Skip to main content
A boat trip up the Italian coast sounded like the adventure that we needed. We had met up with an American couple, Brett and Becky, who had suggested the idea. Although a little outside the budget, we decided that we would never be able to do it if we were on our own so might as well take the plunge.

We had landed ourselves in Cinque Terre, a touristy spot along the eastern coast of Italy. Five little towns - in no particular order - Monterossa, Vernaza, Manarola, Riomaggiore and Corniglia.

Brett was our captain to start with. he had been given a short lesson by our 'friendly' boat renter. He had kindly asked us to come back in 20 minutes when we first approached him. We thought it was because he was waiting for a boat to get back. As it turned out, he was simply not quite ready to get up from under his umbrella to move our boat out.

As we headed out, I could feel myself relaxing even more than I already was. It had been a great relief to get to this place after a busy 4 days in Rome. Now, here we were on the sea.

We came upon a little cave along the cliff rock and decided to dock. Brett pulled out our tiny anchor and threw it in to the bottom of the sea. I had a brief contemplation about how we might get it back out again if it got stuck but realized that that was it's purpose. To stick to the ground so that the boat didn't move.

Becky and I watched the boys like kids jump into the cool water and begin to swim towards the dark cave. We had decided that murky darkness was overshadowed by the urge to sit in the beaming sun. We could hear them chatting in the distance - we simply rolled our eyes and laughed at their childish excitement.

It wasn't long before they were back - 'It was like Goonies, really creepy' bellowed D., as he and Brett began swimming back to the boat. They told of the freaky crevace in the rock that made it appear there could be something like a snake or eel hiding behind. I realized my choice of the boat was a good one.

There was so much happiness in that 15 minutes. We felt on top of the world, like jet setters with our own little boat - stopping and starting whenever we wanted. This was going to be a great day. Well, sort of.

With the boys back on the boat, it was time to go. We hadn't gone to far from Monterossa and wanted to see all the cities before the end of the day. We were ready to pull our anchor in and head off.

Pull in the anchor. Not when it's stuck between two rocks. We all took turns trying to yank at the anchor. We drove the boat in circles, thinking the pull would dislodge it from the two rocks. We dove underneath the water and pickled our eyes by opening them under the sea to find it.

The day of adventure was turning out to be a little more than we expected.

(to be continued..)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Korean Drivers Manual

1 - First and foremost, you are the only car on the road. Please drive this way. 2 - Be sure to keep a tally of the number of pedestrians you hit. 10 points for old ladies, 20 for young children (they can run faster you see). You can also add 5 points for each near miss and pat yourself on the back for trying. 3 - Red lights can tend to get in the way of your driving. Simply proceed through them if you need to. Honk your horn to make sure the cars that actually have the right of way know you'll be sailing through the intersection. 4 - Signalling is recommended but your car does not have blind spots. Just go ahead an change lanes. 5 - It works best if you keep one foot on the gas and one foot on the brakes at all times. This will allow you to continually pump the breaks all the way down the street avoiding 'other cars' while still revving your engine and going at the speed of light during those intervals when you are not slamming on your brakes. (By 'other cars' I

They Started a Heat Wave

(sing) a tropical heat wave.... (White Christmas fans? anyone? c'mon..) Yes, there is a heat wave, with warm sun and highs of 30 but NOT HERE IN KOREA. Yes, it is warm and humid but there is no sun. Do you want to know where the sun has ended up? BELFAST!! Lucky bastards....I wanted a tan by August gosh darnit - I should have stayed with the Guinness. And, it wouldn't have been a day on this blog without some reference to the weather. The weekend was a nice long relaxing one but super panic hit on Monday night and I was ready to get out of the house. I was freaking out yet again about the garbage (what the hell is wrong with me?) and didn't have a great sleep. There is something to be said for cooping yourself up in your house to watch English speaking DVDs for a day. But I think this only stops you from experiencing the culture. I did venture out on Saturday by bus (whoa, crazy bus drivers) to Pusan where the open markets you can barter and get cheap shirts - thanks to my

Beer Goggles and Nostalgia

We've all had a 'beer goggles' moment, one where something just looked SO DAMN GOOD that you leapt in feet first or lips first, in awe of your chance encounter with some kind of greatness. I ended up clicking on an ad link in Facebook today about teaching in Korea and I was quite impressed by the video for its 'beer goggles' way of presenting Sparkling Korea. Sparkling Korea For most of you who don't know, Sparkling Korea is actually Korea Tourism's slogan for the place. It was quite a funny inside joke of all us teachers about how 'Sparkling' the place could be. The cities had their own slogans, usually with really ridiculous adjectives placed in front of the town's name. Unfortunately none come to mind however when I saw this video, I thought for sure the makers could work for Korea Tourism. A few things they are correct - you CAN save $1000 a month and YOU DO get a bonus when you leave. You can also stress for the duration of your contract abo