38 56.45N 015 08.421E Stramboli Noonsite course 181 og 4 kts.

Pipedream
Sat 18 Sep 2010 10:17
We are just north of the Island/volcano of Stramboli. Course 181 cog on a close reach doing about 4 kts in 11 kts of wind. We motored all night and got enough wind to sail at about 8 AM . Katie did her first night watch. Plenty of shipping to see and dodge. She woke me twice and I ended up calling one of the ships on the radio to ask him what side he planed to pass us on. 'Hey! Do you see me now...'.

We left Agropoli a bit early to avoid paying another days dockage and have been trying to slow down enough to make Messina in the early morning light. We'll try to keep sailing as much as possible and after we make the big turn around Stramboli we will likely start picking up ship traffic again getting closer to the straights. Looks like we are pretty close to being on schedule so far.

We are sneaking up on the volcano trying to get a decent shot of the crater. We can see smoke and steam but no lava yet. We were supposed to get here as it was getting dark and are likely too early for that. All is well...