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July 11, 2006

Stromboli Watch

June 23. 2006

We have had an extremely peaceful day’s sailing. After our most recent adventures, namely the successful “search and capture” of illegal driftnet vessels, having a morning without being pursued by boats with fishermen calling us rather indecorous names in the language of the Roman Emperors, or throwing fish at us, has turned out to be quite monotonous. In truth, the watches were much more entertaining when we had to be on look out to avoid them boarding us.

Nevertheless, to compensate for the lack of action at sea, on getting up for the 4.00 a.m. watch with Albert and Juan, we see the following message on the blackboard: “Stromboli spitting out red balls of fire every 10-15 minutes!”. The message had been left by the previous watch, though it would seem that the volcano had become a little sleepy at that hour of the morning given that it was not “spitting” quite so often now.

We cross the Eolie Islands in the direction of another island: Sardinia, the home of the Sardinians. There we will again call into port and continue on our Italian odyssey. I do not think we will be leaving too many friends among the illegal fishing community behind when we leave, but with a little bit of luck we will help to bring about some changes in certain things.