The new logbook of the surgeon-navigator
It is a logbook that has become a book “From Punta Ala to Fiji” (sea section of Nutrimenti Editore): a journey into the journey told last Saturday in the independent bookshop Diari di Bordo in Borgo Santa Brigida 5 / a in Parma by the author Paolo Casoni, surgeon by profession, former professor in our University, and navigator by passion. Passion shared with his wife Cecilia – inseparable companion on land and sea – to whom this fascinating volume is dedicated – the second literary effort after «Atlantico. There and back »- which narrates half a world tour that began in November 2019 which then found itself among the obstacles but also the opportunities in the Covid era.
Emotional pages that narrate the first part of the world tour of an Italian sailing boat with a particularly evocative name, Ariel, spirit of the air, like the character of the Shakespearean drama and “The Tempest”).
“A dream shattered in 2020 during the Pacific crossing with the news of the pandemic and the invitation to head directly to Tahiti for a forced repatriation”, underlines Casoni, interviewed by the journalist friend of La Stampa Beppe Minello, part of the crew , to then enter into the merits of an adventure to discover “not only places but also people and human experiences” among the many twists to reach Papeete and the subsequent permission of the French government to sail on the Society islands (Moorea, Raiatea, Tahaa, Bora Bora) and finally towards Fiji.
“I was deeply impressed by a Polynesia in the total absence of tourism suddenly turned back 50 years ago with a nature that has returned to the wild: I will not forget the image of atolls as empty skeletons”.
And yet exhausting navigation, storms, forced stops, boat surgeries, reflections, suggestions, visions, encounters, stories of friendship and of course the beauty of a sailing without borders which in times of restrictions takes on an even more intense value.
Next stop? “Cross Cape Horn and the Chilean canals, retracing what Magellan did five hundred years ago.”
Among the sailors of the crew present, together with his wife Cecilia, also the travel companion Marco Boschi.
Mariacristina Maggi – Gazzetta di Parma 14/7/2022
