Greek Temples and the surf….

24^th, we arrived in a placed called Acropoli and managed to dropped anchor inside the breakwater. The town didnt seem to have much character to it so, after the last few hectic days, opted to chill out on the boat, sunbathing and reading, that was until 7.50pm, when 2 guys in jet skis came over to us and pointed out to sea, more importantly to a ferry and told us we had to move, and move now!. We of course obliged, and potted around the marina, with guys trying to sell us a mooring space at exorbitant rates, whilst the ferry moored, let its passengers off and finally switched its engines and lights off, clearly stopping there for the night. We thought it was safe to return to our original spot, but on the basis that that alarm was set at 7am the following mooring to get out of its way again.  The intent the next day was to visit the Temples of Paestum, which are allegedly the best example of Greed ruins in the whole of Italy, the only decision was whether we went from train to Paestum from Acropoli, or went the 4 miles back up the coast to anchor off the beach near Paestum and walk, in hindsight the train would have been a far better option……

Not quite the peaceful night we intended, up until this point, the nightlife in Italy seemed to be come to an end at midnight, not this night, 2 am David and I were still up, listening to the latest sounds, say no more.

3am we were finally able to crash until that good old alarm at 7am, when we upped anchor and went 4 miles to anchor off the beach to go and visit the ruins at Paestum…

Having anchored about 200 meters of the beach near Paestum in about 10 metres of water, we noticed a surf going into the beach, but being brave and / or stupid, dependant on your personal view, we decided to go in by dinghy, but without the engine, so armed with oars, we did another interpretation of Redgrave & Pinsent and made our way in, well being the operative word, as about 50 metres from the beach a surf broke, right behind us and managed to toss Chantal out of the dinghy into the Med, although I have to say Tom Daley would not have been impressed, gallant as I am, I was more worried about the bag containing a camera, money, boat key and credit cards, but did heave a sigh of relief when Chantal resurfaced, with a snapped oar, and blood coming out from under my knee where it had obviously swiped me in the process, but no stitches were required… So we had made the beach, which apart from a few hardy sun-worshippers, was not heavily populated at 9.15am. I amsure they had a few sniggers, needless to say!

Peastum.. is famous for its striking Greek temples, still intact after more than 2,500 years of natural disasters and social upheavals.. the pictures speak for themselves!! 600BC these original temples were built, it is easy to forget that the Greeks owned Italy all this time before the Romans got their act together and kicked them out in the Caesarian period.

So after the cultural bit, we managed to source a couple of new oars, although not as strong, we thought they would be adequate, as additional insurance we also obtained 2 x plastic bags, just in case there was a danger of our personal items getting wet on the way back to the yacht, namely a camera and an Iphone 5S, not to forget a loaf of bread that we had just bought. Walking along the beach at 1pm was a totally different proposition, not because there were hundreds, if not thousands of people on the beach, but also for the fact that the surf looked even worse than when we landed a few hours before. Having found our dinghy on the beach surrounded by Italians sunbathing, we prepared for our return journey to the yacht, every thing apparently sealed in plastic bags, armed with our new oars, we hit the water !! Hawaii 5-0 style, which whilst hard, we were making good progress until again at about the 50 metres mark, we encountered another big wave that broke just in front of us, with such force that the dinghy filled with water, and the surf dragged us all the way back to the beach in a heap, well two actually ! At this point, none of the hundreds of Italians offered to help as we managed to turn the dinghy over and release the 100 litres of water that was in it. We set off again, this time swimming out with the dinghy to try and clear the surf before we got in and rowed, talk about a painful experience, for every 10 metres we managed to get out, it seemed a wave then dragged us 20 metres back, but we persevered, finally when it seemed impossible to achieve, we managed to get past the surf and had a more sedate row back to the yacht, with our muscles burning and gasping for breath we finally made it, but at what cost, well the bread was soggy, the Iphone was a bit soggy but was still working, but the Lumix camera has yet to come back to life, even after drying out with a hairdyrer, so maybe an insurance claim after all, although we live in hope.  After our exploits we decided to sail down the coast to a marina, where we could go ashore, have a nice meal out, enjoy the air-conditioning on the boat and get a good nights sleep…

 Great sail onto Acciaroli marina, moored up, paid up, although the marina staff had never heard of customer satisfaction, plugged in the shore power and turned on the air-con, well for 5 minutes anyway until it went off with an error message, which said there was insufficient water coming in from the inlet valve, ( the sea ). After Chantal did some investigating we set about trying to fix the problem, after 2 hours it was fixed, a small fish, obvioulsy not a very bright one, had decided to swim into the inlet valve and get stuck, but after Chantal doing lost of blowing and sucking, the problem was fixed!

Attempting to be civilised, we showered and dressed up (Chantal even got the hair dryer out for the first time in months), and went out for our relaxed meal ashore and wander the tiny streets that made up Acciaroli.

This morning, we ventured in again to explore the town in daylight… very cute but not quite so quaint in broad daylight, although it is claimed to have been the home of Hemingway at some time..

Acciaroli

Then,  with no wind, we motored for 5 hours round to a bay (Bay Infreschi) recommended to us, and are now sitting on board, with a concert (dont ask what kind of musical, a mixed bag of bollocks)  blaring out from a cave on the beach, the acoustics would have been great, if the music was…….however the smell of dope so strong it is wafting all around our boat.. not sure about our sailing capability right now, but at least we are on a mooring buoy, so no chance to dragging or having to move! It is also helping to dull our senses!

Might just chill out here for the day tomorrow… will see!