Nettuno, Italy

Friday, August 7, 1998

More of my rambling. Ruth is off to see yet another church. We are here in Nettuno Italy. We were planning to leave, and we got up a 6 am to get started but the sky was black with clouds and the wind was picking up, so we went back to bed. A good move as it got nasty later. We could have handled it, but didn't feel like the hassle. It had been so hot and still the night before that we had not gotten much sleep and the mosquitos were having a good meal! Later the weather forecast was for gales! That is 34 to 40 knots of wind and 10 ft seas! Well, two days later - we did not get a gale, but we sure got some lightening, all one night, with some rain, then some wind. We had a spectacular lightening show during most of dinner. It lit up the entire sky, and continued most of the night. Lightening struck very near us once in the middle of the night and I jumped out of bed and was on deck, stark nekkid in regular fighting form! I guess I thought we had been smashed into. I was on a boat once (one of my delivery experiences) that smashed into another boat at 2 AM and darned near killed the guy asleep in the other boat. Anyway, we survived the night, and actually slept until 9AM. We were tired after having seen ALL of Rome in one day. We rode the train in, an hour from Nettuno and spent the day in Rome. It was once a great city, now it could stand some sprucing up. The pickpockets are very active, but need to improve their technique. In the subway, my rear pocket flap was buttoned and got opened twice, but I felt it each time. Ruth was jostled by a man woman team, they got her purse unzipped but did not have enough time before our stop, and Ruth was getting smarter by the second.

We also spent one afternoon at the American Graveyard here in Nettuno. During the 2nd WW, the allies made a landing here in Nettuno/Anzio and were able to establish a foothold in Europe, but the Germans regrouped and pounded them heavily. There are over 10,000 Americans buried here! The landing was on January 22, 1944. Most of the graves are dated between Jan 20 and May. It had to be one very very deadly winter!!!!

With the goofy weather and funny weather reports, the French warned us that the Italian weather reports were not accurate, we decided to stay put here and wait for our cruising guests to join us. John Morgon will be here on the 8th and we will sail down the coast, and pick up Bob and Judy somewhere south of Naples on the 12 th. More on the weather - Boy! it is hot and wet here in the Med. I know it may be hot there too, but there is no air conditioning here. Very few people have air conditioning here. Most people do have motorbikes though. Cloth must be very expensive here cause the ladies seem to use so little in both their swim suits and street clothes. But then it is hot!

We hope that John will be able to locate and bring us an acoustic couplier called Telefast Plus . The cruising couple from Boston (the first Americans we have met) helped us get the E-mail working again. It was necessary to get into the software program and change the string so that the computer would ignore the Italian dial tone. One then must have a Telefast Plus, it is like a telephone hand set that gets strapped to any pay telephone hand set, any country, one then dials the Internet telephone number, gets the modem screech, and viola! You are on. This adapter will eliminate begging someone to unplug their phone so you can logon. The unit comes from Teleadapt Inc. at www.teleadapt.com. San Jose Ca. tel 408 965-1400. I sure hope we can get one, since our Boston friends leave tomorrow.

The SSB/ weather fax is still very frustrating and not working. Thanks, for your input Steve, and yes we did get your message re: weather alerts. It seems that most people have no luck with weather faxes here in the Med. The Boston Couple tune into a German station that transmits 5 day forecasts in English using the telex. I tuned on and got the signal once but can't do it again. I get a good signal, the radio is OK, but I do not think the Modulator is working. It worked once after I took it apart and did my usual fine engineering ( I poked all the little gizmo's) but it will not repeat. I'll keep trying. Yesterday I took it over to the neighbors and it will not work on their set either, but then their modulator would not work on our computer either. They use a DOS based (not windows) program version 7 of the same program that we have. We have version 8, for windows. I really think our program is fine but the modulator is not working. Tough without communications and weather reports!!!!!!!!

Next day 8/7/98

We met a very nice couple on the dock yesterday and they invited us to their house for dinner and Grappa. He is Italian and she is French, they have been married 34 years, and worked in Geneva for many years with the United Nations. They speak Italian, French and English. They were delightful people and we spent the entire evening having a wonderful time. He is retired and so happy to be back at home in Italy. He loves the place. They showed us around their city Anzio, and we walked thru the city in the early evening. They are the most positive people we have met in a long time. They are enthusiastic about everything! They live in the top apartment overlooking the city and bay. Angelo even sang and played the guitar. Spending time with these people is a real highlight of our visit to Italy.

We are off tomorrow for the Island of Ponza, so I will try to get this E-mail off.

Wednesday, August 19, 1998

I have not been able to get any E-mail thru or to receive any since about Aug 8. My last message was titled Nettuno. If you get this, it means I have finally gotten more E-mail thru. Meanwhile, I have kept adding and rambling on and on. The Italian telephone system just will not recognize my E-mail. Trying to get someone to let me use their phone is very difficult. When I mention E-mail and a computer they think I am from the moon. I know it is hot there, but hot is not having air conditioning day and night. Theres very very little air conditioning in all of Italy. It isn’t too hot during the day, if we go sailing, but in a marina it is very still and hot.

More of the continuing saga, hope you are not getting bored. We picked up John Morgon in Nettuno on Aug 9 and left the next day. We couldn’t take any more of the mosquitos, and the port was very dirty, hot and still. We left for the Island of Ponza about 36 miles south east. It is a small Island 45 miles or so out into the sea from Naples. It is a small very picturesque island originally a fishing village with some medevial buildings. We had a good sail although the wind was only up to 12 knots, we had the spinnaker up most of the way. The spinnaker is very pleasant in this boat, not nearly as hair raising as our little trimaran was. We were moving at 8 knots for awhile in 13 knots of wind as smooth as can be! We got into the harbor where we could anchor out of the way of the ferries and tour boats. We arrived early about 3 oclock in the afternoon, and anchored right in the middle in a nice open space, and went for a walk to buy some fish. Later that evening more boats arrived, then more then even more! We had a front row seat watching yet another boat squeeze into an open space. It was quite a show, a real circus! We ended up putting out all of our fenders on both sides of our boat. A small catamaran with a Dutch family aboard anchored in front of us. and I told him that our anchor was in front of him and we were leaving before him the next day. It all worked out fine as there was no wind in the night. We all vowed that at the next anchorage we would seek a little more privacy and a clearer bay.

We were going to spend another night at Ponza but it was just too crowded. We went the next day 45 miles or so to another island Procida where we anchored in a very quiet bay, only 3 boats in the whole bay and one of them was the Americans from Boston that we met earlier in Nettuno. Then come over for drinks that eve and we later cooked the fish that John caught that day. John caught a 5-7 lb, Mackarel in the afternoon and we barbequed him that eve. Fishing is not good here, we had been dragging lures for 3 days! We watch fishermen catching tiny tiny fish in nets and can see there isn’t much left. This morning we were woken up by three brothers dragging in a huge net just in front of us, part of the net was up against our anchor line. They were constantly arguing and shouting at each other, obviously it was not a great day, and it didn’t help when after tugging and tugging on this net they got it up and there was not a bucket on tiny tiny fish. More shouting and screaming! They should take up farming!

We stayed two nights at Procida, anchoring in nice clean quiet bays visiting the fishing village with steep narrow streets and houses built on cliffs. A lovely place! And not too crowded with tourists. We are now off to pickup Bob and Judy arriving from Saudi Arabia. They took the red eye special out of Arabia last night, flew all night, then caught a train into Rome, another from Rome to Napoli, then a taxi or ?? to the Marina where they hope to be able to find us. From there we will visit Sorrento, Capri, Vesuvious and Pompeii. We will also sail on down the coast toward Sicily. The weather is hot and hot.

Heavy humidity the last few days with little wind. I shower in the morning in the sea and rinse off with fresh water. It cools you down. Well I better go now, I hear John and Ruth putting up the sail and I am down below, where it is getting hot.

Well I did not get to send this E-mail so I’ll just keep adding. We picked up Bob and Judy as scheduled in Naples. The Marina Del Greco in Naples has to be the crummiest dirtiest marina that I have ever been in, and that is sayings something! It is located in an older poor section of town. We left the next morning, and went to Sorrento and on to the Island of Capri - sensational!!! We went all around the island anchoring for lunch and a swim in one of the grottos. Clear blue water. We had a small problem getting our anchor back as it was wedged into a deep rock crevice about 20 meters down. It was a circus for awhile, but we got it out. There were two other boats in the way and they could have moved and made life easier, but they enjoyed the circus. We are now anchored in a nice small cove between Sorrento and Amalfi. We all had a swim and now have opened beers. I gotta go now.

A couple of days later - 8/15/98

Somewhere along the Italian coast south of Salerno. Since my last rambling we have moved a little bit, maybe 13 miles to another beautiful anchorage and had the place all to ourselves. We were gonna drop John off in Salerno, but he didn’t want to go so we will drop him off at Agropoli a bit further down the coast. Everyday has been hot with little wind, maybe 10 knots and we sail a little and goof around lots. Bob and Judy want more sailing so we may do a couple of overnighters and end up in Greece. Not certain yet. I hope I can cope with yet another telephone/E-mail adapter.

The boat is doing well and everyone is having a relaxing good time.

Just a quick note from Ruth, to say thanks to everybody for their concern over my seasickness. Well, I now have my sea-legs and am quite the seasoned mariner. I also no longer get anxiety attacks before we come in to moor, whether it is to an anchorage or to a marina. The scenery has been magical, especially along the Amalfi coast. There is so much history in the Mediterranean. In Corsica we visited Calvi, where Lord Nelson lost his eye and Ajjaccio, where Napoleon was born. Procida was where Aenaeas had his ship repaired and three islands off Amalfi are where the Sirens tempted Ulysses. In the 14th century, a resident of Amalfi introduced the compass from China to Europe. Marvin has already told you about the battle sites from World War Two.

I am becoming more and more adventurous with my cooking and learned some ideas from my aunt about French Provencal cooking. Lots of lovely olives, olive oil, tomatoes and Garlic. We are now learning the Italian way of shopping. The supermarkets do not sell fresh meat, fish or pastries and the bill at the end is never less than five digits, for example: 87,534 Lira. It takes a bit of getting used to!

It is me again, and it is Aug 18. I guess Ruth ran out of gas. More likely, she had to come topside to help with sailing or navigating. Anyway we are approaching. Messina, Scicily Home of the Mafia. Many of the marina’s that we have been to in Italy are run by a mafia type group. Really!. It costs an average of $50/night to park this beast. The wind has been very light so we end up motor sailing most places. We have sailed down the Italian coast from Salerno without charts, since we have not been able to buy any. There are very few marinas in this stretch of coast so we sail by day only and just throw the anchor out along a stretch of beach at night. The beaches are all full of people sunning themselves. Miles and miles of bodies. Since we are at the very toe of Italy we must make a choice here weather to go north east up the ionian sea to the heel of Italy or go straight across to Greece and the Corinthian channel and toward Athens. I think we may go north and see some of the Greek islands in the Ionian sea, such as Corfu and Ithica, then into the Greek islands south of Athens. Just getting there will mean we well have over 1700 miles, to sail to reach the Straights of Gibralter, then 700 miles to the Canary Islands and 3300 miles to Barbados, followed by 1000+ miles to Florida, whew! I’m tired already.