I have become a fan of thee overnight ferries - kind of a crude poor man's cruise ship. We have gotten use to the weird paper keys, and rocking boat, poor food, and being cut off from the internet for the duration. It's inexpensive travel, the beds are actually fairly comfortable, and you can wander the decks seeing some sights.
But each trip has a different vibe to it. The Naples-Palermo had a lot of police officers making the journey. The Turkey-Greece trip had a lot of international tourists. The Barcelona-Sardinia had a lot of people with dogs, kids, and camper vans just a week before.
The trip from Cagliari Sardinia to Naples was a bit unexpected and unsettling. First of all, there was super tight security. They were checking each car, with mirrors on sticks under the cars, and opening the engine compartments. Compare to other trips, where people just drove on. We went through the full x-ray machine thing for passengers. But ok. There was a group of senior citizens, and even a few single women, - kinda normal.
But we got on the bus to go to the ferry, and one rough thuggish looking guy was yelling and arranging another guy who had his arm in a sling. The 2nd guy never answered or spoke back. The loud harranging was so obnoxious that several people were turning around to see what was going on. It was all in Italian so not sure what the issues were, but it pretty rude, because there were several people in-between the two of them who were subjected to tall this. When we arrived, the big thuggish guy yelled at the guy with his arm in a sling to get their big suitcases.
Once on board, there were many groups of men about 35 years old - seemed like they were in groups, and often wearing black tee shirts. Kinda crude and loud. Some of them would just stare at us, and it made me uncomfortable enough in the main dining area, to where we went to the most expensive dining area - and yet some of these guys were eating there too, and and would kind of stare at us. Not a casual glance, like a sustained stare and slight amusement. Even the few couples seemed to be a guy with tattoos and looking a bit rough. I started wondering what line of work they were in in the Naple's area. We just went to our room, and stayed until morning.
We did get a good view of Ichia island to the north, and Capri to the south. Actually our room was better than some of the previous ferries.