We made the crossing from the island Sardinia to Rome! Back to the mainland of Italy. 'What? Rome isn't by the sea, is it?', I hear you thinking. That's right, but the river Tiber (in Italian: Tevere) that flows into Mediterranean Sea, is the opening and will bring you far into land, towards Rome. So there we were, in the nice river port called 'Blue Dolphin', where we were welcome with our catamaran. We took our drone out and filmed what this river port looked like.

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We have sailed the beautiful bay of Napels with our catamaran. There is so much to see: the city of Napels, Pompeii, Sorrento, Capri. And also being in the harbors and looking at the villages build up the hills, make you realize that 2.000 year of history with the Roman Empire lives together with modern society! For example, this is Porto di Baia, our drone flies from our boat in that harbor to the modern city and suddenly you see that above that modern city the remains of an old city is there. The old city that is now excavated, was build on the wall of an ancient Volcanic crater. Also the dome you see later in the video, is the Temple of Diana, the largest best preserved dome chamber after the Pantheon in Rome. It was a thermal complex making use of the hot waters in the ancient volcanic crater, that was build in 300 AC. Amazing that this dome was not discovered until the end of the nineteenth century when metropolitan lines were build and they discovered that beneath the modern city, was this huge thermal complex. At first, the connection with Diana, the goddess of the hunt, was not clear, until they discovered a marble relief depicting a series of animals, and more animals covered the walls and ceilings. Enjoy flying over this beautiful area around the harbor where the remains of the ancient Roman Empire as so close.

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Suddenly they appeared in front of our boat: dolphins! They are magical animals to me, suddenly they jump in front of your boat. But only for a few minutes. They swim with you, zigzagging, diving down, jumping above the water again and then they're gone. This was at the end of February, when we made a 'turn' at the heel of southern Italy, Puglia to sail into the Adriatic Sea, towards Lecce. I was able to film the dolphins! I did not expect them this early in the season, because of the relatively cold water. But I also noticed that when the two seas (Ionian Sea and Adriatic Sea) met, the water temperature rose from 15 to 17 degrees and the depth went from 40 to 90 meters. Apparently this spot was perfect for dolphins. Bonus, 3 fun facts about dolphins: * Dolphins are incredible athletes. They swim 50-100 kilometers every day, reach speeds of up to 40 km/h and are able to make impressive jumps out of the water, sometimes up to 6 meters high! * Did you know that dolphins can experience emotions such as happiness and sadness? They show empathy towards other members of their group and even have the ability to care for each other when sick or injured. They have an extensive social life, communicating with each other through complex clicking patterns and can even call each other by name * Dolphins have unique sleeping habits because they rest only part of their brains at a time so they can continue breathing and stay alert for predators. This phenomenon is called unihemispheric sleep. During this sleep they close one eye and keep the other open to detect possible dangers. They also switch eyes regularly so that both eyes can rest. Dolphins do not sleep continuously like humans do. They rest in short periods of a few minutes to half an hour during the day. In general, dolphins sleep about 8 hours a day

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