38 25.114N 014 57.71E Porto Di Levante, Vulcano, Aeolian Islands

Pipedream
Mon 26 Apr 2010 17:21
Arrived safely at the island of Vulcano about 25 miles north of Portorosa, Sicily. We started out for Lipari but when we got close the town looked a lot bigger than we had imagined and honestly we are ready for a change of pace. We are anchored (first time in a long while) under the leeh of a 1600 foot volcano that last erupted in 1890. One other boat in the harbor with us about a 25 foot fisihng boat. Real deep and steep too in here however. We went in looking for about 20 feet of water and could almost throw a rock up to the beach. After a long involved process we were able to get the anchor down but are floating in about 70 feet of water with around 100 feet of chain out. The pilot book said to stay clear of the commercial dock. There could not be more than 20 or 30 building in the whole town but the hydrofoil ferries are comming in here about one per hour and a huge car farry has stopped at least twice in the last four hours. The car ferries put me to shame. These things are maybe 200 feet long - a real ship. It comes in, turns around drops an anchor and backs in... dah.

George and Antony are ashore in the dingy. Hope they get back to the boat ok. The motor is running badly again. It was running fine when I left BCN. There were plumes of smoke comming from the shore that I thought were open fires. According to George they are part of the volcano. You can smell a lot of sulpher and vents of steam/smoke are comming from various parts of this mountain! George was practically salivating to get ashore to explore the place. Captain Wayno is staying on board just to make sure the anchor is holding and the boat stays put. You save money on dockage but the I don't sleep too well the first night until I am sure everything is working as advertised.

We had about 25 kts of wind again right on our nose all day and it is still blowing at around 7 PM as I write this.. No matter what direction we go we seem to get a head wind. Both my weather forecasts showed a 6 to 10 kt beam reach.

When I get some time I will go through some more pictures and send some along. All for now.
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