The Amalfi Coast

Melanie left to get the plane home for our Godson Paul's 21st birthday and I turned the boat south to head for Naples. It was a 2 day passage. I anchored the first night in the lee of this small rather ominous looking island - an old penal colony nick named Devils Island 3 miles off the mainland coast.











I was woken at 5am the next day by a cracking wind in the rigging and was soon up and on my way wanting to make the most of the wind. I was in Naples for lunchtime to meet Mark.
I had a very pleasant 3 days R and R with Mark doing very little other than eating and drinking with a little swimming thrown in. We did however have a very fine barbecue on the rocks cooked by England's finest barbecue chef!





I picked Melanie up in Naples and spent a couple of days at anchor tucked behind this rather fine old fort with Vesuvius in the background. We did the sights of Naples and had a day in Pompeii. Pompeii was disappointing with nothing to bring it back to life, not even any sign boards saying what was what. I would like my sister Jenny to get to work on the place , it would have been much more interesting! It was however an interesting experience seeing the perfectly preserved layout of an old Roman town if only to head height. All artefacts have been removed to museums with only photographs of the very moving petrified figures of the townspeople that died the day Vesuvius exploded in AD79.


Forming the south side of the bay of Naples is the Sorrento peninsular with the town of Sorrento on the north side and what is known as the Amalfi coast on the south side. On the end of the peninsular is the famous island of Capri.

The whole of the area is spectacularly mountainous with massive sea cliffs rising to 4000' at an alarming rate; particularly alarming if you have walking plans! The towns are old and pretty, squeezed in the small tight valleys and clinging to the sides of the hills with each house looking straight down onto the roof of the house in front. We visited and walked from the little towns of Positano and Amalfi.






The trouble with these pretty well known places is that everybody else also wants to come and see them too! They were just too crowded but happily we were able to retreat to the sanctuary of the hills during the day and our boat on our return.

There was an interesting warning sign at the beginning of a walk called the trail of the Gods. I like the spinning head, it certainly was no place for those with vertigo with sheer drops of several hundred feet in places from the edge of the path.








We have been spoilt for the last 2 months with beautiful lonely anchorages. Incredibly the season does not seem to start here until mid June; I guess they find temperatures of sub 25 degrees a little chilly for boating! When the season does start however it starts with a bang - we woke up in this anchorage on a Saturday morning with just a few yachts, by lunchtime it was busier than Piccadilly Circus!


Amalfi coast done we are now heading back the 30 odd miles to Naples where we are leaving the heat and the crowds and coming home for a couple of months. We will be back in September.