2004 Europe

Diana and the Stromboli Volcano



May 10 – Got up bright and early to see the Stromboli Volcano. It’s a pretty impressive island but it was windy and there were compression clouds surrounding the peak the entire time we sailed around it. There are two villages on the island, one at each end. I’m not sure I’d like to live on an active volcano. This volcano has been active for all of recorded history. Sooner or later it’s going to blow. Later in the day we passed through the Straits of Messina. It’s a very narrow strait between mainland Italy and Sicily. At the narrowest point, where we entered, it did not appear much more than 1.5 miles across and maybe a little less. It was a little hard to judge how close we were to it because right at the entrance there is a tall power tower. It looks like the normal cross-country type, high power line but it isn’t. It’s about four times taller than the normal ones in the states. I have a picture of it and right near it is a tall lighthouse and the lighthouse looks like a matchstick next to the tower (Below). As we got closer I noticed a matching tower on mainland Italy. Apparently these towers are tall enough to let the largest ship and then some get through the straits under the power lines.

Spent the rest of the day lounging around and reading. Resting up for the next few days when we have port after port. The Noordam cast gave the evenings entertainment. We’d seen the show before, but the costumes are great and there’s always so much going on that you can see them several times and still be entertained. The show was ‘Personalities’ and the cast sang and wore the costumes of various famous singers, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Elvis, Patsy Cline and others. My favorite song was KC singing Patsy Cline’s ‘Crazy’. That song really suits her voice and style.

(c) 2004 Rod Longenberger