Bag in hand, packed with what valuables you have, you shuffle along with others boarding a ship alongside crates of citrus and sacks of coffee beans and sugar. As the ship pushes out of port, you squeeze your way through the masses waving goodbye, grasping to the bannister and leaning over to take one last glimpse at a Palermo slowly slipping away.

The next weeks’ views will be endless shades of blue as you pass through the Mediterranean, Atlantic, Straits of Florida, and the Gulf of Mexico, a seascape finally broken by the narrow passing of the Mississippi River before arriving in New Orleans, unloading into the unique unknown.