Sunday morning in the sea of Posillipo there is a concentration of boats similar to that of a shopping center car park on sales days. The photo you see in the center of this page tells more than any words: a vessel every ten metres, all crowded together, without space to manoeuvre, to dive, to enjoy the privacy that only the boat would be able to guarantee, if it were used as it deserves.
There is no precise count of the transits and stops of vessels along the coast, neither in Naples nor anywhere else in the country: it would be impossible to verify each passage and each stop. We, however, did not give up and attempted a spannometric check, placing ourselves at the top of via Posillipo at various moments of yesterday morning and counting, physically, one by one, the boats visible from that perspective overlooking the small beach of villa Rocca Matilde.
At the moment of maximum attendance, shortly after midday, we counted more than 150, all crowded in that one place alone. Obviously there are also other points that attract Sunday sailors along the entire stretch of Posillipo coast which reaches the protected area of Gaiola (this too often violated) and continues up to Nisida: even in those places we saw dozens and dozens of boats. We would like to venture that there were at least 500 boats under Posillipo yesterday, but we have no certainties and we limit ourselves to describing the 150 that we managed to verify in our only small, easier observation point.
In the Sunday chaos there are swimmers struggling in the narrow space between the boats, young people in canoes trying to get past the wall of boats that prevent them from reaching the “real” sea. And regardless of the presence of people in the water or in kayaks, boats swoop in at a rapid pace near the coast, arriving at full speed and slowing down only when they find themselves in the midst of the inexhaustible array of anchor ropes that require attention, but only to avoid trouble with the propellers.
Observing the boats rushing at full speed along the coast and thinking about the death of poor Cristina Frazzica, overwhelmed by a hull less than half a mile away from our observation point, while she was looking for relaxation and recreation by paddling on a canoe, makes you feel shivers even under the sun. That tragedy taught nothing: Sunday sailors feel invincible and omnipotent, they believe they can govern their small boats like long-time captains, they don’t think about the consequences of their behavior which could be tragic.
There Captaincy does what he can to handle the onslaught of weekends. Between Friday and Saturday in Campania, 434 checks were carried out on boats of all sizes, 71 violations were reported, almost all because they were sailing too close to the coast. The numbers of yesterday’s checks, however, will only be made known today but already towards the evening there were around two hundred checks with around 30 separate reports.
In the Sunday sea, among improvised sailors, there are moments that would be comical if they weren’t tragic. 1.05pm, a large dinghy makes its way through the sea of boats, anchored a millimeter from the coast. The man at the helm decides where to stop, stops the engine and is about to drop the anchor. All around him an uproar arises. From the other boats, already too close to each other, insults and swear words fly, because the presence of that new guest makes the stop definitively inhospitable: “This place is ours, we arrived first, you can’t stop here”. It’s time for the sandwich and the macaroni omelette, people ask for privacy but the latest arrival doesn’t want to hear of it and remains in his place, a handful of centimeters from the four boats among which he has placed himself.
No respect for the coastal approach limit, let alone for the Gaiola protected area. At the edge of the Trentaremi bay, fortunately still respected even by Sunday boatmen, there is another camp of boats, here too one on top of the other. According to the nautical charts, the departure in the direction of Naples would involve a significant departure from the coast to respect the protected area; except that it’s Sunday, someone is in a hurry to get back to the pier to rush home for lunch, respecting the route imposed to protect the Gaiola would involve an annoying extension of time, so, one by one, those camped near Trentaremi start their engines and they parade straight towards their moorings in Naples, cutting right in the center the “sea triangle” which would be strictly prohibited so as not to cause damage to the protected area.
There are countless attacks on the beaches. Yesterday a video was released on social media in which boats were shown a few meters from the Grotta Romana beach. Without limits, without shame, the people driving the boats in the video remain with the engine running even a step away from the shoreline and the suspicion is that there is no arrogance in that gesture but simply unawareness of the most basic rules of coexistence (in addition to the lack of knowledge of the rules that regulate navigation).
Among the Sunday sailors there are those who do not hesitate to abuse alcohol or drugs: these are habits that for some are normal, even if they can cause tragedies. The checks by the authorities at sea, however, do not include checks with the use of alcohol or drug tests. In short, anyone who is impaired at the helm of a vessel has no chance of being discovered or sanctioned and can freely roam the sea with any type of vessel because, as the Harbor Office explains, any checks are only triggered in the event of an accident. When it’s too late, we start thinking.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Read the full article at
The morning
