Sail Magazine Italy 2007

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ItalianLesson
A CHARTERIN ITALYMEANSSEVEN
DAYSOFFEASTS,
FORTHEEYES
ANDTHEPALATE
B Y A M YU L L R I C H
6 t + s a t u a c A z r N E . c o MM A R C H
zooT
P H O T OB Y A t M YU L L R I C H( L E F TA N D l \ i l l D D L E
A N D B O T T O t iR
l I G H T ) :M A R YA N N C H A S E( T O P R I c H T )
l-
C'd un parcheggioqui vicino?
ls there a parking lot nearbg?
he hazards of being a tourist in
the Naples area and along the
Amalfi Coastarewelllnown and
mostly have to do with the
narrow roads. testosterone-saturateddrivers, too few placesto park, and too many
people. We had to find out for ourselves,
of course, so we elected to keep the rental
car our sailing companions, Dave and
Mary Ann Chase, had driven down from
Tuscany. We thought it would be easier
to see Pompeii by car than to find a harbor safeenough to leave our soon-to-bechartered boat for the day Then, too, we
couldnt miss the experience of driving SS
163, the famously difficult-narrow,
winding, heavily trafficked-Amalfi Drive.
Two days of car-basedtourism seemed
to be about enough, so we withdrew to
Procida, a tiny island with ferry service
to Naples and, since it's just over a mile
north to south, absolutely no reason to
have a car. Procida's tourist draw is
rope; it's a good way to enter the life of
whatevertown you'rein, and everything
alwaysiooks (and is) delicious.
Ursula returned on Sunday morning
for a chart briefing and discussion of possible routes. The Gulf of Salerno isn't very
large, and we agreed that Agropoli, the
nearest port to the ruins of Paestum,
would be a reasonablefarthest destination.
I made a list of places where we might
anchor-though,
Ursula said firmly,
only in settled weather and with one person staying on the boat-and harbors
where ferries don't go. Given that a
week is short and that the job of staying aboard would be unfair to the anchor watcher, we decided then and
there to pay the hefty price of freedom
and stay in marinas. The waters are
deep here, and the anchoragesare open
roadsteads, protected only by the cliffs
above them. It seemed a little dicey to
assume that we would be in the lee of
whatever wind showed up, if it did.
dwrirfed by that of neighboring Capri and
Ischia, but several charter companies
Dovepossoormeggiare?
Wherecan I moor?
have basesin one or the other of its two
harbors. Our boat, from Cosmos Yachting,lived in Chiaiolella, the harbor on the
island's south side. a short walk from our
nice, simple hotel and ringed by pleasant restauranb.
It was almost lunchtime when we finally
departed Procida for Sorrento, relieved to
be navigating by efficient chart and line
Haun buonvino rosso?
Dogou havea goodred uine?
to fill the sails in the lethargic breeze. At
least the conditions were favorable for
preparing lunch-the
first of many increasingly elaborate antipasti.
It seemsreasonableto enter a harbor
and, in a positive voice, ask "Where can
We boarded our Beneteau 463late on a
Saturdayaftemoon in earlyJune, and, with
an eye on the clock (the stores were
closeduntil 5 p.m. and wouid not be open
on Sunday), MaryAnn and I left the men
to deal with the boat checkout and set off
to provision. We'd akeady noticed that the
road leading north from the harbor was
lined with small shops-groceries, bakeries, wine stores-and were pleased to
find that eveq/thing on our list was available at one place or another. Ursula, the
base manager, had thoughtfully brought
some of the heavy stuff to the boat by car,
so we bought as much food as we could
schlep. I like to go food shopping in Eu-
of srght instead of the inadequate road map
that came with the car. The only traffic to
watch out forwas the occasionalferry, the
day was pleasant, and we tried our best
I moor?" Since it was Sunday, still early
in the tourist season, and not a holiday
weekend, we naturally expected a positive responsewhen we pulled into Sorrento's Marina Grande. but no such luck.
Nor was there anything at Marina Piccola next door. We saw a cruising boat
preparing to anchor, but the darkening
skies indicated that "settled weather
only" was not in the cards. Fortunately,
Marina Piccola suggestedwe keep going
along the coast a few miles to the MaMARCH
2 O O 7S A I L M A G A Z I N E . C6O5 M
rina di Cassano, a harbor used by small
powerboats and fishermen, but sometimes able to accommodate a cruising
sailboat. Our rescuer,therewas a kind man
from NewJersey He arranged for us to pull
in and tie up temporarily, then the marina
crew moved us over to the deeper water
at the fuel pier when the marina closed for
the night.
Mary Ann and I got a pretty good
idea ofjust how high the cliffs behind the
marina were by climbing up five nearly
oM
A R c zHo o Z
6 6 s a r l M a c A z r N E . cM
vertical switchbacks in a windy downpour.
We were hoping to find the bus to Sorrento, which according to the chart was
pretty far away, but my phrase book
wasn't up to the task. So we walked for
a while in the rain, hoping that either Sorrento or the bus would magically appear, and finally went back to the boat
to drown our disappointment inthebuon
yino rosso.
By the next morning the rain and the
wind had both disappeared,so we motored
to Amalfi, our intendedjumping-off place
for Agropoli, some24 miles east.George,
his Navy navigationcoursein the distant
past,had'brotrghta pack of flashcardsfor
a refresheron lAlA-Abuoyage (usedin all
of Europe,and elsewhere),
so he amused
himself by identifying marks whosemeanings were pretty obvious.Thereare some
rocks between Sorrentoand Amalfi, but
they'rein plain sight,they'remarkedon the
chart, and the tide is too negligible to
cover them. The most useful thing-that
harbor entrancesare marked by a green
flasher-we figured out for ourselves.
Amalfi hasa'lovelyharbor and a congenialharbormaster.The number of large
fenderswe carriedshould havetold us that
backing our wide-bodiedBeneteauinto
a spacefit for a dinghy could be tricky.
The Italianword for stern$poppa,should
you need to ask,but we didn't seea single boat moored bow-to the concrete
quai. A profusion of lines, plus a laid
mooring, need to be picked up simultaneously with the single boathook while,
at the sametime, the crew runs around
with fendersand aims for the cleats.Although we'd walked the docksin Procida
tryrng to ftgureoutwhere all the lines came
from and went to, the processwasn'tintuitive. However,help ryasalways avaIIable from the harbor crews-agile guys
who hopped on board and sortedthings
out. Acceptthis help Itb usefulto remember
the word scotare(fend of0.
Amalfi, once one of the four maritime
republicsof ltaly,is a charmingtown with
a medievalcore. Given this history considerablecivic spaceis devotedto Flavio
Gioia,the claimedinventorof the compass.
It's a pleasantplaceto walk around, sample gelato,stop for a cappuccino,and, especially,provision.
We found a bus about to leave for
Ravello,which hoversat the top of anar- zE
row, zigzagg,ing
road that passesby lemon I
L
and olive groves,so we took it. Ubiqui- o(D
tousbusesmakeit easyto combinetourism z
with sailingtyou can go just about any- F
E.
where on the mainland or on the islands U'Fl
J
for little money,and serviceis frequent.
If you stop, for example,at Positano,
_ .._ . ._. .. . . :. . - . . - - _ : . . _' - _ : . - - _- _ ._- - : I t
I
Clochrvisefrom left: Our Beneteau,boarding
plank in place;the harbormasterof Marina
di Gassanoand his cat Daviddoes surgery
on the plank; Positanoat eye levef
where you can pick up a mooring (settled weatheronly), a bus will come by
to takeyou up to the town.
Cercouno bollettino
meteorotogico
I'm losklng for a ueather
o
a
) forecast
I
J
It seemedprudent to get a weatherforecastbefore we set out for Agropoli, the
longestleg of our cruise,and we'd been
tryrng to find one of the hourly Englishlanguagebroadcastson channel68. (It was
two dayslater,when we were under sail
o
= in the middle of the gulf, thatwe realized
fi
theVHF wasworking fine,but the tall clifib
(_)blocked the signal.)We askedthe Amalfi
z
z
harbormasterif he had an update,but he
E.
didnt. We evenstoppedat an Intemercaf€
to look for a marine forecaston line.
When everyoneoversleptthe next
o
T
moming, it wasclearwe'd haveto change
U
) our plans. Yet sometimesthese goofs
oF
are fortuitous.Yes,we could spendan(I)
F
I
oU
other night in Amalfi harbor;yes,we had
time to re-reprovision(freshbreadand
more olives);yes,the sky turned black
aswe were sitting down to lunch in the
cockirit. Then came the thunder, the
lightning, the strongwind, and the torrential rain. We could have been partway to Agropoli;insteadwe werenapping,
rocked by the surge.
couldn't persuade the guys to then take
a bus to Anacapri<ur
loss. Ischia, which
we managed to reach under sail, suffered
from guilt by association. I hopped a bus
DoLcefar niente
tom at the northeast tip of Procida, in time
for lunch and used our anchor for the firsr
Hoursueet to do nothing
that did a circular route around the island
for an investment of a couple of euros.
As Dorothy discovered when she
clicked the ruby slippers, there'sno place
like home. We pulled into the Cala di Corricella, a true anchorage with a sand bot-
I have known Dave and, certainly, George. time. The belvedere we had visited a
long enough to know they wouldn't cotweek before was above us; some small
sail and powerboats were also enjoyrng
.ton to the hordes of daytrippers who
come by ferry to Capri and Ischia. Since the day there. It looked like a great place
it was early in the season,we found space for a swim, but only kids were in the wa- '
inboth the Marina Grande on Capri-but
ter, and only briefly.
at a price (€165!)-among the megayachs
Itwasa quick trip backto the Chiaiolella
and at the quiet Casamicciola marina on
Isdda. We took rhefufintlnre to CapiTovm,
marina, and a convenient breeze came up
to bow-thrust us into an outside slip.
enjoyrng the views along the way but not
the almost impenetrable crowds walking
past the gazillion fashionable shops. We
We put the fenders in the right places and
the numerous lines in the right places, and
that was that. o
MARCH
2 O O 7S A I L M A G A Z I N E . C6O7 M