Not the run of the mill stroll

There I was, yelling at Clem to stay out of the mud while we were on our way from the Marina to Dell Quay for a quick half or six, when these came over the horizon....




Scared the bejayzus out of us.

Turns out they were doing a private display for a wedding party. Some wedding!

They were still doing their stuff as we arrived at the Crown and Anchor. This is their penultimate fly-past.



Nifty capture of them passing the setting sun, eh? Very artistic, I thought.


As a comparison, here's Clemmie's Earobatics on a windy evening.





All on a mobile phone of course, so not the greatest quality.

I'd actually got the phone out to take a picture of these, because we'd been wondering what kind of crop it was in the field.

Polite Pavla

Pavla's normally such a nice girl. I guess we can blame the hot evening and lack of sleep, rather than the several Fosters for this.....

All Stations, All Stations.....

Phew - legal. I finally did the VHF radio course at the weekend, so I can now use the VHF on the boat almost legally. (I can't actually licence the radio itself until I get my certificate). I can now look forward to happy days requesting radio checks from Solent Coastguard on Channel 16 like everyone else. Hurrah.

Positano pics

A few more Positano pics are here on fotopic.net. Not very good, but they're from my phone. The digi camera batteries died after two hours on the first morning and I'd forgotten a) spare batteries b) the charger.

A question: How come my phone can take pictures for days on end, while also managing to work out where we are in the world, make phone calls and access the internet, while my Fuji camera lasts for about three pictures before expiring while being expected to do nothing but capture images?

Pompeii

Saturday was Pompeii, a hell on earth of scalding heat and choking ash. It must have been pretty bad in 79AD when Vesuvius erupted too.

A late-June day with the thermometer up in the 90's and not a cloud in the sky is probably not the best time to go and visit Pompeii. The preservation of a first century city is incredible, and it's a wonderful, wonderful place, but it's a hard slog in the sunshine. The numerous Pompeii dogs have the right idea, find a shady corner under a tree and wait until the sun goes down.

The Picnics in the Harbour recommendation is to go in September when it's probably easier to appreciate the insite into life almost 2000 years ago that the city provides.

OK, philistines that we are, the high spot of today was dinner at Ristorante Max back in Positano.

We ate in the garden, the surroundings were lovely, the service attentive, the local wine chilled and delicious, and the fish soup like this.

Positano - Friday

23rd June 2006

Not much to report about Friday. A late start, a meander down towards the beach, only interrupted by a stop for caffe and pizze in the lovely garden of the nearest restaurant and a little light exploration of the town. Shopping heaven if you like lace and shiny stuff on your clothes.

We eventually found ourselves down on the beach where we spent the afternoon people-watching. The bay is obviously a popular stopping off spot for super yachts, so it's a great place to try and play spot the celeb. Our only hit for the weekend was Peter Weller (Robocop, 24) who was getting married on the Sunday, ah well.

Positano - Thursday

22nd June 2006

A weekend away from Chichester Harbour and Moonshine and down to Positano on the Amalfi Coast in Italy, for a few days at La Tavolozza, a B&B owned and run by four generations of belle signore. The B&B is amiably and capably run by Celeste and the view from the balcony looks something like this:


We flew out on the BA 6:30pm flight which got us into Naples at around 10:00pm. This meant that, by the time we'd picked up the little blue Micra from Avis, we were heading southwards at close to midnight. Not ideal normally, but it did mean that the decrepit autostrada and the hair-raising Amalfi Coast road was pretty empty. It also meant that Missy and her mom couldn't see that we were driving along a narrow and winding road perched over a several hundred foot drop to the Tyrrhenian Sea most of the time.

The road is an amazing feat of engineering, being blasted out of solid rock on seemingly vertical cliff faces, with more hairpin bends than seem feasible. It's quite exciting when the car's heading one way while the headlights are still illuminating large amounts of nothingness in a completely different direction.

We finally arrived in Positano at just after midnight. Since there's only one road in Positano (it winds downhill and then winds back up again) it wasn't difficult to find La Tavolozza. We dumped the bags, parked the car in a local parking garage (cost nearly as much as the rental itself - ouch) and were extremely pleased to find that we were 50 metres from a bar that was still open and still had some food left. After the journey, a cold beer and a toasted ham and cheese sandwich were like nectar and ambrosia.