Friday 12 September 2014 - Salerno

In the night we were awakened twice by torrential rain.  I am still worried about what to do with the passerelle and how to get the missing part replaced.  So we get up fairly early and I start to try to find someone to help.  Eventually some of the people who work from the pontoon arrive.  I find one man who can understand enough English to know what our problem is.  He says the pontoon owner’s son can probably retrieve the part from the water.  The water is very clear and we can see the plastic bit on the bottom, but it is too far down for us to get.  Finally the man in charge turns up with a very clever tool that looks like a miniature grappling iron on a fishing line.  He throws this down and within a few minutes he has retrieved the missing part.  We set it back into the hole and it seems to work fine.  We just can’t understand what made it come out in the first place.  I am now just a wee bit wary about getting on and off the boat!

Despite my fears we do get off the boat and go do a bit of shopping in the town.  Richard buys some Limoncella, which is the local specialty drink made from monstrous large lemons they grow here!

When I looked up the restaurant we ate in last night I found out I was right.  We did not eat in the Michelin starred place but the restaurant listed just after that.  Richard had a bit of a brainstorm.  But it was very good nonetheless.

Back to the boat.  We pay and make our way out of the harbour by 11:30.  We are only going 9 miles to Salerno.  It is a big town so we hope that we can find a good supermarket to reprovision and a launderette.  The situation with dirty laundry is getting desperate.  We have no clean linens and I will want to change the bed early next week.  We are also starting to get low on underwear.

This is another port with different people running different marinas and pontoons.  We don’t know which will be more convenient, so we are not booking in advance.  When we leave, the sky has brightened up and it is getting sunny.  There is very little wind and what there is is on the nose, so we are motoring again.  However, there is a significant swell in the sea and the passage is quite uncomfortable.  When we arrive in harbour it is very hot and there is no one around.  We are still not sure where is the best place to moor, but we see what looks like a nice pontoon,  and we try to catch someone’s attention.  Eventually we do that and are put in a decent spot with reasonable access on and off, water and electricity.  We also find that the price is quite reasonable.  The only problem is that we are told that the only launderette in town is at the other end of the harbour where another marina is.  Never mind we shall just have to get ourselves there tomorrow.

We have lunch on board and can hardly move it is so hot.  So we kill a couple of birds with one stone, change into bathing suits and clean the boat spraying water over each other as we do it.  That makes us feel a lot better.

We walk around the town.  We find there is one set of public toilets we can use and that is quite a walk away.  There appear to be no showering facilities.  The town itself is interesting, if a bit confusing.  We are trying to follow directions to a big supermarket, but we are going in circles.  Eventually we find the place, only to discover it is not very good and does not deliver to boats.  So we just buy a few necessities.  We will try to find the Carrefour tomorrow.  As we are walking back to the boat it starts to rain.  We never thought it would rain with the sun and heat earlier.  We left all the hatches open.  Richard tries to rush back to the boat to close it up.  The rain comes down harder and harder until it is another torrential downpour.  There is no way he is going to get back in time to stop the rain coming in.  I take shelter against the worst of it and get back as the rain stops.  Richard got back in just as the rain stopped and is trying to dry everything out!  Well, it is really only the forward cabin that got wet.  It will all dry in due course.

We have had dinner on board and now we will collapse into bed.  It has just started to rain hard again.