Far Side of the World

We sailed from Kiato, Greece a few days ago to Catania, Itally.

I have looked forward to sailing all my life and my chance had finally come. I was very excited to set sail for Itally and venture on the high seas...well the Med Sea anyways. I had also stocked up on Gravol before leaving Greece, because if you know me well you will know that I am deathly afraid of throwing up, and sea sickness is one thing that I did not want to have to deal with. We left in the evening and the sea was perfectly still and calm--like a lake. It was so beautiful with the city lights shining across the water. There was some phosphoresance, but it was hard to see because of the city lights. That night I set my clock for 3:30 am and slept one of the best sleeps of my life!! The ship gently rocking me to sleep. My watch for this leg of our journy (three day sail) was the 4-8 shift. This means that I had to be on deck from 4-8 am and pm. Kiato is set in the end of a long passage of sheltered water from the main part of the Med Sea. There is a bridge that spans a nerrow strait before the passage opens up into the sea. When I got up for my shift, thats what I saw, a long line of lights, lighting the bridge across the channel. The clouds also parted for a while and I could see the Greek stars (which are actually the same ones that we have in Canada, by the way). The neat thing about the 4-8 watch is that I got to watch both the sunrise and the sunset. On a watch we do three things: Look out (watching for ships on the horizon, or anything else that we may run into), Helm (steer the ship in the right direction--hopefully) and Plot (charting our coordinants on a map so we can track where weàve been, when and so on). And when you're not busy doing either of these...we socialize (as best you can at 4 am). As far as sea sick goes... well I felt sick the whole three days. But I never threw up!! Generally everyone else threw up at least 3 or 4 times a day. Needless to say I was quite relieved when we saw Itally. But I did see a dolphin!!! And I'm planning on seeing a whole lot more in the future! =)

Itally is amaaaaazing!! So far I'd say its the best place that I've ever visted! The water is aqua blue and crystal clear and the weather is clear and hot (but not too hot), the food is the most amazing thing that I've ever eaten in my entire life. One word - gelato! Wow wow wow!! I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to Canadian ice cream again, and its pretty cheap too--which is amazing. The pizza that I got was an adventure in itself. We (me and four other girls) desided that we wanted Italian pizza. So we went into this place that looked authentic... and boy was it. The place was painted orange and had photos taped to the wall for decor, and there was a strip of table cloth taped to the wall to kinda look like wall paper that matched the table cloth.. 'cept it was the table cloth. lol The pizza was amazing too!!! Soooo good! The guy kinda ripped us off though and charged for service... lol Wow ya, great "service". haha Oh well... it was quite the adventure. I'ts weird here cause nothing is open before 8pm, and then its like BAM!!! People EVERYWHERE!!! It's a packed place here! I'm sitting in the internet cafe now, and there is a strong smell of deoderent... like the spray stuff... I can hear people loading it on. *spray* *spray* It's grose. But, nonetheless, it is still a lovely place!