Journal of the fiftyfourth day on board

25th June, 1999

01:25 a.m. Bye bye Malta.

The Alicudi is slowly leaving the harbour of La Valletta with its stern headed towards Lampedusa.

Up till now, I have hidden from you the presence on board of a famous guest (V.I.P.), an expert from the Italian Scientific Journal, a reliable and witty "pen". A name you can trust if I may borrow from a famous TV commercial regarding a well-known cream cheese.
His professional activities range from press to TV. I will limit myself in saying that he is one of the authors of "Superquark" and the science adviser for the Italian National Geographic magazine. And that really is something!
Well, I have the honour and the pleasure of having him on board in the role of a sea explorer.

His stage name: Giovanni Carrada
Giovanni can be praised for participating in many of the activities on board: we have watched him running ropes, chumming the sea, cracking jokes, catching sight of dolphins, sleeping in the sun and most of all spending a lot of time scripting in his note-pad the next documentary or working at the computer to add a "turbo" to my writing.
The jump in quality and content of my writing in last few days is not only due to us being in Malta….but to Giovanni!
And if there are still some inaccuracies that's due to the fact that I didn't want to keep bothering him.

11:00a.m. After about 10 hours at sea we reach a bank south-east of Lampedusa where we are going to spend the whole day.