Naxos, Sicily . . .

We were supposed to visit Taormina but we cheated and took the tender into port and just wandered around Naxos instead. Although Naxos is the port for the general area, it's also a local hangout, so we walked the length of the cove . . . think long cove . . . along the sea wall and back one street in. Kind of nice to not be in the IN spot for a bit.



and take a gander at this puppy . . . Mt. Etna!!!!! How cool is that!!!!



and of course, you've familiar with this one by now . . .



Now lets talk tenders for a minute. A tender . . . in case you are like me and had no inkling . . . is a 100 passenger boat that the ship carries with it . . . well, one of several . . . but if a port is too small or the seas too rough, the boat anchors off the port and you hop on a tender to go ashore. It's really kind of neat how they are lowered from their perches in the side of the ship and lowered into the water. The tender just lines up along a deck that comes unhinged from the ship and you hop on and off. Cool.



BUT, the seas decided to chop while we were happily walking through Naxos, so the tender ride which took 10 minutes to get into port took 1/2 hour to get back to the boat. The swells were too high for the tender to meet the docking arena . . . So we waited . . . waves crashing over the bow . . . up and down, up and down, see the 9TS grinning, see Jeanne turning green. Finally they were able to dock and with twelve hands grabbing from all directions, we were hauled onto the ship and I wobbled my way back to our room. Not cool!