Ever been on a boat, in the middle of an ocean, with nothing in sight in any direction, not even other boats?

Well, before recently I don’t recall having so either.

Having perfect weather, we left Sardinia and set course for Sicily, the boot of Italy, some 30 hours drive with no stops.

It was unexpectedly very interesting. Soon after we lost sight of land, we got pulled over by a military boat.

Yeah, well, they asked us a bunch of questions and stuff and then left, it was rather amusing.

Soon after we saw some fish jumping a few hundred metres from the boat, or at least we thought they were fish…

Only minutes later it dawned on us that they were not fish, but sharks…

Yeah…no

But it was the next best thing- just at the bow (front) of the boat, was a whole pod of dolphins leaping from the water and following us like only dolphins do.

They stayed with us for nearly half an hour, then probably decided that the boat was to slow and left.

But it was definitely worth it for the time they were there:

We were meant to take shifts, but abandoned the idea and I just slept all night, there were a lot of empty coffee cups the next morning in the sink though.

Despite the thrills, the Sicilian mainland had far more appeal than it otherwise would.