Gross.
As things happen on the Amalfi coast, my wonderful friend Josh left his sunglasses at a cliff-side restaurant called Atrani.
We had all shared a fabulous dinner the night before, low-warm seafood starter, various risottos and pastas, a chilled bottle of white wine then dinghied out to our yacht firmly anchored. The next morning, as the Italian sun rose and bathed the green-brown cliffs and and pink-yellow homes in splendor we stood on the deck and enjoyed except for Josh who stood and squinted.
After a quick search, it was determined that his glasses had been left at the restaurant.
A phone call confirmed and there we were dinghying to its base which had a rock pool just above the sea and various lounges on staggered rock decks. The pool manager did not wish for us to tie up and so I jumped into the cool blue with Euros clenched in my teeth to be used for ice.
That water is so remarkably clean and clear as to boggle the mind.
It is perfect water very much unlike the water off Los Angeles, which just received a massive sewage dump that officials did not inform the public for many hours leading to many happy beach goers unwittingly swimming in filth.
According to The Los Angeles Times, “The delay occurred even though officials from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, which is responsible for notifying the public, were at the Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant in Playa del Rey during the emergency discharge procedure that began Sunday evening and ended Monday around 4:30 a.m., according to interviews.”
Julio Rodriguez, a captain with the county Fire Department Lifeguard Division at Dockweiler Beach, told The Los Angeles Times that his brave men and women found out about the beach closure around noon — after seeing a county worker posting a sign on a lifeguard tower.
“That’s how we received official notification of the closure of the beaches,” he said, likely feeling sad about all the filth swimming that had occurred on his watch.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn, also likely feeling sad, released a statement reading, “What happened yesterday was unacceptable and irresponsible. We need answers from L.A. City Sanitation about what went wrong and led to this massive spill, but we also need to recognize that L.A. County Public Health did not effectively communicate with the public and could have put swimmers in danger.”
Gross.
I retrieved Josh’s sunglasses, in any case, and the waiter gave me two bags of ice free of charge.
La dolce vittoria.