Change In Plans

This short post is about our trip to the Blue Grotto, a (pretty amazing) natural attraction on the north side of the Isle of Capri.

We took a day trip from Positano to Capri today, and made sure to get on one of the boats that stops at the White Grotto, the Emerald Grotto, and the all-important, “must see, can’t miss” Blue Grotto.

We took a funicular and then an elevator to get from the lobby of the Le Agavi Hotel down to the hotel’s private beach, roughly 700 vertical feet below our balcony. We were picked up at 9:30am on Le Agavi’s rickety private dock (steel scaffolding turned on its side and placed in the water). The boat was a fast and comfortable 30-foot cabin cruiser. The only other passengers were a group of eight young friends from California, who had been picked up earlier in the morning.

The White and Emerald Grottoes were nice to look at from the water, but we didn’t venture inside. I was surprised that at both spots, in the five minutes or so that we were sitting there three other tour boats pulled up to look. We had been told that in the summer high season, sometimes people “line up for two hours at the Blue Grotto.” This was a little confusing, because we were already in a boat, and it wasn’t clear what we would be lining up for.

When we arrived at the Blue Grotto site at about 11am, the warning made sense. The scene was a complete carnival.

In order to get inside the Blue Grotto, you have to transfer to a four-passenger rowboat that is small enough to get in through the cave mouth. There were a half dozen big motor boats, with a total of at least 50-60 tourists, waiting for their turns in the little rowboats.

The size of the cave mouth itself changes, based on how big the swells are. As we waited, we saw some periods where the clearance was 4-5 feet high, and the rowboat pilots would zip in with their passengers lying flat in the low-bottomed boat. To speed through the opening, the pilots drop their oars and pull on a chain which is suspended from the cave ceiling for this purpose. We also saw several instances where big waves closed the cave mouth entirely, and the rowboats would bob (with impatient pilots), waiting for their chance.

To summarize, there is a small cave opening in the side of a sheer cliff, with waves crashing all around. A brilliant Mediterranean sun beats down on the dark blue water. Just outside the cave mouth there are 10-12 of these small low-bottomed rowboats, with passengers sitting low or lying flat, and their pilots jockeying for position. There is a slightly larger stationary rowboat next to the cave entrance, with three rough-looking men who collect the 10 Euro entrance fee from each passenger (nice business!) before the rowboat goes into the cave. Slightly farther out, the big tourist motorboats idle their engines, bob in the waves, and also jockey for position. No one seems to be in charge, the air is choked with diesel fumes, and there is a lot of shouting in Italian.

We ended up waiting for only about 30 minutes before the four of us clambered into a row boat, paid our 40 Euros, and waited for the cave mouth to open. Our pilot dropped his oars, grabbed the chain, leaned way back as if in a limbo contest, and zipped us inside.

Apparently there is another big cave which is underneath the Blue Grotto, and there is sand underneath th e second cave. Sunlight from outside is reflected off the sandy bottom, and up through 20m meters of clear Mediterranean water. This creates a spectacular fluorescent blue color that lights up the otherwise very dark cave.

The color of the water is exactly the same as you would see emanating from the undersides of certain tricked-out cars (particularly in California). That underside glow is usually matched with a glowing boundary around the license plate. Maybe a more recognizable reference: the water looks like a giant liquid glow stick in Mediterranean blue.

After five short minutes of marvelling at the water (with a lot of the other rowboat pilots singing loudly and badly), we zipped back out of the cave mouth and were rowed back to our boat. The pilot made it clear that he doesn’t get anything from the 10 Euro entrance fee, and that he lives on our tips alone.

It was a short ride, but unlike anything I had seen before.