Location: Sardinia
We woke up to another beautiful morning in Sardinia (only made better by cinnamon coffee cake and melon for breakfast, of course! Thank you, Nick, Avery, and Ella!) In college, I studied Sardinia, its people, and cultural traditions and dreamed of coming here one day. This lush, geographically isolated island is famous for having 10 times more centenarians (people who live to be over 100 years old) per capita than the United States, and its residents have kept to a very traditional and healthy lifestyle. It is considered to be a “Blue Zone” of the world and has been used as a model community for how we can all live happier, healthier lives (I recommend watching the Netflix documentary series!) It is bittersweet that today is our last day on this lovely island, as I would personally love to stay here forever. However, I am also very excited to finally arrive in Civitavecchia! This morning’s activity was one of my all-time favorites: Hobie sailing! Small boat sailing is such an incredible opportunity for the students to fine-tune their sailing skills and wind awareness while having a blast and getting splashed! At the start, the wind was very light, and it was more of a floating activity than a sailing activity. Fortunately, after an hour or so, the wind filled in! Many people even went out on the trapeze, and Avery demonstrated her quickly learned expert close-quarter maneuvering by getting reallllllly close to a big fancy yacht.
Meanwhile, Meg, Shane, and I got some sanding and varnishing done to keep Argo looking beautiful! After sailing their hearts out, everyone went for a refreshing dip and played football while awaiting dinghy shuttles. We then prepared to set off on our last passage of the summer by taking off sail covers, running jack lines, attaching halyards, and 40/40ing everything. Before we set off, everybody jumped into the crystal clear Mediterranean sea to take their last ocean showers (we already miss swimming so much!) Tonight and over the next few days, there will be many more lats, such as the last time falling asleep on watch or eating sneaky ramen and cereal down below at 2 am. After we raised anchor, we set our two staysails and are motor sailing toward mainland Italy. We are anticipating very light winds for this quick, overnight passage and are expected to arrive just before lunch. We are currently weaving and dodging our way through many boats as we inch out toward the open sea for hopefully a great night of stargazing and midnight laughs until the sun rises over Citavecchia Argo’s home for the next 6 weeks!)