, musical evenings, cooking lessons and bridge nights.  There may even be guided tours of the major Roman sites led by a local professor who one of the cruisers who was here last year got to know.

All in all we are well placed to carry out our most pressing winter project, provisionally entitled “SO WHAT EXACTLY THE **** DO WE  DO NOW?”  As I’m sure you all realise our progress on this issue so far has been about zero.  Our basic choices are fairly stark, carry on as we are for the next five or ten years and run out of money (tempting) or develop a lifestyle which is economically sustainable.  Anyway we’ve started to take the first steps, we’ve made a list (well that’s OK then!) and Sue is applying for Teaching English as a Foreign Language courses.  It’s been a great summer, but now reality (whatever that is) begins to bite.