The rocky coast and misty mountains making up the north coast of Sicily.

The coast road burrowed through the mountains and soared over the valleys.

We anchored overnight at Porticello and Cefalù, both times in clear water over sand, and saw lots of little flat fish hovering the sand disturbed by our anchor chain. I dug out Anne Hammick and found a good place to hang her in the cockpit.

Anne Hammick and me, relaxing in the cockpit.

The Aeolian Islands

Eventually we turned left and headed for the Aeolian Islands. The Aeolian Islands are the peaks of seven volcanoes, and two are still active – Stromboli and Vulcano. The islands are named after Aeolus, god of the winds. In Homer’s Odyssey, it was Aeolus who gave Odysseus all four winds tied up in a bag to help him to get home to Ithaca in Greece after the Trojan War. Unfortunately, as they were nearing Ithaca, his crew opened the bag thinking that it contained treasure – this let all the winds loose and blew Odysseus’ ship off course and further delayed his return.

Our first glimpse of the Aeolian Islands, Filicudi and Alicudi.

Vulcano

We headed for Vulcano on a volcano-climbing mission. The island emerged from the sea in 183 BC and last erupted in 1890. It is a strangely shaped island consisting of extinct and almost extinct craters, with black sand beaches, bubbling mud and hot mineral springs (and a pervasive eggy smell). As the recommended anchorage on the west side of Vulcano (Porto di Ponente) was full when we arrived, we anchored overnight in 12 metres of deep blue water in Spiaggia di Vinci on the Island of Lipari opposite.

Sunset over Spiaggia di Vinci.

The next morning, we woke to the view of the main crater of Vulcano smoking gently.

When Porto di Ponente emptied a little we found a space to park and spent a day swimming and snorkelling – and contemplating the path up the volcano.

The path to the crater can be seen along the tree line and up through the ash.

When the wind blew up from the north west, we upped anchor and went to the anchorage on the eastern side of the island (Porto di Levante) – along with everyone else. The water was quite deep for anchoring and the holding was mixed – lots of boats dragged anchor in the blustery rainy weather we had the next day (the first rain that we have seen since April…). Luckily, we managed to get our anchor to hold AND picked up a sturdy mooring line lurking just below the surface. Small lumps of pumice floated past us in the water, washed off the beach by the rain.

Connecting across the anchorage

An Italian boat came in to anchor alongside CAPE, with three children on board. Nintendo DSs were spotted on both boats, and all five kids were connected across the anchorage before the anchor was even in! The Nintendo DS session was followed by noisy swimming games, and an invitation to Beth and Bryn to join Susanna, Flavio and Simone (and Andrea and Marella) for a trip ashore to the mud baths and pizza. The fact that children aren’t allowed in the mud baths didn’t stop the fun, as there was a black volcanic beach to explore and hot, sulphur-smelly water with bubbles to swim in (fart jokes are big on our boat at the moment). The next evening we all got together on CAPE for a drink, local cakes, and a DVD for the kids – all squished around the chart table.

Bethany, Bryn, Susanna, Flavio and Simone engrossed in Blue Planet.

Climbing the volcano

The next morning we got up early-ish – to climb the volcano before it got too hot.  

Welcome to the volcano!

The one-and-a-half-hour walk up to the crater was punishing – the path was coarse black sand to start with, like walking across a beach of soft sand, but uphill. The sand gave way to hard-packed pink ash, uneven and crossed with gullies where the recent rain had scoured the surface. Once we reached the rim of the crater, the surface was a lunar landscape of ash, pumice, and rocks, but at least there was a strong, cool breeze.

Trekking across a lunar landscape on the rim of the volcano.

Looking down from the rim of the crater into the mud in the crater itself, and across to the sulphurous fumaroles on the far side.

Beth and Bryn sitting on a lump of rock blown out of the crater during an earlier eruption. The groups of people walking the rim of the crater give some idea of the scale of the volcano.

Bryn on top of the world (395 metres).

The view from the top was reminiscent of the view from Shirley’s Heights in Antigua.

The view from the top of the volcano was stunning. The two anchorages (and CAPE if you know where to look) can be clearly seen, as well as the Island of Lipari opposite. We stopped for a rest, a drink and to eat some oranges that we’d brought with us in true Famous Five style. A small lizard approached us – he could obviously smell the water and fruit – and stayed close to eat some orange that we threw to him.

A lizard on the scrounge.

We thought going up was tough, but going back down was hard on the knees and seemed to get even harder as we descended into the heat.

Stromboli

After having climbed Vulcano, we were keen to see Stromboli, which is a real, lava-spewing, volcano-shaped volcano rising to 925 metres, that (very conveniently for the parents of by now avid young volcanologists) is in a state of almost continuous activity. While the pyrotechnics weren’t quite as spectacular as we hoped, we definitely saw lava vomited into the night sky every 20 minutes or so, accompanied by an impressive rumble from deep inside the mountain.

On-board volcano

We topped our volcano-fest by building the volcano that Bryn had for one of his birthdays – a plaster of Paris affair involving poster paint, vinegar, baking soda and food colouring. It was fun to build and decorate, but wasn’t a patch on the real thing. We’re going to see if we can use the mould to make a chilled chocolate cake volcano…

Volcano under construction.

Volcano in action.

Straits of Messina

Having rounded Stromboli (the ‘lighthouse of the Mediterranean’), we turned south towards the Straits of Messina – the narrow stretch of water between the toe of Italy and Sicily. The twin perils of Scilla and Charybdis can be found in the Straits of Messina, and were dangers that were tackled by Odysseus on his journey home. Scilla was supposed to be a monster who (like all mythical monsters worth their salt) lived in a cave on top of a sheer cliff, and who had 12 feet and 6 long necks with horrible heads that plucked swordfish, dolphins and unlucky sailors from ships as they passed. Opposite was Charybdis – a giant whirlpool – that sucked down whole ships. Apparently Odysseus chose to pass closer to Scilla than Charybdis and lost a few crew to the monster. An earthquake in 1783 is reported to have altered the topography of the sea floor and tamed the twin perils. It is, however, still important to pass through the Straits at a specific point in the tide to avoid the pull of Charybdis and other whirlpools in this stretch of water.

Rocella Ionica

Having escaped the clutches of Scilla and Charybdis unscathed, we motored along the sole of Italy’s boot and anchored overnight off the beach at Galati. The next day we headed for the marina at Rocella Ionica – our jumping off point for Greece. Previously a free marina, it started charging a couple of weeks before we got there (typical!).

We were disappointed to find that we’d used most of the fuel that we’d taken on at Palermo – or at least we thought we had. This meant that our fuel consumption had not improved since getting the injectors serviced and so on. (Alarm bells should have started ringing faintly at this point.) However, fuel was available by tanker, so we arranged to have some delivered. The alarm bells should have got louder when a) I couldn’t see the fuel level in the port-side fuel tank and the conclusions that I came to were that it was totally full or totally empty (we should have checked but didn’t), and (alarm bells deafening by now) b) the tanker arrived with a large-bore, high-pressure hose. When Mr Fuel Tanker started pumping there was a loud bang as the full-to-the-brim port-side fuel tank split, dumping 200 litres of hot diesel into the engine room and over David. We got Mr Fuel Tanker to stop pumping and quickly starting pumping by hand the remaining fuel from the split tank, plus as much as we could of the spilt fuel in the engine room into jerry cans and then into the empty starboard tank. Luckily we have two fuel tanks and could isolate the split one. The engineer who worked on the fuel filter in Palermo must have shut the port tank off at some point – and we had never thought to check it because we never shut it off. Looking on the bright side (there is always one if you look hard enough), we hadn’t used all our fuel and our fuel consumption has improved! We cleaned up the diesel from the engine room, the decks (where the tank overflows had sprayed it) and us, and scurried off in the general direction of Greece…