The Manhunt Part II

I ran to the police station and found that it was closed.  A vending machine repair man was there.  He had been waiting for ten minutes.  We waited together for another twenty, when someone let us in.

The officer told me that they were closed and that I should come back the next morning.

“Poko tempo! [little time!]”  I told him.  I was unable to communicate anything else.  When I started looking through my backpack for my copy of the police report to help me he told me again that they were closed.

Eventually we made a phone call to someone in charge who didn’t speak much English. I kept asking the officer on my end if I could use Google translate on his computer to talk to him so that he could relay what I say to the man at the other end of the phone, he kept saying no.

The man at the other end told the officer next to me to have me use Google translate.

I may or may not have successfully explained the issue.

“Do you have the coordinates?”  They asked me.

“No, but we can get them from NOAA, or maybe even the Italian Coast Guard.”

“So you don’t have them?”

“No.  I don’t.”

“What’s your phone number?”  the voice on the phone asked me.

“I don’t have one.” I told him, watching my hope ship sail away.

“Where are you staying?”  The officer tried.

“At the bar near the beach.”  I had forgotten the name of the bar.  The ship sailed over the horizon.

The conversation soon ended.  My additional attempts to communicate with the officer using google translate were completely unsuccessful.

When I left the officer suggested I try the patrol station down the street.  I did, and they told me I needed to go to the police station.

I went back to the Simonetti.

“How’s it going?”  The owner asked me with a smile.

“Not good.”  I explained my troubles.

He called Julie, the waitress that speaks English.  We got in his car, picked her up, and went back to the station.  Another officer was there this time and we only waited twenty minutes to be let in.  Meanwhile I had gotten the number of phone number of the US air force officer that had contacted my brother.

My friends explained to the officer the situation.  The police officer let me use their wifi connection, thank god.  He couldn’t call America, but I could with Skype. The friendly sergeant at the other end was happy to give me the GPS coordinates - 37'57.87N, 16'06.27E.  I divided the minutes by 60 and plugged the results into google maps.

The officer who had taken my report earlier arrived at the station.  The police looked over my shoulder as I pinpointed the location of my PLB.  The map told me the PLB was at sea about 10 meters off the beach, near where my kayak had originally been parked.

Hopefully the margin of error meant that the villain was on the beach and not that my PLB had activated itself when someone threw it away.  

The police put on theri gun belts, ready to go check it out.  My friends and I got in the car and drove. We got there first, but kept on driving to Simonetti.  The driver explained to me that we needed to let the police take it from here.  Not entirely my style, since I was there anyways, but I respected the notion.

I went to the bar to wait.  

The Italian Air Force called me to make sure I was okay.  They told me that the locator beacon was accurate to 100 meters, and that I would need specialized radio equipment to get closer than that.  The beacon would broadcast my location approximately once every hour or two depending on when the satellite passed overhead.

I saw the owner sneak off so I followed him and joined the search operation on the beach in the dark.  My two friends and I and the two officers scoured the sand, and the junk, and the boats pulled up on the beach, but no luck.  Any miscreants who might have been perpetrators had long since wandered off.  

I didn’t even have my super bright headlamp to see in the dark since it was stolen.

We didn’t find the beacon.

A young man told me that he would like to get me a new PLB to replace the one that I had lost.  He thought he could have it in a week.  In fact, here in this town there’s a store that sells them.

Another fellow told me that he wanted to help me pay for my equipment so that I wouldn’t think poorly of the town.  He insisted.  “Most people here are good,” he told me, “only a few are crooks.”

My host from the night before told me he had gone with my hooligan to talk to the local mob boss.  The boss had wanted to help.  He had known about my problem since the theft took place at three AM.  But his hands were tied.  As it was, he was already in trouble with the law and needed to stay on the straight and narrow for the time being.

I resolved to get new coordinates in the morning and try again in the light.  If the coordinates moved then we would know the beacon was still with someone and the police or I could try to follow them to recover the PLB and maybe even catch a bad guy.  If the beacon didn’t move then I would search the beach again.  If I didn’t find it on land, I would dive for it.

The owner of the restaurant asked me if I would like to store my boat inside overnight.  I took him up on the offer.  The young fellow who told me he knew where I could replace my beacon came to help me move my kayak up the beach to the restaurant.  

A small crowd of people gathered around my kayak to take a look at it.  One of them pulled my flashing beeping PLB out from deep in the cockpit.

Hooray, it was returned.  I searched the boat.  Only the PLB was returned, the rest was still gone.

The owner of Simonetti asked me to stay another day, today, in town.  I agreed, hoping more of my gear would turn up, but so far, no luck.

The Manhunt Part I

12/12/2013

The forecast the day before had said force five headwinds in the morning and force four in the afternoon.  So I slept in and then made my way to Simonetti, the restaurant with internet access.

When I left, my host warned me, “Don’t trust anyone.”

“I trusted you, and got a warm bed to sleep in for it,”  I told him.  I like trusting people.  I think it’s good for people to trust people.  I think it makes the world a better place.

“Everyone here is Mafia.”  He told me.  “Calabria is one of the cocaine capitals of the world.  Billions of dollars of the stuff come through here on the way to Western Europe.”

I figured that if I keep my nose clean I could stay away from that sort of crime.

At Simonetti, I saw the forecast had improved overnight.  I could leave right away.  I went to my kayak.

That was odd, my life jacket and paddle lay discarded next to the boat and not in the cockpit.  My rope and paddle tether lay on my deck.  They had been in my emergency quick grab bag in my cockpit.  The bag also contained my crackers, pulley, night lights, VHF radio, and emergency distress beacon.

The dry bag was gone.  The rope it had been clipped to lay limp in the puddle in my boat.

I was upset.

I looked at the footprints around my boat.  Plenty of them were mine and plenty weren’t.  Apparently a number of people had approached my boat and there was no single trail I could follow in case the thief was closeby.  In the loose sand there were no prints I could meaningfully photograph.

Two fishermen were working in a small skiff nearby.  With considerable effort, I managed to communicate that my equipment was stolen.  They expressed pity, but had seen nothing.

I walked back to Simonetti to tell them I was headed to the police department and ask if they had seen anything.  Out in front, I identified a hooligan.  A young man who seemed to be hanging around the beach.

I told him my gear was stolen and asked him if he had seen anything.  No, he hadn’t, but he was happy to take me to the police station.

I got in his car.  I didn’t understand a lot of what he was saying on account of the language barrier.  He tried to make up for it by speaking louder.

The day before I had seen the police station while looking for a wi-fi connection.  We weren’t on our way to the police station.

Brancaleone is a small town of 3,500 people.  I was surprised to discover that it had a slum.  We drove down an unpaved street surrounded by small homes with large fences.  Garbage was strewn everywhere.

We were not on our way to the police station.  We passed a couple of pedestrians, and my hooligan stopped the car to ask them what they knew about my stolen gear.

We were taking the law into our own hands.

We stopped the car and got out.  A dog barked at me.  We walked through a gate into a grungy yard with a couple of single-story dirty concrete gray houses facing eachother.

We were surrounded by three women, and my hooligan tried explaining my predicament.  They started talking at me.  I didn’t understand a word.  They were yelling at me.

I stepped back so that I could see them all.  I showed no fear and watched their hands as one of them clearly indicated to me that if I continued along this path I would find myself gutted.

They kept yelling at me, and I didn’t understand.  I stood my ground.  Cool confidence.  My hooligan said nothing.  Finally they seemed to be wrapping up the barrage of threats and insults with one final sentiment that I had heard enough times to understand.

“And what the hell is wrong with you that you’re not wearing any shoes?!”

We walked away.  I tried to maintain that delicate balance between not walking backwards and not losing sight of a threatening person.

We got back in the car and drove to the police station.

The Police in Brancaleone are much more helpful than the police in Barcelona.  For starters, they believed me.  Not only did they sympathetically make a report, they looked into where I can replace my gear.  

I could find a new radio in Calabria, they told me, but a new PLB - not in Italy.

They asked questions like “Is there any way we can get the coordinates of your emergency personal locator beacon (PLB)?”

“Only if it’s activated.”  I told them sadly.  That would be great, if we could track the villain.

I went back to my boat.  I searched the area around it with no luck.  I decided not to kayak.  White caps were scattered across the sea and the waves were formidable.  

I paddled two hundred meters to park my boat in front of the restaurant where the local fishermen and I would keep a better watch on it.

I surfed in to the beach, did a bunch of rolls, and began to feel better.  

I was filling out NPS job applications in the afternoon when my brother contacted me.

“Dov, is everything okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”  I asked him.

“Your beacon went off.”  He told me.

Woot!  This was my opportunity to recover my stolen gear.  The thief was broadcasting his location.

“What’s your phone number?”  My brother asked me.

“My phone is broken.”

“They’ll email you.”

I couldn’t wait.  Time was of the essence.  How long would the beacon be active?  What if they shut it off?

Come back tomorrow for part II.

Day 81

12/10/2013

The fellow who invited me over to shower in the afternoon ended up inviting me to sleep over. He himself had arrived from Morocco six months ago and had found the local community to be as friendly as I had.

His apartment was a large room that looked as though it had been converted from some commercial purpose. In an overwhelming display of hospitality, he told me that he would be staying with a friend so that I would have the whole place to myself. I tried to dissuade him, but effectively communicated that I was scared to be alone.

“Don't worry, my friend’s grandmother lives across the street.  This is a safe area.”

I thought maybe he was leaving because he was giving me all of his blankets, so I asked if I should bring my sleeping bag.

He understood from this that I would prefer to sleep with my own sleeping bag than his blankets and told me it wouldn’t be a problem if I used my own sleeping bag.

I gave up and slept wonderfully after watching the episode of Star Trek where they go back in time.

The next morning, my phone wouldn’t turn on.  I use my phone to check the weather and blog and communicate with the world.  It doesn’t work anymore.

For breakfast I was excited to have a new kind of chickpeas.  The night before I found in the supermarket a brand that cost 50 cents instead of the usual 65.

They tasted like salty rat sludge, that is to say, I will be spending the extra 15 cents in the future.

I put in on flat waters and began to kayak towards one of the corners of Italy.  Sandy white mountains with pine trees and other southern looking plants I didn’t recognize rose up gradually from the shore.

As I approached the corner a headwind steadily picked up to a force four, the strongest wind I’m willing to paddle into.  

Around the corner I headed north.  I don’t like the prospect of going north, since it will get colder, but I’m pleased since the change in direction signifies that I’m now on the last major section of Italy before my big crossing.  The big crossing to Greece scares me, but with good weather I should be able to do it.

Over the last few days of paddling single car trains periodically ran along the tracks.  Farther north they have more cars, but down here I guess there just aren’t that many people.

The head wind pummeled me.  The forecast called for conditions to deteriorate further, so at 10:00, three hours after I started, I pulled over to the beach and took out.  

I lifted my kayak with the usual colossal feat of strength, this time accompanied by a roar, stumbled backwards and fell with the 800 pound boat landing on top of me.

If I didn’t have near hulk-like powers I probably would have been crushed, but as it was I lay there for a few minutes and decided I was fine, then yanked my leg out from under it.

I lifted again.  I try to lift my kayak without using my back, but I’m not sure if I have a clue how to do that.  I roared again, then resumed my slow progress to the waterline.

Once there, I opened the hatches, took off my jacket and skirt and put on my fleece and shell.

I impressed a couple of locals with the abbreviated story my journey, but not so much that I got anything resembling an invitation.

Since it was still early in the day, I decided I would search for a wifi connection. There was a bar nearby, but they told me they didn’t have one.  I walked for an hour to every bar, restaurant, and bakery in the town.  Everyone told me to go to Internet Point where I could pay for a connection.

Small houses with walled gardens backed up to railroad tracks.  An orange tree hung heavily with fruit out towards the tracks.  I looked both ways.  I didn’t see a train, so I hopped onto the railroad and went to pick a fruit.  Just I was reaching my hand out a woman stepped onto her back porch.  She was talking in Italian and looking at me.  I don’t know if she was talking to me and I don’t know what she was saying, but I tried to scurry casually off, no orange in had.

I gave up and wandered back to the first bar near my boat and dejectedly asked them if I could sit and use their electricity for my computer.

Sure, no problem.  While I sat I told them my story.  In exchange they gave me their wi fi code and offered me free lunch.

[gallery type="rectangular" ids="3103,3104,3105,3106,3107,3108,3109,3110"]

Nautical miles paddled: 7

Total since Naples: 271

Current location: 37.962729,16.102287

Day 80

My hosts wonderful hosts dropped me off at my kayak and hung around to chat while I packed it up.  By 8:00, I was on my way across the southernmost edge of mainland Italy.  At first the weather was calm but gradually a tail wind grew in strength and and the chop jostled me along.

I’m running out of chia seeds.  Recently I’ve been filling two one liter bottles with three ounces of chia and the rest water.  It’s great energy and easy to digest while paddling.  I found that if I tried to put more chia seeds in than the three ounces then the seeds would coagulate to form chia slugs.  Like real slugs, they’re super nutritious, but have a tendency to slide down the wrong way.

In order to get enough calories I’ve been eating whole wheat crackers every other hour.  With the last of my chia seeds in sight though, I tried today eating only the crackers.  I didn’t have an energy crash, but I was definitely running low.

There are no ports down here, and my research showed me that there are two good places to make beach landings in the area.  The first is in Marina Piazzi and the second in Bianco.  I arrived in Piazza with another thirteen miles left before Bianco at noon, and since I didn’t want to risk finishing in the dark, I decided to call it a day.

It didn’t help that it was cold and cloudy with worsening sea conditions.  I was especially inclined to take it easy on myself since I’ve been a little sick lately.

I found the beach and took out, though after the fact I realized that it was the wrong beach.  The easy beach to get out at was around the next corner.

I found a bar to sit and write at and one of the fellows who works here invited me to shower in his home around the corner.  He’s from Morocco so I had fun trying to remember all the Arabic words I know.

Interestingly, the two different weather sites I use, passageweather and lamma have opposite forecasts for tomorrow.  Once says I’ll have a force four headwind and the other a tailwind.

[gallery type="rectangular" ids="3097,3098,3099,3100"]



Nautical miles paddled:  11.5

Total since Naples: 264

Current location:  37.918794,15.978143

 

Day 79

12/5/2013

When I first set out from Naples I was using a paddle leash. A coil connected the center of my paddle to my kayak. I liked being able to put my paddle down on the water and do other things with my handsץ  Sometimes though, the paddle would get pushed under the boat or wander a little farther than I liked. So I tied a bungee loop towards the front of my bow deck so that I could slide my paddle in up front and then stick it under the bungees near the cockpit and hold it on my deck. I removed the paddle leash so that I wouldn't have to carry it, every ounce counts.

This morning I launched from the kayaking club in Catona, a satellite of the one in Reggio Calabria, whose president came to see me off. I crossed the bay in front of Reggio Calabria and then another one with a healthy tailwind. This was the first time since Naples that I had this sort of push and I was very pleased with it.

Off to my right I could see Sicily and her mountains. Farther back I saw Mt. Etna well  above the others, it’s snowy heights shone brightly in the sun. The top was shaped like a spoon and smoke rose up from it all day.

My final destination was a port about five miles passed my hosts house, and he had once again, with extraordinary kindness, offered to pick me up in the evening and drop me off in the morning.

However, as I passed his house I thought I might save him the trouble and take out early. I could do the extra five miles the next day which was going to be a short day anyways. I needed to make a beach landing. The beach in my host’s neighborhood is separated by squat sea walls at even intervals that reach a short distance out from the beach.

Since I had the strong tail wind I pulled in just behind one of the walls where the water was calmest. I placed my paddle shaft on the deck just behind my cockpit perpendicular to the boat. I held it there with both hands behind me and leaned so that the out blade was on the sand below, stabilizing the boat.

The small waves were still pushing me back and forth, dragging the blade along the bottom, so I used my arms to pick my weight up and slide my butt onto my back deck. I pulled my legs out and was free of my cockpit. My boat is tricky to exit gracefully.

Standing in the water I grabbed my deck line and pulled my boat up onto the beach.

My host lives in a small gated community about a block away from the beach. I hopped over the gate and went to his home, but no one was there. I had befriended a dog that lived outside during my last visit, but now he was barking at me. I approached trying to make friendly sounds and the dog put its tail between its legs and cried while edging away. So I left.

Back at my kayak my paddle was missing. Rats. At least I had a spare.

When did I have my paddle last? Oh, I remembered. I guess the sea had it now. I climbed onto the sea wall and looked out. I didn't see it, it was after all a windy day.

I ran south on the beach. It had washed up at the base of the next seawall.

I was back on my way. I paddled under some beige cliffs with a really nice house on top. Maybe when I'm a rich and famous kayaker I'll have a nice house on top of a cliff.

I arrived at the port. A sand bar blocked the entrance and a fisherman informed me the port was closed. I made another exit in the surf. This time the sea was rougher and I was less graceful. Sand got into my cockpit and the hull is probably a bit thinner in places, but I remembered not to lose my paddle.

[gallery type="rectangular" ids="3074,3075,3076,3077,3078,3079,3080,3081,3082,3083,3084,3085,3086,3087,3088,3091"]



 

Nautical miles paddled: 18

Total Since Naples: 252.5

Current Location: 37.925801,15.733255

Day 78

12/3/2013

It was raining.  I went back to sleep for another hour and a half, when I woke up it was still raining - raining hard.  I ate, packed my things up, and walked out of the warm house into the cold rain.

With a few spectators I put my drytop on, loaded my boat on the jetski dock, and launched.  The spectators watched from under an awning.

I paddled in the rain.  The cliffs climbed into mountains that climbed into the dark low hanging clouds.  Muddy waterfalls poured down them and colored the clear deep blue brown.

I passed a small stone house at the bottom of a mountain.  It looked as though it was only accessible by sea.

The chafing was fire.  With every stroke I was burnt with pain.  I had to stop and fix it.  If I couldn’t I would have to stop.

I tried releasing my skirt from the combing and paddling.  My sides still burned.  I unzipped my life jacked, and my sides still burned.  I unclipped the belt at the bottom of my jacket, and the pain was almost gone.

Around noon the rain let up.

I paddled towards the Strait of Messina that cuts the two mile gap between Sicily and mainland Italy.

There was definitely a current coming from the strait.

I pushed into it and arrived in Scilla.  It’s a small town with a small port. A few rowboats floated in the three sided stone square tied by long ropes to the sides.  There were no docks and the walls were high so I got out on a boat ramp.  I took a 10 minute break to gather some information and stretch my legs before entering the straight.

I had heard from people who were not boaters that the strait has strong currents, but nobody was sure how strong or which way they went when.

A fisherman in Scilla who spoke no English and was unable to understand my attempts at Itallian may or may not have told me that there was a two knot current in the center but if I stayed close to the sides I should be alright.

A  sign told me that Scilla was the most beautiful town in Calabria. The sign also told me that there was once a beautiful naiad who had been turned into a monster by the jealous Greek god Amphitrite.  The monster, named Scilla, was still in the strait.  I wondered if I would meet it and use my Great Kayaking Magic to turn the creature back into a naiad again.  I imagine such a shining example of immortal beauty would be extremely grateful.

I paddled into the strait.  At first the water was choppy and I employed intensive edging to stay near the shore, but once I was completely within the strait everything flattened out and I didn’t feel the current.

The day was getting on though and I was starting to get tired.  Fisherman told me that the town above me was not yet Reggio Calabrio, my destination but Villa San Giovani.

A set of tall waves rushed at me.  I turned sharply to face into them.  I suspect they were the wake of some enormous boat that passed earlier in the center of the channel.

I approached the mouth of a ferry and industrial port with a sea wall next to me and asked one of the fishermen above it if there was a nice sailing port I could pull up in.

No, there wasn’t, but I should be careful ahead. Lots of big boats come in and out of this port.

I had stopped paddling to talk.  The current was extremely strong and moving me backwards.

I crossed the mouth of a port.  When I was half way across the large opening, an enormous boat, the TOURISTIC, turned sharply toward me from my starboard side.  As I slowly pushed forward the ugly monster seemed to be turning its bow, always pointing at me, and churning closer.  I stopped so that she could keep on turning, but she stopped turning with me and kept on churning closer.  I waited a moment and she roared and continued her mush Dov course.  With what little strength I had, I sprinted into the current to escape the charge.

If that was Scylla, then she was beyond my powers.  Passed the mouth of the port the water was rippling a lot.  That meant the current was about to do something funky.  When I hit the ripples a powerful current (Charybdis?) thrust me towards the middle of the channel. Rather than end up in the freighter zone I sprinted directly into it, pressing south and towards the beach.  One inch at a time, a little bit and then a little bit more, my colossal struggle moved me forward.  And as I got away from the hot spot, the current lessened.

I was near the beach and while the current was still present, it had died down to a single knot or knot and a half.  I was spent and would end my day at the very next opportunity.

Ahead I could see a slightly sheltered beach with some sailboats pulled up onto it.  Eventually I arrived and Hung around for a little while trying to decide whether or not to make the beach landing.  The makeshift boat storage center was between railroad tracks and the strait.  Fishermen were hanging around and other people who seemed to be doing nothing at all.

I kept on going, tired as I was.  I asked an old man how far to Regio Calabrio and he told me just around the corner.  I went around the corner and saw it.  Not so near.  To my left there was a small bay and at the very end of it four kayakers.

Four kayakers!  I was saved!  Not only would they undoubtedly help me get off the water and store my kayaks somewhere safe for the night, we could share a true camaraderie.

They were farther away than I had realized, and as I got closer it began to appear that the tell tale up and down of the blades that gives us kayakers unique silhouette might have been misleading.

But it wasn’t, I could see better and I saw that they were taking out.  Oh no, what if I didn’t get to them in time?  What if I didn’t make it?  I was so tired and the day was ending.  They were my last hope.

One of them wasn’t getting out.  One of the kayaks was coming towards me.  We approached each other.  She was beautiful.  What were the odds?  Not only would I be saved by a kayaker, but that she would be a beautiful lady.

She took me to her club to store my kayak for the night, and then the four of us went to the central kayaking hub in Regio Calabrio.  I met the president and he showed me around.  I got to shower.

They have in the club an artificial kayak surrounded by jet pools to simulate and train.

They also have a gym with a modern dance class in the evenings.  I was waiting for my friend to pick me up.  Loud music was blasting out of the gym and a group of fifteen or twenty leotard clad ladies were rocking pretty hard.

I joined in the back trying to learn the steps and keep up.  After about 15 seconds the class stopped and the instructor looked at me in the wall mirror and spoke Italian. I’m not sure what she said and a few of the ladies turned around, then we resumed class.

I didn’t learn the dance we were working on, but I think by the end I was getting closer.  My bootie shaking skills definitely improved and I certainly warmed up.  I had to take a break in the middle to shed my fleece, wool hat, and long underwear.

When I had to go all the ladies smiled, waved and said goodbye to me at the same time.  Bucket list check.

I love the Regio Calbrio kayaking club!

[gallery type="rectangular" ids="3047,3048,3049,3050,3051,3052,3053,3054,3055,3056,3057,3058,3059,3060,3061,3062,3063,3064,3065,3066,3067,3068,3069"]

Nautical miles paddled: 19

Total since Naples: 234.5

Current Locations: 38.178877,15.642141

Day 77

12/2/2013

On Sunday my hosts dropped me off in Tropea so that I could start paddling early the next morning for the promised good weather.

The dock hands in the port were all happy to see me. I had definitely spent too long there.

For all that I wanted to kayak and progress in my quest, I had grown overly fond of sitting around in a house with a fireplace and pasta, fish, cake and above all, meat. In the morning, I dragged my feet.

Finally, at ten to 8:00 in the morning I was ready to go. One of the friendly dockhands helped my carry my kayak from the storage location, a concession building under construction in the port, to the water. My boat is heavy when it's loaded, so I guess I should be thankful he only dropped it once causing me to scream like a city girl with a bat in her hair.

The weather had warmed up from the freezing snow in the mountains hail and rain on the coast to t-shirt kayak weather.

As I paddled around the point, the water was a little choppy and I was taking the waves head on, but there was almost no wind. All told, the weather was wonderful. All that waiting brought me something that may have been worth waiting for.

The water was clear and I could see the sandy bottom far below with occasional colonies of seaweed waving up at me. The cliffs were a light orange sandstone.

Once I was passed the point I cut away from the land heading directly for Palmi. At first the sea was even more choppy than earlier, but as the day wore on it relaxed into slow glassy swells.

[gallery type="rectangular" ids="2999,3000,3001,3002,3003,3004,3005,3006,3007,3008,3009"]

A ship pulled out of a port and seemed to be heading towards me.  I contacted them on my radio to make sure they saw me and wouldn’t accidentally repaint their hull with kayaker.  They answered that they did in fact see me, or at least, someone on the radio said something Italian that sounded like it might have been what I was looking for, and since this was the first time anyone ever responded to me on the radio, I was thrilled.

I arrived at the port in Palmi delighted that my belly chafing for the day was at an end. The port itself was crowded with fishing boats and even a few sailboats. A beach on the far side hosted row boats and an enormous double masted wooden sailboat that looked like it had been made before plastic and fiberglass was in dry dock. What there wasn't was any kind of office or potential shower.

When I pray to god I ask for some basic things: water, shower, electricity, wi fi, a supermarket and shelter.

I found a hose, then began walking towards the supermarket. The port was at the base of an empty mountain and the town proper a kilometer away. The main street had two shops open in the winter, a small minimarket and fishing supplies store and a pizzeria. Neither of them took credit cards and I didn't have any cash.

The cashier told me that I could find an ATM one town over, about five km away.

I found a campground. Like most campgrounds I'd seen, it was basically an RV parking lot. I walked in and met the owner whose house was on the property.

No, I wouldn't sleep out in the lot as though I were an RV. I'm not an RV. I would be a guest in his home. Was there anything at all he could get me? I met his wife and son. The young man spoke English and was able to translate the mother's question for me. Was there anything at all she could get me?

I lit my Chanuka candles outside.  They blew out a few times so I dutifully relit them.  My younger host asked me about them.

Hmmm... Why is it we celebrate Chanuka again?  Oh yah, we won a civil war against the Romans in Israel I told him.  Afterwards I remembered that it was the Greeks.

He even went with me back to the port and got permission for me to leave my kayak there overnight with Charter Line, a company that runs snorkeling tours in the area.

So if you find yourself RVing in southern Italy, check out Sosta Camper Prajola for a great RV parking lot experience right next to the beach and under a mountain. Then have fun snorkeling with Charter Line.

[gallery type="rectangular" ids="2985,2986,2987,2988,2989,2990,2991,2992"]

 

Nautical miles paddled: 20

Totall since Napoli: 215.5

Current location: 38.390379,15.862739