AROUND SUNRISE the next morning (sunrise!), we shoved off from Monterosso in the 13-foot skiff with our backpacks in the bow, a bailing bucket resting between the hull's wooden ribs, and a long coil of line attached to a plow anchor stashed neatly in a crate.

All went well for the first few hours. J.D., at the oars, and I, reclining in the stern, resumed something like our chummy old ways. We docked at Vernazza for breakfast. Gelatoed at Manarola. We were doing it!

As the sun climbed higher, we began to wither in the doldrums. J.D.'s inability to row a straight line or sing songs other than Christmas carols started to irk, as did his dreamy, baby-gets-a-bath oar strokes. For my part, I fouled the anchor in boulders covered with spiny sea urchins, meaning I had to dive down and wrench it free from what might as well have been a Malay cockfight. Bloody scrapes covered my chest, arms, and knees.

At three o'clock, we reached Riomaggiore, the last of the five towns. We'd completed the mission. You might think I felt proud, and I did—in a very "Thank God that assignment is over" kind of way.

For lack of a better plan, we turned around. Which is when things really started to fall apart: The wind picked up to about ten knots, tossing little Strefugio from trough to whitecap. Halfway home, we could barely keep both oars in the water. Headway turned to drift. The boat-hungry cliffs smiled.

Eventually, we clawed our way back to Vernazza. But because the Giro d'Italia had passed by earlier in the day (when we were in Vernazza... wondering why it was so damn busy while we tried to figure out which town the Giro was passing through), all rooms were booked. We ended up unrolling our sleeping bags in a cramped, urine-scented cave a little ways off the beach.

At dawn, we both acknowledged that we were deeply, deeply sick of Cinque Terre. "I hate this place," I said, shivering from having had to retrieve yet another bungled anchor.

"If I ever meet Jock, he'll have to retire from male modeling," J.D. replied.

We had made up, you see. Throughout the preceding day, I'd offered a silent little apology to J.D., admitting that I had pretty much been a Wagnerian ass. He'd done likewise, I like to think. Regardless, instead of blubbering out that sissy stuff, we took our animosity and redirected it at Cinque Terre—a.k.a. Cinque Minutes Is Enough—and then decided to get the hell away. Which brings us back to Como.

Why Lake Como? Again, not sure. Call it primal instinct. Spanked by the sea, we retreated to the mountains.