On my first Mediterranean cruise, as the ship traveled south, heading in the direction of the "boot" of Italy, the Captain had made an announcement that at approximately 3:00 am the ship would be passing by this would-be Sleeping Giant.
I thought to myself, "ok I'm going to see what this is all about." So at 2:45 am, I got up and headed out to the deck to see what I could see. My mom was concerned about me walking out on deck by myself that late at night, or early in the morning, so she decided to come with me. In retrospect, it probably was a good idea that she came with me. It's nearly 3 am and we are literally the only people out on deck.
I look around outside, from both the port and starboard side of the ship and I see nothing but pitch black darkness. Unfortunately, I had no clue as to whether or not I should expect to see this Sleeping Giant on the port or starboard side of the ship. It made me a little nervous to be staring into black nothingness. I could understand perfectly well now how people just "disappear" from a cruise ship.
My mom and I decided to settle on one side of the ship on some deck chairs that were outside. We thought we'd give it 5 minutes and if we didn't see anything at all, well then, we'd go right back to bed.
And there it was! Like a firecracker exploding in the sky. Off in the distance was this red glow of light that shot up so quickly that it disappeared instantly. My mom and I looked at each other with astounding looks on our faces as if to say, "did you just see what I saw?" We were so fixated on this now dark spot in the distance that we got up out of the deck chairs and stood against the railing. That was the only thing separating us from that black hole of nothingness. And then suddenly, there it was again. A red spray of light shooting up briefly into the night sky.
This Sleeping Giant, well it's known as the Stromboli volcano. One of only 3 active volcanoes in Italy. And the volcano believed to be the longest continuously erupting volcano in the world. Geologists and vulcanologists believe that Stromboli has been erupting for more than 2,000 years continuously.
I was actually witnessing a real life volcano eruption. It was amazing, brilliant, breathtaking and a little unbelievable. How many people can really say they've seen an erupting volcano spewing red lava into the black of night?
If you can believe it, Stromboli is actually an inhabited island. There are approximately 700 permanent residents who share this tiny little island with one angry volcano. Of course, the inhabitants all live at the base of the volcano right near the port. This way, they can, with a moment's notice, evacuate the island. And the apparently the side of the island they live on is on the opposite side of the lava flow. That doesn't mean though that this enclave hasn't previously been evacuated from the island and/or destroyed in the past.
I believe that when we passed by Stromboli that night, we must have been on the opposite side of the island from where the community lies. We saw nothing bit darkness. There was no light reflecting off of the ocean's surface from the moon. There was no glow of life on the island, or any other nearby islands or any land mass nearby. Nothing but this bright red glow of lava that would appear every few seconds.
Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it. Had my mom not been there with me, she would not have believed it. Had I not taken photographs (albeit not very good ones) then perhaps no one would be believe me. Even in the photos I do have, all you see is a red glow in the top left corner of the photo. For all you know, that could be any random red glow.
The one bonus we had on this cruise was that we would, less than a week later, sail past the same area on our trek back towards Rome. This time, we would be passing Stromboli during the early afternoon daylight hours.
Our passing of the volcano and the island during the day was not nearly as dramatic as our view at night. However, while passing it this time around, we could now see the community that rests at the bottom of the volcano. We could also see a distinct cloud of ash and smoke that hangs right over the caldera of the volcano. It was, however, this ash and smoke that prevented us from being able to see any sort of lava eruption.
It was neat though to see the same scene from two different perspectives, one in the dead of night, and the second one during the light of day.
As we'll be passing by the same area on our upcoming cruise, you can rest assured that I'll be looking out for Stromboli again.
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