To Tropea and up North

The passage from Stromboli to Tropea got to be the slowest Heron's passage ever. True, we had plenty of time, and the little wind that we had was from behind, so our speed was between 2 and 3 knots, but at least we didn't have to smell the gasoline fumes from the engine that one gets into the cockpit when the speed of sailing is approximately the same as speed of wind from behind. At such a speed we could easily bathe behind the boat without taking down the sail, one at the time of course. The sea gets this incredible bright deep blue colour when it is really deep, here it was some 1300m.

At the end of the afternoon wind died and we motored the last couple of miles to Tropea. It was already evening when we anchored right in front of the town beach. We did it by the rules, at 200m distance, but all Italian motorboats were carelessly speeding between us and the beach, also making annoying waves.

After dinner we rowed dinghy to the beach and had a walk around the town. From the water it looked nice, but only after we were there we saw how big it was. This is the rock with the church, that from the water looked like the part of the town...

... and behind it there's another cliff on which the town sits, with its old and romantic stone buildings.

The rock with the church and Heron left from it, photographed from the top of 240 stairs leading to town.

Town was full of tourists, but still had some of its old charm. We enjoyed the walk and also buying some food in one of the small local shops, where daughter was helping mom in service and mom smeared nduja thickly onto pieces of bread so we could try it. It was one of the prettiest and most enjoyable towns in Italy.

After a relatively good sleep we had to sail off in the morning, we've planned a long sail that day. One more look at Tropea...

... and we sailed off. There was not much wind, but we managed to sail most of the day. In the late afternoon we had to start the engine and in the evening we reached Cetrara. We anchored to the E of the marina entrance, so we were protected by the breaker. The town was a bit further away, and it was already getting late, so we stayed on the boat. The nigh was calm and we slept great.

In the morning we just took a photo of Cetrara, I'm sure given enough time it would be worth the visit.

We saw many of pretty little towns in the morning, I especially like the ones perched up on the hills.

Captain found a radio station that played mostly Italian songs from sixties and it played many songs I remember from my childhood. Later we sailed further from the coast to cross the bay of St Eufemia. We motored almost all the day and the only excitement was when we saw a turtle. If you use your eyes and imagination, I'm sure you can see it too. It is funny how they keep their heads under water when one is coming close, maybe to listen to the noise of engine, and then when one sails by lift their head and look like: what was that?

In the late afternoon we finally got some wind, we pulled out the genoa, and couple of miles before reaching Scario we were trotting along with 3 knots, giving us the perfect opportunity to listen to the good music without the noise of engine.

We anchored in front of the town...

... and dinghied into the town in the evening. It is quite pretty, we found a well stocked supermarket, a nice shop with local delicacies, and had a very good pizza for dinner.

Around the town there are wild hills and many old buildings.

Next morning we had to sail off. The scenery was quite beautiful, I made a plan to some day return for couple of months and explore South of Italy by car.

We were sailing most of the time, but it was lots of tacking and working the sails. In the afternoon we sailed into the bay on the South side of Capo Palinuro. It was breathtaking. It is a big bay with two beaches on either side, full of colourful umbrellas, and in between this colossal ridge with many caves in it.

In front of it there was a beautiful turquoise water, couple of small sandy beaches and hundreds of swifts were chirping and doing acrobatics in the air.

We anchored in 7m of water and captain took the dinghy and explored the caves. Swifts were very vocal about him intruding, the caves are where they are nesting.

Heron in the middle.

Swifts entertaining the visitors.

Under the N edge of the bay many boats were anchored, although sea was rather calm, I imagine there the protection from wind and waves is the best. I got this idea that we should stay and continue next day, having a little bit of a summer holiday - reading, swimming, having a gin&tonic and then have a swim in the morning before departure. But captain was determined to make a use of the rest of the day and the wind so after an hour and a half we sailed on.

The cape itself is wild and picturesque.

After two hours we came to a small town of Pioppi. Never heard of it? You haven't missed a thing. We figured that bay is protected enough for the night, so we dropped the anchor. But I was sad we didn't stay at cape Palinuro, it was sooooo much prettier.