Ease The MainWith Benevento and its crew

The island of Capri is a short sail from the Bay of Naples (about 20 nautical miles).  Capri is not an easy island for anchoring as it is extremely deep and is open to the swell.  Nevertheless, we thought we’d give it a try.  We anchored near the marina/harbor in about 75 feet of water and hoped for the best.  We did not feel comfortable enough to go ashore and stayed put and watched the day trippers and ferries stream in and out of the harbor.  Later, we put on an anchor alarm and went to sleep.  Feeling something wrong, Darold work up just before the anchor alarm went off.  We were dragging.  Nothing like being woken up in the middle of the night to get the blood going!  We decided to go to the other side of the island at an anchorage that would be more favorable and we hoped a little more shallow.  I hate anchoring in the dark, but you gotta do what you gotta do.  We did end up anchoring safely in slightly more shallow water (40 feet).  The next day I made a nice lunch (complete with “insalate caprese” or “Capri salad” (tomato and mozzarella).  A day of being continually rocked by wakes of day tripper boats and ferries, was enough to encourage us to move on the next morning for the Amalfi coast.

Our first stop was Senno di Ieranno. This lovely spot is part of Italy’s nature preserve and we had called ahead to see if we could use one of the mooring balls.  From the hustle and bustle of Naples and the heavily touristed port of Capri, this little cove was like an isolated slice of heaven.  We spent two days enjoying the sunshine and solitude.  It was actually warm enough to put on bathing suits, but not quite warm enough to take a swim.  We were visited once by the park police, who told us that the mooring balls were for exclusive use of tourist boats, but when we informed them that we had permission they let us stay.

Next we went to Positano, one of our favorite towns we had visited on our honeymoon in 1999.  The anchorage was decent except for the near constant wakes from the ferries and day tripper boats.  We stayed two days and on the second day (Mother’s Day), we took the dinghy and landed it on the beach to have a meal.  We found a place to eat that wasn’t too expensive (pasta in Positano was $15 compared to $5 in Naples) and marveled at how much the city had changed in 15 years.  There most be about 20 foreigners for every local.

The next day we left for Salerno.  Strange winds kept circling us 180 degrees and was on the nose as we came into the anchorage.  However, the anchorage was wide, empty, perfectly shallow and protected with great holding.  Aaahhh!  It’s the little things that make you happy.  There was one other boat in the anchorage with a Belgian flag.  We took the dinghy over to say hello and ask where we could find the diesel dock.  It turns out the boat owner (Fabio) was Italian and from Salerno.  We became friends with him over the next few days, visiting each other on our boats and exchanging information.

Salerno is a great city.  It has a slower pace and fewer tourists than it’s sister city (Napoli), and equally good food.   We got to know the city as we spent half a day trying to find butane gas for our stove (we didn’t find any.) However, fueled with information about the coast from our new friend Fabio, we next went to Agropoli, a beautiful little town on the south side of the Bay of Salerno.  It turns out that there are many ports where you can use the public quay for 48 hours for free in the off season.  We had no idea about this custom, and it was our friend Fabio who gave us the great tip (grazie, Fabio!).

We resumed our search for butane cooking gas but instead of searching for a store selling canisters, we asked the two marina/harbor helpers.  They made a couple of phone calls and soon thereafter a man in a butane truck arrived to take our canister and promised to return the next day for the ridiculously low cost of 10 Euro. Who says the south of Italy isn’t efficient?

Agropoli is not on the tourist destination list for foreigners, but the Italians vacation there.  And why not, it is a lovely city in its own right.  It’s built atop a hill (like many Italian towns) and has a pleasant car-free “downtown” area, where the locals stroll every evening.  Darold and I went out to get “apperitivos” (drinks before dinner) on evening and had delicious Americanos (Campari, Martini and soda).  We had planned to go to dinner after our drinks, but the bartender gave us so much food to eat that we were completely full.  As he served us plates of fried fish, pizza and frittata along with potato chips, nuts and garlic breadsticks he explained that his mother made all the food that they serve in the bar, and his father grows the vegetables that his mother cooks.

Agropoli is conveniently located near Paestum, which has beautiful ruins of an ancient Greek city. We took the train to visit the ruins (some of the best preserved outside of Greece).

For more pictures go to our Flickr site!