20110818-21 Salerno to the Strait of Messina, Italy

20110818 We are a motorboat yet again, with too light winds in the wrong direction for sailing. Because we are hugging the steep coast, turning with it, and because the wind gets channeled to run parallel to the steep coast, we invariably have winds on the nose, or sometimes light aft winds- neither good for sailing. On the one hand, the weather has been fabulous- sunny, clear, gentle waves and wind- but we are a sailboat.

We anchor for lunch and provisioning off Acciaroli, a small town and harbor. We explore this town, which is pleasantly off the tourist circuit, but is very cute.

Onward again, pushing to make some distance because of friends arriving in Greece in Sept, we arrive at Scario after nightfall, under a light night fog and without benefit of any moonlight tonight (2/3 moon, but it hasn't risen yet) we feel our way into a potential anchorage area next to the harbor entrance. The red (port side) beacon light on the outer breakwall is dead, and we cannot see the breakwall at all. We see it on our chart plotter, but we Do Not trust it to be where shown- charts are known to be inaccurate, and harbors are being expanded frequently. So, at idle speed we creep slowly forward, with Rita on the bow, going only as fast as we can see in the dim from the lights from shore. We safely find a safe anchorage spot among a few other boats, one of them a very large Lagoon catamaran flying the Monaco flag.

Scario is a compact but lively town. The waterfront is full of restaurants, and full of local families out for the evening, out past midnight with babies in strollers. Even at 10PM, several restaurants are all booked up with reservations, so one restaurant arranges a table for us inside near the kitchen. Unfortunately, language and kitchen errors resulted in bad service, Rita received the wrong meal, and we had to force the issue to have them credit the price of her meal. Then we found a cute bar playing great music, with a waiter who is a self-proclaimed martini expert, all natural ingredients, and he makes us 2 superior Vesper (James Bond) martinis- this medication eases our minor irritations over dinner- we are not stressing out over anything these days.

20110819 At 5AM my phone rings, and the security company says there is a burgler alarm at our home- the police have been summoned- OK that is some stress at the moment. The police say they did a drive by, no sign of problems. Just to be safe, we called our neighbor Stanley, who stays up very late, and gave him access codes for the house. In the process, Stanley set of the alarm again, and the security company called again. No harm done. Stanley verified that the house is intact, no sign of break in or theft. Thank you Stanley for helping out.

After a bit more sleep, south we go again, stopping mid-day at Isola di Dino, a tall steep and long island near the shore. The cliffs of Dino have been carved by wind and water into wild sculptures, colored in red, white and black minerals, with many caves at water level and high above.
First we circumnavigate Dino with aVida to see what it offers. We were surprised to see on our GPS chartplotter screen that we were driving right across and through the island! Apparently the charts are quite inaccurate in this area, and the island is not where the chart shows- in some cases the error can be ½ mile. This is a great example of why one must never rely solely on charts for navigating, and constant vigilance is absolutely necessary, as well as for avoidance of other craft. We have a photo of this chart error.

We anchor, and take the dingy to explore several of the caves, some of which we can penetrate approx 200 feet into narrowing tunnels with stalagmites hanging from the ceiling, until we need a flashlight to see where we are going. Some rather large tour boats, with 20 people aboard, can also come well into the caves- several of them at a time. After swimming in a cave to cool off, and exploring more caves, we see numerous jellyfish in the waters around us- they are large, orange, with bright purple tentacles- and don't appear to have the long trailing stingers, but we don't take a chance. The beach is packed full of Italian August holiday seekers, many in small boats and canoes exploring Dino as well.

Continuing on to Cetraro for the night, we see the Monaco catamaran anchored out along the way. We anchor outside the Cetraro harbor, and dinghy in to explore this small town and find some dinner. Cetraro is a ¼ mile long 1 street town, with a few residences on the cliffs high above. The marina is fairly large, and must draw customers from far down the coast, due to the fact that marinas are few and far between in this region. Tonight is the big annual Cetraro festival, and the entire harbor area is setup with a large bandstand, too loud sound systems, seating for 500, and vendors, etc.

We walk N along the coast to try to find something better. After about 2 miles, we stumble upon a restaurant set in a cavernous cave, entirely natural stone except for the laid tile flooring. The menu and service are upscale, and we are delighted to have stumbled onto such a find- such is often the case when we wander unknown towns without prior knowledge.

After dinner, the streets are parked full of cars for the Cetraro festival 2 miles away. As we walk back to the harbor, the entire harbor and town are packed with people shoulder to shoulder. We don't particularly enjoy the show they are putting on (there is some good music, but they talk incessantly in between about Italia, local politicians, etc), nor standing in such crowds, so we dinghy back to aVida for sleep.

20110820 We are approximately at the "ankle" of Italy, and heading today for the "base of the toes". Along the way, 2 superlight airplanes with boats attached to them circle us twice and wave.

Other than that and few small local fishing boats, we are alone. This stretch of coast has no harbors for safety, no major towns, only a continuous string of tiny villages, beaches, and rocky shores. There is no place even to land and secure our dinghy except for 1 spot, too small for aVida. We anchor for the night at the next semi-protected anchorage, tucked in between the breakwall and the shore outside of Vibo Valentia harbor. To shore for an afternoon cocktail and snack, then some provisioning for fresh fruits and vegetables, which are very good quality. Back to aVida for a dinner and a movie.

20110821 A morning swim to Vibo Valentia shore starts the day. The waters around us are absolutely crystal clear azure- we are in 20 feet, but we can see detail on the bottom as if we could touch it. The bottom is pure white sand, very different from the pebble beaches that predominated over the past 2 weeks.

It is another hot sunny day, with light winds on the nose, so we are a motorboat again- I want to sail. Bitch bitch bitch- one day we may have high winds and seas again that we will wish for a day like this.

We make a day stop outside the harbor of Tropea. The town sits high on a bluff above the harbor, and a series of 200 or so steps takes us to the top. The town is full of crumbling old buildings, but still very lively with many cafes and restaurants, and too many tourist shops still. After much walking, we find a classy restaurant that is perched atop the bluff, overlooking the azure seas, beaches full of multi-colored umbrellas and people, and rugged rocks to left and right. Our table is in a cupola over the edge, and we can lean out the window from where we sit to see this gorgeous panorama. We order a whole grilled fish and salads, some rosato vino, and the bread is excellent.

We are really coming to enjoy rosata (rose) vino. It is served chilled with ice, as with a white, but the added red tint and complexity that comes from leaving the grape skins in the mash for a while makes it much more flavorful than a white, without the heavy tannins that a full red provides, especially in the middle of a hot day. But late at night, with a fine dinner, red is still our choice.

Back to aVida, another swim in this beautiful sea, then onward toward Sicily.
We stop in the lee of the steep prominence Capo Vaticano, where there is a sandy bay and the town of Santa Maria, with the beaches full of people, umbrellas, beach bars, restaurants, etc. There is no place to land a dinghy, so we swim to cool off, nap, dinner, and movie.

20110822 While voyaging we cross paths with a few of the unique swordfishing boats of this area. The boats are about 40 feet long, and have a 50 foot high tower with the helm up high. There is a 50 foot horizontal structure protruding forward from the bow, and a man sits at the end with a harpoon. Many cables secure these structures to the boat. The captain from his perch can see the swordfish that rest on the surface of the water, and he maneuvers the boat so the man up forward is directly over the swordfish, so he can harpoon the unsuspecting swordfish. No wonder there is certainly a lot of swordfish on the menus in this area.

Next stop Scilla, a town built behind and around a prominence with a large castle on it, the oldest part of which was reportedly first built by Ulysses. Scilla is at the entrance to the Strait of Messina, and we can see Sicily not far across the channel. A narrow band of land between the sea and the cliffs hold crumbling old buildings built right up to the sea, with several restaurants with terraces overhanging the crystal clear water. The water may be very clear, but we can see organic debris floating on the surface- we suspect these old buildings run their sewers direct into the bay- so we don't swim here, although the locals don't seem to mind. We first spend a few hours at a restaurant with Wifi to do some overdue Windows and antivirus updates, and connect a bit.

Then off to explore the narrow alleys of the town. It is a steep walk to the top of the cliffs where the main town is; it is larger and more touristy than we had expected. Exploring the old castle, we can see on the other side of the prominence that there is a bay with a long strand of beach, covered with multicolored umbrellas, beach bars, and wall to wall people.

We walk down to explore this extension of the town and the beach. It is really hot and humid, in the 90s, and we are sweating after a long day of walking. Back to another restaurant terrace over the water near aVida for a good dinner.

20110823 We move aVida to the other side of the castle and anchor off the beach for a refreshing morning swim, before we head into the Strait of Messina, the narrow passage between Sicily and the "tip of the toe" of the Italy boot. Over the ages this channel has been much feared; Odysseus experienced whirlpools, currents and hazards which he attributed to the monsters of legend Scilla and Charybdis. Even in the 1800's a British Admiral documented guns ships being "whirled around". The theory is that the many earthquakes in this region changed the topology of the channel bottom, and greatly reduced the interaction between the currents and topology in the present- but they still occur to a lesser degree, as we see for ourselves. Tides are negligible in most of the Med, but this narrow strait channels the tide creating currents of 4 knots, alternating N and then S with the tides. We enter the strait just after the peak N current begins to subside, and at times our forward speed over ground drops to 2.5 knots, from a normal 6.5knots on 1 engine. There are standing waves and some swirling currents that cause the autopilot to compensate frequently. As the current subsides, our speed returns to normal, but we also have 15 knots of wind on the nose, as usual.
The bottom of the foot of Italy from toe to heel has very few harbors in which to seek refuge in case of high winds which usually come from the S this time of year, presenting a dangerous lee shore. The weather forecast for the coming week looks mild, so we will try to get through this region quickly in case the weather turns.

Next stop - Catanzaro - Rita's grandparents and uncles birthplace on her dad's side.