Near boat disaster

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We went to Napoli on the ferry, mainly to go to the museum, to see the stuff we thought we’d find at Pompeii.  It appears that people have been helping themselves to murals, mosaics and sculpture from the site since the Bourbons, and Frederik’s aide even took it upon himself to decide what was good enough for the King’s collection, and what should be smashed up so that “foreigners” didn’t get their hands on it.

Napoli seems to be a very busy energetic city, but I couldn’t live there because I’d have a continuous fear of imminent disaster; houses collapsing due to disrepair, a potential for mass moped pile ups at every road (and pavement) junction, revolution by the hovel dwelling downtrodden and disenfranchised masses, and to top it all off a volcano looms over the city.

The Ferry back to Sorrento was the highlight of the trip so far.  Small boat plus big waves is always a good recipe for excitement.  I thought the Med was incapable of being rough, it’s not much more than a pond, but when the wind gets up the waves are big, fast and close together.  They also come from different directions at the same time, so when they get into sync it’s even better.  We were warned not to sit on the front of the boat ‘cos it was rough, but we were sat by then, and descendants of English “heart of oak” sailors could not be seen skulking off to the poop deck or whatever it’s called.

When we were clear of the harbour we were not so fearless; flung up and then dropped, sometimes about 20 ft into the next wave.  Bunty’s whimpering compelled the crew to insist that we moved to the back.  We sat by the window to watch what was going on with the sea.  At one stage I looked to the other side of the boat, and when I looked back, there was a wall of water going past the window.  The boat banged into the wave and the water smashed through the window behind me.

3 people soaked and one cut from flying glass, which seemed a matter of some amusement to the crew.  Fortunately we were in the hands of real Italian professionals, who initiated a well drilled protocol for such incidents; they lashed a bit of advertising hoarding they found below decks to the curtain, which was effective in as far as it reduced the amount and the velocity of flying glass the passengers were peppered with.

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The next day was a bit calmer and we went to look for some beaches around Nerano.  It was Italia day and St Patricks so we celebrated with seafood pasta and a glass of vino di tavola (that’s Italian for plonk) overlooking the sea.

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