Finsatsea: November 10 - Napoli, Italia

It’s a sunny day in Naples and once again I’m having a quiet day in port. I’ve been to Naples many times, been to the Amalfi coast, sailed over to Capri, and visited a buffalo mozzarella farm. Going to them again by myself just didn’t appeal to me so here I am, sitting in the sunshine watching the world go by. I feel a little like Otis Redding except I’m sitting on the stern of this lovely ship instead of the dock of the bay. I can see Vesuvius off in one direction and faintly off in the distance I can just make out Capri.

So what shall I write about today? I think I’ll write a little about an interesting character I’ve met on this voyage. At the solo travelers’ party I sat next to a nice man named Tim from Long Island, NY. I’ve since dined with him a couple of times. He’s a widower and he has an interesting past. Tim worked for the Port of Authority of New York until he retired. That in itself isn’t so unique, but where he was based was. Tim’s office was on the 71st floor of World Trade Center One. He was working there in 1993 when the first bombing attempt of the World Trade Center took place. In that case if you recall bombs were placed in the sub-basements. He said walking down the stairs to evacuate knowing you were heading toward the problem was a little disconcerting. On the other hand on the morning of September 11, 2001 Tim was looking out the window by his desk and saw a plane fly down the Hudson, make a sharp bank and fly near enough that he could look in the cockpit before it crashed into his building 20 stories above his floor. He told me alarms went off and then his office began to go down the stairs to evacuate. He said because they were going away from the problem there wasn’t the sense of urgency he’d felt eight years before. No one imagined that the building structures would collapse as they eventually did. When he got to ground level he went into a nearby shop that had a TV turned on and there he saw the second plane hit the second tower. When that tower collapsed, people then began trying to move uptown to get away from the clouds of ashes and debris that enveloped everything. As he told us about his experience shivers ran down my spine. I cannot possibly imagine what it must have been like. One of my other friends asked him if he had PTSD and he said he didn’t. (He seemed fine to me.) 84 of his colleagues didn’t survive that day, including two women who worked directly for him and had gone down to ground level to have a cigarette break. No trace of them was ever found and it was surmised that they were in an elevator on their way back to their desks when the plane hit and they got stuck and perished in the collapse.

I have to say again that one of the things I like best about cruising is meeting all sorts of people with all sorts of experiences.

Here’s a photo of Vesuvius and one of far-off Capri.