Sailing in South Italy (Procida Island) September 2012

Sailing in South Italy (Procida Island) September 2012

And here I am, back to London from Italy, using the opportunity to write while waiting for the Gatwick express train to go home to St Pancrass Station. After I got back from Boston I spent few days in London for the Yoga Therapy course, to take off again to a wonderful Italy. I've lended in Rome, took a shuttle bus to Rome Termini and then Intercity train to Central Naples. After one quarter of hour I ended up on the sailing boat Ydra2 Amel 53". My captain was there to greet me and take me to a lovely island of Procida. It takes only a couple of hours on a sailing boat to get there. We had got a nice 'caprese salad' (mozzarella with tomatoes and fresh basil) during the transit to the island. Mozarella di bufalla is the best speciality of southern Italy. The taste and the texture of it is unique and I could only eat mozzarella while I'm there. In the morning I could jump in a turquoise water of Thirrenian sea, swim 1 and half miles, run along the Chiaia's beach and practice yoga in the sand by a sunrise. Whenever I'm on board those moments are so unique, the sunset and sunrise's swim combined with a yoga practice are marvellous. This is the only time during the year when I can really reconnect with myself and allow to enter such a universal space of being merged with the sea and the sand. My friends call me either a dolphin or mermaid to describe how much I'm passionate about the water. If I wasn't only cold after an hour of swimming I could be in the water for ever as I don't get tired. We spent 2 and half weeks changing the anchored spots between the beaches such as Chiaia, Chiaiolella and Cornicella. There was one week the boat stayed in a harbour as a captain had to go Naples. I spent that time with my parents who came to visit me. We lived on the boat where we practiced yoga in the morning and evening, had breakfast and dinner on board. During the day we were exploring every single unique beaches by the cost. My favourite one was Pozzu Vecchio, famous because of a very well known italian legend film 'Postino' (postman) . Considering that Procida is such a tiny fishing island, there is a quite significant population concentration and increased cars number, every square meter of the landscape is so unique in its beauty and picturesque. People are not impressively kind but also not insisting, they leave tourists in peace and do not try to get on their way. They are actually very respectful. During that time spent in Procida I was also exposed to capitan's lovely friends who own few sailing boats and charter them (Procgetto Oceano). One of the evenings we went out with them to have the best Procidanian pizza. It was really great. The restaurants in Procida are not the best, it's very disappointing to go out for a dinner. In fact most of the time we ate on our lovely boat. The breakfasts on the land thought are much more impressive considering the tasty Procidan pastry which calls 'lingua' =tounge. You can have 'linga alla crema' or 'al limone'. Most of the time they are just taken out of the oven, so you can taste them warm. The caffe is not great, the ice-cream pretty good. By being near by the shore I could have the internet connection so could do some work and study. Though there were many distractions to keep up focus. We were so lucky to have on board our old friends form Antigua. They happened to fly to Italy the same day as me and we managed to see each other in Procida. We sailed for an hour to Naples Pozzuoli to pick them up as we had got a wind on our favour. We spent together a couple of days bringing up the memories from few years back when I lived in Antigua. My female friend is a Jamaican contemporary dancer, who also visited me in London few times. My male friend is an Italian owner of a very well know italian restaurant, cafe and disco clubs in Antiguan English Harbour which calls ' Abracadabra'. It's a magic place. On the way back from the yacht after the mythical breakfast at the bar ' Da Cavaliere' we both took the ship - traghetto - to go - me to Naples, them to Pozzoli. The captain remained few more hours on the boat to fix it up so he could leave for few days to Naples. My way back to London was pretty long and interesting, I took ferry from Procida to Naples (1h), after the breakfast and last swim, then while I was walking toward the Stazione central di Napoli i did some quick shopping and I went to take pizza away from the most characteristic and the oldest pizzeria anticha da michele (1h). When I've got on the train I met someone, who has got an agricultural company which was producing the buffalos mozzarella (mozzarella di buffalo). Hs was about to complete his second degree in veterinary. He invited me to come and taste his mozzarella in Latina, where my parents used to live 20 years ago. It's such a coincidence that I met on the train Napoli-Roma someone from there. The train arrived delayed of half an hour (3h) so I was very tight with the time to catch the shuttle bus from Rome Termini to Fiumiciono airport. I've got there eventually 15 mins before the scheduled departure's time but likely the flight was delayed of 1 hour. So I was very grateful for that. Sometimes delays are working on our favour. Now I'm still on the train from Gatwick to St Pancras and I feel exhausted. It's already midnight and I need to get up very early in the morning to go to yoga therapy course with my wife. I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT WE DECIDED TO GO AROUND THE WORLD TRIP ON THE BOAT IN ONE YEAR TIME. BY NOVEMBER 2013 I NEED TO BE READY TO LEAVE EVERYTHING for ever and immerse in the middle of the oceans.