My love-affair with Venice started years ago when I traveled to the city after graduating high school.  From the onset, there was an affinity between me and the city I could not describe.  Walking among the narrow corridors and canals  - I was transfixed, yet completely unaware of the long-lasting impact Venice’s spell would have on me.

Fast-forward to 2007, when I returned to Southern California after living in New York City.  I was in need of a job and reached out to my close friend, John “Cinque” Synco, who was a gondolier in Naples, Long Beach.   He trained me in the thousand year old Venetian Style of rowing. We did tours there together for a few years before he would leave for the Seattle area to start his new adventure.

On top of being a gondolier, I would become an elementary school teacher in Southern California.  But as much as I enjoyed being around the children and my co-workers, my heart was always on the water.   In 2018, I reached out to John, whose gondola company in Gig Harbor was getting so busy that he was turning customers away.  When I asked if he needed a business partner, he jumped at the opportunity.

So in the summer of 2019 John had two new important visitors to Washington State.  Myself and “Tomasso Sebastiano” – our shiny new gondola, imported straight from Venice.   

And so my love-affair with Venice continues, with the beautiful forests of Puget Sound as my backdrop.

My life as an American gondolier began in Southern California in February 2002. I had just returned from traveling the country in a big rig for three months when an old friend of mine called and said his job was looking for more gondoliers. 

Jobless and always looking for a new challenge, I applied.

Nine and a half years later I was deep into a Venetian rowing obsession. In that time I had also travelled to Venice, Italy twice. I went in 2004 when my wife and I backpacked Europe for a month, and I went in 2005 to participate in the Vogalonga. 

In 2006 I witnessed two friends venture off and start their own successful gondola operation. That was the first time that running my own small gondola business crossed my mind, but I was on a different path back then, so I stored the idea just far enough away in my mind so that I could wonder about it now and again.

The idea came surging back when my wife and I achieved our goal of moving to Washington in 2011. We spent nearly three years living in Edmonds, WA. before we finally found the perfect place to raise our daughter and to start my business. 

Gig Harbor is our happy home now and Gig Harbor is where our old idea will become our passionate reality.

Ciao,

Cinque