Marla and Daniel have a plan: See the sights! And here we are next to Marina Piccolo, the small harbor of Capri, which is in fact an anchorage entirely open to the South, not a harbor. And everything is spectacular, the scenery, the toy boats around us, the weather, the water, you name it! We count no less than 8 motor yachts over 40 meters around us, with a smattering of 30+ m sail boats thrown in. There are clearly hundreds of millions of dollars worth of "boats" here, probably several billion!

We've become strategic in our approach to anchorages. Approach a bay full of small motor boats around 4 pm. Throw the anchor outside of them in deep water and wait. At 7 pm the last one of those "piccolos" will be gone and we can move right in! It worked great here in this little bay just West of Marina Piccolo and only one (French) boat joins us for the night with the full moon!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Our first day with Marla and Dan was spent sailing "back" to Procida to anchor in a little bay that we hadn't visited. It was Sunday and apparently 100 other (motor) boaters had the same idea .... But the sailing was good, albeit upwind all the way. The anchorage was very choppy but it was clear why: too many Neapolitan motor boats zipping around! Even at 7 pm we were watching the horizon and there were 25+ motorboats going full throttle back to Naples! But once we sat down for dinner, we no longer needed to hold on to the plates or glasses, just use the slip proof coasters!

Then it was on to "Marina Grande" on Capri, just a short hop across the bay. "No, we don't have any opening. Call back in the afternoon. " (liberal translation from Italian) So we anchored a bit off and took to Sea Biscuit for a ride up the coast and a swim. Turned out that the famous "Blue Grotto" was close enough and we put Sea Biscuit on a mooring and hired a gondoliere to take us in. Not easy with the constant motor boat swells - which would completely fill the entrance at times. But the conditions were clearly not a match for our supreme Italian male specimen. So soon enough we were inside without having bumped any of our heads and our gondoliere was singing Italian areas at full baritone! And yes, there was some otherworldly blue light but that seemed secondary to the experience of getting in and out.

Lo and behold, when we were back on Kincsem, the answer from the Ormeggiatori of Marina Grande was: "yes, we have an opening for 305 Euros at the first floating dock from the entrance." Ok, a bit steep, but we're moving in. Makes it easier to get to the 9pm dinner reservation anyways. When we did, one ferry was moving out at full throttle, of course, another in, all at 50 feet from our bow (we're going backwards toward our dock space at that point). We were 20 feet away from the dock and had the bow line on when the 1 meter high wakes hit and our stern was jerked VERY high above the dock.... I was glad to experience this BEFORE the stern lines went on - no way was I going to stay in that place! So back to the anchorage, with the hope to get back into shore for dinner via the dinghy. To make a long story short: Marina Grande isn't a harbor. It's an aggregation of private docks and there is no way to take a dinghy in there! Incredible! This required some changes to the proceedings that evening and the next morning but good times were had by all nonetheless!

So earlier today, we motored around the West side of the island to where we are now, with a swimming stop in Cala di Rio where we anchored next to a smashing, black hulled 72 footer from a bygone era. I guessed it was Ted Turner's old "Tenacious," but it turned out to be the biggest boat Dick Carter ever designed, owned by the same Italian family since new in 1972! Home port: Portofino! How do I know? I swam over and was invited onboard via the all carbon swim ladder and offered a glass of wine or water - one of which was served promptly by one of the two crew - decked out in white polos and khaki shorts. That is class! But one of the ladies on board asked longingly about our air conditioning .....