Plaster and Paint

When the caulking is completed, the gozzo "Santa Maria del Lauro" looks like a perfect wooden sculpture. Unfortunately, the sea has no mercy for wooden manufacts: in a few months, salt water and sun light can destroy them. And indeed, a striking difference with the boats from the northern seas is that the Mediterranean boats are painted in bright and individual colors.
It has oftne pointed that where the shore rock is limestone, fishermen houses were whitened with lime, while on tuff rock shores houses were bright, different colored, easily spotted one by one from the sea. At Meta, the two marinas, the one said "of Meta", or of the Purgatory, which ruins stand below the tuff cliff, and Marina di Alimuri, wedged between the limestone mountain and the tuff cliff of Sorrento's plain, showed both cases.
But all the boats were bright colored, decorated with apotropaic and religious symbols.
Mast'Antonio recalls that his grandfather's gozzo, the original 1919 "Santa Maria del Lauro" was bright red, a well visible color at sea. Michele little daughters decide the colors of the "frisa".
After the hard work and sharp attentions dedicated to the wooden hull, painting is almost boring, for the carpenters...