The sailing cruise to Sicily was planned at the last minute . Nevertheless I was looking forward to it. It was not a ordinary vessel but a luxury sail yacht of 38 meters with less than 20 guests. A huge wooden deck with a lot of space for everybody aboard, polished brass and rigging promised a great sailing experience. The ship´s cook would deliver magic meals with Italian ingredients every day.

The sun would start appearing from behind the deep blue wake beside the white hat of Mount Etna with the always present column of smoke. Soon the sun would rise out of the sea near the black cone of Mount Stromboli. - So it should be. But it happened another way. A volcano at the other end of the world spouted ash.

Indeed sailors are used to playing a role subordinate to Nature - but that is only true at sea. Ashore everything had to be perfect. It took me a long time to accepted that the plan would not work. Meanwhile I have found that the Deutsche Bahn hot line resisted bravely to the overuse. With abundance of patience it was possible to book an exotic trip of 30 hours by rail from Berlin to Sicily. Berlin - Basel - Milan - Roma - Catania - a 100 years ago that would have been a trip of a few months. I resolved myself to spare the effort for the few days at the Mediterranean Sea and I stayed at home...

But what did I win? - Some days with beautiful spring weather and lots of time that was not booked up forehands - great!

Everybody spoke about the flight cancellations, but who was really disturbed? How many meetings that nobody ever would miss had to be canceled. How many time people would have on their hands? Exception of the travelers caught in transit rooms between flights, there was probably no real victims of the emergency situation.

Next week-end I will go for sailing at the Baltic Sea for now. Less than 3 hours after breakfast at home in Berlin I will be on the sea near Warnemünde - whatever Eyjafjallajökull decides to do.

Maybe I choose the deceleration for now but I did so deliberately and with no regrets.