I'm sorry to report that this morning The Kipper and the crew-of-two were perhaps a touch on the tired and probably slightly emotional side; the reason for this being that their visit to paradise in the lee of a volcano turned into hell on earth when the shadow of night crept across the island and all the young folk ashore got up and went out to the local nightclub. I received the following at 06:43 hrs:
'Off to go through the Straits of Messina, left at 07:00 hrs on time. Glad not staying another night, night club ashore very loud till 04:00. Kept us all awake! Very quiet on board now! If we haven't all fallen asleep we will go through at about 14:30 with a 4 knot current, that is if my calculations based on HW Gibraltar are correct!'
The Scribe respectfully whispered in the reply so as not to wake them all up. She has complete faith in The Kipper's navigational skills but did advise him to watch out for the big ships in the Straits.
'This navigation without tides is very confusing especially when you do have to apply it, am I still asleep, I don't know, who am I! Be in contact later hopefully when I'm more compos mentis, that's Latin, it's as close to Italian that I can get!'
The Scribe is immediately transported back to that gentleman on the swim platform...The Kipper trampled all over her vision of loveliness by being rude about our Italian friends: I shan't repeat it here.
By 18:35 hrs the update was as follows:
'We are through the Messini Straits, sailed from half way down at an average of 7 knots speed over the ground for 4 hours, running down wind and we didn't get the beast out of the bag, not in 25 to 30 knots of wind true thank you very much. Wind now died and motoring the last 40 miles to Rocella Ionica. Should get there about 02:00.'
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