We sail through the Messina Strait.

The Messina Strait.

Our next stop required us to go through the Straits of Messina a notorious area for unexpected weather conditions. It has a narrow entrance of 2.5 miles and the sea has to funnel its way through this gap. There are high cliffs on both sides and the wind comes rushing down from both sides and creates a very confused sea.  There three whirlpools along the edges to keep away from too.

The weather report given for this area gave us good conditions to go through the next day but then then getting increasingly worse as the week went on.  We made the decision to leave Tropea at midnight the next day so as to position ourselves for daybreak whilst going through the 10 mile channel.

We won’t want to go through the Messina Strait if the wind is against current.

The Bermuda Triangle? 
Here?  In the Southern Tyrrhenian Sea?
Oh! You must mean the ‘Aeolian Triangle’!

Not to be left out, the Aeolian Islands have their own ‘Bermuda Triangle’. The triangle formed between Ustica (just off Sicily), the Aeolian Islands and across to the mainland of Italy and the Messina Strait has been called the ‘Aeolian Triangle’! Within this area the weather can be extremely unpredictable and completely at odds with the surrounding areas. There are many reports of unexpected ‘close encounters of the gale kind’ from ancient times to today.

It was our intention to anchor in one or two of the Aeolian Island bays but with the weather conditions for the Strait over the next week and not wishing to be another statistic we decided we would enjoy a visit to the islands a lot better via a ferry!
Ok, so we are cowards! (But we are alive cowards!)

Gosh!  That must be Les singing in the bathroom again!

That evening, quite by surprise we heard singing very nearby. 
hmm?  Les?  Cathy?  Bob!
Then what a delight! There happened to be a small open air theatre at the water’s edge right near to our boat. We thought it was no longer used actually (we’d seen so many Roman arenas by now!).
A group of students had come there to practice their singing and dancing for a forthcoming concert.
Their voices were beautiful and amplified by the surroundings. 
What a great send off!

We sneak away in the dead of night, all around were asleep..

We left the dock at midnight.

Our only hazard being the unmarked shoaled area to our portside we had noticed as we entered a few days ago.  We followed our chart-plotter mouse droppings showing the route we entered the port with (mouse droppings are the history of where we had been previously stored in the plotter). 

Where is the wind?
It’s supposed to be 10 knots?
Nothing!
Motoring again!

What is it with the professional wind predictions in this area?  They just can’t seem to get this part of the Mediterranean correct.

We spent most of the night putting the sails up and down with the variable winds that night. Due to motoring we made good time and we were at the ‘entrance’ to the Messina Strait one hour before daybreak. Les was on watch and so circled the boat until light before waking everyone up!  We didn’t need everyone up to be up but we were all curious se experience whatever we were going to experience whilst going through the Strait.

We had already decided to motor through so we would have full maneuverability and maximum power available to us should it be needed.
Good choice. There were a lot more boats beginning to appear on the horizon vying for the entrance . One of the ships was a cruise ship Les had noticed circling before daybreak. It appeared to be waiting for a pilot boat to take him through and to Messina port. Then there were superyachts, fishing boats, small powerboats and …

As soon as we entered the mouth of the strait the wind changed!  ..and how
From 5 knots to 30 knots within 30seconds.
But, as predicted the sea was relatively calm (haha! they got that right)

Marine traffic increased significantly. Commercial boats everywhere.  Lots of ferries to avoid, tankers, cruise ships and small independents. At one point John was negotiating his way round three ferries!
There continual wind gusts – up, down, up, down.  

Two hours later we were through the strait. The wind dropped to only 20 knots - only. The wind was dead ahead but it was constant and we were sailing!  We ‘close hauled’ and tacked all the way down the coast. Bob was having a great time at the helm. It was great display of the ‘self-tacking feature of Discovery 55’s.

“Timeless, Timeless, Timeless”

An hour later we heard over the VHF radio..
“Timeless, Timeless, Timeless”, this is Messina Port Coastguard.
Our first serious officialdom contact by radio ever!

Everyone looked at each other to answer the radio whilst trying to be invisible.
Everyone was quietly thinking, double checking even, that everything was in order that should be in order. John pulled the short straw to answer, he cleared his throat and went into formal mode.
“What bearing are keeping to?”
“What is our next port?”
“What is the boat’s Registration number?”
“What is the nationality of the crew and passengers?”
Finally, “Have a good sail today.”

The Messina Strait is so busy that the port and coastguard clearly needed to understand the activity of each and every boat passing through so they could direct traffic accordingly. We were keeping out of the way of the main shipping lanes and had no intention of crossing the lanes eastwards. We posed no threat to tranquility of their Strait and all was well.

OMG!  It’s Shamu!

Crash!
Our 27 tonne boat rocked!

Cathy shouted!
“Look! On our port side!  Ahead!  QUICK, look!”

A huge whale breached no more than 2 boats length away.
HUGE!  ..and just a couple of boat lengths!

The rest of us just caught the whale landing amidst the huge crater formed of water around his massive body.  It is difficult for us to determine the whale’s size but all our estimates are of the whale being at least as long as the boat.

For the next few minutes (it seemed much longer but it may have been shorter!), the whale just leisurely swam around within 50 meters off our portside and spouted water a few times.
He was probably thanking his good fortune to have missed our boat.
We were thanking our good fortune  that he missed our boat!
Thankfully, he was going away from the boat if he decided to breach again.

No time for pictures.
We are just left with fishy stories about the one that got away and a great once in a lifetime memory none-the-less. Like a golfer’s hole-in-one. This may be the most dramatic and closest whale encounter that we may ever experience in our whole cruising adventure.
…aaahhhh.

We had a great sail for another two hours and  then the wind died.
We had to motor the last 15 miles to our destination.

(ok, so as we didn’t have a picture of our own whale I thought I would post a picture of the real Shamu from Seaworld and read Les’ innermost thoughts as she watched ‘our’ whale!)