# Out of Town



## histprof (Oct 30, 2011)

Will you promise to leave me a few? 

I have to be out of town for the next month. I am taking 19 college students to Italy on a study abroad program, leaving this week. I hate to leave right now. It looks like the surf fishing is getting good. I wish you all tight lines.

I will pretty much be on duty 24/7 with the program, but I have a couple of afternoons off to play a little. I have packed a travel rod/reel and a box of lures. A staff member at the school that I am visiting is promising to take me out and show me where he fishes. I will be staying right on the coast, on the Sorrentine peninsula, not far from Pompeii. If I can muster enough napoletano dialect, I will try to find a local fisherman to take me out in his boat. I'll post some pics here if I can connect with a few Mediterranean fish.

Here are some pics of the coast that I took in previous trips.


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## That Robbie Guy (Aug 11, 2009)

Dang, so beautiful - have a great safe trip!


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## histprof (Oct 30, 2011)

*In Italy*

We made it safely to Italy. Our home base is Castellammare di Stabia, which is on the Gulf of Naples, not too far from Sorrento. Here are a couple of shots of the harbor taken on our first walk around with the students yesterday. The traditional fishing fleet uses the smaller blue boats visible in the harbor. There were lots of fishermen along the harbor. They use long rods to cast out into the center. I'll try to get some pics of them.


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## SwampRat (Jul 30, 2004)

Looks fantastic.... Keep 'em coming!

Going to Tuscany??


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## histprof (Oct 30, 2011)

Thanks! Yes. We have three weeks in Castellammare, then we will visit Montalcino in Tuscany for a couple of nights and then finish up with 4 days in Rome. We are hitting the Greek ruins at Paestum Tuesday, climbing Mt. Vesuvius Wednesday and Herculaneum Thursday.


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## coup de grace (Aug 7, 2010)

Lucky dog, send some more.


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## Spectaker (Oct 24, 2011)

Nice pics. That water looks beautiful.
Keep us updated.


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## Spectaker (Oct 24, 2011)

Leave me a few too. Thought I'd be able to experience Texas Surf Fishing for the first time this summer, but I just found I landed a job in Alaska on a boat for the summer. 
Woot!


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## surfisher (Mar 8, 2012)

that looks awesome water is beautiful keep um coming


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## histprof (Oct 30, 2011)

Jake, Have a great time in Alaska. What a grand adventure. Buck said to tell you 'hello' and wants you to be sure to find a volcano to climb if you get a day off.


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## histprof (Oct 30, 2011)

*Update from Italy*

Sorry for the delay... we have been going non stop for the last couple of weeks. I did get out to the harbor to fish last weekend, so I wanted to update.

It seemed for a while that I would not get close to the water. We got diverted from climbing Mt. Vesuvius by a brief labor issue. So, already having a guide and a bus, I asked the guide to suggest something. He took us on the Path of the Gods above the Amalfi coast. We started at Agerola and hiked the 7 km along the edge of the cliff and then down into Positano. The first two pictures below are of the sea from 2000 feet up on the mountain. Words cannot describe the scene. I huffed and puffed with my fat arse along that trail, but it was worth every painful step.

When I broke away to fish last Sunday morning, I walked down through the town to do some errands and hit the beach to the north of town along the waterfront, or, 'lungomare' here in Castellammare. I shot a few pics in a fish market in the neighborhood. The local stuff is mainly mussels, clams and some very small flatfish that looked like 6 inch long baby flounder. He was proud to show me a decent sized octopus. I ate one of that critter's cousins a couple of nights ago. They are sweet and tender. When I got to the port, I went out to the end of the short jetty on the north end of the harbor. The water was gin clear with a visibility of about 3 meters. I could see quite a few bait size fish, like finger mullet size, in the water around the rocks. I threw a gold spoon, a shallow plug and a cucahoe minnow for about an hour with no activity at all. Everyone around here had laughed at me when I showed them my lure box. The news is grim. These waters have been fished out. No predatory fish of significant size left along the rocks in the harbor.

As for the beach, let's take this as a word of warning for our experience in Texas. You have seen my elevated shots in the earlier posts. It looks like paradise from above. The last pics in this post are of the actual beach. It suffers the double whammy of being next to the densest urban community in Europe. Five million people live within 10 miles of this waterfront. The beach is covered in garbage. In addition, the Sarno River which empties into the Gulf between here and Pompeii is the most polluted in Europe with agricultural runoff, tannery effluent and untreated sewage. As a result, the beach is permanently closed to swimming and fishing. Castellammare was an enchanting seaside resort a century ago. No more. Today, it is a hard edged working class town, with a closed shipyard and 30% unemployment. The government could drop development money in here to clean up the beach, but the mafia would get it, just like they did the recovery money from the 1980 earthquake, so no one bothers. Let's keep our beaches clean and look out for each other, because Castellammare shows us that even paradise can be ruined.

I'll end on a happy note. The students have been amazing on this trip. I have enjoyed everything that we have done: Pompeii, Herculaneum, the Path of the Gods, Mt. Vesuvius, Paestum and oodles of other places. The Euro has slid $0.05 against the dollar since we got here so we saved enough on the exchange to pay for a group snorkeling trip to Ischia this week. We'll get into the water on an unspoiled coast on Wednesday.

Oh, and for the last photo... there is really good pizza in Naples.


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## SurfRunner (May 22, 2004)

Looks like you are having a blast!


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## alvinslash (Jan 14, 2012)

sucks about the beach but them razor clams look good


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