Wander Lost

Month: August 2023

  • Costiera Amalfitana e Salerno

    On August 18th we left Torre Annunziata with the goal of reaching Salerno by the 22nd since I had to be in Barletta by the 24th to pick up my EU passport. We sailed past the Amalfi Coast. It’s beautiful, but so full of boats speeding by that it’s hard to enjoy it. We found a spacious bay to anchor just off Salerno, we were there for 8 days (well, I was in Barletta from the 22nd to the 25th…).

    John and I liked Salerno. A big enough city to have amenities, but still holding a small city vibe. It has an extensive coastline, so we’d come ashore at different points, depending on where we wanted to go.

    We replenished supplies, including propane and decided to wait out for predicted winds and rain at “our spot.”

    Mother Nature had other plans… When the winds started the anchor dragged and we decided we’d be better off at a marina given the weather, and we needed fresh water as well. I called around and came to an agreement with a gentleman. However, once inside the harbor, when I called – as agreed – to advise of our arrival another guy answers and keeps insisting that it wasn’t their marina I’d contacted (I called using the “recent calls” log, so it was) He finally said they didn’t have a spot.

    Meanwhile, we’re in the harbor, tight quarters, windy, Lady Cindy isn’t easy to maneuver at slow speed. As I’m giving John the news about the marina, a group of men see us struggling a bit and offer us to side moor at their location (they rent boats and I’m sure they knew there wouldn’t be business with the coming weather).

    Side mooring in that weather was a challenge, too. The swells pushed the boat against the mooring quite a bit.

    However, shortly after arriving John also discovered that the engine’s water pump needed repairs. After some research, the best option was to order a pump via Amazon and have it delivered to a locker the next day.

    The Universe is taking care of us. We had a safe spot for the winds and rain, we were able to replace the water pump, refilled the water tanks, did laundry and grocery shopping. We gave the owner a monetary thank you, but it was a fraction of what the marina would have cost (BTW, after we’d docked I received a call from the guy that insisted it wasn’t their marina I had called acknowledging that I’d talked to someone else in their office…)

    Today we are under sail, surrounded by blue water and clear skies, heading south toward Sicily, with plans to stop by Stromboli Island where there is an active volcano that John is very keen on seeing.

    Amalfi Coast
    Fun!
    Amalfi
    Castello Arechi
    Castello at night
    Fireworks
    Views from the Castello Arechi

  • Dotty

    Happiest with John
    Watching John
    Once she’s sure John won’t leave, she’ll grudgingly accept a substitute 😁

    For those of you asking about Dotty. She’s doing fairly well, given her age, the space constraints and the fact that she doesn’t like swimming. 😆

    She is finding it harder to come up and down the steps, but so far manages with a bit of help.

    Otherwise, as long as John is close by, she is happy. She gets anxious when he’s moving about the boat, worried he’ll leave. And she cries/whines when we are both in the water; but the one time I brought her into the water with us she scratched John attempting to climb over him 😬. So, no more swimming for her, in spite of the heat…

    Not sure if she’s happy about it, but she does get a bath now almost every time we refill fresh water; which I understand is more often that she used to get baths in the past😁.

    This area of Italy is very friendly to dogs, so we’ve ridden buses and trains with her on our way to Pompeii and Vesuvius. And restaurants are happy to accommodate her as well.

    And while we have to leave her outside when we  shop for groceries, we usually don’t take too long and exit before she starts howling 😊.

  • The wild west of Italy

    We have reached Salerno where Patty needs to leave for a few days to go back to Barletta. I will probably stay here and work on a phone app I am developing but may move South toward Scicily. The weather forecast is all over the place with some models predicting more storms. One unforecasted storm blew through last night forcing us to leave the anchorage to seek shelter in Salerno harbour.

    Salerno

    This coast would be beautiful and well worth visiting if it were not for the Italian boaters. I would strongly advise any cruisers to avoid this coast in July and August. The marinas are stupidly expensive, €100-€160 per night, some places even charging €50 or more to just stop and fill with water. Luckily we have a secret weapon for that and have got free water (we did tip the marineros). We have an Italian speaking woman to soften up the invariably male marineros 😉. The other major problem is the sheer number of power boats going past between 10am and 8pm causing wash. It is very uncomfortable rolling on an anchor and as the waves come from all directions, a stern kedge anchor doesnt help. The Italians have no sence of courtesy on the water, they speed through anchorages, anchor too close to other boat and pass far too close.

    On the plus side, the scenery is stunning, water is beautiful South of Naples, at night the anchorages are like mill ponds and we sleep with the hatch open and star gazing.

  • Terme di Baia, Pompei & Vesuvio

    Terme di Baia
    Fig tree growing upside down
    Pompeii
    Vesuvius crater

    While the ankle is not 100% back to normal and I’m wearing a brace, we have been able to start exploring.

    While we were anchored off of Baia we were able to visit the site of the baths. They’re well preserved, but there wasn’t too much information, and what there was lacked organization. We also loved that there weren’t too many people visiting. We were able to stroll around at leisure.

    We then moved Lady Cindy and are currently anchored near Torre Annunziata. First order of business was to visit Pompeii. It was great. Google Maps failed us on finding our way there with public transport, so we took a taxi (I wasn’t sure how my ankle would hold up, so we were being cautious), but after a full day of exploration we did find our way back with the train. We rested for a day (John had a productive day on his app project) and went to Vesuvius yesterday.

    We made our way to Vesuvius without hitches but the challenge came in trying to get the tickets online. Let’s just say that a British ex computer consultant and an American have difficulty dealing with the inefficiency of the websites (among other things 😁). Kudos to a member of the security team present there that helped us through all the steps of acquiring the tickets (and there were many…, including getting a text code in an area with extremely poor mobile signal)

    We’d planned an early visit to avoid the heat, ended up starting out at 10:30 but there is a micro climate in that area that’s much cooler than at sea level. We were a bit worried that the fog would not dissipate (I could not see the crater when I visited in March), but as you can see from the pictures it was totally clear when we got there.

    We may try to get to Herculaneum tomorrow, before we start heading toward the Amalfi coast.

  • More about the Pontine Islands and Naples suburbs.

    Venus Temple and baths, Baia
    View of Baia
    The Pontine Islands
    Bacoli

    As John said, we chose to detour to the islands seeking some solitude after Fiumicino. Well, in addition to arriving on the weekend (honestly, with this lifestyle we generally don’t know what day of the week it is), it appears to be a popular vacation destination for Italians. The pluses: pristine waters, caves, the town was pretty (the little we saw, it was hilly and my ankle was still mending), and there was an ice cream boat!! 😋 The minuses: when we showed up there were several hundred boats anchored off one of the smallest islands (many left in the late afternoon, but quite a few stayed anchored overnight), the marine traffic made for a lots of movement on the boat, and of course grocery shopping was expensive.

    We played in the water a lot. As a result of that John had to do maintenance to the dinghy. One day, as we’re in the water he thought he’d see if he could board the dinghy from the water (emergency preparedness), but… he tried it from the back of the boat, which promptly lifted and fell back upside down in the water dunking the engine (ouch). Lots of cleaning and taking apart and the engine was as good as new 😁

    We left the island heading to the Naples area to seek shelter for upcoming strong winds. We anchored near Bacoli. Refilled water and did some shopping and had another adventure. We’d been anchored two or three days without any issues when a squall hit. The anchor alarm went off, and we’re very close to another boat. In total the anchors of 5 boats loosened, it’s rainy, windy and everyone is trying to stay away from each other while anchoring again.

    The anchor stayed in place following that night, even though the winds kept coming back for another two days. Now, here the town was good, we had lunch one day there while exploring seeking where to bathe because the water, to my eyes, was polluted. John thought it was OK, at least until the day we left, when he saw bubbles of something (???) rising from the bottom. So far John hasn’t grown any extra appendages (😂) from swimming there.

    Another thing that happened, we think the dinghy was flipped by the wind because 1) everything inside it was done 2) the engine would not start. Fixing it was not easy this time, John spent almost a full day working on it, but it would not start. We needed a spark plug, but could not find it in town (where John would have to row the dinghy). We found it in Baia, so we stayed overnight at a marina and did laundry and shopping while there. That’s when I first tried out my ankle, did fairly well walking about 3 km each day to reach the laundromat and grocery store.

    We are back at anchor just outside Baia. Dealing with the “hooligans” Italians on boats aren’t any better than behind the wheel of cars, so we get a lot of movement during the day as boats speed around us.

    We’re leaving shortly for the archeological site of Terme di Baia. We’ll tell you all about it in the next few days. Patty signing off.

  • Fiumicino to Baiae via Ponza

    The seas between Rome and Naples are busy, very busy. The Italians love their motorboats, July and August are probably the not the best times to enjoy remote anchorages. At between 90 and 160 euros per night, marinas are to be avoided too.

    We have made the most of it though by slowly travelling South. Patty’s ankle is still not strong enough to do some serious hiking but we have done some longer walks ashore in the last two days. We hope when we reach Pompei in the next week that she will be strong enough to enjoy it. In the mean time, a strict physio regime is being followed..

    I have been doing a bit of boat maintenance recently. Lady Cindy has two new solar panels so we no longer have to be careful over consumption. I have replaced the rear water tank bladder, serviced the dinghy outboard, I have also been working on a ships log app I hope to sell commercially.