Today was our first full day in Positano and we decided to take easy and explore the town a bit. Positano is situated on a ravine in the cliffs, so walking around town is not as easy as it sounds. It is more up and down steps all day. We had a nice breakfast at the hotel and then walked down to the shopping district at the bottom of town for a bit. We then walked up to the other side and enjoyed cappuccino and tea at a roadside bar that overlooked the beach and ocean.
Looking at the water all morning made me eager to finally get in a open water swim. My new Garmin 910xt has been screaming to track a open water swim, but the weather has not been warm enough until today it was bright and sunny. We had some lunch and trekked back down and up the other side of town to get my goggles and suit. Denise was wishing I had brought this stuff along so there was no way I was not swimming if we trekked all the way back to the beach again.
We found a place on the free area of the beach and Denise hung out there. I made my way to the water and the first dip of my feet reinforced my expectations…it was COLD! Must have been around 60-something. There is no way I am not swimming though, so I pushed on. It almost made my head ache. I hit the start button on my watch and headed out a bit then turned right to parallel the beach.
It wasn’t long and I was in front of the pay beach, so I kept sighting the lifeguard to see if he yelled at me, but he didn’t. My wedding ring started sliding off like usual so I turned back and dropped it off with Denise. Heading back in again did not seem as cold. I started swimming back down along the beach. Just when I was about the line for the pay beach…WHAM! It felt like I hit an electrified brick wall. Not knowing what hit me, I immediately popped up with an excruciating pain on my head. I soon realized I must of run into a jellyfish. I slowly sidestroked my way to shore fearing running into another and pointing to my head occasionally as Denise seemed entertained by my sense of panic. No sympathy going on here. I finally made it to shore without incident and got to our towel. The pain was so strong it made me weak in the knees. I really wished I had more hair!
We decided to see if a Farmacia was around and Denise remembered the lifeguard we talked to earlier, so we headed over to him. He sprayed some ammonia on my head and I was hoping it wasn’t just pee in a bottle. It helped.
We stopped at a wine bar overlooking the coast on our way up to the hotel. I anesthetized my head a bit more and eventually the sting subsided. We had a nice pizza dinner that night at Soraceno d’ Orzo, which was a family run place on the minor road. Good pizza! Took a few night shots after and headed for some sleep. Big hike tomorrow. We will be hiking from Positano over two mountains to Colli San Pietro which is a small town sitting above Sorrento. Only one night there and then down to Sorrento.
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Poor jellyfish. Leave them alone and get back to work. Go Canadians!
What time of year did you go open swimming in Positano? We are going next week. We’d like to bring our wetsuits, and get some long swims in! Can’t find anything on the web about the water temp, or about the density of the jelly fish population.
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This was around early May. The water was COLD! I was wishing I had a wetsuit…and a neoprene cap too. There was another guy in a wetsuit swimming there. I did some searching when I got home and I did see that jellyfish are pretty common in that area. Be careful!