The colour reaches you long before the detail does. From a mile or so out, Procida is a low island with a pastel smudge along one shore, and only as the bow closes in do the smudges separate into houses: rose, ochre, lemon, a washed-out blue, stacked one on top of the other under the walls of Terra Murata. Seeing Procida by boat in November is a quieter trip than the summer one. Ferries and hydrofoils from Naples and Pozzuoli run less often, the day visitors have gone home, and the harbour belongs to the people who work it.
Painted houses and fishing boats
Marina Corricella is the island's oldest fishing village and still its most photographed corner. The houses rise straight from the quay in a tight jumble of arches, outside staircases and small balconies, painted in colours that the island likes to explain with a story: fishermen wanted to pick out their own front door from the water. Whether or not that is true, the effect from a boat is exactly that. You can count the doors.
No cars come down to the waterfront. In winter the quay is a working place again, with nets spread out to dry, wooden gozzi pulled up on the slip and a couple of trattorie keeping a few tables in the sun. Film lovers will recognise the harbour from Il Postino, which used it for the village scenes. Higher up, the walls of Terra Murata enclose the old quarter, the abbey of San Michele Arcangelo and the long, plain front of Palazzo d'Avalos, the former prison that still dominates the skyline.
The island grows lemons, large and thick skinned, and on a cold morning the smell of them comes out of the bars along the harbour with the coffee. If someone at a table offers you the local lemon salad, with mint and a little chilli, say yes.
Arriving by boat
Procida is the smallest of the three main islands in the Gulf of Naples and sits between Capo Miseno and Ischia, which makes it an easy crossing on a settled day. Most visiting yachts use Marina Grande, the main port on the north side where the ferries come in, or the smaller marina at Chiaiolella on the south-west corner, close to the crescent of Vivara. The Corricella itself is a fishermen's harbour; a tender can drop you at the quay, but it is not a place to bring a larger boat alongside.
The waters around Procida, Ischia and Vivara lie inside a marine protected area, so check where anchoring is allowed before you drop the hook, especially near Vivara, which is a nature reserve in its own right. In winter the weather decides more than the timetable does. A northerly makes the Marina Grande approach lively, while a southerly sends swell into the bays on the other side. Pick the day, not the date.
A sunny noon off the island
Even in November there are hours when the gulf is flat and the sun has real warmth in it. That is when a small floating deck earns its place. A Premium Teak Platform 2.05 m is a 205 x 205 cm square on the water, yet it rolls down into its own carry bag, small enough to live in a locker on a day boat. Tied off the stern in a sheltered spot, it gives you somewhere dry to sit at water level, with the painted houses across the bay. Its non-slip teak-look surface stays sure under wet feet and asks only for a rinse with fresh water when you pack up.
For the hour after lunch, a Single Luxe Daybed does the rest. It is 160 x 80 cm and made of 0.9 mm PVC, light enough for one person to carry aft and lay on the swim platform. Few people will swim at this time of year; if anyone does, the engines and thrusters stay off until they are back aboard, and somebody on deck keeps watching.
Larger boats can build further with the other floating platforms and the combinations in our collections. On Procida in winter, though, smaller is better. A square deck, a single daybed, a flask of coffee and the painted Corricella bright in the low sun across the water: that is the whole plan, and it rarely needs improving.
