Private Boat Day on the Coast

Sunday, Alex, Allison, Krysta and I rented a private boat in Amalfi, with a skipper Salvatore. It was amazing. Being a boat person at the lake in Alberta my whole life, I love being on boats and seeing things from water. The perspective of the coast from the water is so gorgeous. He tooks us to little caves along the way, which was my favorite part. 

Our first stop was the Grotta dello Smeraldo (the Emerald grotto), which cost 5 euros to enter. It was stunning inside, the water was so clear and the cave formation was stunning but it was really small and probably could have just been 2 or 3 euro but it was still worth seeing. After going along the coast for a bit we hit a tiny island that he said was a private National Park island owned by one person that has exclusive rights to develop on it. I think he said it was called Princess Island-he didn't speak English so one cannot be 100% sure. This island had a few tiny rock formations or maybe could even be considered little islands off of it and we asked to stop the boat and swim. The ocean was really cold but being hardy Albertans we jumped right in. I bought my snorkel but there really wasn't much to see besides some dark fish that weren't that interesting. I think the Mediterranean Sea is the saltiest sea I have ever swam in. 

Everytime I got out of the water and dried off I would have cakes of salt on me that flaked off. I could have brushed it off and used it in a sandwich ;). After we had a swim, we sat on the boat and opened up our snacks. We made sandwiches with bread, olive oil (we bought a small one from the store), tomatoes, prosciutto and mozza. The most unique thing we did was made a Caprese salad in a bag. Each of us got an individual bag filled with tomatoes and mozzarella balls and then poured some oil into our plastic bags on the boat. We ate it with our hands since we didn't have any cutlery. 

This is us making our caprese

Salvatore was laughing at us and probably thought we were crazy Canadians. Since Allison didn't go swimming she started to feel a little seasick rocking on the boat so we decided to keep moving. Unfortunately, the rest of the ride was extremely choppy for her because we were entering open water to make our way to Capri, I personally loved it because it reminded me of seedooing at the lake in the summer. I kept thinking of how fun it would be to ride these waves on the seedoo. 

When we got to Capri we looked at a few caves but then asked him to drop us off at the nearest beach so Allison could have a break. He dropped us off on the backside, which is called Ana Capri. The public beach was made of rocks, which I actually don't mind because it doesn't give me my horrible foot rash that I get from sandy beaches, and it was extremely small but it was breath-taking. The water was so clear and a jade green colour where it was shallow and then a clear, bright blue as it got deeper. 

Once we got back on the boat he took us to another area where the rocks had an arch through it and he told us to get out and swim through it and he would pick us up on the other side. It was amazing because the water looked like the water in the Emerald grotto. When we swam all the way through I saw another cave so I started to swimming towards it because the boat hadn't come around yet. I then hear Alex shout, "hey there's a jellyfish over here!" I wasn't too upset about it because I was so far from him and Krysta until I saw that there were about 3 around me. I decided that the cave really wasn't worth it and started booking it back towards where the boat was coming in. I felt something touch my leg but it didn't sting at all but later on the boat I had a werid mark on my leg that was burning. I think I probably just scraped my leg on a rock earlier that day and it was just salt water irritating it because it wasn't stinging enough to be from a jellyfish. Our guide looked in the water and saw the jellyfish and said something like, they're not white so it's okay, so maybe those ones don't sting you. 

As we continued to circle around the island we saw where the Blue Grotto was and I know I said I would want to do that but after doing the Emerald one and seeing that this one was 15 or so euros each, we decided not to. It was really cool seeing how the waves would smash up agianst the entrance to the blue grotto and that people had to duck completely flat in the little boat so that the waves didn't make them smash their heads up into the short, narrow passageway. 

We ended in Capri because it was the only way to make it back to Forio for family dinner and avoid 4 hours on the SITA bus so we spent the rest of the day getting limoncello slushies.

For dinner we had rabbit, which is very traditional and they were adamant that we all tried it. It tasted just like chicken and it was really good. The only part I didn't love was some people got kidneys and lungs in their serving, but luckily I didn't get those parts so it was fine. 

 After dinner everyone was really tired and wanted to go home because we have a million assignments due this week but a few of us decided that it is our last week here so we should live it up and we went to the festival that was occuring. There was a orchestra playing, which was so nice to listen to and then we walked around and bought some candy. They were selling these werid beans in bins of water and we were really curious as to what they were. While we were standing around in a circle eating candy this probably 9 year old boy started creeping into our circle and he had a bag of those beans. He had one in his hand and I put my hand out for him to give me one to try, he gave it to me and was laughing, I'm pretty sure he had already partially put it in his mouth and licked it but that's okay. They were super salty and didn't have much taste compared to that. I tried to ask him what they were and his two friends and him were just laughing saying No capisco. I tired explaining to them yes I know no capisco but say the name of the bean in Italiano. I kept pointing at the bag and saying Italiano and finally the one boy said Lupini. I repeated Lupini and they all burst out laughing and giggling. Then I remembered that penis is peni and I thought that they had just taught me a bad word. I started shaking my finger at them and laughing and saying no luipeni and we had a funny little argument and then they asked an old lady on the street and she said lupini, so I guess they weren't lying. They called me a "shit" and I laughed but then the older lady scolded them for saying it. 

After this we headed to the beach to sit and watch the fireworks. I have seen really good fireworks in my life, like the ones in Disneyworld and the ones we have at the lake in the summer but these were the most amazing fireworks I've seen in my entire life. They had one that shot up and had parachutes on each side of a string and on the string there was a line of fireworks that shot off. Another one shot into the water and we all thought they were duds but then they lite up on the water and then started shooting fireworks off the water. The other fireworks that were pretty normal were also amazing as well, they were so loud, probably because it was echoing on the water that it shook the ground and sounded like an atomic bomb. 

When we were all tired out after the fireworks and heading home, the boys had all ended work and we ended up running into them just coming out to party. We are already so old and boring.

-A