- window
- With Tramontana in the forecast the useful window shortens by itself, long before sunset. At Agropoli the bathing season changes the usable distances far more than the sea ever does. The bathing season narrows the options: out of season the stretch is whole again. The last stretch, the 700 m out to ten metres of water, is the one you will swim tired: put it in the day's arithmetic.
- tide
- The current you will find towards the north will nearly always be wind-driven and not tidal. In a hard Tramontana the level rises more than any spring tide manages. At Agropoli the tide calendar is no substitute for reading the sea. With the shore 10 m from the mark, the alongshore current counts for more than any table.
- shelter
- In a bay like this the shelter is a few tens of metres wide, tucked against the windward point rather than in the middle of the arc, and in a hard Tramontana not even that. The coast here runs E–W and opens to the north: that is what decides which forecast to read. The 700 m that separate the shore from ten metres of water tell you how much sea it takes to ruin the day. At Agropoli whoever gets in first checks, whoever gets in out of habit is trusting yesterday.
- conditions
- Getting twenty metres under you takes about 1100 m of swimming, so it pays to get in already decided on where to go. The outside water arrives when the wind from the south pushes it in; with an old sea it stays offshore for days. At Agropoli it pays to come out feeling you stopped early. In Tramontana the suspension stays inshore; in Ostro it is gone in half a day.
- hazard
- With Tramontana into the mouth of the bay the water leaves through the middle and comes back along the sides: keep it in mind for the return. On the shoreline at Agropoli the same national rules apply without discounts: breath-hold, daylight, marker in sight. Keep in mind the 10 m that separate you from the coast when you decide on the last descent. The protected area Santa Maria di Castellabate begins 1.3 km from this mark, with its own rules for breath-hold.
- access
- From here to the 5 m contour is about 460 m, and it pays to measure them on the way out so as not to find them long on the way back. Access in a cove is easy; coming back along the coast rather less so. At Agropoli the accesses change with the bathing season. In a hard Tramontana the windward exit becomes unusable: check an alternative.
Rocky bay south of the harbour, north of the Castellabate MPA boundary; sea bream and saddled bream, posidonia.
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