Packing Up

Well, three weeks is our quickest update ever, so we’ll try to keep this one brief. As we write, we are in the midst of active preparations to depart our winter port of Gaeta, Italy. We are doing so with very mixed feelings. On the one hand, we are eager to once again hit the seas, actively cruise around the Med, and explore new places. At the same time, we have really enjoyed both our time in Gaeta and the traveling we have done from here. (You can probably expect a bit of a Gaeta retrospective after we’ve actually left.) A year felt so long when we left the U.S., and now it feels incredibly short.

Two weeks ago we enjoyed our last land trip of the “winter”, renting a car and heading north to Austria. Our good friend Tony Hardy has been telling us for years how special St. Anton is, and we are now inclined to agree with him. While the use of German made it a more difficult place for us to operate, we were awed by the grand scale, the physical beauty, and the quality of the skiing. We enjoyed three great days as a family, then a fourth without Adam who was coming down with the flu. But on the fifth day he was feeling better, and showed his true stripes as he rallied for an awesome day in 10 inches of fresh winter powder. It was one of those glorious sunny powder days that skiers live for. A great finish to our stay at St. Anton.

From there we went to Innsbruck for a day, where Adam paid the price for his hard day of skiing while not quite recovered, and Sarah got to visit the AlpenZoo with her dad – a real highlight for her. We once again got to watch her come alive (even more so than usual ) in the presence of animals, as she sprinted from area to area to take in as much as she could.

We did our last skiing of the season on our way south, when we stopped for two days in the Italian Dolomites, in a region called the Alta Badie?????. The main draw was a day long trip called the Sellaronda (Around the Sella), on which you could ski a 360-degree circle around a group of spectacular peaks. We probably rode about 25 lifts. The skiing was mostly intermediate and unremarkable, but the mountainscape was spectacular. Sheer granite cliffs reminding us of the Yosemite Valley were the centerpiece of a truly awesome area. Part of our pleasure here was undoubtedly the surprise factor, as we didn’t expect this much. And while they may not be quite as grand in scale, this area ranked among the most spectacular we saw.

Upon our return a week and a half ago, we dove back into our life here in Gaeta, including our home schooling routine. We haven’t written much about schooling in the past, so a few comments here. (We are writing a separate entry on the joys and challenges of school this year.) While at port, we generally do about 4-5 hours in the morning. Home schooling the three kids continues to have its challenges and its rewards. Sometimes we wish we had enrolled them in school, so we could have the free time to enjoy more of the area and relax more. But we are also finding it incredibly rewarding to work so closely with all three of them – we’re learning so much more about there strengths and weaknesses, and who they are as people. It really is a gift to be spending so much time with them, and watching them first hand as they absorb their material. It’s also a treat to be able to tailor the curriculum to their needs and to the opportunities before us. We couldn’t imagine making home schooling a way of life, but are really enjoying it for the year.

As we’ve mentioned before, we’ve become particularly close with a Dutch family (the Shoemakers) that is enjoying a one year odyssey much like our own. Their 9 year old daughter, Charlotte, has become incredibly close with Sarah and their son, Martyne (10), enjoys being able to rough it up a little with Danny and Adam. Steve, Adam and Danny tagged along with Martyne and his dad last week to go to a football (American soccer) playoff game between Rome and Ajax, “their” team from the Netherlands. A good time was had by all, despite the offer from their Italian neighbors at the game to escort them out in case they were attacked by unruly Roma fans angry about being eliminated from the tourney! Definitely a spirited crowd, but no sign of violence or danger. The Zuckerman boys enjoyed the following day at the Vatican, mostly exploring the incredible museums and the Sistine Chapel.

We mentioned above our reluctance to leave Gaeta, and one of the toughest parts of the departure will be to leave our new found friends, the Shoemakers. Unfortunately they must head north and west, in order to sail back through the French canals and on to the Netherlands, while we will be heading south and east, around the boot of Italy and over to Greece. We’ve decided to delay that a week or so by cruising some of the nearby islands with them and, weather permitting, will take off to do so next Monday. After a week or so we’ll return here to Gaeta for a few final preparations, then head south toward Sicily. Frankly, other than heading that way, then around to Greece, we’re pretty fluid on our plans for the next four months. We’ve made contact with several other “kid boats” cruising the Med, some of which appear to be heading toward Greece as well. So we hope to remain fluid and connect with one or more of them, as we have found that some companionship for the kids really makes all of us happier.

With that, we’ll sign off for now. We listen intently to the activities in the middle east, wishing desperately that it had not had to come to this. Fortunately we’ve seen nothing here that is impacting us personally, but we can’t help but fear for the impact this war will ultimately have in Iraq, the U.S. and around the world. We keep our fingers crossed that the ultimate benefits will far outweigh the inescapable costs.

As we hear frequently in the cruising world, fair winds and following seas to all who read our pages.