Up fairly early. The sky seems to have cleared and it is
a lovely day. It takes a bit of
time for us to get going. Richard
goes to pay. Suddenly they say the
machine for the credit card isn’t working so Richard has to use the last of his
cash to pay. We expect it went
straight into the man’s pocket, but such is life in Italy.
Our original plan was to have a long sail
today. I have made sandwiches to
eat under way. The port Richard
was headed for, Acciaroli, was
about 35 miles away. It was said
to be a charming if small place.
Richard tries to ring them to secure a berth, but first cannot find a
number and when he does the man on the other end of the phone speaks no English
and they cannot make each other understand. The Cruising Association’s “Captain’s Mate” says that in June
this year a member with a 1.8 metre draft boat was told the harbour was too
shallow. That shouldn’t stop us
with our lifting keel. But Richard
decides to play safe and we change course to go to Agropoli, only 20 odd miles
away and which is a big port where we are bound to find a space.
When we start out Richard assumes that
there will be no wind. But as we
get out there is a pleasant breeze.
So we put up the sails and for an hour or so we have a following wind of
9-10 knots. Not enough to get us
where we are going in a reasonable time, so we are motor sailing, but at least
we are using the sails. However as
Richard changes course to Agropoli, the wind dies and what little there is, as
usual, is on the nose. So down
come the sails and up goes the engine!
We make good time and decide to stop for
a swim and some lunch. The water
is very warm, over 25 degrees C.
This is our first swim since we returned to the boat, and it feels like
we are on holiday. Richard gets a
chance to use his snorkel to look under the boat and finds that although there
is a lot of weed on the water line, the bottom is fairly clean, which is good.
Then we make it into port at about 2:30. We were going to look further into the
harbour, but we are waved in by someone at one of the first pontoons. We know this is another harbour with
different people running different pontoons and we haven’t a clue what any of
them charge or what they are like.
But we follow the man who has spotted us. We are at the far end of the harbour from the town, but the
berth seems to be comfortable and there is electricity and water. He charges 60 Euros, which seems to be
about average here. So we guess we
are alright. The only problem is
that he too wants cash and Richard used all his cash this morning. So we will have to go in to the town to
find an ATM (called Bancomat here).
It is now very hot and I wish we were
still out swimming. The town is up
a steep hill and it is quite a climb.
We ask were the cash machine is and are directed to a bank on the
square. The problem is that it is
Sunday and this bank’s cash machine is inside the bank. There is clearly some system to get in
out of hours, but neither we nor another person who seems to be a local can
work it out. So Richard goes off
to find another machine, and succeeds.
The town has a very old part, and it is
charming. It is still further up a
steep hill and is only accessible by a long staircase. We climb up and have fun wandering
around the old streets. We make it
to the castle which is in a wonderful spot with a great view over the bay. On the way down Richard tries to find
another route and we wind up nearly down the hill on a dead end and have to
climb back up in order to get out of the town.
Back on the boat we find another British
boat on the pontoon. This is a
rare thing, so we invite them over for a drink. Have a very nice evening. They are Mike and Penny Acton. They live in Cowes on the Isle of Wight and we heard Mike
speak two years ago at one of our Cowes Sail Over lunches at the Royal Yacht
Squadron. Isn’t it a small
world!
After too much to drink I make a quick
dinner of the left over liver from the other night. We are now wacked again and ready to go to bed. We have had a few clues about where to
go from the Actons, so we shall see if that works out.
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