At a time when the lack of travel begins to weigh on our ability to dream and look towards great horizons, in which curiosity towards the world does not know how to feed itself, the desire for adventure and diversity has been kept at bay for too long, we are went in search of travel stories that open the heart and spirit. Adventures of different people, on different itineraries, stories that allow us to experience a piece of the world more. For each of our guests the question is “What world are you missing?” asking them to take us there with their stories. Per Ambrogio Beccaria, Italian navigator born in 1991, the first in history to win the Mini Transat, the mythical transatlantic solo on 6.5 meters boats without communication with the land, obviously it is a stretch of sea, the one he crossed with his first regatta in the Ocean that put him in front of many tests, but also many surprises, like when he found himself “face to face” with a whale.
«I am a navigator and mine is not a profession for which you study as a child … It just happens that I become one. Everyone makes a choice at some point in their life. You can follow your passion all the way or you can choose a more stable life and relationships. At 19, I was a Milanese in love with sailing. I was very lucky to find an instructor who took me around Italy to do regattas, made me discover another world besides Milan …».
And another dimension besides that of the mainland, made of water, wind, solitude and incredible creatures.
“In July 2016, at the age of 24, I bought my first racing boat, a mini 6-50, a small but reliable boat and I signed up for the regata SAS (Le Sables-Azzorre-Le Sables) which starts and ends in France, concluding the first stage in the Azores, Portugal (in this regatta Ambrogio ranked second, Ed). I expected to sail with rich old men and instead they were all young: I sailed alone for 2,700 miles (about 4 thousand km, Ed) taking 7 days to go and 8 to return. It was my discovery of the Oceanor this trip. Until then, I had little experience. Even of loneliness I knew little, I knew I liked being alone for 2 or 3 days so I wasn’t scared. I was certainly less afraid than now, now the crossings cause me more anguish, at that moment I was a little unconscious of what I was about to do. It is not necessarily a negative thing when the desire to discover is stronger than anxiety… With this trip I discovered a world I did not know ».
Even interior, perhaps …
«There were some moments that really marked the trip, making it special. The first was the switch from Hostal cap for Spain, an incredible place, very complicated to navigate and which also establishes the moment in which you launch yourself from the sea into the ocean: in that moment the dimension of the journey changes. You have a clear desert before your eyes, we read a lot, but living it was very exciting. The most powerful encounter I had, however, was with a huge whale that at one point I found myself in front of my bow. I got stuck with emotion, it seemed to me it was 1 cm from the boat, instead it was at least 200 or 300 meters away … I didn’t know what to do, instead she dived and came out aft, letting me pass. It was a lesson: there is a good deal of fate that cannot be controlled when immersed in nature, makes you understand who really “commands” in this world. I was alone for three days and it was a moment of immeasurable power: when you are sailing alone, when you are alone in general, feelings are more difficult to manage, it is complicated to live emotions rationally, but it is absolutely necessary to do so. to keep morale stable.
There was a moment towards the end of the navigation of the first very difficult stage. I had come close toPico island, one of the Azores Archipelago, which is a 3,000 m high volcano that local fishermen say eat the wind. And in fact I was windless for two days. On the one hand I was taken by the hysteria of wanting to reach the finish line, on the other I was sad that it was about to end… in the end they were the best two days. A dolphin fish, a fish with a golden nose came to rest in the shade of my boat: a banal event had become charged with a very strong emotion … and then the clouds … in those two days they hypnotized me, watching them move was a bit like when you are face up watching a fireworks show ” .
Even without fireworks, the arrival of the first stage is a party in which the participants meet and, finally, confront each other.
“It turns out that everyone has lived moments and experiences differently. We were at Faial, an island of sailors and former whale hunters. The earth was covered with flowers and there was a very strong scent in the air. Spending so much time alone, I was no longer used to smells … on the boat there is only your smell, there are no plants, flowers, animals and, if you sail alone, not even other people … and you become unaccustomed to smelling perfumes : getting here was an explosion of the senses. The second stage, returning to Le Sabl was harder weather. The brain tries to eliminate the memories of hard and difficult moments and the first part of the journey was the most beautiful because it was a journey of discovery. This is traveling: discovering ».
Ambrogio Beccaria was one of the guests of the project The wild way, promoted by Cantina Ceretto and curated by Matteo Caccia: 12 appointments, one a month, with people with different professions who will talk about their wild side. Each of them will tell what drives him to do what he does and what wildness is from their point of view.
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