We’re now on the Amalfi coast south of Naples. Over the past year we’ve become connoisseurs of the Italian coastline and this is another fine stretch to add to our collection. The coast rises sheer out of the Gulf of Salerno up to, I guess, a couple of thousand feet and is dotted with castles, craggy inlets, seaside towns and hill villages. Everywhere the land is green and terraced with lemon groves and vineyards and right now it is suffused with a golden autumnal light. Maiori is a small, unpretentious seaside town about two miles east of Amalfi itself, with a tiny harbour at one end, tucked underneath a cliff which rises about two hundred feet and on which stands a neo gothic castle. The road to Amalfi climbs above us and loops round the cliff in a sharp hairpin bend, so we have a great view of the regular confrontations between buses, lorries and coaches as they negotiate the turn. It’s like watching a mating ritual between large and cumbersome beasts as they approach one an...

After our stay in Vibo Valentia we headed north towards the Amalfi coast, stopping at a succession of sleepy little ports. It’s was a sociable time, travelling in concert with two other British yachts, “Gwen L” and “Chin Chin”. The high spot for me was Maratea, a collection of small hamlets strung out on the coast and hills of Basilicata. There is a tiny port with a handful of bars and restaurants and the main village up in the hills, all dominated by an enormous statue of Christ, arms outstretched, on the summit of a 2,000 foot high peak and visible for ten or more miles offshore. At night the statue is floodlit and seems to levitate above the little port. We spent a day trekking to the summit, stopping for a drink in the village, which is a laid back “away from it all” resort for the European and American middle classes.  On our way back down from the statue we came across a cycle race in the village. Several hundred lycra clad cyclists shot through the place in a blur,...

Sailing up the Calabrian coast we were hit by our first really bad squall off the fashionable resort of Tropea.   One minute we were motor sailing in a moderate breeze and the next the wind was literally screaming through the rigging with rain stinging our faces.   Instinctively we got the sails down fast and started to motor further offshore.   It lasted about two hours during which we bucked up and down in a very short and uncomfortable sea, continually drenched with cold rainwater and occasionally lashed by warm seawater as the fifty-knot winds whipped the top off a wave and smacked it in our faces.   During the squall and its aftermath we were actually approached by two Italian Coastguard Search and Rescue boats to check that we were OK. That day we stopped at Vibo Valentia where we chilled out for a few days and hired a car to explore the Calabrian hinterland.

Having last been on the Italian mainland in Livorno in May we returned to it at Reggio di Calabria, just south of the Straits of Messina as we began our journey north to Rome. I was expecting to see a dirt poor dump full of tower blocks and rusting cars. In fact the city centre is bustling and sophisticated, with smart seafront cafes overlooking Sicily and the Straits and the continual stream of ferries and container ships plying to and from the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas. However, in a back street cafe we did get a glimpse of a different Calabria. The place was full of young men with tattoos and at one table three were dressed in black with gold jewellery and shades. They had the uneasy and twitchy demeanour of serious drug users. At another table a smart casually dressed guy sat talking on his mobile phone, but appeared to be getting an unusual amount of “respect” from the waitress and the men in black. As we left the cafe Sue explained to me that the “respect” might have been...

Catania, our furthest point south by boat this season, was weird. It’s the largest conurbation in Sicily and having parked La Fulica in the commercial harbour we took a walk through the dockyard to the centre of town. Maybe I’d had too much sun or alcohol or both, but this fantasy began to grow in my mind that Catania was like the Devil’s attempt to create a “normal” city in hell to make new arrivals feel more at home. At one level it feels like a normal town, but to me it had an uneasy dystopic edge. For one thing the town is predominantly black, built from lava and the streets are covered in what looks like coal dust. For another, there is a subtle but pervasive smell of sulphur emanating from Mount Etna on the northwestern edge of town. It was also hot, aggressive and noisy and on our way back to the boat I was intimidated by large dogs which roamed the dockyards. That night I slept in the cockpit to give Sue and Rosemary some respite from my snoring and was kept awake by ...