Etna Erupts

We've spent the day motoring north along the east coast of Mount Etna, a great brooding presence on our left hand side. Little wind and flat calm most of the way it took us 10 hours to cover the 54 miles from Syracusa to Taormina. No fish yet again but we did play with a dozen or so dolphins on the way. At one stage we thought we had engine problems as we kept hearing a deep growling noise. Eventually we put it down to planes flying overhead that we could not see.

Arrived here at Taormina around five and tied up to one of George Rizzos famous buoys. He remembered us from 2010.

As Jen and Marcus prepared dinner that loud rumbling began again and looking up to Etna we realised they were not planes this afternoon but Etna rumbling away. It seems we are in the middle of quite a big eruption and now it is dark we can see lava cascading down the side of the mountain from our eastern side. For more information look at Twitter account @iammountetna.

We are here for a few days. We had hoped to go round the south of Sicily this time but forecast strong winds have put paid to that idea. Whilst still not ideal we are hoping for much lighter winds once we are through the notorious Straits of Messina in the middle of next week. Meanwhile we'll have an easy day tomorrow. On Tuesday we would like to rent a car and go up to the top of Etna but seeing the lava cascading down the slopes tonight that idea might have to go on hold.