Captain Felice is a legend of the archipelago, like his boat. He is the pirate of the Aeolian Islands. He knows the whims of the sea and the puffs of the wind, he knows the secrets of the islands, the most difficult landings, the most intimate views. He juggles the steering wheel. He slips into the cove of Salina, the island where some scenes of "Il postino" with Massimo Troisi were shot. He reaches the bay of Saluzzo where it is possible to see the submerged Roman city. He stops in front of the spectacle of Stromboli's sciara di fuoco. He is the master of all the blue of Filicudi, the island where he was born. There is no better helmsman for tourists than he ironically mistreats him, speaks to him in Sicilian, yells at him to look and admire the paradise that only he knows how to navigate with skill. His boat has the name of illustrious sovereigns: "Sigismondo". It is a story he tells. “This is the boat that brought Rossellini's troupe to Stromboli for the film with Bergman. It was 1948. An adventurous trip to the archipelago when only one ship reached the islands ".
"Fuck", says Captain Felice, the inevitable interlayer of him when he speaks, a torrent of words, accompanied by great gestures. “I was born aboard a ship, I was born free, for the sea, and I did all the jobs to become a sailor. I am the son of emigrants. My parents went to Argentina where they are still waiting for me. But I can't get away from this sea. It is my life and my freedom ”. He adds another rude interlayer and continues: "I was born in Filicudi which is a rock, that when there is a rough sea you cannot approach it, the helicopter must come if there is an urgent need".
Summer and winter, always dressed in the same way, in winter just a rough blue wool sweater and a pair of shoes without socks. "I only put the jacket and tie once, in front of the altar when I got married. Because I have also been married, have children and have become a grandfather ”.
He never went to the continent. “The continent does not exist. I was born in Filicudi and that's all I know, Filicudi and this sea, and the other islands. The continent doesn't interest me. What's on the continent? Nothing that can look like this. I look at those who come from the continent and get on my boat. I don't see them happy. I am happy that it is also my name, never more appropriate. We of the islands are special. We understand things faster than others because they wean us immediately, throw us into the water and say: look, if you want to survive you have to learn to swim: And then they tell us you have to go to sea, you have to travel, you have to know how to land. But you also have to respect those who are different from you, you have to accept everyone. This can be done by an islander. If you are born on an island, you have a different vision of reality from those on the mainland, on the continent ".
The happiness of the Aeolian corsair is genuine. Recently, the death of the white mongrel from Mesciato who accompanied her everywhere, who was at home on the ship, who was the favorite of tourists, interrupted her. “He had grown old. He was called Skipper. He left me and he shouldn't have done that. He was part of my happiness. He was a diver and a special swimmer. With his dives he gave a show. He threw himself off the boat and the tourists cheered him. He was cheerful. He left me at fourteen. Without Skipper, life is no longer the same. But we must continue, go, and the ship also needs all my care. But the ship does not speak to me, it has a wooden heart. Skipper spoke to me with his kind and laughing eyes, with his dives, with his sweet company, when we crouched in the stern to look at the stars at night. He had the breath of a man, the feelings of a man ”.