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Almost everyone who goes out from Giardini Naxos by boat turns north. That is understandable: the Taormina cliffs, the sea caves and Isola Bella are all up that way, and they are the postcard. But the bay has two ends, and the southern one sees a fraction of the traffic.

Turn the other way and the coast changes character inside ten minutes. It goes low, dark and wide, and Etna stops being a shape on the horizon and becomes the thing you are running along the foot of.

What you see heading south from Giardini Naxos by boat

The first landmark is Capo Schisò, the flat black headland that closes the southern end of the bay. It is old lava — a flow that came down off Etna, reached the sea and cooled into the ledges and low platforms you see today. From the water you can read the whole story at a glance: no cliff, no drama, just black rock lying flat on a blue surface with prickly pear growing out of the cracks and a small lighthouse on the point.

Round the cape and the shoreline opens out. The beaches turn to dark grey sand and coarse pebble, the hills step back, and the plain that runs down from the volcano finally has room. This is where the Alcantara arrives — the river that comes out of the gorge inland and finishes here in a shallow, braided channel. On a still morning you can see the change in the water where it meets the sea: a paler band, a slight seam on the surface, and a noticeable drop in temperature if you swim through it.

Further on come Fiumefreddo and the long, empty run of coast towards Calatabiano and Marina di Cottone — citrus and eucalyptus behind the beach, a few low houses, and almost nobody on the water. It is not spectacular in the way the cliffs are spectacular. It is something else: open, agricultural, quiet, with the biggest volcano in Europe standing directly behind it.

Where the rock changes colour

The most interesting thing about this stretch is the join. The coast north of Giardini Naxos is pale — the limestone mass of Monte Tauro, the rock Taormina is built on, rising in sheer faces with caves eaten into the bottom of them. South of Capo Schisò the same coastline is black volcanic rock and dark sand.

The bay sits more or less on the seam between the two. You can leave a beach of grey volcanic grit, motor for twenty minutes and be looking up at a white cliff face. Very few coastlines change their material that fast, and from a boat — where you see the rock at water level, uninterrupted by roads or houses — it is obvious in a way it never is from the coast road.

When the southern coast is the better call

There is a practical reason to head this way, and it has nothing to do with scenery. Wind. This coast is exposed, and the two ends of the bay behave differently depending on what is blowing. When a northerly has been running for a day and the water under the Taormina cliffs is short and slappy, the sea south of the cape is often noticeably better behaved. A skipper who works here every day knows this before you have finished asking the question.

The light is the other reason. Late in the afternoon the sun drops behind Etna and the whole southern shoreline sits in soft, flat light with the volcano in silhouette above it. People who come here for the classic Taormina shot rarely think to turn around.

• You want somewhere calmer when the north side is choppy
• You have already done the cliffs and Isola Bella and want the other half
• You care more about Etna than about landmarks
• You want a swim stop with no other boat in sight

Worth saying plainly: this is a stretch to ask about rather than assume. Which direction makes sense on any given morning depends on the wind, the swell and how long you have out. That conversation is best had with the crew before you go — tell us what you are hoping for and we will tell you honestly which way the sea is pointing that day.

Can you swim on the coast south of Giardini Naxos?

Yes, and the water off the lava ledges is beautifully clear. It reads dark rather than turquoise, because the rock underneath is black instead of white, which throws people the first time. Near the river mouths expect a distinct cold layer and slightly cloudier water after rain inland. Shelter is thinner than in the coves up north, so a swim stop here depends more on the conditions of the day.

Is it better to go north or south from Giardini Naxos?

North, the first time. The caves, the cliffs and Isola Bella are genuinely worth the trip and they sit close enough together to cover comfortably, and the run north towards Letojanni carries on in the same spirit. Go south when you are coming back for a second day on the water, when the north side is uncomfortable, or when what you actually want is space, an empty anchorage and a very large volcano. Plenty of people end up preferring it.

Either way, the sea is the right vantage point. If you are staying in the bay and want to know what is on the other side of the cape, message the crew on WhatsApp and ask what the conditions look like for your dates.

People get the sea temperature near Taormina in autumn almost exactly backwards. They book September or October expecting to look at the sea rather than get into it, pack accordingly, and then spend the week watching Sicilians swim in front of them.

The water on this coast does not follow the calendar. It follows the sun with a delay of roughly a month, which changes what these weeks are actually good for.

What the sea temperature near Taormina in autumn actually does

The Ionian here peaks somewhere around the end of August and the first days of September — not in July, as most people assume. By then the water has had three months of sun poured into it and has nowhere in particular to put it.

Through September it stays comfortably warm: in a normal year, somewhere in the mid-twenties Celsius, mid-to-high seventies Fahrenheit. You get in without the small intake of breath that June demands. October eases down a couple of degrees but rarely turns cold; the first fortnight in particular is still ordinary swimming weather for most visitors, and the coves are empty. It is November, when the first proper northerlies start stirring the surface, that the sea finally admits the season has changed.

The reverse is worth knowing too, because it catches people out from the other direction. In early June the air is hot and the water is still carrying the memory of winter. Autumn is the payback for that.

Why the sea runs a month behind the air

Water is stubborn. It takes a great deal of energy to warm a body of water by a single degree, and the same stubbornness means it gives that heat back slowly once the air above it cools. The Ionian is also deep — the seabed drops away quickly off this coast — so there is a lot of water involved and the whole system moves with a heavy, delayed rhythm.

What you feel on the surface in October is essentially August, arriving late. Shallow bays over pale rock, like the water either side of Isola Bella, hold their warmth best of all, because the sun keeps working on a thin layer above a bright bottom.

What autumn water is actually like to swim in

Better, mostly. Two things improve at once. The sea settles after the summer traffic, so the sediment stirred up by swimmers and boats in the shallows drops out and visibility over the rocks tends to sharpen. And the coves empty. A bay that had six boats in it in August will often have one in the second half of October.

There are local exceptions. Near the river mouths south of Giardini Naxos you will swim through distinct cold seams where fresh water arrives. Deeper anchorages feel a degree or two cooler than the shallow bays. And after a spell of strong wind the top layer gets mixed and can feel briefly colder than it did the day before, which is normal and usually short-lived.

The part everyone underestimates

The swim is not the cold bit. The ride back is.

Wet skin, a moving boat and an apparent wind of fifteen knots will take the warmth out of you in autumn far faster than the sea ever did, especially once the sun drops behind the hills in the late afternoon. It is the single most common mistake we see from October onwards, and it is entirely fixable:

• A proper towel, not a small one
• A windproof layer — even a thin shell makes an enormous difference
• Long sleeves for the run home, and something dry to change into
• A hat that stays on at speed

Everything else is the same as high summer, and our packing list for a boat trip in Sicily still applies — just add the layer.

Can you still swim near Taormina in October?

Yes, and most visitors do without hesitating. The water is usually only a degree or two below its September level for the first half of the month, and the sheltered bays under the cliffs are the warmest and calmest places to test it. Judge it by the water and the wind on the day rather than by the date.

When does the sea get too cold for swimming near Taormina?

For most people, some time in late November, and it keeps dropping until it bottoms out in February and March. Locals swim well past the point that visitors expect, but by December it is a short, brisk affair rather than an afternoon in a cove.

If you are coming in the next few weeks and want to build a day around the water rather than around the forecast in your weather app, tell us your dates or send the crew a message on WhatsApp. We will tell you what the sea is doing that week.

Taormina in October is the month people who work on this coast would choose if they got to choose. The heat has gone out of the middle of the day, the sea has not yet noticed, and the Corso is a street again rather than a queue with shops on either side.

It is also the month visitors talk themselves out of, on the grounds that summer is over. Here is what the fortnight either side of the change actually looks like.

The weather in Taormina in October

Mild, bright and considerably more comfortable than August. Days are generally warm enough for shirtsleeves and a hat, with the sun still strong enough at midday to catch you out on open water. The difference is the evening: once the light goes behind the hills the temperature drops quickly, and dinner outside wants a jumper or a jacket in a way it never does in July.

Rain becomes possible again, which is a genuine change from the bone-dry summer. In practice October rain here tends to arrive as a short, heavy afternoon, then clear. It rarely settles in for days. What it does do is scrub the haze out of the air, and the morning after a shower is usually when Etna appears in full from the water, snow starting on the summit and the whole cone visible down to the sea.

The sea is still the best thing about it

The water is the part that surprises people. It runs about a month behind the air, so early October on this coast is effectively late summer as far as swimming is concerned — we have written separately about what the sea temperature does through autumn, but the short version is that it stays warm well after the beaches empty.

Which makes October the easiest month of the year to be on the water. The wind is usually gentler than in high summer, the coves under the cliffs are empty rather than shared, the light on the rock in the late afternoon is the best it gets, and you are not competing for a swim spot with anybody. Boats still go out on the good days; what changes is that the day gets planned around the forecast rather than around the crowds, so it is worth asking what is running for your dates rather than assuming either way.

A town with room in it again

The practical dividends are immediate. The cable car down to Mazzarò runs without the summer scrum. The ancient theatre can be walked round slowly, with the sea behind the columns and nobody waiting for you to move. Restaurants that wanted three days' notice in August will often find you a table the same evening. Isola Bella looks like an island again rather than a beach with an island attached.

Nothing much closes. This is a working Sicilian town with a year-round population, not a resort that shutters in September, so the bars, the food shops, the markets down in Giardini Naxos and the boats all carry on. Some seasonal beach clubs wind down as the month goes on, and a handful of places take their annual break before Christmas, but you will not find a ghost town.

What to pack for October

Summer clothes plus two additions, essentially.

• A light jacket or jumper for the evenings, which cool fast
• Something windproof if you are planning a day on the water — wet skin on a moving boat is the only genuinely cold thing about October here
• Swimwear, without hesitating
• Shoes that cope with steps and worn stone, because Taormina is vertical
• A thin waterproof, more for peace of mind than for use

Is October a good time to visit Taormina?

For most people, better than August. You keep the warm sea and the long, soft light, you lose the heat, the crowds and the prices that go with high season, and the coast is at its most workable. The trade-offs are honest ones: shorter days, a real chance of rain, and a sea that occasionally turns lumpy for a day or two. If your holiday depends on guaranteed flat water and eleven hours of daylight, come in June. If it depends on actually enjoying the place, come now.

Does anything close in Taormina in October?

Very little of what matters. The town, its restaurants and its main sights run through the autumn, and the beaches remain open even as their loungers thin out. Seasonal operations reduce their hours as the month goes on, so check specific opening times rather than turning up at eight in the evening in late October expecting July's timetable.

If you are putting an October week together and want a day of it spent looking back at the town from the water — which is the view it was built for — get in touch with the crew or send a message on WhatsApp and we will talk through the dates.

Doing Taormina without a car is not a compromise. For most visitors it is the better plan, and the people who arrive with a hire car often spend the week paying to leave it in a garage and walking past it on the way to everything.

The reason is geography. Taormina sits on a ridge a couple of hundred metres above the sea, its centre is closed to traffic, and almost everything worth reaching is either a short walk along one street or directly below you in the water. A car solves a problem the town does not really have.

Why Taormina without a car works so well

The old town is essentially one long pedestrian spine, Corso Umberto, running between two gates with the theatre at one end and the piazza with the view in the middle. From end to end it is a stroll. Nothing in the centre requires wheels, and nothing in the centre can be reached by them anyway.

What the town has instead of horizontal distance is vertical distance. The sea, the beaches and Isola Bella sit below the ridge, connected by a road that folds back on itself through a series of hairpins. That drop is the only real logistical question in Taormina, and there are three answers to it, none of which involve owning a vehicle.

Getting up and down: cable car, steps, bus

The cable car between Mazzarò and the town is the obvious one. It runs frequently, takes a couple of minutes, and hangs you out over the bay on the way with a view most people photograph badly and enjoy anyway. It is the standard commute for anyone staying up top and swimming down below.

The steps are the free alternative. A stone stairway and path drops from near Porta Messina down to Mazzarò, and it is a genuine pleasure downhill through gardens and old walls — a proper walk rather than a hurried shortcut. Uphill, in August, at two in the afternoon, it is a different proposition entirely. Judge honestly.

The local buses handle everything else: down to Giardini Naxos, up the coast to Letojanni, along to the beaches. Long-distance coaches from the Catania and Messina directions come straight up to the bus terminal by Porta Messina, which is why so many people never rent a car in the first place. The train is the other good option, though the station is down at sea level in Villagonia rather than in the town — from there it is a bus or a taxi up the hill, not a walk with luggage.

Where the sea beats the road

Here is the part that gets overlooked. Along this stretch of coast, the water is the road.

The coves between Taormina and Capo Sant'Andrea, the smaller beaches beyond Mazzarò, the shingle at the foot of the cliffs — several of the best of them have no road, no parking and no path down. The coast road above them is narrow, winding, busy in season and short of anywhere to leave a car even if you have one. Approaching from the water sidesteps all of it: you arrive at the front of the beach instead of the back of a queue.

That is exactly what a sea taxi along this coast is for — a straightforward transfer by water rather than by hairpin. It gets people to a bay in the time it would take to find a parking space, and it reaches places the road simply does not go. If your day is built around swimming, it is usually both faster and considerably more enjoyable than the alternative.

• Cable car for the daily up-and-down between town and Mazzarò
• Steps when you want the walk and the gardens
• Buses and trains for Giardini Naxos, Letojanni and the airports
• A boat for the coves, the coast and anywhere the road ignores
• Your own two feet for absolutely everything inside the walls

When you actually do want wheels

Be fair about the exceptions. Etna, the Alcantara gorge, the hill towns inland and the wineries on the volcano's slopes are all easier with a vehicle or on an organised excursion. If half your holiday is inland, hire a car for those specific days rather than for the whole week — and expect to park it outside the centre regardless.

Do you need a car in Taormina?

No. Between the pedestrian centre, the cable car, the buses, the trains and the boats, everything on the coast is reachable without one. A car mainly buys you inland day trips, and costs you parking, hairpins and a restricted centre you cannot drive into anyway.

How do you get from Taormina to the beach without driving?

Cable car or steps down to Mazzarò and Isola Bella, local bus for Giardini Naxos and Letojanni, and a boat for the coves that have no road at all. For a beach day that involves more than one stop, going by sea saves the most time.

If you want a day where the transport is the good bit rather than the admin, talk to the crew about your dates or send a message on WhatsApp.

A private boat day in Taormina is a good idea on an ordinary Tuesday. When there is something to mark — a birthday with a zero in it, a wedding anniversary, the last day of a trip that has gone well, a question somebody intends to ask — it becomes something else.

Occasions on land compete for attention. Restaurants have other tables, streets have other people, and the moment you were planning tends to happen between the starter and someone finding a parking space. On the water, the day is only yours.

Why a private boat day in Taormina suits an occasion

The obvious advantage is that nobody else is aboard. No shared schedule, no waiting for a stranger to finish a swim, no announcement voice. The subtler advantage is that time stops being fixed. If everybody is happy in a cove, you stay in the cove. If the light is doing something extraordinary off the cliffs, you sit still and watch it instead of moving on because the timetable says so.

Groups are the other thing. A celebration usually means a mix — grandparents and small children, strong swimmers and people who would rather stay dry, someone who wants to see everything and someone who wants to lie down. A boat absorbs that better than almost any other setting, because everyone can be doing different things within three metres of each other.

The hour that does the heavy lifting

If the day is built around one moment, build it around the late afternoon.

The light comes round onto the cliffs, the pale rock goes gold, the heat drops out of the air and the sea usually flattens. Taormina begins to light up on its ridge while there is still colour in the sky behind Etna. It is the point in the day when people stop talking and start looking, and it is the reason the sunset run along this coast is what it is. Add a glass of something cold and you have the whole aperitivo on the water ritual, which Sicilians have been doing on land for generations and which works even better afloat.

What to tell the crew

The single most useful thing you can do when booking is say what the day is actually for. Skippers plan differently for a celebration than for a sightseeing trip — where they stop, how long they linger, when they turn for home, whether they cut the engine at a particular moment or keep moving.

Worth mentioning up front:

• The occasion itself, and whether it is a surprise for someone on board
• Who is coming — ages, swimmers and non-swimmers, anyone unsteady on their feet
• Whether there is a moment you want to happen, and roughly when
• Whether you want a swim-and-sun day or a slow, quiet one
• Anything you would like arranged on board, so it can be discussed properly rather than assumed

Nothing here needs to be elaborate. Most of the best days we see are simple: a good cove, no other boats, the right people, and an hour when nobody is in a hurry. The planning exists to protect that, not to decorate it. The tailor-made side of how a day gets built is worth reading if you want the mechanics.

Have a plan for the sea

This is the honest bit. Occasions get fixed to a date months in advance and the sea has never once consulted a calendar. Most days on this coast are fine. Some are not, and a strong wind can make the difference between a beautiful evening and a wet, uncomfortable one.

Two things reduce the risk almost to nothing. First, keep a second date or a second time of day in reserve if you possibly can — mornings are often calmer than afternoons when the wind is up. Second, trust the skipper's read on the day. There are sheltered corners on both sides of the coast, and knowing which one is working on a given afternoon is exactly the local knowledge you are booking.

Can you propose on a boat in Taormina?

People do, regularly, and it works beautifully — a cove with nobody else in it and the coast going gold behind you is not a bad place to ask a question. Tell the skipper beforehand. It means the boat can be somewhere quiet at the right moment, the engine can be off, and someone who is not you can be ready to take the photograph. Also: think about where the ring lives until then. Boats and small objects are a well-known combination.

Is a private boat better than a group tour for a celebration?

For an occasion, yes. A group tour is excellent value and covers the same coastline, but it runs to a shared plan. A private day gives you the timing, the privacy and the ability to stop where you like, which is the whole point when the day is about the people on board rather than the itinerary.

If you have a date in mind, tell us what you are celebrating or message the crew on WhatsApp, and we will work out the shape of the day around it.

Spend an hour looking at the Taormina cliffs and sea caves from a boat and you stop seeing scenery and start seeing rock. That turns out to be more interesting, because this short stretch of coastline is doing something unusual: it changes its entire material within a few miles.

Pale stone under the town. Black stone south of the bay. Caves eaten into the bottom of one and not the other. None of it is decorative — it all has a reason, and the reasons are visible at water level.

The pale rock: Monte Tauro

Taormina is built on a limestone mass, Monte Tauro, that rises straight out of the sea and stops abruptly a few hundred metres up. That is the wall you look at from the water: cream and grey, layered, cut through with fractures, holding scrub and wild fig in every crack that will take a root.

Look for the bedding — the horizontal lines running through the face. In places they are level, in places tilted or interrupted, because this rock has been folded and broken by the same forces that built the Peloritani mountains behind it. Where a fracture reaches the sea, the sea gets to work on it. That is the beginning of every cave on this coast.

How the Taormina cliffs and sea caves were carved

Waves are patient and extremely specific. They attack the weakest line available, which means the joints and softer seams in the limestone, and they attack it at one height: sea level. Water forced into a crack compresses the air ahead of it, the pressure works the crack wider, and over a long enough period you get a notch, then a hollow, then an opening you can take a small boat into.

This is why the caves under Taormina sit in a rough line rather than scattered up the cliff, and why the whole cliff base has a continuous undercut where the rock has been trimmed back. Sea level has not always been where it is now, either, so a few hollows sit slightly high and dry — old work, left behind.

The Grotta Azzurra and the caves along this cliff are the showpieces. The blue is not paint or algae: light entering the water outside the cave loses its warm colours first, so what survives to reach the pale floor inside and bounce back up is the blue end of the spectrum. The cave glows because the rock underneath it is light-coloured. In a cave floored with dark stone, the same physics produces almost nothing.

The black rock to the south

Now look the other way. Below Giardini Naxos the coastline goes flat and dark, because a different mountain has been at work. Etna’s lava has reached the sea more than once along here, and the low black platform of Capo Schisò is the result: molten rock that ran down to the shore, met the water and stopped.

The contrast is remarkable when you see both within one trip. Sheer pale cliff with caves at its feet, and twenty minutes away a flat black ledge with no cliff at all, dark grey sand instead of white pebble, and water reading deep green-blue rather than turquoise because of what lies underneath it. Two coastlines, two entirely different origins, meeting in the same bay.

Isola Bella and the bar that built it

Isola Bella belongs to the pale side: a detached block of the same limestone, standing just off the shore. What connects it to the beach is not bedrock but a low bar of pebbles that the sea has piled up in the sheltered water behind the island.

That bar is temporary in the way geology counts time, and occasionally in the way people count it too. Storms rearrange it, currents move material along it, and the strip you can sometimes walk across is thinner or wider in different seasons. From the water it is the clearest lesson on the coast: the island is the rock, and the path to it is only borrowed.

A few things are worth watching for as you pass along the face:

• The notch at the waterline, running the length of the cliff
• Cave openings lining up along the same weak seams
• White salt staining above the splash zone, and where it stops
• The bedding lines, and where they tilt or break
• The colour of the water changing over pale rock and dark rock

Why is the Grotta Azzurra near Taormina blue?

Because of how light behaves in water. Sunlight passing through the sea into the cave loses red and yellow wavelengths quickly, leaving blue, which then reflects off the pale limestone floor and fills the chamber. It is strongest when the sun is high and the water is calm.

Is Isola Bella a real island?

Yes — it is a rock island, joined to the mainland only by a shifting pebble bar rather than by solid ground. Whether that bar is walkable depends on the sea and the season, which is a large part of why so many people end up looking at it from a boat instead.

If you want the coast explained at the speed it deserves, with the engine off under the cliff face, come out with us or send the crew a message on WhatsApp.

Greek Naxos was the first Greek colony in Sicily, and it was not founded on a hilltop or behind a wall. It was founded on a low black tongue of lava sticking out into the sea, which today is the least dramatic-looking headland on this whole coast.

From the water it takes a second to register. There is no acropolis, no theatre on a ledge, nothing like the town on the ridge above. Just a flat dark point with grass and prickly pear on it, a lighthouse, and a scatter of stone. Then you think about what the crew of a ship in the eighth century BC would have been looking for, and the choice makes complete sense.

Why the Greeks stopped at Capo Schisò

The traditional date is 734 BC, and the settlers came from Chalcis on the island of Euboea. They were working a coast they did not know, and the headland offered them a list of things that are hard to find together.

Shelter, first: a point that projects into the sea gives you a lee on one side whatever the wind is doing, and the wide bay behind it is the best natural anchorage for miles. Fresh water, second — the Alcantara comes down off the mountains and reaches the sea just along the shore, which is not something you can assume on a Mediterranean coastline in summer. Soil, third: everything behind the cape is volcanic and absurdly fertile, and Greek colonists were farmers before they were anything else.

And then the landmark. Etna stands directly behind the site, visible from far out at sea, an unmistakable mark on a coast otherwise short of them. If you are navigating without charts, a mountain that smokes is worth a great deal. Naxos also sat on the route through the Strait of Messina, the doorway to the whole western Mediterranean — whoever held this shore watched everything go past.

What you can see from the sea today

The site sits inside the archaeological park at Capo Schisò, at the southern end of the Giardini Naxos seafront, and the part that reads best from the water is the wall.

Naxos was defended by fortifications built from squared blocks of lava — the same black rock the headland is made of, quarried where it lay. Long stretches survive close to the shoreline, low and dark against the grass. There is something very direct about it: a Greek city built literally out of Etna, on ground Etna had delivered. Behind the walls, the excavated street grid, house foundations and a sanctuary area lie among olive trees and lemon groves, with a small museum in the old fort out on the point.

Passing offshore you also get the geography the settlers were reading — the sheltered bay on one side, the open coast on the other, the river plain, the volcano behind. It is a strategic argument you can take in at a glance.

How Naxos ended and Taormina began

The colony lasted a little over three centuries. In 403 BC Dionysius of Syracuse took and destroyed it, and Naxos as a city was finished.

What happened next is the part that ties this coast together. Survivors and their descendants ended up on the high ground above the bay, on Monte Tauro, and the settlement there grew into Tauromenion — Taormina. The town everyone photographs from the water exists, in a real sense, because the city on the beach was destroyed and the people who were left decided that next time they would build somewhere with a view of the approaches.

Look at the two sites together from a boat and the logic is obvious. Naxos chose convenience: water, soil, anchorage, an easy landing. Taormina chose safety, three hundred metres up a cliff. A good deal of the history of this coast sits in that pair of decisions.

Was Naxos really the first Greek colony in Sicily?

By the traditional account, yes — it is recorded as the earliest of the Greek foundations on the island, with Syracuse following shortly after. Its altar to Apollo Archegetes, patron of colonists, was where Greeks leaving Sicily were said to make their offerings, which suggests the place kept its founding status long after it stopped being powerful.

Where exactly was ancient Naxos?

On the lava headland of Capo Schisò, at the southern end of the bay of Giardini Naxos, directly below Taormina. The archaeological park occupies the point today, a short walk from the modern seafront.

Seen from a deck, with Etna behind it and the bay curving away, it stops being a ruin in a field and becomes a decision somebody made about where to live. If you want to see this coast the way the people who settled it did, come out on the water with us or message the crew on WhatsApp.