Santa Maria di Leuca - continued

A Ghanaian speaking perfect Italian acted as my translator and
 the muscly chaps provided the ladies with some visual entertainment

Usually I tend to move on with these blog posts once we have left a place, but for a number of reasons, Santa Maria di Leuca lingers and I feel compelled to touch on a few more things before we leave and discover the Gulf of Taranto on our way to Sicily. Despite the Porto Turistico - the Marina in the harbour - being a bit open to the swell and us having had one dodgy incident, it is a perfect place.  

The incident in question happened on Saturday morning. We heard very loud police sirens and, looking out, soon realised that they came from coast guard RIBs racing into the harbour at a tremendous speed. Someone with a medical emergency had been evacuated from a ship and was being rushed to a waiting ambulance. The sedate 3 knot speed limit in the harbour was probably exceeded by an order of magnitude and a huge swell ensued. Our toerail  came off second best in the argument with the yacht next to us and we were left with a mangled aluminium extrusion just waiting to catch someone as they walked forward.  Once everything had calmed down, we visited the Guardia Costiera to have a little chat about the damage, liabilities and such.  Unsurprisingly they have no insurance and in a medical emergency have the right to do what ever it takes, etc. Sergente Russo was terribly friendly and even offered to write us a report for our insurance for which they would only charge € 70.  This though seemed above the going rate for a piece of paper saying "non è il nostro problema", so we declined. In the end a little coercing by two muscly chaps sorted out most of the problem and via an informal agreement for much less than the € 70. So all that is left is another line item in the 'to do' list for the winter.

Muriccio in Leuca

Cooking on board Rocko is limited only by space. We have all we need in terms of utensils and the like, so really it is down to imagination and ingredients. We, I say we, but I mean Catherine, stocked up very carefully in Turkey and Greece on non-perishables, which meant that we only needed to take care of fresh food.  Here in Italy the produce is of such spectacular quality and value that I have become  completely obsessed and cannot resist going into each and every little supermarket.  Pam discovered Murricio and it is like an outlet shop for the Garden of Eden. As we looked around the owner kept on handing us nibbles to try, one more delicious than the other.  Eventually, hampered only by our ability to carry, we headed back down the hill to the harbour and the galley became a gastronomic playground again.
   

The architecture in Leuca combines eccentricity with signs of genuine historic influence.

Symmetrical Lecce Stone Villaa	All beautifully manicured	Shade is worth gold
Kitsch in any other setting	19th Century Gothic	Villa Pink
Yours for the summer if you so wish (and pay)	Pines in the mid-day heat	Even a Pagoda

The 'Pirate boat' with the dangerous skipper

After all the RYA indoctrination one views the relatively informal approach to yachting here with a combination of alarm and bemusement.  A dutch chap I met put it very succinctly when he said that he never left his yacht in the marina as you were only ever 20 minutes away from a disaster.  I have taken to asking neighbours if they are leaving when we go out and Catherine thought that was very thoughtful and polite of me. I explained however that it was nothing to with that, I was just making sure they wouldn't leave when we were not around and snap our mooring lines or crunch our hull.  One could start a book on the incidents big and small. We are amazed sometimes though at how people charter a boat with a skipper, crowd way too many on board and are then oblivious about the dangers they face with a skipper who can't get his boat out, with no wind, without practically wiping out his neighbours. The 'Pirate' boat near us crammed 15 people on board the other day and set off for a day sail. I silently said a few prayers for them, which seemed to have worked as, miraculously, they did return.  Catherine is grateful, it seems, to be able to practice her expletive Italian hand signals which also work, as the skipper in question came past to apologise for almost mooring up side-to and taking out our anchor in the process.