Arriving in lovely Balagnara Calabra

 Cold beers after a loooooooooooong sail

 Greeting from local fishing boat - a gift of two blue fin tuna!

 Before prepping for our BBQ

 The sea wall is used by all

 Greg chatting with a local man

 Blue fin on our onboard BBQ - fancy :)

Coming home

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FROM STROMBOLI LOUISE

Night sail, missed my friends birthday. Here's a big candle Lou - I sang happy
birthday to you at Stromboli xx

Riposto Sicily

 Attractive harbour and town in the shadow of Mount Etna. Fabulous fish market and local men with makeshift lorry stalls selling fresh eggs, 'Fiori', red onions, garlic and cherries. Quite a bit found it's way onto our boat :)

 Greg's beautiful singing voice hasn't gone unnoticed here!

Our bow as we bash our way up the Straits of Messina. Critical timing for the 'stream'. We made it in good time and shot through at 10 knots thinking of Scylla and Charybdis guarding the exit - it's easy to see the whirling vortex of waters and hypnotic whirlpools. Little wonder myths survive - it's a weird bit of water!

Snapshots from Siracuza

 Succulent seat

 Splendid stone carving

 Diana

 Prawns in garlic butter straight from the fishermen

And another feast onboard

A little town in Sicily

 Stern to quay mooring - lunch with Scilian red

 The street of Candlesticks

 Sicilian beer after an eight hour sail

 

Looking for candlesticks

 Mount Etna Sicily.



Photo for Megan - Happy Birthday! Slept like logs in the shadow of this beauty.

A Sicilian tuk tuk - the only way to reprovision

 Whizzing along the backstreets of Siracuza. Wind zipping our hair. Sharing a plank on the back of a Sicilian taxi (!) with two others is a wonderful test of nerve and humour. It's basically a motorbike with a bench seat for passengers. No matter Thailand or Sicily, it's a rite of passage for sure. Giovanni wove us through rush hour traffic, swerving to avoid major potholes, pedestrians, dogs and lamposts. Cornering is best, roundabouts a close second. We arrived in style at Lidl's, filled the 'boot' with food, collected laundry on the way back to port, had a thoroughly great time. Giovanni accepted the cold beer and took  this photograph of us. It was a wild ride - we'd do it all again in a flash :)