Blue Grotto

We would like to meet the first guy who thought going into this cave was a good idea. It looks like the home of one of those giant sea serpents the sailors from the 1500s used to fear. But thankfully someone had the guts to poke their head inside, because inside this cave is the most incredible color you could ever find in nature.

A trip to the Blue Grotto is an Indiana Jones style adventure, far removed from many of the well-worn tourist paths. When you catch the boat from the Capri port, you are warned that you will need to hop from your larger boat, down into a 3 person row boat. One of those persons will be your local guide, and you will need to pay them for entrance into the grotto.

Once you get to the mouth of the grotto, it's really one of the most chaotic and strangest scenes you have ever seen. There are people hopping back and forth between larger boats and small row boats. There's a lot of animated local Italians rowing the small boats who are as much of the show as the grotto. It sounds like they are all fighting, but the laughter in between the yelling let us know that they are living the dream life and having fun with it.

And this is the really strange part: the opening to the cave is sometimes completely covered by waves! We thought back to the warnings to get here as early in the morning as possible for the calmer seas, and we now are wondering if 10 am was just too late. We had come this far, and a little life-or-death danger was not about to stop us.

As we waited on our larger boat for the small row boats to come get us, we watched as one by one the little row boats would get in a line waiting for their turn to enter the cave. It honestly looked like a they were being swallowed by the cliff as they timed their entrance with the waves, and darted in right before the next wave made them disappear - very freaky.

Occasionally the monster would spit a row boat back out, so we knew there would be hope for us. We hopped down into our row boat with our animated Italian guide, and he gave us a little instruction: "Keep you head down". Enough said. We paddled over to a larger row boat, where the guy was collecting money for the entrance. I think this was our first brush with the Mafia, because what were our options for not paying at this point?

As we approached the opening to the cave, our guide instructed us to lay on the floor of boat, and warned that he also would need to get as flat as possible in case of an ill timed wave. It was crazy, laying there, watching the opening appear and disappear. There is a rope from the outside of the cave to the inside, that runs along the top of the opening. The guide has to grab onto the rope, time the waves and pull us into the cave. Making it more chaotic is the yelling back and forth in Italian because they can not see exiting boats - it is pitch black inside the cave. We looked at each other and without a word said "This is the coolest thing ever!"

With a yell of "Andiamo!" (let's go!), you remember the first rule of Blue Grotto (Keep your head down!) and you enter into pitch black silence. As your eyes adjust, you start to see the light reflecting from underneath you. It starts to glow brighter and brighter blue until you stop believing it's real. As you row to the back of the cave, you can begin to understand how it works. The cliff walls come down into the ocean, but only about 5 to 10 feet at the front of the cave. This allows the light to reflect through the ocean, under the rock, and back up into the cave. Absolutely incredible sight (tough to photograph in a rocking boat).

If you look closely, You can see the bright red coral at the water's edge on the cave's walls.

The cave also provides the perfect acoustics for a few of the guides to show off their operatic talents, it's quite a performance. After a few minutes of the entertainment and floating about, they apologize that they have to row you back out so others too can enjoy this natural wonder. As you approach the exit, no need to remind us of rule number one.

Jetting back out into the open ocean, you feel like the astronauts landing back on earth after seeing something that was just out of this world. There are a few wide eyed tourist looking at you and wondering "What did they just see?", and "I can't believe the monster just spit them back out!" With the smiles on our faces, we were sure would give them a little courage to overcome any fears. And we were sure glad that, many years ago, when that first guy said "I wonder what's in there!", that he had the guts to row into the cave. We are sure that he had the same smile on his face that we had right then!