“I think it’s time that I prepare you for the boat trip”, Ana told me after I arrived in Zadar. My thought: first time on a girls boat trip! She was really nice trying to explain everything, especially the fact that being on a sailing boat has almost nothing to do with being on a catamaran (the one I was used to). After seeing the photos and listening to everything she said, I had an idea about what to expect. After talking for one hour I assured her that in case I wasn’t able to adapt, they will just have to drop me off some shore and I’ll find a hotel. Our chat ended with some laughing and we went to bed.
I was awake early next day and while having my coffee on the terrace I tried to imagine how will my first girls boat trip ever, going to be like. Ana woke up in the meantime with this brilliant idea: “what if we double check our luggage and maybe give up some clothes because both our bags look a bit to big”. So that is what we did for the next hour, half of our outfits stayed home. When everything was set, we were ready to live Punta Scala for Sibenik, the marina where we were going to meet the crew.
I remember Ingo telling us this sentence on the last day on the boat: “Girls, when I first saw you in the marina, all of you with this multitude of cellphones and gadgets, all dressed up and with your hair done, I was thinking of how many luggage will you have on board and how is all going to be like”. Of course I would never missed that thought of Ingo’s on my article because what followed is going to put all of us in a very good light and everything he and the skipper thought was just a demolished myth. Of course we are a group of girls with everything that comes with that but we all knew that all those “dresses & make–up” were just not necessary this time for making our trip more delightful. It was just us, authentic and opened to fun; although, in that small bags we all had the “little black dress” and a pair of nice shoes for a special occasion.
So, 8 of us on board of a sailing boat for one week. Wonderful idea! I was thinking. From all those 7 people I only knew my friend Ana and everybody else was a stranger but seemed to be people I knew for a lifetime. This feeling is wonderful, when you look into someone eyes and get the impression that you already know that person. That usually happens when things are going smoothly and there is no need to fight to obtain something because you actually can easily agree on things. I sometimes had the feeling that we were a bunch of kids who went out to play and we found so many things that we could do together. So many funny stories I heard, there are so many things you can have in common with people who were born and live in the opposite part of the world.
After the first day of accommodating with each other we all agreed that days were going by so fast. If you were passing by us you could easily observe that good humor was written all over our boat. We had a bit of everything, including one “grounded” day because of bad weather. The strong wind, big waves and the rain although made our trip much more interesting, I would say. About the beautiful city of Vis, were we were docked for a day and a half, I will have another story to tell.
I was telling you before about how we had a bit of everything in this trip: sunny days with lots of swimming and jumping into the sea, a nice attempt of water sports, walking, one night out, dinner on board, music, reading, sailing, photo sessions’, sight seeing, big waves, rain and some other nice moments. Next article is going to be like a journal, from day one to the 7th – sailing the Adriatic on a girl’s trip.
