Lipari

30^thJune - 2^ndJuly - Procida Marina (in port)

3^rdJuly - Procida Marina - Amalfi (in port)

4^thJuly - Amalfi - Oligastro (anchored)

5^th- 6^thJuly - Oligastro – Tropea (in port)

7^thJuly - Tropea (in port)

8^thJuly - Tropea – Vulcano Porto di Ponente (anchored)

9^thJuly - Vulcano (anchored)

10^thJuly - Lipari (in port)

11^thJuly - Lipari (in port)

12^thJuly - Lipari (in port)

Note : In this new improved blog I have sussed out how to insert the photies so you can click on them and make them bigger. Only took me a month and a half.

Wednesday 3^rdJuly - Procida to Amalfi

I motored the whole way from Procida to Amalfi. I put up the main as I rounded the western tip of Capri but the boat just bobbed around in the swell which was about 1m high. I wondered where it came from. Afterwards I saw that there had been a Force 7 in the Tyrrhenian sea at midnight the night before. With the fine grain type weather forecast I get from Meteoconsult I miss stuff like this. Main sea area forecasts are not free.

After swithering, I went through the gap between the Isola Faraglioni and Capri. I didn't go through the arch, I don't think its high enough. Rod Heikell must have his wires crossed or been badly translated. In the Italy guide, he has some balony about every new Italian destroyer having to be photographed steaming through the arch at 30 knots.

Westward just after the passage between the Isola Faraglioni and Capri. It's definitely not high enough. Either that or Italian destroyers aint what they used to be.

Rather dull motor up the north coast of the Golfo di Salerno. It starts getting impressive when you reach Positano then Amalfi with Alpine high mountains right on the coast and the towns built up them.

I was intending to moor in Amalfi anchor out, stern to the quay. I was all steeled up to do it and I had decided how when a rubber boat pulled up and a guy asked in Italian then in French then in English if I needed a place for the night. He proposed to get on and drive the boat. I was a bit dubious about this. I was sure that if you let someone else drive your boat who wasn't a pilot, he could claim it as salvage.

He had already climbed aboard by this time and he said that they preferred to drive the boats as Amalfi port was so small. This didn't make sense as the guide only shows boats moored to the outer mole with heaps of space. To my bemusement (I hadn't got to horror), the guy drove through the narrow gap between the wharves in the little fisherman's enclosure and he and his side-kick who had followed in the rubber boat had the boat moored in a flash pointing in towards the restaurant with about five metres between the bow and the rocks. Very impressive.

I talked to the German guy who was moored next to me and he said that they always did this. He had been there two nights and the jetty had been full, stink boats on the outside, real boats on the inside. As the evening progressed, the jetty filled up chock a block with five huge gin palace type luxury motor yachts on the outside and six sailing boats on the inside including one fifty footer which must have been touching the sides and the bottom.

I felt definitely out of my class in this place. The gin palaces have crews who drive the boat, moor it, deliver drinks and snacks to the owners THE INSTANT the boat is moored and between times shine the brightwork. There is not an minute of daylight when someone is not shining brightwork.

Amalfi. Hey, my brightwork could do with a polish. Where's that guy...

Amalfi. Looks nice leaving.

Wednesday 5^thJuly - Ogliastro

Ogliastro is Cicada Central. They nearly drowned out the disco from the beach bar. Nearly. No other boats in the anchorage except local fishing boats and small motor cruisers on buoys. One or two beaches covered with the usual serried ranks of loungers and parasols. A small and not tremendously beautiful resort but a rest after the stew of Amalfi.

I anchored here and, as the book said the protection and holding was mediocre, I went all out. I put an orin on the anchor (a rope on the nose of the anchor so you can trip the anchor up if its caught behind a rock, I don't know what it's called in English). I moored in about 6,5m of water and I put out 40m of chain (lots of space; no other boats at all). I motored backwards to dig the anchor in and, after bouncing along the bottom for a while, it caught and motoring backwards at 1500 rpm wouldn't budge it.

In the morning, the boat hadn't moved an inch and the anchor was still well planted. I pulled in some chain then grabbed the buoy on the orin with a boat hook. It wouldn't budge. Uh oh. Straining at the rope made no impact on it at all. Hmm. I continued pulling up the anchor and it came up without any problem. I found myself anchored by the rope of the orin which visibly had got stuck under a rock while I was dragging the anchor backwards. I tried pulling the rope from the anchor end and the result was that the buoy disappeared under the water. I considered cutting the rope. I motored cautiously forward because I didn't want to get the rope caught around the propeller and luckily the rope came free and the buoy bobbed back to the surface. One day, I'll get this anchoring thing right.

Ogliastro - cicada central

Thursday 6^thJuly – Friday 7^thJuly - Ogliastro to Tropea

I only intended to go to Policastro but there was wind for a change so I decided on the spot to keep going straight on to Tropea. Just before Policastro I put up the kite. When it was up and we were motoring, I put in the waypoint for Tropea and set the auto-pilot. Nearly thirty degrees of difference in the course. The wind went from 150 to 120 and we were off. 9,6 knots on the clock before my 15 knot max wind rule made me take it down. The wind drew more and more behind until we were goose-winged. Then it lightened off and at eight thirty I furled the genoa and started the motor.

Goose winged on an empty sea. Not a popular destination Tropea?

I passed two trawlers just after I left Policastro and after that I didn't see a single boat. Lots of strange lights not marked on the map which I avoided. One was a fixed red with about half a mile from it a flashing green. I wonder what that was all about?

I thought I saw a sailing boat with its main up under motor in-shore of me but it was just after dusk and I couldn't be sure and he had no lights on and there were lots of other lights from towns on the shore about twenty miles away. I didn't see a single nav. light all night.

I experimented with micro napping. The program was as follows :

• go downstairs and check for obstructions on the plotter and boats on the AIS

• go back upstairs and do a 360 with the binoculars

• if there is nothing moving or fixed : set the timer for 5 minutes

• snooze slumped in the corner of the cockpit either at the front or leaning against the pushpit

• wake up on the buzzer and repeat until dawn

I set a two hourly period to do the log and have a cup of tea and a piece of chocolate at the same time. I kept this up from about midnight until sunrise about six o'clock. I had to do the mental equivalent of hitting myself over the head with a brick even to snooze but when the buzzer went, I was certainly asleep. I definitely felt better doing this. I didn't have that faintly sick tired feeling I did on the previous night trips. I did feel however rather spacy during the night and I'm not sure what my reaction to an emergency would have been.

In the morning, there was a boat half a mile behind me. Had he been there all night, without lights or had he just come up in the last hour after dawn? It turned out to be a steel 36 or maybe 40 foot Joubert design owned by a retired couple from Rome. They had had the hull built and they had done the interior and the fittings. It had taken them three years. They were headed for Greece. They were doing big stages; ninety to a hundred miles at a go. They left Tropea about lunchtime on the next day so they would probably arrive in the morning again. With two people this is probably a nice way to sail.

The port at Tropea is nice. It's got a great view of the town. The staff are helpful and friendly. It's relatively cheap. It's a bit run down. It was obviously built as a super-duper yacht harbour with fantastic facilities; there is a bar, a ship chandler, there was a market. There is even an open air theatre. The toilets have huge cubicles with sinks and bidets. The showers are big enough so that you can hang up your clothes and towel and leave your shoes in the cubicle without everything getting soaked.

But the bar is mostly empty, the market has closed, there were no spectacles advertised for the theatre and the fabulous sanitary blocks were all a bit dirty and needing a good sprucing up.

I think that this coast is just not popular with the yachties. Having been now to the Eolien islands, I can see that everybody just goes straight from Naples to there, maybe stopping off at Policastro on the way. Its a shame because the town is nice if a bit touristy and the beach at the foot of the cliff is amazing with lovely sand and beautiful turquoise water. In Amalfi, the port charges nearly a hundred euros for a boat like mine in July (more in August) and there are no facilities except what the municipality provides for the beach goers. Amalfi town is crammed to bursting with tourists and doesn't have much to show for itself and the water front is lined with restaurants and you can't get to the water except for a minute bit in the corner near the quay unless you patronise a restaurant. The bit of the water front which is not lined with restaurants has a bus station on it smelling strongly of diesel and full of hot harassed looking people with baggage and back packs all exuding that feeling of semi-panic that tourists in foreign bus stations do.

Tropea. I'd go there. I did.

Monday 9^thJuly - Vulcano (Porto di Ponente)

Climbed the Grande Cratere. Pretty cool. They are right. You don't want to go near the fumaroles. The smell even at a distance gets you in the back of the throat. Fantastic view from the top; Lipari, Salina, Panarea, Stromboli, the Italian coast back to Tropea I imagine and Sicily in the south. I could even see my boat which was reassuring. You have to pay to go up. Three euros.

I moved the boat after the first night because the wind came up and I was awakened by the familiar bumping sound of the anchor shifting. I had swum over the anchor the night before and it was embedded only partially in shallow sand which visibly covered smooth rock. Mr. Heikell had said the holding was a bit dodgy and he is usually spot on where that kind of information is concerned. In the new spot, the anchor was completely buried in deep sand and a tug backwards at 1500 revs didn't budge it at all.

The anchorage at Porto di Ponente is quite picturesque but the water is a bit murky and the bottom is covered in white spots which are not clams and the techno music on the beach starts at 15h00 and goes on until 22h00 or later despite the beach being totally deserted. It is however a very reassuringly protected anchorage (once you've got your anchor well embedded).

Porto di Ponente. Another popular anchorage.

The town is quite groovy looking from the mooring but definitely scruffy once you get ashore. In the bay on the other side, the water is all white from the sulphurous gas bubbling up through it smellily. There is an enclosure which looks a bit like the mock martian landscape in front of the CNES in Toulouse. This is the mud baths which looked very muddy and and hot and didn't tempt me at all. What they need in this place is underground cold springs. Hot they've already got.

The trip across from Tropea was a bore. No wind and 45 miles to do. I was overtaken (very slowly as is the case with sailing boats under motor) by two French boats. One was called Vulcano and the other as it turned out was called Vulcanello. I met them in Porto di Ponente (well, I swam up and buttonholed Vulcano to be precise). Vulcanello was the owner of Vulcano's old boat which he had sold to a friend. This was the fifth time he had come to the Eolien islands. I got various gen from him about climbing Stromboli (and reserving a guide) and booking a buoy which was key in my decision to stop in Lipari.

I'm sure this guy is all very well organised but I should have just set off straight for Stromboli that day (even though it was thirty miles in the wrong direction). In fact, I should have gone straight to Stromboli from Tropea but I was worried that when I got there, the mooring conditions would be impossible and I would be faced with going on to Lipari and arriving maybe after dark. I should be a little more adventurous but I am terrified of breaking the boat.

Tuesday 10^thJuly Lipari - Porto Pignataro

I can't remember now why I decided that it was necessary to stay three days in Lipari. I had it all figured out and it seemed absolutely unavoidable. It was all associated with trying to climb Stromboli and making sure I was in port when an announced patch of bad weather with 1 metre swells arrives on Thursday. Now, I don't dare change my plans unless I remember too late the incontrovertible reason why it was necessary in the first place.

I am in the Porto Pignataro which is at the unfashionable end of the bay just where the road dives into an exhaust fume filled tunnel to go to Canneto on the other side of the headland. Despite Mr. Heikell's assurance that the walk into town is “an agreeable walk despite the heat”,the walk into town is in fact a suicidal creep along either the sea side or the cliff side of a busy road with no pavements or verges requiring you to flatten yourself against the wall every time two cars pass beside you. Maybe he didn't want to ruin business for the ormeggiatori here.

The yacht harbour is very rolly on the outer pontoons. When even quite a small boat goes out, all the boats roll around like anything. I find that this is very sore on the lower back muscles when you are sitting tapping on your PC. The personnel of the company whose area I am in (EOL Mare) are very friendly and helpful. By Italian standards, the mooring fee is pretty reasonable; 50 euros a night. I just looked at my budget. I cannot afford to pay 50 euros a night as that is my whole daily budget. More anchoring necessary.

Lipari seems practically deserted by the yachting fraternity however. No wonder, they are all out anchored in the fabulous anchorages in the other islands.

I went to Stromboli on the Aliscafe to suss out the climbing and mooring situation. Mr. Heikell's book (at least in the French translation) is a bit out of date and I find that up to date information is hard to come by.

For the record :

You can book guided night ascents either from the various trekking companies who have shops around the place or from the Alpine Guiding Association who have a little place just below the piazza in front of the church. This place was shut when I went as it was only 15h30 and they are all shut until 16h30. This doesn't guarantee that you will get to the optimal viewing height however as, according to a guy I met who had been trying to climb the thing for two days, they shut the mountain sometimes. This means that you can only get to 400m which you can do on your own without a guide. According to this guy, 400m is fine and you get great views anyway just not as close as the full height.

As far as buoys are concerned, I imagine you can book one, but the German yachties I met on the beach had just arrived and grabbed one. A wee guy comes out soon enough in a boat to organise you and take your money. There is no obvious place to book a buoy on the island that I could see.

The Aliscafe called at Isola Salina which looked OK, Isola Panarea which looked lovely and Stromboli which reminded me a lot of one of the not so developed Cyclades. The town away from the water front is very quiet except for the three wheeled trucks tearing down the narrow lanes which have been constructed exactly the width of one three wheeled truck.

Stromboli. A good shot of the golf buggy graveyard

Between Panarea and Stromboli, we passed Panarelli and Basiluzzo and the Scole Formiche. These are all uninhabited rocks which are obviously the cool places to anchor because they were crammed with boats. I think this is why the long distance cruisy people I have met all complain about Italy. They have mostly all come from Turkey and Greece where there are a lot more nice anchorages and so are not crammed like the ones here.

On the way back the hydrofoil skimmed past the Basiluzzo kind of close. I thought Italian boat drivers weren't doing that any more.

I wonder if I'll meet Eolie in the Eoliens?

12^thJuly Still in Lipari

The big wind didn't show up. It was very rolly in the port last night so I imagine there was quite a lot of swell somewhere especially since the Porto Pignataro is crammed up in the north western corner of the bay under the hills and the swell was forecast to be NW. There is a bit of wind today but nothing to speak of.

I have an ancient Lonely Planet for Italy which says that Lipari is the biggest island and so that is where most of the tourists come. It certainly is the biggest and Lipari town has an impressive density of tourist type shops and restaurants but not that many tourists. Do they all come in August? I can't believe that, with the number of shops there are, they manage to make a living on one month's business. The café waiters and waitresses and the shop assistants are not particularly friendly or even polite so far in the Eoliens. On Stromboli, the first waiter I asked for a beer said “Inside” rudely. The waiter “Inside” asked me if I wanted a big one or a small one, always a bad sign. The café owner in the main street of Lipari didn't bring me a glass of water with my coffee. The assistant at the Fruteria was distinctly casual and forgot to put one of my bags in the big bag which meant I had to come back for it. And it's only July. And there are not that many tourists. Maybe that's the reason.

The cruising yachts seem to avoid Lipari if possible. A lot seem to come in just to the fuel pier for diesel. I have seen a couple come up to the pontoons here which make the EOL Mare boys jump to it but all they want is to fill their water tanks which apparently you are allowed to do free.

I'm heading out for Stromboli tomorrow so maybe the next blog will have nice pictures, then through the Straits of Messina where they are announcing strong wind warnings.

Hey, the wind's shown up.