And here is what the Captain’s mother Barbara Cichocka writes about him:

That was the year 1963 or 64. Anyway, Tom was about six years old. We were going canoeing on Lake Jeziorak and we decided to leave him with his aunt for the time of the trip. Because how can you take a little kid canoeing?… But already on the next day we began to have qualms of conscience. We're having such a good time, and our little boy is sitting with his aunt in the high-rise and he’s probably missing us?… Perhaps, we should go to Olsztyn and take him canoeing?… So we broke the trip and brought Tom. He was more than happy. He was a third person in the kayak and at stops we couldn’t pull him out of water.

Once, we were camping near a rollway. A high bank, a steep scarp slope and the depth at once. At the bank, the were some rafts prepared for floating. From time to time, we jumped in the water from those rafts. And it was just there, in the most inappropriate place, where our little son decided to jump in the lake. It wasn’t possible to stop him, so we put a life-jacket on him and he jumped… head first! I don’t remember exactly when he learned to swim but when he dived from the raft at the rollway, he didn't have the skill yet.

Risk has been included in his life since a small child. He was independent and in fact we used to have limited control over him. His crazy ideas raised the level of adrenaline to the limits of our parental endurance. One year, he announced that together with his friend Darek Wiśniewski he was going canoeing down a river whose name went out of my head long ago. It was during winter holidays, at the turn of February and March. The river was frozen along its banks and only a narrow stream flowed in the middle of it. They had to punch through ice to pitch their tent on land. It'll remain a mystery how they managed to survive the winter nights under a tent.

And then, there were courses, trainings, sailing and cruises - but that's another story. I may tell some more about what happened a year ago (2010).

Well, together with my sons, I went to visit my friends who lived on Lake Pluszne. Somehow, the boys borrowed a worn-out, old omega class sailboat whose condition couldn’t be trusted by anyone. Nevertheless, we decided to take a short cruise on the lake in that scow. When we went quite far away from the shore, the boys started sailing far too close to the wind, and the lists made me a little frustrated, so I said, “Guys, calm down, please. Have regard for my old age. I'm not going to drown here! “Do you know what great news it would be?” Wojtek asked. “A well-known sailor who had sailed alone across the Atlantic and his brother, a yacht helmsman with a long-standing practice, made their mother drown in Lake Pluszne.”

And here is what Darek says about Captain Cichocki

I first met “Cichy” at a scout camp. Since that time, our friendship has been developing very intensively. Over the next few years, we travelled all over Poland. We went together on a hitchhiking trip to Romania and Bulgaria. I was only 16 then. “Cichy” was two years older than me. My parents were nearly scared to death. I think, we wandered without a tent for about two months at the Black Sea and in the Carpathians. We even reached to the heart of the Danube Delta, where we stayed over a week, eating half-raw fish and drinking water straight from the river.

We had only two blankets seamed like sleeping bags. We slept wherever we could, wrapping our faces with bandages against mosquitoes. We both felt that everything we experienced together was only an introduction to what would wait for us. “If life now is so exciting, what may the future hold then?” we asked ourselves. We spun dreams of what else we would achieve and where we would go. “Cichy’s” dreams were always connected with water. He wanted to sail to Cyprus. And this dream became the number one plan – the culmination of top bravado. Since my friend had more vigorous imagination than me, I accepted his dreams as mine. I also wanted to sail to Cyprus.

Meanwhile, reality created more prosaic episodes. One summer day, somewhere at the end of the seventies, we were wondering what to do. “Cichy’s” parents owned a small cottage on Lake Wadąg near Olsztyn. His father was just going there. “Why don’t you go with me?” he asked. Lake Wadąg is not Cyprus but we went there, additionally attracted by a boat which “you’ll be allowed to use if you help me a little.” The lake was quite big and had some mysterious bays. The boat, a heavy fishing punt, was at the shore. We managed the job quickly (“Cichy’s” father, always busy, was concreting something) and soon we set sail into the unknown. But the wooden scow went slowly, rowing became hard work. The lack of speed and slowly changing landscape didn’t fit in our characters. Anyway, we kept sailing.

Wind sprang up but although it was blowing at our backs, it didn’t help us much. A group of kayakers passed us by, laughing. It seemed everybody mocked at us. Then, again somebody overtook us. “Cichy” got a bit irritated with it. The situation seemed hopeless. We had to row. Suddenly, “Cichy” suggested to mount a makeshift mast and spread on it a blue blanket which was lying idle in the boat. The idea seemed absolutely improbable to me. I expressed my doubts. I said we’d lose a lot of time, we were sailing anyway, but “Cichy” insisted. “I tell you, it will pay off,” he persuaded. We changed the course and soon we reached a wooded shore. With two solid rods, we mounted a cross-shaped mast and spread the blanket on it. We tied a rope around it all. And the boat immediately jumped forward.

The group of kayakers, who were having a break at the shore, froze in amazement seeing the strange construction which was sailing at a decent speed. “Cichy” proudly steered with his oar. He was smiling. So was I. We waved to the kayakers, like lovers of aquatics always do.

(24.08.2011)