Back in 2008, I had a chance to visit the islands and coastline in the Gulf of Salerno, Italy during an amazing trip with a small sailing boat. It was really great, one of the best excursions of my life. You have a totally different view of these little towns and villages if you look at them from the sea. It is really amazing how high they have built houses up on the rocks. Though it was a long time ago, I can still vividly remember the picturesque towns, the wonderful view of the horizon, the squeaking sound of the seagulls, the incomparable smell of salty water and the gorgeous taste of Italian red wine. I wish to share these memories with you in this series of posts.
This is a very subjective travel blog, so before introducing the following wonderful spot to visit, today I would rather continue with some impressions about living on the water. I love all sorts of traveling. Similarly to airports, harbors also have a unique atmosphere. Everybody is very helpful and open in the sailor community. Larger harbors are usually very busy with all sorts of boats from the giants until the really tiny ones. It is really great fun to find your boat among the hundreds of similar ones, this is basically that you can expect to see:
Or from a different angle this:
Boats are very cleverly designed, there is basically no space that is useless, there are tricky boxes and cupboards everywhere. You can transform the kitchen table and benches to a double bed, the stove can be covered to have more place in the kitchen to prepare things etc. Having a trip with a sailboat is an excellent form of holiday for a group of friends, because you have all the comfort you need on the boat and you enjoy the freedom of moving around and visit wonderful places - without needing to worry about where to are going to sleep. Sometimes the party goes to the extremes... But then you can spend the night under the blue sky... :-)
I guess boats can also have personalities, you meet all sorts of them as you move around. Let me show you some that we met during our journey.
The oldfashioned pal:
The yuppie:
The star lawyer:
The lonely warrior:
The knight:
The kid:
Two-egg twins:
Village people:
The grandfather:
Big daddy:
The enormous whale with the little minnow:
Sailing means freedom: you can go wherever you want as long as you are out on the wonderful blue water. I even learned to navigate the boat. It was so much fun! Stay tuned I will come back with more details soon... :-)
If you are interested in the first part of this series, you can find it here.