Volcanoes of the Med
THE north wind, the ‘Tramontana’, was blowing steadily as we left the Aeolian islands and sailed south through the Straits of Messina.
We were leaving the Tyrrhenian Sea to enter the Ionian, the notorious cross-currents of the straits made the passage as uncomfortable as we had expected. But we’d already opted for caution and, with the wind from the north, we sailed under fores’ls only: jib and stays’l; to avert any possibility of having the boom crashing around if we were suddenly swung off-course by any really ugly currents.
The ancient Greeks and Romans knew these waters well and wrote of whirlpools being the greatest danger in the straits. We did see some patches of ugly churning water that looked as if they might well whip-up a whirlpool, so we were glad to be through and out of there; just in case.
In the Ionian, the Tramontana was still blowing easily as we headed for the bay of Giardini Naxos, immediately to the south of Taormina; the spectacular town first built by the ancient Greeks, where Mount Aetna dominates the landscape.
We wanted to visit friends in Taormina, stock up with a few bottles of local wine from a vineyard on the lower slopes of the volcano.
“ASHRAF!” I CALLED AFTER HIM, “YOUR FIRST NAME IS ROCK WALLABY!”
Then choose the weather to have an easy run down the eastern coast of Sicily, across the Sicilian Channel to Malta, thence on to Laranda’s swinging mooring in Dockyard Creek in Grand Harbour. Those were the days.
Today, Dockyard Creek is one huge yacht marina. Some of the world’s largest multi-million dollar mega-boats often lie close by the walls of Fort St Angelo, the great Castello del Mare: ‘castle
