The sea has always been as it had been seen by our ancestors, as it was told by Homer who set many of the events in relation to the wanderings of Ulysses in the Odyssey, and Virgilio who led the coasts of the Tyrrhenian Sea to Aeneas to the mouth of the Tiber, and countless other stories and legends.
It is our sea that is different from the “Mare Nostrum” that Rome made its own after centuries of endless wars. It is the Mediterranean sea that many have had and will have in the lives of who have been lucky to live their lives along the coasts that serve as its riverbank.
We have changed it over the centuries, the coast has been transformed by the goodness and faults of mankind, but the infinite stretch that goes as far as the eye can see is always there, while its edges bend round in a successful attempt to make room for the lives of the people who have been living there since the beginning of time.
The 2nd issue of the UNICO “patrimonio,” within its pages, tells us how our sea is still the protagonist of our lives today, despite the fact that the natural activities most suited to its nature (fishing and transport) are now reduced to a minimum.
The recognition obtained with the blue flags, indicating that the waters that flow along our coasts and many others in Italy, are clean, crystal clear and swimmable. To be honest, they have been for millions of years, both ours, and all of the ones on the planet, but in the world in which we live, this “cleanliness,” the blue flag status has become a factor that makes the countries that are easing down, to be desired afterwards by those who now practice seaside tourism.
That’s why enhancing the local governments along with the local citizens who live there in a news story, is a good idea and right thing to do. It is good, because you give a service to those who have chosen these places, will be sure to spend their holiday in a clean place where they can bathe in crystal clear waters. Also because it gives credit to the administrators and administered to live in a place that they care about both for the quality of their daily lives and for those who come there as a visitor!
Telling about our sea, the sea, which for centuries had been the space beyond in which there was the unknown, in coincidence with the 50th anniversary of man’s landing on the moon, is a way to remind ourselves and those who will come that there is always something to discover beyond the horizon that we are given to scrutinize. Doing so with respect will come in handy both at the place where you land and at the port from which you leave.
Of course the sea can also be terrible, uncontrollable, and even “deadly!” Lighthouses are not enough, caves dug into the coast are not needed, neither are SOS’ launched from boats drifting … it is in its nature to make disasters of mankind and things. However, man, aware of these dangers, has dictated the “law of the sea” that allows even the most bitter enemy to be rescued if helpless, should be at mercy with the waves. Unfortunately, as has happened on so many other occasions in the past, humanity needs to be reaffirmed even at sea, because someone had an “evil” thought to suspend the law of life to dictate one of death …