Day 104 - Tuesday April 11

Ortygia photos
position at 7:30am: N37 05.55 latitude E15 45.15 longitude
(about 25 miles E of Siracusa, Sicily)
temperature: 66F, 67% humidity, cloudy and windy (85km/h for NW)
distance since FLL: 33,570 miles
It was cool and windy again this morning for Clay's deck walk. Debbie slept in and was glad for the extra hour. We went to a late breakfast again in Compass Rose since we are still not in sight of land. Debbie had a double order of Swedish Pancakes and Clay had blueberry pancakes. Land was visible by the time we finished eating and we headed up to Deck 12 for the sail in to Siracusa's harbor. It is pretty scenic. The old fortified island of Ortygia is right next to us and that is where we have been told that we will tender into, Ortygia. We were at our anchorage by 8:30am. By 9am the Captain came on and his Vords of Visdom were not so philosophical or poetic today. He said he got a call at 11pm last night that the local port authority would not allow Voyager to use our own tenders. Capt. Dag said that by the time he went to bed he had arranged that to allow the local tender's union to make its money they would pay them and still be allowed to use our own tenders in addition to the local ones. By the time we arrived here this morning, it was back to only local tenders could be used. The first local tender arrived at about 9am. Capt. Dag announced that the capacity was 40 people and he did not know how we could get even all the tour-booked people ashore. He said he would continue negoatiating with the locals and handed off to Jamie. Jamie said that he would start handing out tender tickets in front of the Voyager Lounge and that once you came and got a ticket you should be prepared to stay there until you were called, that he would not make shipwide announcements. He apologized for the inconvenience. At 9:30am, Jamie announced that we had finally convinced the locals that they could not provide adequate tendering capacity and they had consented to let us drop our own 2 tenders into the water. Jamie said that we had not yet received permission to start loading any tenders yet and that there about 350 people booked on tours who had to be offloaded before they would begin tendering individuals going ashore independently. They started loading tenders just a few minutes after Jamie's announcement. We are flexible here since we spent a day here before and just planned to wander Ortygia and review the old sights. Clay has almost no memories of the day we spent here in 2000, so it will all be new to him anyway.
The last tender back to the ship is at 1:30pm. We are expected to sail at 2pm. It will be a short day here in any event. We are due to sail past Stromboli volcanoe around 11pm tonight so we are looking forward to that and hope it does something for us. This should also mean that we sail through the Straits of Messina but there have been no announcements about that. Anyway, it should be a nice sail for the rest of day after we depart Siracusa.
We received our interim bill today and they only charged us $140 each for the tour to Petra in Jordan. This is a reduction of $49 each, or $9 less than what we would have paid to just take the plain Petra tour vs. the Concierge Choice tour there. We never received any kind of response regarding that tour after we submitted our written complaint. We assume that this price reduction is the response and not some accounting error.
We got a letter this morning informing us that the Kitchen Cabaret concept has been extended in Latitudes through 4/14. Latitudes will be closed on 4/15 and will reopen on the 16th as a Spanish Bodega. We have a 7pm reservation for Tuesday, the 18th so we will report back on this. We are still skipping the Kitchen Cabaret. We have heard mixed reviews about the entertainment there and not many raves for the menu. Many who have been on the whole time stated they thought it was the weakest offering in Latitudes to date. In any event, we are skipping it so cannot make any first hand reports.
We went down to the Main Atrium after all the tender ticketing had stopped and tenders were just being freely loaded. We wound up on a Voyager tender and were ashore by 10:30am. We docked just across the bridge from the island of Ortygia. The island is only about 1 mile long and a 1/2 mile wide so it is easy walking. The whole island is paved. We looked and did not see any dirt or grass. It is paved with marble and brick and other pavers but the whole thing is covered. It was fairly cool and partly cloudy which made for a pleasant day. We were here before in late summer with glaring sunshine and every surface reflected and it was stunning but not comfortable. Sadly, the Duomo was covered with scaffolding on the front, so we have no pictures. Also, the Palazzo Bellomo museum of art was covered with scaffolding and was closed. We ended up having a nice leisurely strolland then a long leisurely and delicious Sicilian lunch. Clay had misto frito (mixed fried seafood plate) with a Moretti beer and Debbie had pasta alla Norma (tomato sauce with eggplants) and a Sicilian white wine that was not bad.
The good news was that they delayed our departure until 3:30pm or 3pm. The last tender is now scheduled for 2:30pm instead of 1:30pm. One assumes this is because we were delayed by the politics of getting permission to be here at all at the last minute. Sadly, a few greedy Sicilians may have messed up this port in the future for RSSC and Voyager. When we arrived to the tender dock to return there was a long line and people were balking at riding in the local tenders. Apparently, after the ship got unloaded the locals told RSSC that they had to stop running their own tenders. Those people back on the dock were taking a moral and safety stance but they may have had a long wait. We rode in the last 2 seats on the next local tender on the outside benches and it was fine. It was not as safe or convenient as the Voyager tenders but we were not in fear for our lives or anything. We saw Voyager's tenders being loaded back on as we arrived, so those people making a stand ashore may have a disappointing wait.
The ship was docked directly in front of the Fonte Arethusa which is a fresh water spring that made the island so desirable in ancient times. We had a view of it from our balcony. It was a very scenic anchorage. Later after we were on the ship, we saw one of the ship's tenders return to the tender dock ashore, so it was not a pleasant day for the ship's personnel dealing with the locals today. That is too bad if it costs Siracusa future cruise stops. It is a lovely place to spend a half day. The most amazing thing here aside from a whole island of Baroque architecture is the Duomo. It was built over the ruins of the 5th century BC temple of Minerva and incorporates 26 of the original Doric columns. You can see these columns from the outside as well as from the inside of the cathedral. The facade was destroyed along with most of the buildings on the island in an earthquake in 1693 and was rebuilt, again like most of the buildings on the island, in the Baroque style.
The phone rang just before 3pm as Debbie was inside typing this and Clay was pondering our sail away up the coast of Sicily. It was one of the social hostesses, Lisa, requesting our presence at the Captain's table tonight. It is Formal tonight. Debbie consented without consulting Clay. Now Clay is not happy. Debbie plans to miss much of the sail up the coast by napping, now Clay says he will have to too. Oh, well such are the rigors of life on a World Cruise.
The weather turned on us later in the afternoon. The seas were choppy and the visibility was low with misting rain and strong winds. So, the naps turned out to be a better use of our time anyway. You could barely make out the mountains around Taormina. We entered the Straits of Messina around 7pm. It was still a little light out and even with the rain and wind you could see both Messina on Sicily and Reggio di Calabria on Italy on either side of the ship. There was a lot of ferry traffic.
We got dressed up and went to the Constellation Theater for the Captain's Farewell. He was still pretty steamed about the behavior of the port/harbor people today. He said he came very close to getting so angry that he would just bypass the port. He said it would be a very long time before he will return to Siracusa if ever. It did seem to be beyond greed and into the area of stupidity to be so shortsighted in their treatment of Voyager today. Too bad for them.
Dinner was at the Captain's table. We were seated with a couple from Texas that we had met previously and 2 women from Florida that we have had a few meals with one of the women. The other couple from San Francisco we had not met before. It was a good dinner. Debbie was seated at the Captain's right and if he was scrutinizing her picky eating he was polite and did not comment. They both had pasta and beef. Capt. Dag did not order any dessert but he was staring at Debbie's white chocolate cheesecake which was melt-in-your-mouth delicious. She finally asked him if he wanted a bite. He said no he couldn't. She rolled her eyes and handed him the spoon she was not using. Well, he said, maybe one bite. Is it really good? She told him, it will melt in your mouth. He took a big bite and held it with his eyes closed. When he opened them, she asked him, well. He said, yes, it did melt in my mouth, delicious, thank you. The really funny thing this evening involved bakery goods from Siracusa. Apparently, when the Captain went to the Harbor Master's office today to lodge his official complaints about our handling here today, the Harbor Master gave him a big box of finest pastries that Siracusa has to offer. Capt. Dag said he tried some and it was really good, so he saved it to share with the table this evening. Capt. Dag said he gave the box to Patrick to take to the kitchen to be served with petit fours. Capt. Dag asked the waiter serving petit fours to get the cookies from Patrick. The waiter did not return. Mike came out to ask how our meals were and Capt. Dag asked him where are the cookies I sent down to you with Patrick. Mike shrugged, he did not know about any box of pastries. The waiter finally appeared with Patrick, and Patrick told the Captain that the cookies were gone. The Captain could not believe it, Patrick assured him the cookies are gone. No cookies. Debbie asked Patrick, Patrick did you eat all those cookies? Patrick pulled out his jacket and looked down at his stomach in surprise. We all laughed but then Capt. Dag and Mike and Patrick huddled and the Captain was pretty upset that his cookies were gone. He told us about them and how unhappy he was about the "miscommunication." We all told that the desserts off the menu plus petit fours was going to be fine for us all. Patrick came back and promised that he personally was going to go shopping in Sorrento tomorrow and deliver special pastries to everyones' cabins. Mike reminded him that it was Easter week and that it might be a problem. Patrick assured us then that Monte Carlo would be his backup port. OK. It is OK. No one would have even missed them if Captain Dag had not raved about them. He described what Debbie thought was marzipan and cassata cake and we don't love either of those anyway. We visited several bakeries today and while we looked we did not buy, so we are sure that no matter how Capt. Dag was raving about his lost box of pastries that it could not have been as good as that white chocolate cheesecake. Capt. Dag had some cufflinks with nautical signal flags on them. Debbie asked him what the flags spelled. He was embarrassed to tell her that they were a gift from old friends and former passengers years ago and that he wore them for a year before he got out a book and looked up what they spelled...TIFFANY! Very funny. We had a good evening, but it was not over yet!
At 10pm we were to sail past Stromboli. The Capt. called the bridge from the table and they said it had stopped raining and visibility was 8 miles and they could see the eruptions ahead. We went to the cabin and changed to go up to Deck 12. It was 55 degrees F with 80 km/h winds, so it was pretty uncomfortable. Debbie made good use of that big red parka again. Stromboli sent up a plume of flame andsparks just as we came out on Deck 12. It did it again about every 5 to 6 minutes. We had arrived earlier than expected but no one inside the ship knew. We stayed until we had to watch from the back of the ship. We saw one really enormous blast with flaming rocks falling far down the slope as we were sailing away. Stromboli had saved the best for last. It was raining again by the time we got back inside. Tomorrow morning we are expected to anchor off Sorrento at 7am and that will be an early morning now.
Ortygia photos