Bandit Country

One we passed through the Straits of Messina we were in new territory in the far south of Calabria.  There is a saying in Italy that “nothing works in Calabria” and we found plenty of evidence to support this claim.  About twenty miles South of the Straits, at the end of Italy’s big toe is the port of Saline Joniche.  It’s a small industrial port with a railway station, built a couple of decades ago for no obvious purpose other than to provide kickbacks to corrupt politicians and Mafia bosses.  We arrived there on a blisteringly hot afternoon and motored cautiously up to the harbour.  None of the industry is working and the harbour mouth is now completely blocked by a sandbank.  Rather than dredge the entrance some enterprising soul has blasted a hole through the harbour wall to allow passage to the few small local fishing boats and cruisers that use it.  Inside, through the rubble of the improvised entrance it looked hot and dead, so we decided to move on.  The hills around this area have a reputation as bandit country where kidnappers hide their hostages and the Carabinieri only patrol with armoured cars and helicopters.

The next day we sailed to Rocella Ionica, a marina completed a couple of years ago.  It’s one of the best equipped in Italy, with space for five or six hundred yachts on smart finger pontoons with lots of power and water outlets, a restaurant and new marina offices.  However, since it was completed no one has been appointed to run it and the power isn’t connected.  As a result visiting yachts can just come and stay and fill up with water for no charge.  Inside we found a fleet of foreign yachts on passage to and from Greece and Turkey, making use of the free facilities which most of them would have been happy to pay for.