Time to leave Palermo

Back on the ship and enjoying a cold beer by the pool, I met a few friends who had gone ashore on their excursions once the ship had docked and before the deluge of rain fell. Their excursions were disrupted by the rain and they spoke of flooding in the streets and the foul smell as the drains overflowed. I'm glad we missed that.

As we missed the opportunity to eat on shore I made my one and only visit to the buffet for lunch and ate it outdoors on the open deck behind the buffet. Everything was hot and tasty. Very enjoyable.

This is the outdoor deck at the back of the buffet, overlooking the stern. Photo taken in port in Civitavecchia early in the morning.

With the weather and the dirty appearance of the streets near the port not helping to show the city at it's best we now looked to the future and to tomorrow when we would anchor off Sorrento and get to visit Pompeii.

I had my cameras ready for our 4 p.m sail away from Palermo.

Lirica would leave before us (video)

A long video for the ship nerds among you but you can always fast-forward.

Our ship would leave later than expected as the shore men who let go of the ropes holding us to the dock were late arriving and when they did they were moving very slowly. So maybe 20 minutes late.

I watched them from the Promenade deck but would soon move back to our balcony where I had the camcorder set-up to record.

Promenade deck, starboard

Sad to say goodbye to the beautiful oil tanks of Palermo...

A school of fish swim close by the ship

Lirica leaving the harbor in the distance. The harbor Pilot is returning from the Lirica.

The camcorder is set to record

Palermo harbor is huge and there were  a lot of different ships for us to see. We love working ports like this. In most of the ports we visit we just see Cruise Ships. This would be different.

The mooring lines have been released from the bollards on the dock and winched back on board the Ocean Princess. We can now push away from the dock and head to sea....