The original volcano - log miles 117

During the morning we passed the volcanic islands North of Sicily; Vulcano, Lipari and Salina. Known as the "Three older sisters" these can easily be recognised as volcanos and of course the name comes from Vulcano (see picture).
Through the day we were passed by several very fast (35kt+) ferries.
Went through the Messina straits at 8pm, one tide sooner than we expected. These are an amazing and exciting place to sail. We rocketed through with the current despite our slow speed through the water you can see from the plotter we were doing 8.1kts over the ground.

In the straits you have to play a lot of "dodge the fast car ferry" see video.


The famous whirlpools weren't active (Chyla and Charybdis) because we passed one at slack water and the other has been reduced or stopped by the building of a harbour wall.

As we neared the end of the straits we could see red hot lava running down Mount Etna. We were able to see this until we were around 60 miles away.