Day 148: 9th November 2017 We finally escape Agropoli

Another early start and this time I was determined we would leave. There was a 10 knot breeze blowing us towards the harbour wall that threatened to cause us trouble as we needed to allow time for the lazy line which was holding the bow off the wall to sink before I engaged gear. Last time we were in this situation we had held on to the boat next door using our jousting pole of a boat hook but this wasn't an option today. In the end it went surprisingly well and we were soon on our way, out of the harbour and into the swell. 

I was actually rather pleased that we had waited a day as the swell was rather noticeable and although it wasn't a real problem for us, any bigger and things may have been uncomfortable. The kids were up relatively early too, however they very quickly decided returning to bed was a smart move with all the rocking and rolling. AJ, having a renewed enthusiasm for Harry Potter since Leonie's visit grabbed the iPad with the library download app on his way back down. A while later I went to check on the kids and found them taking it in turns to read to each other, however it wasn't much longer before AJ was on deck looking a little green. It doesn't seem to matter how many times I tell them they still try to read and watch the iPad when it's rolly.

After a handful of ginger biscuits and the strategic placing of a bucket things were looking up and I did some mental arithmetic with AJ. Esmé meanwhile was down below watching Bill Nye the Science guy talk about Space, one of the YouTube videos I downloaded whilst we had great wifi at Agropoli. However it wasn't long before she twigged that we had ginger biscuits out and was suddenly feeling a bit seasick herself. We put the times tables songs on the iPad, and blasted them out of our Bluetooth speaker. As it often does, the music distracted them enough to forget about the bucket and enjoy singing.

The journey seemed to pass quickly and with the swell dying down AJ went back to Harry Potter.

I contacted the marina at Camerota and let them know we'd arrive at 1pm but would go to the fuel pontoon first, and then we enjoyed the view as we closed into the town.

It was a little shallow on the way in but as East Coast sailors, we weren't phased. On to the fuel pontoon where yet again the nozzle was too big for Laurin so we had to use a funnel. 60 litres later we were done so tried to contact the marina guy again. I was under the impression he was on his way but after waiting a while Patrick thought maybe the "30" he mentioned wasn't 30Euros but 30 minutes. After an hour had passed Patrick went for walk but found out nothing other than there was a coastguards door with closed until 4pm written on it. He also said the toilets and showers were closed. I then went to look for a grocery shop but was unsuccessful. 4pm came and went and the Marina guys phone went straight to answerphone. We began to resent the idea that he may now turn up and request payment when we hadn't even been able to leave the boat unattended for a family walk. In the end Patrick took the kids for a walk to the beach while I got on with preparing dinner. After a while a  fishing boat came to get fuel so I walked Laurin back a little. When the Fuel Guy turned up I told him we had been trying to contact the marina guy... he said to try VHF at which point I asked if we could stay the night on the fuel pontoon. His English wasn't much better than my non existent Italian however he pointed at the sign on the wall that said he opened at 7am. I told him we would leave at 6am, gave him a beer and we were all good!

So, another early dinner, trying to get kids to bed early so that we can too get an early night ready for another early start, however the boatyard has started lifting boats out in the dark! Still, it's a free night so we can't complain.

 

Day 147: 8th November 2017 Frustrating day in Agropoli

The weather was supposed to be improving today so we set an early alarm. However during the night there were horrific thunder storms and so when the alarm went off at 6am I wasn't filled with enthusiasm for leaving our safe harbour. Patrick was reasonably keen to go but although the wind strength wasn't too much, there was due to be a large swell and as both the wind and swell were from the south early in the morning we were somewhat sheltered in Agropoli. I was worried for when we rounded the point and had another 30 miles to go! After numerous walks up to the sea wall the decision was made to stay put, although to say Patrick was frustrated was an understatement! We have a rule that if one of us doesn't want to go then we don't leave harbour, but that doesn't mean everyone is happy about it!

After breakfast Patrick went for a walk to burn off some of his frustration while I did school with the kids. It was a good morning with both kids working well and we were done by noon. A quick lunch, a few pages of "Swallowdale" and 1/2 hour of electronics and we were ready for some exercise. We went for a walk up the hill to find the castle!

 Esmé was the first reluctant climber and we had to wait on several occasions, with the boys further frustrated that I made them wait an extra few minutes so that Esmé could rest and catch her breath too.

At the top of the first section we found a church which Esmé wanted to visit. She really loves the calm atmosphere of churches.



AJ preferred to pretend to shoot ships with his stick!

Next it was AJ's turn to flag and Esmé strode ahead trying to figure out a route through the many mediaeval passage ways between houses.
















Finally we reached the castle with amazing views to match.

After a brief explore, we wandered down the hill again, stopping for gelato on the way back to the boat. The kids have been reading Harry Potter to each other the rest of the afternoon and we had an early tea in an effort to fool the kids into an early night as we'll have an early alarm call again tomorrow!

Days 142 to 146 : 3rd to 7th November 2017 Visitors, Pompeii and Paesteum

Friday: Pompeii

We woke reasonably early as Leonie and Ross were arriving at about 10am to dump their bags before we headed off to Pompeii.  I wanted the boat tidy by at least our standards, and for us all to be ready to go including having a packed lunch made....we had some misguided ideas about visiting Herculaneum as well!

After a quick turnaround we were on our way to the Station where Leonie and Ross introduced us to the complexities of Italian Rail travel which we found to be extremely efficient and cheap. On exiting the station at Pompeii we ran the gauntlet of all the guides, taxis and ticket touts trying to extract Euros from us and instead followed the crowd to walk to the ruins. AJ was a little over awed by the hustle and bustle after so long in quiet coastal towns but once we arrived he was fine.

We were all impressed by the amphitheatre. AJ even made a tellagami about it, you can view it here but I think you can only view it on a tablet or phone.

As we wandered around the streets of Pompeii I was amazed at how engaged the kids were. Like when we had read living books prior to visiting Pegasus Bridge, the kids had prior knowledge of Pompeii both from books and from BBC documentaries I had downloaded from YouTube so that the kids could watch them during travelling days. This really helped their engagement with the site, and I was both surprised and delighted when AJ pointed out what had been a pool in the entrance to one of the houses, saying he knew what this was and that there would have been a hole in the roof to allow it to fill with water. The scale of the site and it's completeness amazed me and although Herculaneum is supposed to be better in terms of what has been preserved I was completely blown away by Pompeii.

The kids had a great time running around the ruins and role playing in the street food shops and when, on occasion, the adults wanted to linger a little longer than the kids we were more than happy to let them chill out with electronic devices.

After a while we were all tired and hungry so took a break for a picnic lunch where the kids fooled around with Ross who was a great hit! We had some great conversations, including debating whether all of this stone fountain was old and why!

At the end we also spent time thinking about the poor people who died in 79 AD. AJ had been a bit unsure of visiting because of how sad it was so I'm glad this conversation was kept until the end so that he could spend time appreciating how Romans lived as well as learning of their ultimate fate.

Saturday

A pre dawn start as we had about 50 miles to go to Agropoli. Leonie and Ross were both tired but wanted to take photos of the sunrise so we agreed I'd wake them when we could see first light. It started off as a normal day, motoring out of the marina in the dark and as usual motoring as there was too little wind/wind in the wrong direction to sail. As requested I woke our guests and they enjoyed taking photos as the day dawned, followed by breakfast with the clan.

Travel day boatschool started with musical times tables and Esmé getting out the instruments.

AJ spent some of his downtime designing and building a lego plane which he explained was to scoop spilled oil out of the sea and recycle it for use on land.

By mid morning we were passing between Capri and the mainland, with photographers both taking stunning photographs.

It was then that the sea began to change and we encountered steep choppy waves which were both uncomfortable and reduced our speed from our usual 5.5 knots to less than 4 knots. AJ was completely in panic mode and a couple of us were a little green around the gills. Esmé however was suitably distracted by the prospect of "surfing" the waves, clipped on, stood on the seats and holding onto the sprayhood with the wind in her hair! She even requested her nails painted despite our protests that it might be better waiting until we were more stable! As our progress slowed, we realised that the motion was much better heading along the Amalfi coast towards Salerno so we diverted. An hour or so later things calmed down and again we changed direction, this time for our original destination of Agropoli. It was like a different day again, very soon we had sails up and enjoyed the best sail of our trip yet.

On arrival at Agropoli we were met by the guy we had been emailing waving us over to his pontoon. He pointed to a tiny gap which I attempted to reverse into... not a bad effort but the gap was so small we had to push the other boats out of the way to get in. Once tied up we realised that the passerelle would clash with the electricity feeder pillar. The guy was none too pleased and wanted us to move. The first place he suggested would have been impossible with our prop kick so we negotiated and I managed another successful stern to mooring. 

As we were finishing tying up Esmé had other things on her mind and our cockpit table soon became a nail salon!

After a brief tidy up, and the discovery that the land based showers were closed, we all took turns to shower on Laurin which is tricky when it's not just family as there is no space to put dry clothes in the heads compartment. We finally came up with the solution of non shower participants chilling out in the cockpit tent with the hatch shut and a towel over the Perspex so that whoever was having a shower could have some privacy below. It worked quite well and I think the shower wasn't quite as bad as our guests anticipated.

Out we went for a lovely meal courtesy of our guests which was a rare treat in a very nice restaurant overlooking the harbour.

Sunday

Today we headed to Paesteum, which is a site of Roman ruins and Greek temples. The first challenge was to find either a bus stop or the train station. It was quite a hike for either and we never did find the bus stop. Once on the train it was a quick ride to Peasteum and then a short walk up a country lane to the site which was really impressive.

We spent a good couple of hours exploring the ruins and hunting for lizards in glorious sunshine. As it was the first Sunday in the month, entry was free so it was quite busy. Our photographer friends liked to get photos without people in so we got into a routine of taking photos of the kids in front of a ruin (people understood this and got out of the way) then getting the kids to run out of shot so that we could take photos without people!

 

We then had a pleasant and cheap pizza lunch at one of the tourist restaurants near by before heading back via the Gelato café in Agropoli which was enjoyed by all.

More photo opportunities followed by Esmé and Leonie glitter glueing the pinecone Esmé had collected before a "picky" dinner in front of Harry Potter!

Monday

Leonie and Ross were due to leave today but they kindly stuck around and helped a little with boatschool. It was a bit of a shock to the system as it was the first time we had done full boatschool in  a while. It wasn't without problems but we made a start in getting back into a routine and both kids enjoyed learning about photo editing.

 After and early lunch we all walked up into town where AJ and I said our goodbyes to our guests and went food shopping while Patrick and Esmé walked up to the station with them to help with bags. We returned to the boat with groceries and then chilled out while a storm rages all around us. It was pretty uncomfortable on the boat and tempers were frayed well before bedtime.

Tuesday

A fresh start, too wet and windy to sail but a good morning of boat school and Patrick managed to get the Laundry done although the dryer wasn't quite as efficient as we'd hoped so the boat looked like a Chinese laundry as we turned up the chillies and tried to finally get sheets dry.

It rained pretty much all day on and off so I didn't even leave the boat. Watching the weather forecast, trying to judge what is an acceptable amount of swell, waves and wind is getting tiring so we reached out to our Facebook friends and hopefully have some new crew coming to meet us in Vibo Valentia to help out and raise spirits! Hopefully onwards tomorrow if the wind dies down as promised, otherwise probably Thursday!

All the good photos courtesy of Leonie & Ross!

Days 140 and 141: 1st and 2nd November. Goodbye Gaeta, hello Porto del Greco

Wednesday

Val had told us that today was market day and that we might get some spare shoes for AJ. At the moment he only has one pair which is a bit of a problem when he does something silly like going in the sea in them! I still had to buy fruit and veg for the next few days so we all set off, with plenty of bags. AJ and Esmé appear to have got rather more enthusiastic about markets after San Remo so we all enjoyed choosing some foods, and browsing the other stalls. There were plenty of shoe stalls however only the very last one sold kids shoes. It wasn't particularly cheap but I suspect they were designer Italian brands. AJ walked away with a lovely pair of boots and I got some new walking trainers as mine had given up!

Late afternoon we motored round to the fuel pontoon to stock up on cheap diesel, and then invited Val and John over for some pre-dinner drinks to say thank you for all their help. We had a lovely time talking about our travels and plans before they left so that we could eat and then get an early night as the alarm was set for 5am.

Thursday

An early start again, past the US warship and out into the bay. As the clocks had been put back it wasn't quite as long until sunrise but I took the first watch again.

There was a reasonable amount of wind, in a reasonable direction so once Patrick was rested we put the mizzen and headsail up and enjoyed an hour or so of sailing before the wind dropped and we had to put the engine on again. As we motored between Procida and the mainland, Vesuvius came into view and we motored towards the volcano.

We motored into the marina, trying to find Julius who had been texting us in broken English with berthing instructions. We eventually found a guy, not quite sure if he actually was Julius, who directed us in and took our lines. After a celebratory beer and another load of hand washing Patrick went to find him with our boat papers which have been required at every other stop. He refused them... I think Patrick thought he was refusing payment but unsurprisingly this was not the case. He gestured that he wanted 40 Euros per night at which I said no way. He very quickly reduced the nightly rate to 30 Euros which we thought was acceptable and paid in cash. 

After dinner I had a lovely phonecall with my friend Leonie who had just landed in Naples and will be joining us with her partner Ross tomorrow for a few days. Looking forward to having guests!!