Agropoli - Day 5 - 11th October

[Kyle]We heard from the insurance man in the middle of the night, who is a Marine Surveyor. Based on our verbal account alone, he thinks the boat is likely a complete loss. He is planning on traveling to Agropoli as soon as he is able to make a better determination. We then did our best to document the damage photographically in order to give him a more complete idea of the extent of the damage.

Our day was spent recovering nearly everything from inside the boat that has not been obviously ruined. It is hard to move around the boat as so many items have found their way out of bags and cupboards and now float around mixed up together. Cleaning items mix with pens and surgical gloves and moving around the boat it is difficult to even see the floor and gauge correct footing. Once the boat is hauled all this stuff will finally settle and an even bigger clean up will be required. For now I made trips back and forth carrying backpack load after backpack load. Maryanne started on the long process of rinsing and drying everything.

Many of the recovered items were clothing, most of which have been underwater for a several days now. Our apartment has no washing machine but a fantastic giant sink and a selection of washboards to attach (lots of water, too!), with lines off of the balconies for drying. Washing and then hanging a load of laundry is going to be a several times a day ritual for the next week or so. {Maryanne: Enzo of course came to the rescue and allows us to use his machine anytime, there is also a local laudromat for the excess}

In the evening we went down the street with Enzo and Pasquale to Rifugio, their favorite local restaurant, for dinner. It is a one-man business run by their wonderful and friendly friend Alfredo. Half of the space is kitchen fully visible through a glass partition, the other half is taken up by the three tables. Alfredo made us a very large and delicious three-course meal of spaghetti and local seafood. During the meal Pasquale and Enzo would let themselves into the kitchen as necessary. There was lots of great, animated Italian going back and forth between the three chefs about the proper way to cook things. Food is very important to the Italians, we were happy to sit back and be entertained, distracted from the future for a while.


Alfredo serves our first course and Kyle enjoys a 'real' coffee (this is the full glass as presented and there must be enough coffee in there to make 20 Maryanne cups)
After dinner, we had coffee. In Italy, just a plain-old coffee is 2 oz. of super-concentrated coffee syrup; barely more than enough to coat the tongue. It’s taken fifty times a day at every available opportunity. I’ve really taken to it with a packet of sugar. It’s still way too strong for Maryanne’s taste, which is ½ strength instant coffee in the morning in a big mug. As a compromise, she ordered a Café Americano, which is, embarrassingly, a regular coffee watered way down. This took a whole committee of offended Italians to make and still it ended up too strong for Maryanne. I’m sure they’d be mortified at how she really drinks what she still calls coffee.

After dinner, the three of them engaged in a long debate about what is the best for Footprint. It was touching to see even the local restaurateur showing so much care and concern for our plight.