In '67 we went to Livorno, Italy for sub/ salt water diving. BTW the Leaning Tower of Pisa" really does lean.
The first thing we noticed when going out of the harbor was that about 1/3 of the ships docked at the harbor were flying the Hammer and Sycle. For some reason we couldn't get clearance to conduct ship bottom searches on them.
The Med. is incredibly clear and we were on a rec. dive. There were octopi everywhere. One of the divers grabbed one. Who grabbed whom was a matter of opinion. Faster than you would think possible that octopus was sitting on the diver's head and had all eight arms wrapped around the swimmer's mask, regulator hoses and whatever else he could grab. It was truly hilarious and I about drowned from laughing so hard underwater. We took the octopussies to a Ristorante in town and the mama cooked up a good meal of calamari.
http://tadahling.tripod.com/sitebuil...s/scan0028.jpg