Salina
Mor Toad / Moy Toad
David and Jocelyn Fawcett
Wed 27 Sep 2017 15:19
14:52.33E
Yesterday after a swim round the boat and breakfast we set off from Filicudi to Salina. Pretty calm, no wind and sunny so apart from having to motor a pleasant crossing.
Salina is a twin peaked Island ( twin volcanic cones long since extinct ) and quite green and fertile ( presence of groundwater so the most fertile of all the Aeolian Islands) with vineyards (Malvasia Grape) mostly on the saddle between the two peaks but fitted in elsewhere around the island under the slopes of the 2 hills . Plenty of olive trees and apparently capers are another produce too.
We sailed round the south side of the island to the port of Santa Marina where although we could have anchored just outside we decided to go into the marina for a couple of nights. We were one of the first boats in that day arriving at lunchtime but by he evening it was very full and on one side we had some Australians and the other side Russians. Quite a few charter boats came in with some Brits on board, also heard German and French as well as Italian. So by the end of the day quite a busy little marina. One interesting but ? Disturbing fact David asked if the water was drinkable ( ?whether to fill the tanks) and he was told its imported in from Naples - so possibly not!! It's certainly a busy port with ferries coming and going all day.
In the afternoon we walked into the village which turned out to be an elegant pedestrianised street one street back from the waterfront. Apparently many of the houses were built by wealthy vineyard owners in the 19c. The usual touristy shops but a butchers, fishmongers and various grocery shops too. From the waterfront there were excellent views across to Stromboli ( which you could see was smoking) and another island close by called Panarea ( both of which we hope to visit in the next couple of days) In the evening we went out for dinner and the Malvasia wine was very good but the meal unfortunately not which was a shame as the restaurant had good write ups.
Overnight it started to rain and carried on until about 11 this morning with some thunder and lightening ( quite warm though) Lots of wet looking sailors wandering around and like many of them we decided to do our provisioning. Quite a few boats set out at lunchtime but we had decided to spend 2 nights here and had hoped to get a walk up Mount Fossa ( the highest peak) . However as the day moved on and it was still threatening to rain we decided against this but hired a car to look at the other villages and general scenery. In the end this only took 3 hours which included a stop for coffee and Tiramisu ( which was very good) and actually not a lot to see really.
So now catching up with The Blog, emails and David has to look at the holding tank which says it's full. This hasn't been closed so isn't discharging which means we have a blockage somewhere!! Having looked to see if he could open the tank he realised he needed some tool or other which in our our trip into town this morning he managed to get from the Fermentera - the iron mongers . Always jobs to do on a boat!
Skies are still looking pretty grey but according to the weather forecast more rain overnight and then clear tomorrow - fingers crossed.
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