Stuff Taorima - now heading towards Lefkas Island

Ticketeeboo
Sue & Alan
Sun 17 May 2015 09:45
Earlier this morning:
Our little detour NE to visit and go-round Stromboli turned out no more spectacular than a snails view of a damp cigar being thrown out an upstairs window. The odd reddish puff at several hundred metres above sea-level was not helped by dank conditions and misty cloud. We're both tickled-pink to have visited Stromboli because now we won't be hankering about wanting to do another detour in future. WE had a good 30'odd NM sail to get there, enjoyed tuna & chips in lee of island waiting for dark, then mostly donk (slowly) towards Punta Palero at N end of Messina Strait for timely check-in with Messina Traffic and favourable S-going tidal stream for passing through straights. Very thankful to have missed all the forecast storms in waters we've been passing through since Cartagena. As a special treat for us, there's forecasts of thunder storms in Messina Straight and SE gales in Ionian. Nevertheless, we're gonna drop hook in dirt, just off Taormina and hoping for assortments of R&R + maki
ng ZZZZ's before making early start towards Greece/Ionian. That'll be last couple of overnights we need to do for time being and earns us couple weeks muckin' about visiting some of our favourite places in Ionian. That'll be well earned for us both because Gibraltar - Lefkas for two almost-aging cough-suffers in less than 3 weeks is not to be sneezed at!
Now - almost noon.
With strong SE'ly on-shore wind and plenty nasty waves from same direction both Sue 7 i think a night at Taormina is not to our fancy any more and it makes best sense to keep sailing! It's not the most pleasant conditions we've ever had so we've got just two snot-rags for sails, just enough to make-way and drive through the waves, which now constantly splatter & lick our decks. Must admit, it's lot more comfortable under sail like this than it was donking head-on into wind down the coast of Sicily on a lee-shore.
"Yeah can't do enough for a good woman eh?"
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Ticketeeboo MMSI 235071989 Callsign 2CED3, Ham callsign = m0hng
At 17/05/2015 09:32 UT our position was 37°59.60'N 015°27.15'E
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