We’re here at the “Yacht Club of Agropoli” just 30 miles south of Salerno and are enjoying every second. Nicki is running the washing machine and I’m splashing around on the deck with a hose that’s dripping a meager stream of water. The shore voltage is at 209 V instead of the normal 230V. No matter. We arrived here yesterday and we’ve finally left the super yachts behind. Agropoli is a town of 40,000 souls and the harbor, in addition to some fishing boats, is full of the little motor boats (and some sail boats) these souls drive around when they take time out of their busy lives. The harbor is very attractively built underneath a high bluff with the medieval town of Agropoli on top. Nobody has created any wake and people on the dock are very friendly. The YC consists of one shaky pontoon run by Pietro. He jumped on our bow from the neighboring boat to tie up the bow line to the mooring when he realized that it was just the Admiral and me on the boat (totally unnecessary of course).

Earlier today we visited the Paestum site, where there are ruins of a Greek colony including 3 well-preserved temples of massive proportions. Quite impressive and efficiently checked off in 3 hours!

The next stop after Stabia Marina was Marina D’Arechi, a new marina half full with motor boats and a smattering of visiting yachts on the way south, built next to some desolate storage buildings that are falling apart. Not very attractive but it is close to Salerno and its claim to fame is that it offers “decalcified” water. Yes, the water from the hoses is actually run through filters to take out the calcium which water around the Med is normally full off. It’s quite a change if you’d like to clean the stainless and the windows on the boat. Super yachts in the Med normally have their own filter system so this marina let’s us have good looking stainless and windows for once, at least! Well, after much splashing around, the Admiral did notice a difference and that’s all that counts! But after a day in D’Arechi we noticed a foul smell and decided to leave quickly. The sail to Agropoli was actually mostly a calm sail, but with some exciting 25 kn gusts in the last few miles. Strange, with a forecast of 5 knots, but the forecasting around here seems to have a higher miss rate than we’re used to. The best bet with a huge high parked above us is always: 6-10 kn sea breeze after noon, dying away at 5 or 6 pm, 3-5 kn land breeze during the night.