THE MORNING AFTER THE WEEK BEFORE
Where do you start describing an out-of-the-ordinary experience of a sailing holiday for the whole family along beautifully crafted Croatian coastline with the team of professionals whose sole purpose is to make your trip an unforgettable one?!? Perhaps the holiday aftertaste it left with us… the aftertaste of an incredible pirate adventure after six breezy summer days out in the open sea!
We are going back after a week with Regatta for Friends feeling gratitude for everyone’s hard work, feeling a newly found respect for the sea, a newly discovered passion for sailing and lots of family memories, which we are going to remember for the years to come. Last week was packed with action, lots of it was carefully planed (thanks to a hard working kids crew Shura, Lena and Max and, of course, our brave and caring captains) and some action was thrown in by the Mother Nature (oh those ever changing winds in the middle of the night, blankets blown away in need of a rescue, etc etc).
The surprises didn’t stop there! There were hills to climb, ancient ruins to explore, Croatian sunsets to adore, fish to catch, the most remote restaurants surprising us with the best octopus “peck” to name a few discoveries along the way. Kids of different age groups “cramped” together on the boat most of the time and without any gadgets astonishingly had not had a single fall out☝Instead they found new friends, they learned new skills, achieved new levels of confidence and, most importantly, they found a real pirate treasure in the end, which they celebrated with the self organized Pirate’s party!
The cherry on the cake was a photo documentary by our talented photographer Vera. I am yet to figure out how this delicate woman managed to stay on the moving yacht under the sails while taking some of the best in class shots!!!
Family yachting tests your abilities outside of your everyday comfort zone as an adult too. At one point I found myself cooking dinner for 11 people, comforting my child, taking an important message via the radio and posing for a photo shoot))) Be prepared to share some of the struggles of the real pirates of the past (the lack of everyday hot shower that is)! Also be prepared to take turns in cooking and cleaning for the whole crew (and probably do it a lot more often than during all adults sailing trip given that 50-60% of the crew are kids). Be prepared to try out different sailing roles (that was the most fun!), for the long days, early mornings and sometimes having no time to visit the bathroom, but we still managed to sneak out for the cheeky swim and an occasional 15 min nap! While it didn’t turn out to be the luxury experience one would image yachting could be, it was well compensated by the feeling of togetherness and wonderful friendships that were created along the way.
To top it all up, I found my 6.5 year old son playing with a piece of sailing rope this morning practicing his sailing knots, such an endearing sight to see in this world dominated by computer games! He loves the sea (after all he is half Viking), but now he experienced it up close and personal thanks to the Regatta for Friends founders Nina and Sergey, whose passion for sailing and family values are simply infectious!!!
Good byes were hard, and we can’t wait for our next adventure!
