Ritzy Portofino is on one of the most attractive sections of the Italian Riviera. It
is a cozy little town surrounding a protected bay on one side, and steep hills on the
other side. The ancient Romans called it Portus Delphini, "Dolphin's Harbor". Portofino
is described as a favorite stopover for the international jet set.
We spent the morning on a walking tour of town. Across the bay is Santa Margherita,
which was supposed to be part of our afternoon tour. However, the seas were not quite
cooperative that day. Portofino does not have dock facilities, so we anchored offshore
and needed to be tendered between the ship and the shore. That was a wild ride to get
into town. Santa Margherita was a 15 minute ferry boat ride from Portofino, and we
would have needed to ferry there and back, and then tender out to the ship on those
seas. We decided it wasn't worth it for those of us that are motion sensitive. So,
we headed back to the ship.
Docking the tender was an interesting exercise. The surges must've been a good 3 feet,
but the skipper managed to hook up to the ship without losing anyone! Just after we
"landed", the ship pulled anchor and started spinning circles. It was explained to us
that by running one engine forward and one engine in reverse, we'd stir up the water
enough such that in the area that was roughly a circle whose diameter was the length
of the ship, we'd "flatten out" the water for the other tenders. Sure enough, there
was this smooth region around the ship and the later tenders had no problem docking.
All afternoon tours got canceled, due to the seas, so we made a good choice by
returning to the ship