After a light breakfast we set sail to our next destination of Gaeta, a city half way up the Italian western coast. We weighed anchor at 11:25 and within the half hour were under full sail and close hauled heading to our destination. The wind was stronger than expected and eventually we had to reef the main, put away the genneka and unfurl the genoa. Fantastic sailing and Arctura was cutting through the building sea like a knife through butter. Unfortunately, we sailed through some pretty big rain showers, but managed to arrive at Gaeta in one tack and into our destination marina, just north of the peninsula. The whole 36nm voyage taking us just over 6 hours.

After mooring up I made a sepia alla griglia with a salad and some prawns that Elaine had marinated earlier. A fantastic meal although Ed would have wanted more, perhaps next time we’ll get double. Quite a job however, of cleaning and preparing it !! And so fed and watered off to bed after a exciting sail and we’ll see what the morning brings in our exploration of what seems a wonderful city.

We anchored up at about 16:50 and settled into our pleasant anchorage with only one other yacht for company. We anchored close to the breakwater, in 5.5 mtrs and could clearly see  “Lampara”, the restaurant where we had a meal the night before. But tonight was the night for eating on board and so Ed and I set to work cooking the fish we had bought a few hours before.

There is nothing more wonderful about sailing than sitting under anchor and watching the world go by, eating home cooked food and having a glass of wine.

After our meal and as night fell we were rewarded with a wonderful display of a lighting storm over Capri.

 

Only 2 miles North East of Ischia is the smaller island of Procida. This was recommended to me by my very good friend Carolyn. As we arrived at its shore we saw the pretty multi colours of the towns and fishing villages. We decided to stay at the marina on its northern edge “Marina Di Procida” a friendly modern marina with electricity and water. We paid €95 per night, but there is an extra cost of €1 per shower. There is also WIFI avaiable, although at the usual slow stream rate of marinas.

After the usual 2 hour of boat cleaning and filling of tanks and general boat maintenance and cleaning that can only be done in marinas, we then ventures to one of the recommended restaurants. A one kilometres walk to Marina della Corricella and a lovely resturant called Il Maestrale. Great sea food as usual.

We then took a walk to Marina Chiaiolella on the south eastern end of the island, a 6.5 kilometre walk. The streets and island was as described in the guide books, a normal working island, where the inhabitants go about their usual day withou bothering about tourists. This in my point of view is the Italy i was dreaming of, un spoilt and based on the life of the inhabitants rather the invasive tourists.

We caught a local bus back to the marina at a cost of €1.5 per person and after a brief siesta made our way to “Lampara” a fantastic resturant overlooking the harbour of Corricella. Great food and especially a fantastic Tuna.

The next day was spent replenishing our supplies at the local shops and fish markets. We waited until the fisherman cam in, about 15:30 for the fresh produce to arrive. The next blog will hopefully the delights we prepared. We slipped lines at 16:00 and sailed the 1 mile to Corricella harbour and anchored up for the night.

We weighed anchor just before 11:00 and left our home of Capri and set sail for the 20 mile hop to Ischia. We motored for three quarters of the trip, but about 5 miles off the coast of Ischia the wind picked up and we raised our sails and gently sailed into a southern bay just below Castello Aragonese.

After lunch we promptly dispatched the tender and made our way ashore for provisions and some light refreshments. Ischia is a beautiful island and the town very clean and charming. The supermarket was a short walk from the quay side and had all we needed. Apparently, its very popular with Germans and it is claimed that Angela Merkel visits every year. There are hot spring baths, and both Elaine and I are trying to convince Edward to have a go to cure his ailments.

Some of the local residents are pictured below

And so back to Arctura and Elaine settled into the F A Cap final of Manchester United and Chelsea, we are not allowed to talk about the result. I prepeared a spaghetti carbonara and we consoled Elaine with food and wine. We stayed on deck and looked out toward Capri, from whence we came and suddenly there was a huge greenish trail of horizontal sparks and light trails. We are all convinced that what we saw was a meteor skimming the atmosphere as it was far out to sea and in no way could have been a firework. Wow what a sight and so bright. An omen for good things to come, me thinks.

Wow, what a fantastic and calm night. This anchorage is perfect with no swell. Yes its true there’s no wind so that may have been a contributing factor.

Well we have decided to stay on another day and our first port of call is Castello Aragonese. The entry fee is €10 per person, but I have to say it’s defintely worth it. We spent 3 hours walking through the rooms, gardens, churches and cafe and bars. Its amazing, the smell of the flowers, the views of the surounding area and the shear construction of this awesome place took me aback. I think the best way I can describe it is in some of the many pictures that i took.

These photo only show a fraction of what is found whilst exploring the Castello and the history of this fantastic island and the Castello would take many volumes of paper, so I’ll leave that for you to discover on the web. Needless to say I’m in awe.

After our tour we stopped at a beautiful resturant just the over side of the walkway from the Castello “ Ristorante Bar da Coco”. I highly recommend this for great fresh seafood and fairly priced. The resturant is a family run place for families. Most customers were Italians enjoying a Sunday lunch with family and friends and not a single iPhone or iPad in sight, WONDERFUL.

 

Well after all this we had to take the 2.5km walk to the main port. What a disappointment after what we have seen, but I’m sure there’s more to explore and be seem, but alas our time here is coming to and end.

Back on Arctura we put the tender away and I went for a refreshing dip around Arctura to freshen up and await the culernary delights of Elaine’s cooking tonight.

 

We awoke to the hustle and bustle of a very busy bay with tourist boats arriving every few minutes to take there passengers around the island, through the tunnel of Love or simply for day trips around the bay.

No one slept particularly well as the wind and swell were from the west and this bay ONLY offers protection from the north. So fellow visitors be warned. That said Elaine and I decided to venture onto the island and explore. Poor Ed still had back trouble, but kindly took us the 100 metres ashore by tender. The landing stage is public, but gets busy with tourist companies ferrying passengers to a from their pleasure craft.

This side of the island is much quieter and very  much more civilised than the north, as you will hear further in this blog. We caught a local bus for €2 per person up the slope and to Capri. The buses run every 10 to 15 minutes and the road is barely passable when two opposing buses meet, but the managed it with a barely a fingers width between them.

We decided too leave the hussle and bustle of Capri and head for the ancient Roman ruins of Villa Jovis, the Roman palace of Tiberius. It was a wonderful walk through the tourist and car free narrow lanes. Wonderful local residential dwellings either side with flower and vegetable gardens and lemon and organ groves. This was only interrupted with the quite purr of very small electric vehicles delivering groceries and post.

Back to Capri and then the Funicular down to Marina Grande. Don’t go there… It’s very commercialised and even in May jam packed. We probably stayed about 10 minutes and then headed back up to Capri and took a bus back down to Marina Picolla. Ed picked us up and through quite aggressive waves made our way back to Arctura.

Once on board the rolling was terrible and we nearly moved off. But after checking the weather forecast the wind was ment to veer northerly which is perfect for this bay. This did indeed happen and we settled into a perfectly relaxing nights sleep to be woken to a perfectly calm bay.

A Woderful place to stop if the conditions a right.

It is with sadness that we leave the beautiful city of Salerno, our home for six days.

Preperation began with a walk to a local garage to fill up the spares tank for our tender, as we plan to do a lot of anchoring in the next few days. Two reason. One, the weather is calm with next to no winds and two, were not paying €200 per night for marina berths. So we prepared Arctura for our next leg, which was along the Amalfi Coast and onto the island of Capri. We anchored up at Positimo for a light lunch and then motored up to Capri where we anchored up on the western edge of the  bay of Marina Piccola. Beautiful cliffs towered above us with caves half way up. Hundreds of birds flying in the sky above us and winding their way through the cliffs.

We settled for the night after a wonderful Chilli prepared by Elaine. The night was quite as was the sea state, but later on into the night Arctura pitched and rolled in the swell. The night was uncomfortable but bearable and waking up in this most idyllic location is what sailing is all about. A trip to to land and exploring Capri beckons.

Our anchorage and temporary home.

Today we decided to take a train into Naples, so we left Arctura at 09:00 for the 2.2 km walk to Salerno Stazione. We bought our tickets, €15 return, and caught the 10:33 to Naples.

I had been to Naples two years earlier and getting out of the train station was reminded that nothing much had changed. A overcrowded, polluted, dirty and noisy city, where you put your life in the hands of mad motorists and feel extremely edgy about the safety of yourself and your wallet and iPhone. That said we made our way from Naples train station to a wonderful Pizza place, recommended to us by our friendly Marina ormeggiatori. Again about a 2km walk and the resturant “ Di Matteo “ had wonderful pizzas and good wine. The pizza were generally €5 each as was a bottle of house wine.

Refreshed, fed and watered we move through the narrow streets of Naples and explored the city. Churches every 100 metres and souvenir shops and resturants even more frequent. We signed up for an underground tour of the City and found it fascinating how the ancient Romans lived. From what it seemed in better standards than the current occupants.

A rare rainy day in Salerno was maximised by a walk into town and the small side streets. Discoveries included the cathedral, various small art and creative shops and small squares and of course small bars and coffee shops. We stopped in one for coffee and cake before returning to Arctura. Some picture below hopefully capture the atmosphere of the old town.

We left Stromboli at 10:24 on the 10th of May and set sail for the Italian mainland. Initiall there was no wind, but as soon as we were out of the shadow of Stromboli the wind picked up and we raised the red genneka and were sail at 5 knots plus, towards the Italian mainland. I set the auto helm to seek wind best wind angle and we were only a few degrees out from our intended destination of Salerno. We settled into our usual shift pattern on 3 hours of and 6 off. It was my turn for the lucky shift of having midnight to six in the morning off. So after our evening meal i settled into my night  At dawn, 06:00 I relieved Ed and I could clearly see the Italian coast. We ran parallel to the coast while we made plans where to moor up for a couple of days. We pocked our nose into an anchorage of the beautiful town of Cetera, but it seemed a little bit to exposed for our current wind conditions and sea state and so we opted for  and marina in Salerno, Ormeggio Autuorie. We were greeted by a fantastic shore crew, who leapt onto Arctura and tied us safely to the shore. This is a fantastic marina, family run and they couldn’t do enough for us. We had a problem with the calirifier and the chaps at the marina managed to source a replacement equivalent, thermostat for only 10 Euros.

The food and resturants in Salerno are fantastic and we were never disappointed with the quality of food and service.