This sea story begins in the Aeolian Islands, among those seven volcanic sisters kissed by the salty wind in the north-east of Sicily. It was precisely the summer of a few years ago, when a group of tourists on a cruise spotted a marine giant with great amazement: it was a young male sperm whale swimming in the cobalt blue waters of the archipelago, with its huge head and the high blow of a labored breath. Siso, as he was later named, had a fishing net wrapped around its tail fin, which held it back from swimming and fatally was trapping it.
The Coast Guard intervened to free it, but nothing could be done to save the poor animal from the deadly sword. Siso disappeared among the waves of the sea.
Capo Milazzo is a promontory a few miles from the Aeolian Islands, one of those places where you climb to see the beauty of the world from above, where the sunsets colour the emerged volcanoes of all shades of orange and the sea is dressed in immensity. It is here that the current had carried the sperm whale, leaving everyone in the country amazed by the fantastic discovery yet convinced to get rid of that bulky shape. A young biologist, whom those waters and its creatures knew and loved, did not give up and thought that the imposing carcass had to be recovered. For weeks, Carmelo, who gave the name to the sperm whale in memory of his dear friend who helped him in this adventure and who had unexpectedly passed away in those days, reached the inaccessible bay where Siso was anchored to take its 10-meter skeleton and finally redeem it from the lethal fishing tool and the large amount of plastic found in its stomach that had suffocated it. Nowadays Siso’s winged skeleton, kept at the Muma, the Museum of the Sea, in the ancient Castle of Milazzo, has become a metaphor for the rebirth of the beached mammal, through whose vertebrae we find ourselves imagining the sea, from whose impressive phalanges we recognize ourselves as equals and from whose toothed jaw we trace the ancient history of these extraordinary marine predators.
The Siso-Project has led to the birth of a real Museum of the Sea: the “MuMa Milazzo ” in collaboration with the Municipality of Milazzo and the University of Messina. It is a museum where interdisciplinarity guides the desire to find new formulas and solutions for the
correct relationship between man and environment. It is possible to book the guided tour of the MuMa by calling +39 3807641409 (also WhatsApp) or by writing to info @ mumamilazzo.com (with the possibility of doing educational workshops or other activities
based on the age of the visitors): in Italian or English (duration approximately 2 hours). Every day the Biologist Carmelo Isgro ̀ and the oceanographer American Carolyn Berger accompany
dozens of students of all ages ̀, entire groups and school classes (from kindergarten to high school). the one that goes down to the Pool of Venus)
