It was a beautiful sunday today. We had a flat calm sea and a brightly shining sun while we sailed around the southern part of Italy. Our guests first had the chance to see the East side of Italy during the early morning. Then the South side at noon time followed by the West side in the afternoon. As we sailed with the sun, the sun always shone onto the coast giving a very clear view of the scenery. We passed through Strait Messina around 1 pm. and had Stromboli at 15.30 hrs., so all on board had ample opportunity to enjoy the sights.

My day started in an unusual way as I had been asked to do the bible reading for the Sunday service. Normally I stay away from that as I do not want to show preference to any variation of the Christian faith but this was different. The Reverend we have on board this cruise is the Chaplain General of the International Seafarers Ministry and is from Dutch decent. I met him for the first time about 25 years ago and he shows up from time to time with his wife for a cruise. His name is about as complicated as mine, Uittenbosch, which translates into English as “from the Forest” but as he lives in Canada he uses the name Dubois. This makes the life of his wife, who is a French teacher, a lot easier. About 75 guests attended the service, which was more than for the bingo, so I assume there is still hope for mankind.

Going through the strait of Messina was an easy affair this time. The pilot came on board while the ship was going at full speed, had his cup of coffee, had his bill signed, and hopped of 20 minutes later, with the ship still going at full speed. He had one look out of the window to see if I was going the right way and spend the rest of the time talking on the VHF. The main aim of that conversation was that he tried to make a tanker, which was approaching Messina strait after us, to go faster to fit in his schedule. The tanker captain was saying that 11.5 knots was the top speed of his ship and he could not go any faster, but the pilot was having none of it. But top speed is top speed so the argument did not get resolved. The tanker kept moving at 11.5 knots and the pilot had to wait.

Stromboli was producing white smoke today and as the crater top was not covered in clouds, the smoke plumes could be clearly seen rising from the crater hole. We passed by at a distance of just over a mile while the port lecturer gave a little narration about what was there to be seen. In the meantime we kept the pedal to the metal, was it was a tight run to Civitavecchia. I wanted to arrive early because 6 other cruise ships were expected. All of them around the same time. If you do not arrive on the agreed time, you can loose your spot and then be delayed by an hour or more. For the call here, you want to have the buses to Rome on the road by 7 am. which means that arriving on time is of the essence. It will be a Monday, thus traffic is going to be a challenge to get to Rome and to get back to the ship again. My crew has already given up on bus transport and they all go to Rome by train, if they have the day off.