Time to leave Corfu Greece and head for Italy. Karin joined the boat just after Sarah, Michael, and Nick departed and we would be crewing the boat through the rest of the Mediterranean heading west. We were going to spend two full days and one night getting to the island of Volcano just north of Sicily.
We sailed along the southern coast of Italy along the bottom of the ‘boot’ around the ‘toe’ and up- through the Straits of Messina.
A very dark night with little light to see the horizon. Feeling queasy at time through the night but had to concentrate on VERY large cargo ships (SeaGas Major 4200ton LPG Tanker) coming out of the night on collision courses. Hailed them on the VHF channel 16 and what do you know, they changed course.
Luckily we also had radar and that proved to be fantastic.
The Straits of Messina Shuffle
Between the toe and Sicily there are is the straits of Messina. This is a very heavily trafficked area and you to to call in on the radio to Italian VTS Authorities to notify them of your vessel and where and when you are entering the straits. There are also strong tides that can help you or hinder you. In our case we had 3.6 knots of current at times, going the wrong way.
We found the actual straights not having too much traffic going up and down them, but a LOT of traffic crossing them, from large ferries to small fishing boats. That took a lot of concentration.
We saw smoke coming out of the Mt Aetna Volcano in Sicily at the bottom, and then we saw the tall orange and white striped pylon at the top of the straits (now decommissioned), that used to carry all the electricity from the mainland to Sicily, we new we were getting closer to our destination. Very tired when we arrived at Volcano on August 5th.
