WELL, ACTUALLY, this assignment was a bit different. For starters, rather than travel solo as I normally do, I brought along J.D., my perfect complement. I'm tall, slender, blond, schizo, single, athletic (Boulder, Colorado); he's short, heavy, brunet, bookish, married, and burdened, as he admits, with "the metabolism of used potting soil" (Madison, Wisconsin). In our decade-long friendship, this synergy has been the basis of a dynamic Tango & Cash–like duo that hasn't yet worked with the ladies but kills the moms. I figured it'd play in Italy, too, because he'd be awake.

Nope.

After sleeping 17 of the first 20 hours of the trip, he woke for dinner, then conked out afterwards, from ten that evening until—I kid you not—4:23 p.m. the next day. That's not jet lag; that's a coma.

But I didn't let that get to me. While the Thing hibernated, I spent most of the day interviewing a dozen locals at Levanto's marina. Jock was gone (his waifish charm not forgotten), but I found an equally affable fellow shipwrecked at the clapboard boatyard bar. Marco Scaramuccia was wearing nothing but soggy boxer briefs when he greeted me with a slap on the back. Of course we could rent his boat. "No problem," he said. "I'll set you up tomorrow."

The next morning, though, Marco changed his mind. I would have pressed the issue, but he stunk. Plus everyone claimed we'd have better luck in the next town over, Monterosso, because supposedly it was the Mediterranean capital of anchovy fishing. This was an auspicious sign; J.D. loves anchovies.

So we followed a clotted gang of Germans with heavy leather boots and trekking poles on the three-mile hike over a pine-covered hill. With J.D.'s frequent "chubby breaks" (his words, not mine), it took twice as long as it should have. But when Monterosso finally came into view, we saw rowboats galore. They were beside the striped umbrellas, changing rooms, and paddleboats lining the beach. A few even rested up on the fashionable boardwalk, below a row of pastel apartments.

We dug right in. Or, rather, J.D. shuffled mutely behind while I dug right in, chatting up the lifeguards, the Gucci set, the beguiling old women playing dominoes in the shade of a sport club. The answer was always the same as Marco's—"È impossibile." But why it was impossible varied. Either it was just plain old palms-to-the-sky impossible or we needed special licenses or running lights or national-park permits. Baffling. Only Italians would create a national park that can be visited in stilettos.

J.D. claims that if he'd been on his own, he simply would've stolen a boat, because "that's how I roll." My solution was my solution to many problems: find a coed. One who could translate. But when I finally saw her, I could only drool. Maybe 22 years old, local, alabaster skin, floppy black ponytail, swan's neck, she bounced down the street, then stopped to pet a shaggy little terrier and joke with its aging owner leaning on a cane. She had that "I love the world and of course it loves me" glow about her. My Juliet! And then she vanished.

We ended up spending the rest of our third day of the Hunt writing notes with my cell-phone number and a phrase a partially deaf ferry-ticket vendor had taught us, setting them under stones on any boat that looked like it had been used in the past decade. Moi vogliomo noleggiore uno barce x5 giorni. Grazie. As far as we could tell, this meant "Me five times a groundhog fondle today. Thank you." But you have to understand, this was our best effort. The lifeguard had already said none of the dozens of owners would rent them; we were merely double-checking.