As a kid growing up in Queensland I loved being in and on the water any way I could - swimming, life saving, surf skiing, scuba diving, I even played water polo for a short while. Unfortunately Mum and Dad didn’t know anyone with a boat, but I made up for that with Terry and we spent many happy years sailing up and down the east coast of Australia, and around Hauraki Gulf in NZ.

Macanudo, our beautiful catamaran, is now with her new family (this week in Indonesia) and these days I tend to spend my “on water” time cruising with Ponant. My “in water” time is mostly at home in the pool as I lost my nerve for ocean swimming, there are just too many darn sharks. Annoyingly the pool heater broke on my recent visit home, but not broken was my need to swim so I had to find other options. And wow! The Mediterranean has more than compensated. 

First up, we spent an excellent morning deep sea fishing with the hotel chef Sandro, who then prepared us a feast from our catch. We mostly trolled but also did some line fishing in 120 metres of water using calamari as bait. Thinking about me hauling up a line loaded with fish (four hooks) for 120 metres? Well it’s easy peasy with an electric reel. I didn’t even know such a thing exists, but one flick and the reel winds up so quickly that some of the little fishes had their eyes popped out...eeeuuww. I guess it was like the bends for fish! 

But to the main event… after the all-too-brief swim at the Blue Lagoon, more ocean swimming was required - minus the crowds - so a day with Jacques on his beautiful 47-foot Beneteau met the brief perfectly. Some young friends from Melbourne joined, as well as the lunatic Italian who only last month was doing his laundry at my home in Ivanhoe. What a crazy life this is. The sea was again super salty and delicious, and just the perfect temperature. Jacques took us to his favourite spots which were isolated and free of crowds. We swam and swam and swam. I am complete, deliriously happy. I will definitely return next June to repeat. And the June after…