My father was a passionate sailor.
If he could live on the water it would have done it. Every single moment free from work he would spend it sailing. He never had family time with us. We had to have family time with him and this meant being on some floating object with him.
He started to be possessed by the sea bug when he bought a used Riva, a retro style motorboat very famous in the ‘50, all wood, sleek and fast, the Ferrari of the sea. I have a picture of my mom in one of her rare marine excursions with us...she looks like a young Ingrid Bergman: big black glasses, white Capri pants on her tanned long legs...I am in the picture too: I am the chubby little girl, maybe 8ish, with a huge floating device around her waist sitting on the back seat of the motorboat smiling a big smile that makes me look like a Chinese girl...my eyes used to disappear in my smiles.... I was happy, I always have been happy on the water. Just like my father. We used to sprint back and forth on that motorboat....we used to bring with us coolers full of drinks and cold pasta and stay out in the sun all day touching shore in some island around our coast. It was pure fun.
After he sold the Riva he bought another equally sleek and fast jewel: a wooden Flying Dutchman and started competing in local, regional and then national regattas. I was cheering for him. I was behind the tables of the judges when they would hand him the shining trophies. Usually my dad raced with my uncle, his younger brother F., but then he wanted my brother with him. I wasn’t that good in competing. I tried. But after few races I gave up. I had more fun sailing when somebody else was leading the boat. I have always been what we can say an “epicurean sailor”....:-)
My luck struck when my father decided to build a Catalina 30, a beautiful sailing boat, all wood and brass, with room for 8 people (but we slept there even in 10). His Catalina had nothing to see with the recent super accessorized models: she was basic to the bone but elegant to the top of her mast.
I loved that boat. He named her “Pago Pago”. Double meaning: he got the idea from one of the American Samoa’s islands and from the fact that “pago” in Italian means ‘I pay” . That boat did cost a big chunk of money. Therefore.....i pay twice the money.
Her first color was a light emerald green from the bottom until half of the hull, with one red and one blue stripes. Then after few years he repainted her all white with only a green turtle upside down on one side of the prow. I never knew why he chose a turtle...that boat was everything but a turtle on the water.
As soon as the boat got ready and he tested her during several one day long navigations, my father had already planned our first sailing trip: we would have sailed from the coast in front of Roma to Sardinia, the big island that is almost connected with Corsica. Sardinia is called the Italian Bahamas: long stretches of white and pink fine sand, hundreds of solitary and inviting bays and tons of small ports. We had to go there. On route we would have stop at the Montecristo Island, a small body of land famous, yep, for the Dumas’s book. Total: 9-10 hours of navigation.
That would have been the first of many summers spent sailing on Pago Pago.
We started the habit of leaving in August when my parents (as well as the rest of the Italians) had weeks of vacation and would closed their clothing shop. Also, August was my father’s birthday month. He would have celebrated many years on the water. There was another person who used to celebrate as well: my mom. She never went with us. She had already reached the last degree of emotional separation from my father. That 15 days in which we were sailing she was finally be able to do what she longed all year long: be alone, in her home, without being forced to see anybody, with her beloved books, watching her beloved b&w movies in tv.
We were away. On the sea.
My father used to invite my uncle F. (because he was an expert sailor) and some of his close friends. Only one friend at the time, though. And we kids had permission to bring along one or two friends too. One summer I brought with me K., my best girlfriend, and her husband and my dear friend as well, S.
Another summer I would bring one of my boyfriends. And then it arrived the turn of my husband. My sister and my brother would bring their favorite people as well. Pago Pago seemed adjusting perfectly with any group size. One summer we reached the top: 10 people crammed and yet sharing that space without any problem.
My father was very superstitious: there was no way we would have left the port one minute before midnight, or in any other day than the first Saturday of August. Not farther than that. The weather would have changed after mid august and he didn’t want surprises. There was still something called season at that time. Everybody knew it, the first storms were always coming after the 15th.
I still remember the excitement of getting ready at home after dinner and then going to the port. Vacation was starting the first moment I was jumping on the fresh wood of the cockpit. Naturally, without shoes.
My father would have left you mercilessly behind if you would have dared leaving your shoes on. It was considered rudeness toward him and the boat.
I would put my bag in the compartment reserved to our clothes and towels and I would make the bed depending by how many people participated at the trip. My father had the “Captain’s berth”, down on the right soon after getting in the cabin. Then there were 4 berths in the open area of the cabin, two beds on the right, two beds on the left, each one underneath the other one. The cabin at prow had room for 3 people, even 4 in case of necessity. My father had never, ever allowed any couple to sleep alone in that cabin. But don’t worry...my boyfriends and I were really good in finding privacy at the right moment ....and not always only at night.....:-)
Usually I would sleep there with my sister and my SIL or some other friend of us. Oh, between the cabin at prow and the central cabin there was a small (very small) area, closed by two doors. That was the restroom. And also the sink area in which you could wash nothing more than your face and your hands. I told you: Pago Pago was a no frill beauty.
Now I have to confess something I am not very proud of: I am the only one in my family who got from my mom a pretty strong sensitiveness to motion. I have been sick like a dog on that boat. Did this detail ever prohibit me to go? Never.
Everybody knew about it: I was the object of endless jokes. Even though I saw my brother and some of his friends puke as well, but only when the sea would be really rough. The first day I would puke even with a surface still like a lake. So I would be the one miserably laying in some corner of the deck trying to fight my nausea and stay out of the way of my father and the other “real” sailors. I would eat only cracker and keep at my side a bucket, in case I wouldn’t make it to puke off boat. Always remembering to do it following the direction of the wind, NEVER against the wind.
You would think that having that nasty nausea was enough. Wait to face the fumes of my father if his beloved boat was stained or scratched...I would have preferred throwing myself in the water and giving me as meal to the fishes.
Then after the first day I would finally started to feel fine again. My stomach would stabilize and my body would adjust to the rolling and the undulations of the boat. I just had to find a new balance, basically.
I always managed to avoid bad accidents but one day I simply couldn’t help it. It was a very rough sailing, that day: we were navigating by early morning, in direction of Isola dell’Elba off the coast of Tuscany.
At breakfast I had been able to eat something but at midday I was cursing my decision to even having considered the idea of sailing. I was sick like when a bad hangover goes worst: I was lying on one of the upper bed in the central cabin. Underneath me was resting my sister’s boyfriend, he was fighting with his demons as well.
I let you imagine what happened. I simply didn’t make it in time to the deck. I puked all over Fu. I still remember his expression when he realized what had already happened. He was disgusted beyond description. He said something like “oh, shit no” and then run outside, grabbed a bucket and started to shower himself with the water. It was nasty. I offered to wash his clothes as soon as we would have arrived in port. He didn’t seem relieved by that..... That night, safely attracted at the pier, we finally were been able to laugh about it. But Fu never let me forget that episode....lol......He was a true comedian...he had a face that reminded me of the hunchback in the movie “Frankenstein” with Gene Wilder....two big bulging eyes and a hooked nose...not the most attractive guy but the most hilarious of all......he died of a car accident. His death was a tragedy for my sister...
But that summer, he was alive with my sister, they were both alive and laughing, full of energy and young.....and well, yes he was even full of ....puke.
In my next post I will tell about the nights on Pago Pago .......
