Porto di Roma

Now we’ve been in the Med for well over a year I think I can say I’m getting truly acclimatised. This has a downside. I can’t cope with cold weather any more. Italy is at this moment in the grip of a cold spell. There is snow from the Alps to Sicily and the TV news has pictures of frozen tailbacks full of juggernauts from one end of the country to the other. I’m writing this in the early morning in my berth watching my breath condense all over the laptop screen. Our fan heater is going full belt, I’m wrapped in a duvet and I’m wearing track suit bottoms, a sweater and thick socks. Here on the coast the temperature is actually at this moment a couple of degrees above freezing, a normal English winter morning which a couple of years ago I would have thought nothing about. The trouble is ... I’m bloody freezing!

When I wrote in October there were thirty odd cruising yachts here already and they continued to roll in steadily through October and November, so that there is now a community of more than sixty over-wintering boats. Many of the boats are from the UK and there is a sizeable US contingent, some Antipodeans and a scattering of Dutch, German and other European nationalities. At any one time well over half the boats are occupied and there is a very busy, sometimes too busy, social life. Every morning there is a VHF radio “net” during which we all exchange information about medical needs, parts for sale or wanted, forthcoming social events and the next transport strike. The marina have given us use of a large room and every week a social is held there and a range of other activities. Sue and I go to Yoga and Italian lessons twice a week each and I play bridge and attend a writers group as well. Once per week there are “destination seminars”, where people get together to share information about their favourite cruising grounds, Greece, Turkey, the Black Sea and the like. Also, Ruth, from one of the big American boats is an experienced piano accompanist and sometimes I learn to sing new songs and perform them to my fellow cruisers.

If you think this all sounds like a multi-national, middle-aged and middle-class version of Butlins - you’d probably be right. But it suits us for this winter and we’ve learnt a lot about cruising and cruisers. It’s a broad church, ranging from the seriously rich to the dirt-poor, from the dedicated to the dilettante. I enjoy getting along with people, but I also like to take a dislike to some. I feel it’s only when I find someone I dislike that I actually bring into sharper focus what I like about people. Finding someone to dislike has been a real problem this winter. I fix on someone and decide “yes, I really don’t like you”, only to find on subsequent contact that actually they’re alright. I guess I’ve never been in a community where I feel more at home. Why is this? I think it’s because the people here are all, in one way or another – doers. Folk who don’t just dream about what they want, but try to do something about it. For sure, many of the cruisers here are retired and don’t have to worry too much about where the next buck comes from, but it still takes bottle to buy a boat and up sticks and find your way around foreign seas, foreign ports and foreign countries.