Folco Quilici is dead

A few hours ago, it became known that Folco Quilici, a pioneer of scuba diving, a scissor, a director, a photographer and beyond, died. Great friend of Lampedusa and its people, as well as of all the other islands of the Mediterranean. He had a special relationship with Lampedusa and his sea. He talks about it in many of his books “My Mediterranean” and others. It is in this book that he tells of his immemorial immersion in the midday bank. […] I look around: the large, undulating platform of the bench looks like a plateau dotted with tufts of vegetation. I realize that they are sponges, swaying in the current in astonishingly soft clusters. Folco Quilici – My Mediterranean Flags here today should be half-way, as are those of all the ports and islands of Italy.

The newspapers report that the last words spoken to his son Brando were:

A great battle must be fought to save the whales.

Whale near shoreline of Lampedusa island