We continue our way up the Italian Coastline. There was busy ferry traffic leaving Napoli but we had a good sail to Gaeta with 20-25 winds most of the day. We stopped at a small local restaurant in Gaeta for Tielle (octopus pie) and pasta con cozze. Nothing too interesting about the town.
Our sail to Anzio included a lot ot tacking with rough seas. The Anzio harbour had a narrow entrance and we docked along the city wall. This harbour also had WWII significance as this was the site of some further landings by the Allies including Canadian soldiers. One of our good friends father landed here in 1943 with the 1st Special Service Force, the Devil’s Brigade. The town was rather uninteresting as the buildings were mostly post war since the war razed the town almost completely. We were visited by the Guardia di Finanza (Customs) in Anzio. They were friendly but took up a couple of hours of our morning with paperwork and delayed our exit to Roma.
The Roma marina is man made and we entered through 2 crescent-shaped moles designed to reflect any swell before it enters the marina. However, the waters were quite turbulent at the entrance but calm after we were fully inside. It was a steep passerelle exit from Chinook. The marina is quite isolated with nothing of noteworthy about it other than it was a good marina and relatively close to Roma, about 30km. A number of Romans keep their boats there.
During our sail to Riva di Triano, our excitement of the day was a Guardia di Finanza boat (with the deck gun manned) who jammed our radar and pulled beside us with their fenders lowered for boarding. Fortunately they left after a few questions and did not board the boat. Riva di Triano was a huge sterile marina with 1,180 berths, also in the middle of nowhere. We had dinner close by on the pier – tonnarelli allo scoglio which had become a favourite of ours.
Our sail to Port Ercole had light winds and large rolling waves. The extreme heat continued so afternoon dips in the sea were becoming regular. The Marina di Presidi had cold birra at the marina side bar which we welcomed. The town was quite small.
We had a lazy carefree sail to Punta Alla. The marina was full so we reserved a slip privately with payment in cash. We’re always skeptical of cash payments at the marinas. The marina was fine but our Italian slipmates were not friendly which we found was common for sailing during the summer months. Again, not a destination spot but a good overnight place.