28 Jun - 02 Jul 2002 Taormina

Mediterranean Sea
Southern Ionian Sea
Italian Republic
Sicily
Taormina Roads
Isola Bella Nature Reserve
St. Andrea Cove
SY "Kamu II" anchoring off.

Click below for a bird's-eye view of our anchorage:
N 37° 51.15' E 015° 18.20'

Mediterranean Sea
Southern Ionian Sea
Italian Sea
Sicily
Taormina Roads
Taormina Town
SY "Kamu II" anchoring off.

Click below for a bird's-eye view of our anchorage:
N 37° 50.82' E 015° 17.25'

Mediterranean Sea
Southern Ionian Sea
Italian Republic
Sicily
Taormina Roads
Giardini/Naxos
SY "Kamu II" anchoring off.

Click below for a bird's-eye view of our anchorage:
N 37° 49.55' E 015° 16.42'

Click here for a summary of this year's travels:
2002 Map

Anchoring at the foot of a hilly coastline with popular Taormina on the 200-m high first level, later climbing up the almost vertical foot path from the beach to this picturesque and famous place of pilgrimage for tourists and artists (where Oscar Wilde, Nicholas I of Russia, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Nietzsche [who wrote here his “Also sprach Zarathustra”], Richard Wagner, Wilhelm von Gloeden and Otto Geleng spent their vacation), thus entering the stylish world of high-end tourism and merging with the glitzy, kitsch buying glitterati crowds of Italian and international tourists.

Separating from the glitzy, kitsch buying glitterati crowds of Italian and international tourists at Taormina and climbing up even further into the beautiful old and untouristy mountain village of Castelmola, situated on the 500-m high second level of the steep coast, almost on top of Taormina.

Observing how a nearby anchored luxury cruise liner from Princess Cruises professionally disembarked her passengers for a visit of Taormina using modern, fully enclosed ship tenders (designed to double as lifeboats) that seem to have come straight out of a sci-fi movie, and coincidentally discussing Hardin’s Lifeboat ethics, an ecological metaphor for resource distribution.

Being impressed by the quiet grandesse of Ennio Morricone (the composer of many scores for Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns that emerged in the mid 1960s) who conducted the Orchestra Roma Sinfonietta which played his unforgettable movie evergreens (“A Fistful of Dollars”, “Once Upon a Time in America”, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”) in the stunning ruins of Taormina's Greek open-air theatre (one of the most celebrated ruins in Sicily, on account of both its remarkable preservation and its surpassing beauty of its location against the backdrop of Mt. Etna as a spectacular natural stage setting).

Running aground on a shallow sandbank in front of the harbour of Giardini Naxos and coming free with the unselfish help and a long rope from an unknown friendly Sicilian fisherman.