22 April 2002, Lake Garda, Italy.

The four day long Diva Camp kicked off today at the – formula perfect – Lake Garda of North Italy. There is 24 girls from 9 countries participating. The organizer of the camp Henriette Nielsen was smiling big 7:30am this morning greeting everyone at the Malcesine sailing club. Due to very specific teremical winds training sessions last from 8:30am till 11am and 2pm to 5pm.

The morning wind from North is usually stronger then the afternoon South winds. The Lake Garda scenery is stunning, the snow is still up on the slopes and some of us pulled out some nice snowboard sessions just couple days ago. The chilly waters of the mountain lake and low air temperature of 15C don’t seem to bother any of the excited Divas. Today one of the coaches and the World class formula sailor Brian Roegild did the full clinic on the basic preparation of the sail. Girls split to pairs of two to perform some organized testing of their equipment. Meanwhile video camera on the boat followed them for the photage of their standing positions and some exercise of pumping before tacking. The afternoon session ended quickly as the wind got to light for anything more than barely planing on 11 meter sails. But the dinner we just had at the Malcesine’s old town Pedros Pizzeria showed the spirits were high and ready for tomorrows 6:45 am wake up and catch of the dawn’s fresh breeze.

More detailed reports too follow next days… Pictures of today still in process.

Dorota