The Italian Boot!

Our last blog saw us safely tucked up on a mooring buoys in Bay Infreschi, a place recommended to us by one of the locals in DÁrechi. Well worth the visit, which included a band on the beach we initially thought was for the benefit of the boats already there, but soon realised it was for someone’s birthday when lots of small speed boats rocked up and they opened with happy birthday Antonio. After they finished, we had a peaceful night, so we decided to stay there for a second night.

Little did we know just how busy the bay would get in the daytime, and if you thought you had commandeered a buoy all to yourself, think again. By 11, we had 4 motor boats of differing sizes sharing our buoy and rafted up to us on one side, with 2 the other side. And we were the lucky ones, we counted 20 boats off one buoy just in front of us, including a dog, who was far happy on its owners float than on the boat! We clearly need not have worried that the buoys were designed to take our weight!  Still it was all very entertaining! We even managed to take the Kayak out around the bay and into some significant caves that surrounded us.

The following day we decided to head off to Maratea, via a wee stop in a town called Scario for a drink and Italy’s own version of Cafe del Mar…plus the inevitable ice cream, did I tell you I like Fondente, and water.

Scario

Thereafter we sailed over to Maratea and having fueled up, secured a mooring for the night, that was until they wanted 130€, whereupon we promptly said our goodbyes as the weather was calm, and dropped our anchor in the bay outside, just in time to see the sunset.

Needless to say we didnt really get a chance to visit the town.

The next day we sailed onto Cetraro and then onto Vibo Valentia, both rather non-descript towns, although Marina Stella Del Sud was the friendliest marina ever, not used to having the Marinello’s jump on our boat to take the mooring lines, we didn’t quite know what to do!!!!

A good night’s sleep and a hair cut for David, saw us on our way to get as far south as possible with yet another Mistral forecast. As seems to be our luck, it arrived rather sooner than anticipated, and we went from 0 knots of  wind to 25 knots and a growing sea. reefed and tacking, what was an 11 mile journey turned into 18 until we finally surfed (with 3 metre swells ) into the Marina at Tropea where we still are, as the winds got up to 35 knots and the sea came over the sea wall! Not wanting to risk another camera, photos were taken from afar!

Tropea is a rather cutesy, if not ramshackle town, on top of the cliff. We have managed to climb the near 200 steps 2 days running to go explore….and have a long lunch with a few glasses of vino!

Tropea

We had wanted to go over to the Aeolian Islands, off the North coast of Sicily, but sadly it is not to be. With a forecast of bigs seas for the next week, and not much shelter to be found in the Islands,  we have opted to go tomorrow further south, through the Straits of Messina and explore the east and south east of Sicily, where the weather seems to be kinder, certainly the seas flatter. The Aeolian Islands will have to wait until next year!