Ercole, Inspira and Training

After leaving Rome, we spent almost a week at Porto Ercole, first at anchor and then three days in the Marina dei Presidi.

Porto Ercole is on the south east side of the Argentario peninsula, another one of those picturesque places in the Toscana.

We rented a Vespa to explore the place which was fun and terrifying at the same time: no matter how fast we went, we would always have cars passing us with a max of 10 centimeters between my elbow and their review mirrors. Sailing is way less frightening!

We left the boat and spent our first night in a while on land at our friends Mark and Marcela’s permaculture farm near Grosseto, called Inspira. Mark and I spent two years in the army together in our late teens and early twenties and he introduced me to windsurfing all those years ago, so you could argue he’s partially responsible for us ending up on a boat.

Their property is super impressive, with lovely rooms, an infinity pool, stunning views over the rolling Tuscan hills and absolute quiet days and nights besides the occasional animals making themselves heard. Mark and Marcela make their own olive oil and are in the process of planting and growing vegetables and fruit trees, all done 100% sustainably. They also host events, holiday and retreats so please consider them if you’re looking for this kind of getaway for yourself, your family or your team.

I had the opportunity to help out for a little while clearing some of the ground for upcoming planting. The farm is the perfect place to reconnect with nature and getting away from it all, and we thoroughly enjoyed our stay with them (thanks again guys!).

After our land excursion, we sailed the boat back to Rome and took a plane to La Grande Motte in France to participate in Outremer Week.

Outremer offers these training weeks twice a year free of charge to their customers. They cover everything from safety at sea to practicing maneuvers with professional skippers. We spent a day each on diesel engine maintenance, weather and rope work, and two days on medical. All instructors were world class, experienced sailors, mechanics and doctors and we benefited greatly from all of them. For the medical class, the instructor gave each of us part of a pig leg that we used to learn how to clean a (very dirty) wound, then stitch it or staple it using different techniques. Starlink allows you to get real-time help from a doctor on land should problems arise while on a passage, but the actual “work” on the patient still needs to be performed by a layperson on the boat. That’s what these classes are designed to enable.

Besides helping you acquire new skills, these events are also great to meet other sailors who you might meet again and/or sail with. We made several connections and look forward to seeing some of these folks again next year and beyond.