Marina Communities & Life on Water

Wow. Where did that last 12 months go? It certainly has been another crazy year on this rock. So we send best wishes and hopes to all our chaotic crew for a year that exceeds expectations! For us, we have finished out 2021 settling into our new winter home and marina community and completing various long overdue work on Inelsamo. Happy to say our jobs list begins the new year with a much reduced load! Although it is true to say we have probably left the toughest to last....deck sanding and calking. Anyway, I am not here to bore you with that but instead I wanted to share with you my thoughts on one of the things that makes travelling and walking places afar worth the time, cost, risks and emotion of leaving family once again. People.

Pretty much from the moment I left the farm at Allora and went to boarding school, my life has been one of packing up bags and houses and moving to new places. I can't remember the number of times Craig and I have moved house. Sometimes it was from just suburb to new suburb, but more often than not it was from job to job, State to State and in more recent years, country to country. The one absolute joy that packing and moving and travelling has brought, has been the people we meet and the communities that welcome us in and make us feel at 'home'.

I took a picture of some street art here in Licata the other day that I thought expressed it beautifully: "The heart is not where it beats but where it loves". Its a long time since a view or scene caused me to catch my breath in awe, but the people I meet regularly do. It doesn't matter where our travels have taken us, whether it was from the Northern Territory to Western Australia, or Sydney to Cooktown, or Houston to London....the people we meet enrich, educate and expand our world. Our new community here in Marina di Cala del Sole, Licata, Sicily, is made up of people from Germany, Finland, Netherlands, Denmark, France, USA, Lithuania, Russia, Canada and various other corners of the planet. We have marine biologists, archaeologists, sociologists, doctors, painters, journalists, writers, human rights activists, architects, nurses....you name it. Every walk of life. The one thing we all have in common is our love of life on water and our ridiculous commitment to these floating homes. Every boat is different and each sailor is 'house proud'. We exchange notes and ideas on the "how to's"; we help out on big jobs and small, and we check on boats with absentee owners. We look out for each other and care for those that are sick or in need. At Christmas, a small group of us remained in the Marina so we had an orphans and strays Christmas sharing good cheer, home brews and cultural cuisines.

Each week there are activities such as yoga, happy hours and the weekly BBQ. There are also Italian classes and various other things if you are interested. Everyone is happy to share their knowledge, expertise and story and I for one absolutely love being part of this eclectic group who remind me daily what a treasure life is. I am grateful for every aspect of it, even the crappy bits like tornadoes, blocked toilets and language barriers.

I guess we all know that our connection may well be only for a short time with many of us moving on to new horizons come the end of winter when the weather allows sails to be hoisted and new places explored. That itinerant and fleeting way of living makes these connections that much more precious. And certainly, the world of Covid acts as constant reminder of how important these moments are.

The aerial photo of the marina is courtesy of Wim Keesmaat who takes beautiful photos!

Anyways...if restrictions permit, we hope to get out and explore Sicily this next month and share with you some more photos and stories. But for the time being, we are staying put in the marina precinct and village.

Love to you all.