At Sea, Aeolian to Adriatic

Civitavecchia is the port of Rome, the new one. It does not have much to offer so we are not going ashore today. Besides, I am moving. Jimmy has worked his magic and obtained for me an upgrade to a Verandah Suite. I will be moving to another deck but that seems OK now that we are all familiar with the ship. So today is moving day and catching up day as the last two were quite exhausting.
I have a verandah! I woke this morning to Stromboli as the sun was rising. This active volcano, the northeastern most island in the Aeolian archipelago, is a perfect cone, sitting in the ocean, and made only more impressive by the small rocky islands all around it. It erupts about 4 times every hour.
This will be a pretty scenic day at sea as we will also pass through the Straights of Messina and on around the toe of Italy.
No sooner said than done, we passed through the aforementioned straights. It is quite a narrow passage and requires a local pilot to get through. The northeastern “corner” of Sicily is the first thing you see. Sandy beaches, hotels and yacht harbors line the shore. At the very tip is a great red & white tower; on the opposite shore is a corresponding twin perched higher on the rockier coast. I could not see any cables but they did have “T” tops, which looked like they should support cables. I’ll check on the way back as the sun won’t be quite so bright. As we rounded the point Messina came into view. We will be docking there on the 26th after a day at sea. We will go to Taormina for a short visit and return for a 2PM departure, the shortest day we have in any port. As we cruised along the passage, Sicily faded from view but not before allowing a hazy view of Mt. Etna.
On the port side we are hugging the coast of the toe of Italy’s boot. It looks dry and sparsely vegetated. There are, however, continuous beaches, yacht harbors and resort towns on the coast.
BTW I just updated the pictures on the gallery with edits and cleanups etc.
We are going to try to call the Bench this morning [CA time] around 9AM. It’s Tuesday, I think, so we’ll try Clare’s phone as she always has it. You will know if we succeed by the time you read this. If it does not work we will try Friday in Katakolon, Greece.