Monday – October 6 - Naples

The ship went fairly slowly all night, it isn’t very far from Rome to Naples, you can drive it in a couple of hours, we were docked before 7:00am.  As always, the image of Vesuvius dominates the Naples skyline and dominates the thoughts of those who live here.  In California, we think about the occasional earthquake, imagine living near Pompeii and knowing that the same active volcano is still there and still active.  Maxine decided on a quiet day, sleeping in and then just staying on the ship and reading.  I had arranged by internet to have a diving trip.  The dive leader picked me up about 7:30am and then drove me to the dock where the boat would meet us.  You can’t imagine Naples traffic at rush hour.  We have always joked that in southern Italy lane lines and traffic signals are advisory only.  Being driven through rush hour by someone who agreed with that thought felt much more dangerous than Scuba could ever be.  Stop signs were totally ignored.  When asked about this, she told me that if she stopped, she would be rear ended since no one would expect the stop.  The dive shop is on a large private beach across the road from a moderate size hill called the Italian equivalent of “New Hill”.  That is because in 1538 the hill appeared from no where in one night.  Just another reminder of how active this volcano is.  The dive site is a set of Roman brick pillars that once held up a causeway.  Their tops originally came to the surface, they are now 25-30 feet below the surface.  This is not due to the ocean rising, but rather the ground sinking.  The area sits on a large magma chamber that over time fills and empties.  As it does, the land above rises and falls.  We normally think of geologic movement in terms of centimeters per century or slower.  This area has moved as much as eight meters vertically in a century.   After that dive, the boat was moved to a very shallow area, only about 10 feet deep.  This was the remains of a warehouse, office and home that had been at the edge of the water.  It is now under.  There are columns, walls and even mosaic tile floors all submerged.  You can clearly see the outline of the rooms, in a couple of cases, even make out the doorways and steps.   There are bits of tile and pottery everywhere.  Some of the pieces even still had complete handles on them.  Of course, there is a strict rule about taking anything.  Unfortunately, there are no pictures from the second dive.  Apparently, when I was changing batteries between dives, it neglected to close the case completely, and as I jumped in, the case opened and the camera fell to the bottom.  Fortunately, it was shallow and I was able to recover it, or we wouldn’t even have the few pictures from the first dive.   Most dives and dive sites are targeted on interesting animals, sharks, whales and fish.  This dive has a few, very plain fish, the interest here is the archeology.  After the dives, another exciting journey through the streets of Naples back to the ship.