Coming back to Europe from Caribbean with a load of Bananas for Koper in old Yugoslavia in the 70's.. Fyffes "Turrialba". Approaching Sicily , ship was running low on Fuel and becoming unstable. We were ordered into Messina for bunkers urgently.
Once anchored in the harbour with B/Barge alongside, we were given 6 hours till ETD so no shore leave. After agent went ashore, Capt discovered some papers for HO had been forgotten, and asked me if I would pop ashore and take them to the agent. As I was the R/O ( and thus had no duties before sailing), I jumped at the offer and my delighted wife and I departed. The delivery was a matter of minutes, and as it was 1300, we stopped at a lovely quayside restaurant and ordered a spot of lunch. When the Spag Bol arrived it was just a plate of Spaghetti with a watery meat sauce on it. No sign of tomatoes etc. Between ourselves we grumbled a bit in disappointment. To our surprise a guy sitting at the next table behind me turned and tapped me on the shoulder. He was ( I kid you not) straight from central casting in Hollywood's "Godfather". dressed so sharply he could slice ham.
'Allo, ' he said,' you from de Englise ship in de 'arbour?' We replied yes, I was R/O on her, . and he asked how we liked Sicily? I was very effusive about how wonderful everything was etc etc , . 'But you don like de spaghetti huh?' he replied.
'Well its not what we expected'
He turned away for a moment, flicked his fingers at the watching waiter , who rushed to his side attentively listening to the torrent of Italian coming from Don Corleoni.
He turned back to me and said ' How you like de lobster huh? with seafoods? I said we loved lobster , but.... He waived away my protests and the waiter came and took away the Spag Bol. Later , a huge plate with Lobsters, Prawns and assorted other shellfish arrived and two plates for my wife and I...The Don , turned to me and said , is this OK? I was gobsmacked and must have looked so. Done worry about the bill , everything is Ok. and got up and left. The waiter brought us a couple of espressos afterwards, and looked after us like we were royalty..
after we finished and had a welcome walk round we caught the agents boat back to the ship.
I told the Captain what had happened , full of amazement, and he said , it was highly likely that the bunker barge belonged to or was run by the Mafia, and we were an unexpected addition to their income that day So an unexpected port call, produced an unexpected encounter and fabulous lunch. Those guys dont brook no argument with the locals.