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Faithful attend Pope's Mass in boats

The Pope's trip to Ischia is his first outside Rome since January

ISCHIA, Italy -- Pope John Paul II celebrated a dockside Mass at the Italian spa town of Ischia as scores of boats bobbed in the water.

The faithful watched the ceremony from a variety of boats -- rubber dinghies, row boats and sailboats -- just offshore.

Police boats and fire boats bobbed in the waters as well. Italian news reports said police divers had been searching the waters just offshore for any explosives.

"Your splendid island, destination of a great number of visitors and tourists, knows well the value of welcome," John Paul said in his homily on Sunday.

Ischia is famed for its healing thermal waters and mud and its hot springs bubbling up through the Mediterranean, the Associated Press reported.

The island draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year who hope to cure aches and pains.

Ischia's bishop, Filippo Strofaldi, said on RAI state TV: "It would do the pope good to do a thermal cure for his knee, which sometimes isn't so good. The mud here is miraculous."

John Paul flew by helicopter from Rome to this mountainous island in the Bay of Naples, and was driven past cheering crowds in his "popemobile" with bulletproof glass.

However, instead of standing up inside the vehicle as he usually does to wave, the pontiff stayed seated and raised his hand weakly in greeting.

The widely traveled pontiff had not traveled outside of Rome since January, when he spent a day of prayer in the central hill town of Assisi.

After that outing, the pope cancelled or cut back a string of public ceremonies and appearances because of what the Vatican said was arthrosis of the knee. He also suffers from symptoms of Parkinson's disease, including a tremor in his hand and slurred speech.

But John Paul spoke hopefully on Sunday of more trips and appeared to perk up momentarily at the end of the day at a youth gathering, where he was given a three-foot-long birthday cake in anticipation of his 82nd birthday on May 18.

"For this you need a very youthful appetite!" John Paul said, amid rounds of "Happy Birthday" in Italian.

John Paul has several trips planned in the coming weeks and months, including visits to Bulgaria and Azerbaijan later in May. This summer he is also expected in Canada, Mexico, Guatemala and his native Poland.