Aeolian Islands: My Special Project

Planning
Early into my internship, I started to brainstorm on what I wanted my special project to include. Before I came to Sicily, I was looking in guidebooks and researching Sicily and discovered the absolutely breathtaking Aeolian Islands. I knew from the second I saw the pictures in the books that I wanted to visit them during my trip. As early March arrived, I started to research the islands and find out what activities and tours I could include on a weekend trip with approximately 13 customers excluding Rosario and myself. James Shipp and I decided to plan this as a Liberty (single and unaccompanied sailors, E5 and below) trip so we could get government assistance with costs and aim the trip to the younger community. I have worked with many of the single-sailors since I’ve been here and felt very confident that I could escort that population the best. Rosario and another local national in the office had been to the Islands in the past so they gave many suggestions for me to look into and Rosario told me that he would volunteer to drive my trip at no overtime costs. That gesture right there was a giant stepping-stone because drivers are very hard to find for a weekend trip and there are a lot of overtime and per diem costs involved. I wanted Rosario to attend my trip for so many other reasons, but the most beneficial would have to be his Italian/Sicilian translations during the entire weekend.
Since lodging is usually the biggest factor in determining prices, location, and availability, I immediately started looking for a nice, but affordable place to stay. With the single sailor community, I wanted low cost over luxury. Shortly into my search, my bosses told me about a place they have stayed at with previous ITT trips called Baia Unci. I found their brochure and website and had Rosario call them for prices and availability. Baia Unci offers camping and apartments (they call them bungalows). They were very interested in having our group stay with them and they quoted us a really low price of €15.50 per person per night. That was great news for my project and it gave me a good feeling about being able to make this a low-cost trip for the single-sailor (Liberty) community. The only thing I would have to do with Baia Unci from that point on would be to keep them updated on my room list and the size of apartments I would need.
After confirming the Aeolian Islands as a quick getaway and having my lodging guaranteed, I started to look up activities, guided tours, museums, and popular tourist spots that we could visit during our 2-day visit. Originally, I chose sea-kayaking around the islands, but a few weeks into that decision, the weather never started to warm up and the local nationals told me that I should probably find a new idea. After that major change in plans, I wanted to add a big tour and museum into the trip. I found a lot of information about guided boat tours to Stromboli to see its nightly volcanic eruptions. The prices were high, but I had to remember they were all day/night excursions on private boats. I knew that this was going to be a good addition to the weekend. The tour company we ended up using was called Paloma and they gave us a rate of €30 per person for an 8 hour tour of three islands. They later told us that they would cook a big dinner for the group for an extra €10 per person, but I vetoed that idea. The excursion was already going to cost the same as the apartments for 2 nights. I later went online to look for good museums on the island and immediately found great reviews about the archaeological museum on Lipari. The hours of operation were good and I figured that I could add that to the last day’s activities right before we left on the ferry back to Milazzo. The prices were also listed online so we had an exact figure available for our expenditure request.
After planning the activities, I started to figure out the transportation issues. Our ITT van was available at no cost for my trip and I wanted to be able to bring it onto Lipari so we had a vehicle to get us around the island. After that issue was solved, I started to look up ferry information. I did not realize it, but there are 3 different ferry companies that work out of the Milazzo Port. Since the timetable for the trip was during the low season, there were limited ferry departures to the Aeolian Islands. I had to find a time that would coincide with the customer’s work schedule and allow us 2 hours to get up there. After looking up each ferry company and their winter timetables, I decided on a company called NGI for the ride to Lipari on Friday night at 9:00pm. This would allow me to advertise the trip to leave at 5:15pm after everyone had time to get off work, drive to Milazzo, stop at an AutoGrille for dinner, and arrive in Lipari by 11:30pm. Since people could sleep on the ferry or hang out and play cards, I figured everyone would be ready for an exciting next day. For the ride back to Milazzo, I had to choose a different company. The second company, SIREMAR, is better known and has more departures on Sundays than the previous company. I found one that left at 6:00pm, which was perfect for a descent arrival time back to Sigonella. Salvo and I tried to call and fax the ferry companies, but they never responded with price quotes or confirmations. When Leslie, Salvo, and I tried to determine the expenditures for the ferry, we compared them with past ITT trips that they had made to the islands. Just to be safe, we overestimated the costs a little. The ferries are very risky during the off season and sometimes don’t run if the weather is bad or they haven’t sold enough tickets to cover the costs of fuel and labor.
After all of the decisions were made on daytime activities, lodging, and transportation, I had to start contacting the companies via phone and fax to confirm the reservations. At the beginning, we were estimating the costs and reservations for 14 people and an escort. I had Salvo assist me in making the phone calls and typing the faxes since they all had to be in Italian. This was a lengthy process, but everything except for the ferries were soon confirmed. Once the reservations were in, I had to sit down and create an expenditure request with Leslie to get the money for the trip. We estimated the costs, including covering all of the fees for Rosario and I, and came up with $114 per person. We decided to ask for a check request so I could carry cash during the trip and pay the expenses as it went. For the trip to get down to a catchy price of $99, I went to Gerry Morris for assistance with government subsidization. We talked about the trip, went over the expenditure request, and he told me that they would be willing to subsidize $15 per person through the Liberty program. Gerry and Leslie each gave me permission to start selling the trip ASAP. As soon as everything was settled, I wanted to discuss advertising the trip with the Marketing Department. Rebecca Wissler told me to come to her office the next morning to create flyers and posters so I could quickly get them hung up around base and in certain facilities. I met with her the next day and we created a fun, eye-catching flyer with a program called FreeHand. Before I started to hang them up, I headed to ITT to inform the staff on all of the details and told them to start selling the trip as soon as we got any phone calls or walk-ins. Rebecca called me over to the main office to pick up the printed flyers and I immediately started to hang them up around NAS I. I finished getting them up around our base and I got a ride over to NAS II to hang them up there and have a quick meeting with CeCe and her Take 5 staff. Her staff came in early for my meeting and they really responded well to the information and details I gave them about my trip. We were ready to sell this trip and I had a feeling it was going to sell out quick.
By the time I got a ride back to ITT Gear-N-Go, the front desk clerks told me that they had already sold 2 seats and had a few phone calls about the trip. I soon found out that an email from the Command Master Chief was sent out to the entire hospital staff. That was a great, unexpected helping hand. I sat at the front desk all day and the 12 seats for the trip were sold out by that afternoon. When we all sat back and realized that this was a huge success and a great offer for single-sailors, I started to plan for another 13 people to go to Lipari. The major task would be to find another driver for the van that would either volunteer completely or accept the least amount of overtime costs. I called CeCe at Take 5 and she was more than happy to accept the offer to drive for free. Since she was going to drive the second van without charging MWR overtime costs, I made sure to pay for her activities, excursion, ferry fees, and some meals to help keep her costs for the trip to a bare minimum. She was excited to help with the trip since Liberty is her program and she knows much of the community. With this settled, Rosario set aside another van for the weekend and we began to write up another expenditure request. Leslie only had a few days to get the check approved so we sat down and made sure all the costs worked out for 26 people and got it sent over to Pam at the financial department at the main office. Everything was looking great and we started to advertise that we had another van going to take more customers. Once again, the seats sold quickly and we had a waiting list forming by the next day in case there were any cancellations before the final payment day. After the trip sold out, Rosario began to worry about how much room we would truly have available in each van if each customer brought one bag and a cooler with them for the weekend. Each seat in the van was going to be full, so he thought about bringing the Forino with us up to the islands to help carry luggage and coolers. The Forino is a small truck with a large covered truck bed on the back of it. CeCe brought up the idea of having her husband come along on the trip to drive it at no cost to us. The idea went over well with my managers and we figured that we would have enough money to cover his costs during the weekend. Rosario began to feel much more comfortable with the luggage situation and we could easily bring a large BBQ pit with us for the beach now. With the luggage situation as a constant problem on short, weekend trips, I wanted to be able to conduct my Packing Demonstration before the trip. I have seen these young guys bring so much junk/stuff with them on a 2-day trip that it’s absolutely ridiculous.
Once all of the seats for the trip were sold out, I started on my rooming list for Baia Unci and my contact sheet for sending out important emails. The rooming list changed a few times due to people canceling and replacing them with new customers, but Baia Unci was very flexible with us since we were their main group of customers for that particular weekend. I created my contact sheets on Microsoft Excel so I could keep up with their payments and contact info such as phone numbers and email addresses. Once the list started to settle down and the cancellations were complete, I started to send out emails with important information for the trip. I created my documents for my meeting and mailed those out to the customers also. I really wanted everyone to have all of the information for the trip, including the correct times and location of departure and my contact information in case they had any last minute questions for me. The day of departure finally arrived and Rosario and I worked together to prepare the vans for the trip. Each van was clean and full of gas and CeCe’s husband, Eric, had the Forino with him at Take 5 prior to the trip so he could get the vehicle ready. CeCe was on time to ITT Gear-N-Go to pick up her van and we were soon on our way to the NAS I pick-up spot.

Fri. April 7 -
From the start all the way to the finish, the trip went absolutely wonderful. From the first pick-up at NAS I, I had a good feeling going about it. We were on time to the first pick-up and everyone that had originally signed up for this stop got on and the luggage situation was working itself out nicely. After a short drive to NAS II, we picked up the remainder of the group and took some group photos before leaving for Milazzo. Everyone was divided evenly into the vans and we had plenty of room for luggage and coolers thanks to the extra vehicle available. We were immediately on our way towards the Autostrada and we had time to spare so we took it slow and stopped at the AutoGrille on our way through Messina. We arrived to the port in Milazzo around 8:00pm and Rosario and I had to find the ticket company for our ferry ride to Lipari. Everyone got out of the vehicles to stretch and walk around while Rosario went to pick-up and pay for the ferry tickets. Since the ferry company had never faxed us back with confirmation prices, I did not know exactly how much they were going to end up charging us. The total was higher than we figured, but it was alright. I started to get a scary feeling about the price coming back to Milazzo. The loading time soon rolled around and everyone got back in the vehicles to drive onto the ferry. After we parked the vans and Forino, I got out to inform the group that they had 2 ½ hours to relax on the ferry until we would arrive in Lipari. I paid special attention to remind them to not get off at the first docking, which was the island of Vulcano. We locked up the vans and headed to the upper deck with the group. The ferry ride was smooth, a little chilly outside, but a great bonding time for everyone to get to know each other. I had a really diverse group of people sign up for this trip so it was fun to get to know everyone and where they worked before the trip truly got off the ground. We played cards, hung out on the front bow, drank cafes and beer, and shared stories until we started to pull into Lipari. The ferry was on time and everyone got back into the vans in a timely matter also. When we drove off the ferry, I had to meet the owner of the company that would be conducting our boat excursion to Panarea and Stromboli to pay him a €200 down payment. We found him easily, paid, and then met up with an employee from our hotel, Baia Unci, to drive us to our lodging destination for the weekend. They were waiting outside for us at the hotel and everyone got their bags and headed to the front desk. There, I met with Francesca and we divided everyone into their assigned rooms for the weekend. I switched a few customers into different rooms until everyone was satisfied with their room arrangements. The rooms were really nice and way better than what I would have ever imagined for only €15.50 per person/per night. Most of the people went straight to their rooms to either hang out or go to sleep, but a few of us decided to have a BBQ on the beach. I bought BBQ supplies and meat for our dinners, so we grabbed the pit out of the Forino and started to grill. A few of us hung out on the beach for a few hours until we were ready for bed. I showed Rosario how to BBQ "American style."
Sat. April 8 -
A group of people were up pretty early in the morning along with Rosario and me so we decided to take a van out to explore the island and find a place to eat breakfast. Rosario has been to the island before, but it is generally very easy to navigate since it has one major road to get around the entire island of Lipari. We drove the island, stopped at some nice view points to take pictures, and ended up in the main city of Lipari for brunch. Eight of us ate brunch together at a small restaurant and then we went out into the town to shop for souvenirs before we headed back to the hotel. At the hotel, a group of people were up on the roof of our hotel hanging out partyin so we went to join them for a little bit before the boat tour. On my way up the steps after putting my brand new sandals on from Crystal, I slipped and fell directly on the edge of the step on my knee nap. It bled like hell right away and Joe and John told me I needed some stitches. For once, Joe forgot his sutchure kit, so they just closed it up with super glue and wrapped it for me. It hurt so bad and felt like I broke my knee cap. I crippled my way up the steps and hung out to take some pictures before we needed to leave. The night before, I informed everyone on the trip that they had to meet at the front of the hotel at 1:30pm to head out for our boat excursion. The excursion company decided to pick us up at a marina that was closer to the hotel so we didn’t have to drive to downtown Lipari. This eliminated our need for the vans altogether now. A handful of people had already rented mopeds for the weekend, so I asked if they wouldn’t mind driving each of us to the marina that was only about ½ mile away. Everyone agreed and in less than 15 minutes all 27 of us were at the marina ready to catch the boat. By this time, I knew I was definitely going to be renting a moped before I left that island. We walked to the boat together and took a group picture before loading. Our group took up the majority of the customers on the tour so we all headed to the upper deck to enjoy our ride to the islands. The tour started off by driving around a portion of Lipari to get to Panarea. The ride was kind of rough, but everyone was having a good time taking pictures and relaxing. Some of the guys who had been drinkin all day got sick, but it was totally their fault for taking shots of Tequila before loading the boat. It took over an hour to get there, but once we got there, we had an hour to enjoy the island. Most of us walked to the large rocks and cliffs to get in the water and take some beautiful pictures of the Tyrrhenian Sea. A few of the guys jumped in, but I wasn't prepared to freeze my booty off and then hop right back onto a boat. After that, we all stopped at a small café to enjoy ice cream and beverages. The boat announced that they were ready to load up and head to Stromboli. Stromboli is one of the most active volcanoes in Europe and displays famous nightly eruptions. The boat ride to Stromboli was breathtaking and we saw many giant rock formations along the way. We arrived in Stromboli and had 2 ½ hours to explore the island until the started to set to see the volcanic activity. The group split up and some went shopping, some went to eat at nearby restaurants and cafes, and I headed to the black sand beach with Rosario and Jow. We hung out there the entire time and we burried each other in lava rocks. Rosario ended up fishing with the locals for awhile. Everyone started heading back to the boat. The sun was starting to set and the wind was getting colder. The boat had plenty of seating on its lower deck and everyone sat at the tables for the last leg of the journey. The boat went around a small side island called Strombolicca for photo opportunities and was then on its way to a small bay directly below the crater. I got some awesome pics of the sun starting to set around this cool little island. The boat never stopped moving, but we were able to watch the volcanic activity for almost 45 minutes as we rode back to Lipari. It was an amazing site to see and we had a few great eruptions that some people were able to catch on video. Almost everyone slept on the ride back, but I stayed awake keeping an eye on everyone. We arrived back to the marina at 9:30pm, but some members of the group were sea-sick from the long day. I made sure to pay the company and we all headed back to the mopeds to ride back to the hotel. From the hotel, some people left on their mopeds to explore the island and the other half had a big BBQ on the beach. Before everyone went their own way, I had to tell them about the check out process. Check out was at 10:00am and each person could put their bags into the designated room that the hotel was providing for us. I also told them about our departure time of 4:15pm. I was very upfront with everyone when I told them that they had to be on time so Rosario and I could get to the port to buy our ferry tickets. The group agreed and no one had any questions for me so they were on their way. Rosario and I cooked again, but this time we had a crowd of about 15 people. It was a lot of fun and kept the morale of the group high. I got everyone’s feelings about the excursion and we all talked about what they wanted to do tomorrow afternoon before we left the island. I started to get some great feedback about the trip, its low price, how much fun everyone was having, and received a few questions about Liberty and ITT. The BBQ went for a few hours and afterwards they all wanted to go out to a club or bar before they went to bed. I had to remind everyone that it was the low season and there are not many things to do on this island after hours, but Rosario asked the hotel staff if anything was open this late. He found out there was one club open in downtown Lipari, so we all made arrangements to get down there before the night ended. Once again, we rode the mopeds to Lipari and finally found the club. I rode with Rosario and he let me sit in front of him so he could teach me how to drive it. Let me just say...Rosario is freakin nuts on a moped and I was scared to death with his sharp little turns and no-hands. After awhile though, I got a little more comfortable and I started to drive pretty well. It was a lot of fun to ride the mopeds through town and by the time we arrived, everyone was determined to rent them all-day tomorrow for exploring the island. The club was nice but we did not stay for long since we were underdressed and beginning to get tired. We each had a drink and wanted to get back. Most of them told me that they would rather get some sleep tonight to be able to wake up early and ride all day tomorrow. We got back to the hotel safe and the group worked out a time to meet in the front.
Sun. April 9 -
The last day was already here and at 8:00am there were almost 20 people outside ready to go rent mopeds from down the street. Rosario came with us and in a short time we were all ready to explore the entire island. The first stop was breakfast. We all drove together to Lipari again and sat down and ate a big breakfast. More souvenir shopping followed the meal and we headed back to the hotel to put everything away. In no time, we were on our way and we headed in the pumice caves direction. Of course with my luck, my moped died up the first hill. I was the lucky one out of everyone who's tank had no gas in it. There was a huge group waiting to explore, so I decided to leave my moped on the side of the rode to pick it up later. I ended up riding on the back of Rosario's all day, which worked out better anyways so I could take pics and video of everyone driving around. It was a short drive to the pumice mines, but we took our time to get off the bikes and explore the crystal clear water along the coast. After taking some pictures, we headed down to the dock where the pumice is shipped out. Here, we all relaxed for awhile and some people jumped into the sea before heading out for the rest of the day. I jumped in of course! I was doing front flips and we were doing group jumps. The water was freezing, but it was a fun memory to add to the weekend. It was really cool because I had someone takesome time-lapse photos of us doing jumps off the pier. We continued on around the island for a few hours, occasionally stopping to take pictures and to walk along the beaches or cliffs. The entire island tour on mopeds took about 5 hours and everyone had a blast. I got some absolutely breathtaking pics of all the islands. From Lipari, you can see all of the other 6 islands. The skies were clear and the weather was perfect. The day on the mopeds was by far one of the funnest days of my life. Everyone just had such a good time driving around and stopping every 1/2 mile or so to take pics and enjoy the views. The mopeds had to be back by 3:00pm so everyone rode back into the town of Lipari to do any last minute shopping they wanted to do before we left. All of the mopeds were returned and I started to pack and arrange the vans for our departure. After everything was packed and people’s bags were in the vans, Rosario and I went to the main office to pay the balance. The company was great and we got some more information from them about rates and dates to possibly create another trip before I leave since this one was a huge success. Most of the group was on time to the van but I did have a few stragglers. The problem was resolved quickly and I took a head count in the vans before pulling away from the hotel. We arrived to the port and they had an hour to go get dinner before loading onto the ferry. Rosario and I went to pick up the tickets and once again, the ferry was more expensive than we originally had planned for. It was alright though; we had some extra money from not going to the archaeology museum. I decided earlier this weekend that we would only offer the museum to the people who wanted to go. In the morning when I asked everyone about it, no one seemed interested, and of course in the afternoon, no one wanted to leave their mopeds early. I had also heard a few comments after the boat excursion yesterday that some people wanted more free time to do things on their own anyways. We got the tickets and went to grab some dinner. Everyone was back in the vans ready to head home on time. The ferry loaded and I informed everyone that we only had a 1 ½ hour ferry ride this time around. I asked for everyone to be back in the vans as we pulled into Milazzo. The ferry ride home was much nicer. The company we used on our way home, SIREMAR, has large couches and chairs, a faster motor, tables to play games on, a larger upper deck, and overall a smoother and more enjoyable ride than NGI. I sat on the upper deck the entire ride home and watched the sunset over the islands. This was my first real "Sicilian" sunset I've seen since I've been on this island. It was beautiful. I sat there by myself, listened to my IPod, and was mesmorized by the gorgeous sunset. I took almost 15 pics of that alone. All together from the entire weekend, I took almost 225 pics. We pulled into Milazzo at dark and headed directly home for Sigonella. Halfway into the drive home, we stopped at another AutoGrille for people to grab some food and drinks for the remainder of the ride home. We pulled onto base at exactly 10:30pm, which is the time I originally had planned for. All of the vehicles had to come to NAS I due to the large amount of people to drop off, but only one van and the Forino went back to NAS II. I thanked everyone for coming and made sure the vans were clean and no one left anything behind. Many of the customers thanked us back and told us they had a great weekend. It was a really good feeling to see everyone go home happy and talking about the fun they had. Once everyone from NAS I headed home, CeCe and Eric headed to NAS II to end the night. The weekend was a huge success and I could not thank Rosario, CeCe, or her husband more. They really helped me out a lot and made this trip a definite success. I am so glad I decided on the Aeolian Islands for my school special project. I hope to make it back up to the islands before I leave so I can do some swimming and sea kayaking.