The approaches to Brindisi are laid out into traffic separation zones, and whilst it seems the local small boats ignore the chart directions, all the bigger ones seem to stick with it.  So we followed suit and spent 30 minutes navigating the zone, having to pass the harbour entrance first to get into the ‘in’ lane, and then being able to turn back towards the entrance.

Brindisi outer harbour is huge and open – maybe 2 miles square – protected by a long manmade wall to the north side, and a line of islands to the south.   Most of the big Italian / Greek ferries ply their trade from here – and it’s obvious they also handle a lot of bulk and container traffic as well as ship repairs.  A substantial facility.

As we passed through the outer harbour to an inner section, heading towards a third basin set inside the city limits.  That’s where the yacht club is located.  As we did so we saw that a marina is now fully operational on the north side of that inner harbour – a shame it was not mentioned in the pilot book, as we may well have used it.  It’s still very hot here, and if one has a choice of inner city or coastal living – the coast comes out on top!

Once into the final inner basin, maybe 3 miles in total from the harbour mouth, there’s a further narrow entry into the waters of the city, in which one finds smaller ferries, town quay, Port Police, fuel station, and a naval facility – all set in line on the southern shore. The Lega Navale Yacht Club is directly opposite the navy ships on the northern bank.

A big commando / helicopter carrier was parked up along with several patrol boats as we backed into our allotted berth on the outside club jetty.

The club although small seems very hospitable.  It’s private, but does have visitor berths, more so when club members are away having a vacation themselves. 

We found it good value at 27 euros per night.  Showers etc a bit basic, but a homely small bar, and friendly fellow sailors always keen to stop and say hello as they wandered past.

But weather in here is HOT HOT HOT.  By midday Saturday it was 38 C in the shade, and not a puff of wind reaching us to cool anything off.  And no pool.  And water too dirty to swim in.

Sue was physically wilting. So rather than move to the other marina, or stay on the boat for the night, we had a brainwave.

Packed a rucksack, taxi to the airport to hire an airconned car – and off we went driving across Italy towards it’s west coast.

The idea was as we had not been able to copy James Bond and sail our boat into Venice, then why not see if we could duplicate 007’s drive along Italy’s famous Amalfi coast?  It runs from Salerno along the mountainside and around a peninsula to Sorrento – and is only 180 miles as the crow flys.

Well we did it – and it was double that distance as the road goes – but had a great time, not least on the bumpy autostrada route over the mountains of southern Italy to get there.

We’d got about 2/3^rd of the way to the west coast and were high in those mountains when dusk fell.  Somewhere past Potenza in the ‘badland’ lookalike mountains around Monti Picentini.  Pulled off the autostrada and after an hour zipping around country lanes, finally found a hotel.

It was looking a bit tired, but so were we.  Perched on an outcrop overlooking a road construction site on one side and a cement plant on the other, meant we had to elevate our eyes to ignore the closer views – but those mountains around are stunning.

As we circled the hotel and not finding a front door, we pushed open the creaky door to a bar area and all conversation stopped as six pairs of male and one set of female eyes all swung in our direction.  All had that special Kentucky ‘mountain man’ look about them.

Not a word of English between the lot – but gestures and the few words we shared got what we wanted - a feed and a good room.  They gave us their best room, but it was as tired looking as the rest of the place.  Pretty bare, hard camping type bed, no toilet seat!  Even the aircon wall unit only just about wheezed into life to provide a trickle of chilled air. 

But hey!  Beggars / choosers etc.

The evening proved interesting.  The same guys all sitting around staring at us in the bar made the meal a speedy one – although the quality of both food and wine was excellent for just 28 euros.  In fact the hotel B&B was just 40 euros also.

We’d chosen to eat in the bar, but the bar lady had mentioned an alternative of eating upstairs where, it being Saturday, there was live music.  We declined to move, but after our meal went for wander to check it all out.

We followed the sound of music and ended up outside a big ballroom and peeked in.  All we could make out was six elderly couples goose-stepping around under florescent lights, to a series of military two steps!  Maybe we were tired, but the huge room, six individual tables for two, blaring military music, and the cropped hair men and slim and elegant, made us fear we’d stumbled across the Third Reich’s last hideaway.  The combo of hotel, room, staff, and dancers, made us slide away and double lock the bedroom door for an excellent nights sleep.

Arrived at Salerno by 1000, and found our way to the coast road.  Have to say was a great drive up this road, despite the Sunday traffic.  It winds up and down from mountain to beach, only wide enough for a single line of traffic each way, and most obviously Fangio’s descendents.  I seemed to fit in OK.

The whole coast is just so pretty, but with the crowded beaches all packed nose to tail with frying beachgoers, the generally jaded look of the area, and the rubbish strewn around, it’s clearly seen better days.  Must have been great in maybe the 50’s – but still worth a visit today.

Spent the day driving the whole length and fetched up at a modern upmarket hotel on the peninsular overlooking Sorrento.  They had rooms.  Clean modern rooms.  A pool.  Chilly aircon.  Great view from balcony.  And a toilet seat.

So there we stayed for Sunday night.  Dropped down to Sorrento for an evening wander and meal. Packed with tourists, lots of Brits, lots of street side action, and worth the visit.

We drove back Monday but it seems the whole of the Med is gripped by this heat wave – and it topped 42 degrees en-route up high in the supposedly cooler mountains!  Got back to the yacht club by 0200, and by 0300 we’d paid our bill, cast off our lines, spent 20 minutes topping up our fuel tanks, and we were off heading south to hopefully find some respite from the heat further offshore.

We decided because of the heat on land, we’d not stop between here and Sicily, and try to do the 300 mile leg in one hit.

It took us two nights at sea, and whilst not cool, we both felt sure we were better off than had we stayed on shore.  Sadly did not get much useful wind en-route.  Right down the coast towards the base of Italy it was a mixture of no wind, or blasts of red hot furnace type stuff from the west.

In fact as we ran in towards the coast at the bottom tip of Italy on our second night, we got hit with several red hot blasts of strong winds coming down the mountainsides, and could actually see the red sky reflecting forest fires burning over the other side of the mountain range.

All very spectacular at night time, but not nice for those living close to it.

On the morning of day three approaching the most southern tip of Italy, the wind did come in with a blast.  Still warm, but now overcast and sticky.  As we cleared the bottom of Italy and turned north west towards the Messina Straights it really piped in, got to 30+ knots, and sadly straight on our nose.  We had no option but to crank up the engine to max revs and butted our way up the straights towards the narrow gap at the top.

Last time we came trough here it was a flat calm, and no trace of the whirlpools and currents famed worldwide.  This time we got the lot.  Two whirlpools close to the top passage tugged at our keel as we charged through both, and it was with some relief we exited and were able to turn left towards out planned stop in Porto Rosa on Sicily’s northern coast.

We were concerned with fuel consumption, as Porto Rosa is in total 300 miles from Brindisi and that’s close to our max range using normal revs.  With the higher revs we’d been using for the past five hours, we certainly chewed through our rather limited fuel, so it was close.

Got entered Porto Rosa midday Wednesday with less than 20 litres of fuel left.   Too close for comfort really – and a salutary reminder to fill our 40 litres of spare cans every trip from now on.  It’s a facility built around channels dredged to provide a shoreside living residential area – so lots of users have their boat tied up off their back yard.  Some nice on site restaurants and shops etc.

But it seems Porto Rosa’s expensive in high season.  Cost us 120 euros for the night, and no showers let alone a chance to check out the toilet seats!  

So at that price, it’s only one night here for us, and off we’ll head for Sardinia.

Cheers

JOHN