Aeolian Odyssey
By Cynthia Barnes

    Ulysses just wanted to get away. The hero of Homer’s Odyssey can be forgiven—he wandered these waters for ten years, trying to find his way home. I’ve got only a few days for a shakedown cruise aboard the factory-fresh Aicon 56 Tooling Around III before she’s shipped to the States, and I am determined to make the most of every moment in this Italian idyll.

   When our Homeric hero sailed through Sicily’s Straits of Messina, he had to avoid the monster Charybdis and escape the 12-footed, six-headed Scylla, which gobbled half of his crew. Upon my arrival, I endure the trials of modern-day wanderers—lost luggage, a weak dollar, and chaotic traffic. But when Tooling Around III departs from Milazzo, the stress stays onshore.