The Volcano Islands!

We were woken very suddenly from our alcohol fuelled slumber after our night with Colin and Moira with big bang just next to our cabin. A big 55 foot charter boat had banged it's bow into us. It took a few seconds to work out what was going on, an old bloke on deck was trying to lift their anchor but because we had all swung around in the night their anchor was on the other side of our boat, he seemed to think he could just keep coming forward and push us out of the way! As you can imagine Ali was not best pleased and started shouting I said just wait we will pull up some chain and let you get your anchor but the guy kept lifting. Why he was trying this on his own when there were at least eight people onboard I have no idea..... Eventually one of his friends came up to help him and we got out of his way with no more bangs.

The wind was blowing and so Ali decided it was off to the Aeolian Islands to see the volcanoes. It was a pretty long day especially due to a raging hangover and a very strong thumping headwind.

One of the first things you notice when approaching the island is the smell of rotten eggs and it stayed the whole time we were there depending on the wind direction sometimes it was quite strong, the girl were not impressed!




We got to the anchorage on the east of Isola Vulcano just before dark, it was full and it took us a few attempts to get settled having to go far closer to the shore than we would have liked. We had a fairly restless night before finally giving up at 5am and motoring around to the anchorage at the east side of the island. This anchorage had far less boats but proved as tricky due to the steep drop off - one minute you are in 60 metres of water and then suddenly it is 6 m deep. We set the bow anchor and a stern anchor as we had chosen a spot quite close to the ferry breakwater, had some breakfast then went ashore to climb a volcano!



The first of the hydrofoils coming in at around 6.30am (and they keep on coming until about 9pm!)



Islay Mist anchored below the Volcano on the east side of Isola Vulcano.

We hired jeep, an old wreck but a bargain at 30 Euros for the day! This helped us get the girls a little closer to the bottom of the path up the side of the volcano. When we parked up we saw this sign......



It costs three Euros for the climb which should really include an escalator s boy it is one hot walk!

Here are some pics.



Kaylee feeling the heat.



The side of the volcano is eroded by large gullys from rainwater which you have to traverse here and there.



The last of the shade about half way up, then it gets really hot!



You can see the layers of sedimentation from eruptions of dust where rain has washed some of it away.



A herd of wild goats we spied.

Finally the top of the volcano!





The girls posing with mum just glad not to have to climb anymore!

Even though we were pretty hot I think we were all delighted to be at the top of the crater, it was just as amazing as we thought it would be the clouds of sulphuric gas billow out from the blow holes and turn all the rocks around them bright green. The ground is very hot at the blow holes and the girl and I stayed well away from them. There is a helipad at the top (now that would be a good way to get to the top!) us ladies just stayed there whilst Ali walked the whole way around the crater.

Some more pics....



The coloured rocks.



The path around the blow holes takes you down into the crater. The whole east side of the volcano has blow holes pouring out gas.



A view of the crater and blow holes with Isola Lipari in the background.



Blow holes up close.



Closer!

We went back down the volcano which with the scree was far scarier than the way up as is usual. At the bottom we treated the girls to ice cream being so proud of them for making the climb especially as we had been advised they wouldn't make it. They are a lot tougher than they look!

We headed out again in the afternoon to get the money's worth out of our jeep and had a drive around the island. It is very beautiful with loads of wild flowers lining the verges, the aroma hits you as you drive along. There are small home steadings here and there and a lot of half finished houses Ali thought would make good projects! I wasn't so sure about living on a volcanic island that only sprouted from the sea a few hundred years ago....

The girls weren't so enthralled with the scenery!



Some scraggly looking sheep.



We went for a walk through the trees in a park.





Then we had to stop for this wayward rambler -





An essential flower picking stop.



Ali fairly liked the jeep! I on the other hand was a little worried about the lack of seat belts or doors especially on the steep hillside roads with hairpin bends!

The next day we went to the black beach at the anchorage for a swim and looked out the volcanic mud pools. The sulphur bubbles up through the mud and lot of people go to bathe in the mud thinking it has restorative properties, I am not so sure about that, it certainly has a lot of hair and bits in it - yuck!



Ali went furthest in.



Kaylee got all muddy although kids aren't really allowed in the mud as it can be dangerous apparently but you couldn't hold her back! Then it was back out to the sea to get clean again, the sea actually has hot spot too where volcanic gas comes bubbling up. The biggest drawback of the mud pools is that you smell of rotten eggs for quite few washes afterwards!

It really is a pretty cool place. We wanted to stay but we also wanted to see Isola Stromboli's night time fireworks and there were high wind forecasts for the next night so we went back to the boat to set off.



We were pretty glad to leave the ferries of Isola Vulcano behind they run all day long and they come in really fast making a huge wake which rocks you around all day long. We were lucky we managed to choose a brief period free of big ferries when we lifted our two anchors as it was a bit tricky.

The sail up was a fairly quick one due to moderate NW winds We commented that the swell seemed different to the usual Med chop it was long and regular, just like the Atlantic. Now we know that if we ever start feeling as if we are in the ocean in the Med again it is time to look for a good harbour! More on that later....



Me and the girl with Isola Stromboli in the background.



Isola Stromboli. This is the last photo for this blog entry as none of the rest came out and it was too rough to take too many. We got to Stromboli and were glad of the shelter we got behind it except for the katabatic gusts every now and then. The plan was to anchor at the only piece of the island which has anything approaching a beach. In reality it falls away very sharply indeed and it is full of local moorings. We did however anchor and had tea with the audible grumblings of the volcano in the background every now and then getting us excited about the night ahead! We went off to bed in the hope of a couple of hours sleep before going around to the NW corner of the island to view the nightly fireworks of the volcano. This hope was very quickly dashed with some strong gusts and the anchor alarm going off. It was already dark so we headed on around the island. As we motored around to the north the sea had gotten a lot rougher so we didn't wake the girls. In the end because of the clouds all we saw were three burst of red glow at the top, which whilst amazing enough were nothing compared to what some of our other sailing friends have seen! We were glad we had done it but decided it was time to set off towards the Messina Straits before it got any rougher.

Ha ha that idea didn't work very well at all. Ali took the first watch as I was a bit nervous about sailing on my own in the strong winds. I had only been lying down for a little while when it seemed as if the boat was hit with a bang, I heard Ali shout 'Oh Shit' and since he doesn't panic often I knew things weren't great. Then the boat lurched over so much so that Kaylee who was in the bed with me landed on top of me. I got up as quickly as I could, Ali came down dripping wet saying he had hoved the boat too (for the first time ever) and needed help to take the main sail down even though it was already fully reefed, yip it was that bad Ali was suggesting taking the sail down! We got our full heavy weather suits on for the first time since we had crossed Biscay, but boy did we need them as it was just chucking it down. We had been over taken by a classic Med thunderstorm the lightning was flashing around us, the rain was pouring and the wind was gusting on top of an already big sea, not pleasant at all. We got the sail down, Ali had to just tie the sails down at first a it was too dangerous to close the sail bag. After that we turned back the direction we were headed (thankfully with the wind) put just a meter and a half of the jib out very cautiously and found it was OK, we were zipping alon at between six and seven knots. We decided then we would just both stay up all night as it ws only fifty miles to go. The actual thunderstorm stayed with us for about and hour and then thankfully moved off. We were very worried about being struck as quite a few people we have met have lost all their electrics in this area or worse. After the main storm passsed we were still surrounded by a complete ring of lightning a few miles off on all sides whih gave the moonless night it's only source of light. There were big boats heading to or leaving Messina to keep and eye on too. I spent all night clipped on in the cockpit and Ali watched the radar etc. I prefer being outside on watch so it worked well. It is funny though as I have spent a lot of time worrying about being hit by a famous med storm and it wasn't so bad once we got the main sail down just a lot of rolling around. I realised at dawn that it had been a blessing the night had been moonless as the big waves are far more scary when you can see them coming!

After a few hours the winds began to ease leaving just a rolling sea so we both took a chance to get an hours sleep on the couch. At about seven am Kaylee woke up and joined me on deck (clipped on as the boat was still pitching and rolling) The first thing she said was are we at the volcano yet? they were both very mad we hadn't woken them for the volcano! They knew nothing of the night we had put in at all, amazing.

Ali suggested putting the main back up when the winds died down a bit but then said,"I know stupid question!" But one thing is for sure despite all the quips about Ali's sailing exploits there is no one other person in this world I would have wanted in charge of the boat that night. He is a great sailor, knows this boat like the back of his hand and would never do anything to put us in danger. Enough praise though as tomorrow is my birthday and as usual the peerie shite has forgotten all about it!

That's it for now, we are currently anchored at the island of Korcula in Croatia there have been highish winds today whilst a little worrying on the anchoring front at least they bring a reprieve from the relentless heat we have experienced over the last few weeks - never thought I would ever be glad of some wind! Daniel is here with us and we are heading North a bit before heading back to drop Daniel back at Dubrovnik then we head to Greece from where the girls and I are flying home for ten days. Alisha says she hopes it will be raining!

Sicily

The sunrise over the Southern Tyrrhenian sea, my watch and as you can see a flat calm, what more could a girl ask for? The trip from Sardinia to Sicily remained calm, or a slight wind on the nose the whole way there which gave us plenty of time for doing bits and pieces.

The girls and Ali baked a very nice cake with dates and apricots.



Half eaten already!

Then there was the all important task of Barbie washing!



All clean now!



And finally in the afternoon Sicily came into view! It was good to see land and also know we had made our longest sea crossing since Biscay with no problems.



We got into the harbour at about tea time and went straight to look for the moorings that people had told us about. When we got there we noticed no one was using them and they were all anchored so we circled and English boat for a while who said they had been told to get off the moorings as they were unsafe due to lack of maintenance. It was flat calm and the anchorage next to the buoys was pretty full so we thought we would chance a buoy anyway and had a good nights sleep.



The sunset view from the anchorage at Trapani.



The next day it was time to go and explore Trapani and find out about taking a cable car up the hill to Erice an ancient town at the summit of Mt S Giuliano. Trapani old town is a little run down but it has some nice old buildings here and there.



Below is the biggest bug I have come across so far, it fairly made me and the girls screek! The flower heads are about 6cm across so that makes the bee.....





Alisha with her favourite Italian dish - lasagna, again! With the face she is making you wouldn't think it. We also came across a new food in Trapani, in Scotland you have the chip buttie, Sicily the ice cream buttie! All the old ladies really go for them and they have a big jar of buns on the top of every ice cream counter! We didn't try one as it just doesn't seem right somehow.



That afternoon we went back to the boat and The girls and I sheltered from the sun whilst Ali went ashore to have a look around. Of course it was about ten minutes after he was out of sight and without his phone that the coast guard boat came up to tell me to move on! Thankfully a flash of a smile worked wonders and they said I could wait until 'my husband' came back to help me move the boat. The mooring buoys were put into Trapani harbour for the Americas cup in 2004 and have never been looked at since resulting in an English yacht dragging ashore two weeks before we got there. This made our trip up on the cable car look less likely but good old Super Ali had been around the marinas when ashore and had done a deal with one getting him to lower the price by ten Euros a night as there were higher winds predicted for later in the week.

We anchored in amongst the buoys for one night then went into Columbus marina the next morning then set out to the hill top town of Erice. We made a couple of mistakes on the way there, going right past the bust station first not good on a hot day when you are carrying a four year old! The next hiccup came when we went to get on the bus we hadn't realised you have to pre buy your tickets from the tobacconist shops so we got a gruff, "No bigletti no entrada senior," from the bus driver!

Eventually though we made it to the cable car and it is quite a ride especially when the afternoon breeze starts to swing it about a bit as you get near to the top!

We were quite surprised to see this antennae park at the top of the hill just in front of the ancient town. They obviously have no Historic Scotland or Natural Heritage groups here! It does tie with the excellent mobile coverage to b found everywhere we have been so far. You can even get 3G coverage out at sea if you want probably because Italians are entirely addicted to their phones almost as much as their coffee.



Some pictures from around Erice.







The view looking NE from Erice, you can see Capo San Vito where we were heading next.



The trip back down the 756 metres high hill with a view of Trapani and the Egadi islands just visible through the haze in the background.



There were high winds forecast for the next day and they came sure enough, well over forty knots for a large part of the day! The marina we were in was unfortunately very exposed from the South East and the girls and I couldn't get off the boat for a while. The pontoons weren't piled they were anchored so they were wiggling around all over the place, we had to keep raising our gangplank to stop it bashing the electricity column. Ali and Simon off the boat Caladh spent a good chunk of the day helping Francesco and Vincenzo the marina guys tie up all the boats better and generally keeping an eye on things. We got our first salty deck wash actually in a harbour that day and had to keep all the hatches shut as the spray was coming right over the boat!



The girls just got on with some craft, here they are making the birthday card they sent to Alistair's dad 'Pop.'





A little footage of the bouncy pontoons in Trapani! NB if you are viewing this through face book you have to click view original post to see the video clip, don't know why but you do!

We were going to set off the next day it had been calm all morning and we did some shopping and school in preparation for anchoring again. Alistair met Simon and Jo off Caladh on the pier and they said oh well no sailing for you today. Minutes later the wind had whipped up and I was getting a little bit anxious so Ali said OK ff you go and listen to the Italian forecast on the VHF. When you switch the VHF on it goes straight on to Channel 16 the emergency channel and the first thing I heard was, "Mayday Mayday Mayday Sailing yacht ***** is sinking ten miles west of Trapani." As you can imagine that was the end of any sailing plans for that day! Next was the coastguard boat zooming out of the harbour just next to us (below) We listened for a while and the poor man on the VHF was in some state as you would be as there were children on board and I must say the coastguard radio operator wasn't really reassuring him much. They did get rescued in the end too, luckily for Ali or I may never have left the harbour again! Ali went up to pay Francesco but he said We and Caladh could have the extra night for free as Ali and Simon had been so much help during the winds. A very nice friendly marina indeed the next thing was Ali got invited with Simon up to the office to have some 'men's time with food and drink.' Typical! We had Francesco back down at the boat later on and he told us all about his life and the mafia etc, a very interesting guy. He also loved Ali's spicy fried tuna steaks bought from the fish market that morning and very, very yummy! Ali is really getting into his cooking now and is really rather good now!



Trapani is a busy fishing harbour a lot of the boats are stacked with these lights at the back to entice the fish.



The next day we did set of on a thirty five mile trip to Terrasini on the North coast of Sicily. Capo San Vito seen through the ever present haze! We sailed alongside Caladh most of the day until they turned South to go to Castellmare and we carried on across the bay to Terrasini.



We anchored inside the breakwater with a line ashore as it says in the pilot book and Ali took the girls to the beach whilst I got on with the dinner. Tonight a real breakthrough came, Alisha decided it was OK after all to swim in the sea! It has taken a while but now we can hardly get her out of the water!



Alisha swam back to the boat from the beach!

The next morning we were just getting our pancake batter made (Sunday!) when two guys in a rib came up and told us we had to leave the anchorage as we were too close to the flight path of the airport no less. We asked if we could have breakfast first but no we had to go NOW! They told us to go to the marina but we just went outside the harbour and anchored for breakfast and a swim before setting off again as it was to swelly to stay. On reflection we think we may have been scammed by the marina guys looking for more money as all the boats that were out that day were sailing right up to the shore next to the airport and no one was bothering them! We should question people more....

We went around to Mondello a few miles North of Palermo and anchored for the night. It was a grey cool day so no pictures form that trip either!

Here is Ali hanging off the boat the next day (even though we were sailing under full canvas...) He was trying to secure a canoe better to the back of the boat as he thought it was slowing us down. The canoe had floated up to the boat the previous night and Ali thought it was a gift from Neptune. In the end we gave it back to the sea as it seemed more hassle than it was worth and we don't have the space. I was quite surprised in Ali's confidence in my ability to rescue him, as you can see he attempted this ridiculous mission without even having a life jacket on.



We motor sailed fifty miles to Cephalu. We didn't stop at Palermo as there have been reports of thefts from yachts there. It didn't look particularly appealing from the sea anyway.



Cephalu old town from West.

We anchored outside the old town and spent a very swelly night there we awoke to a flat calm and were just about to all go a shore when we got our first taste of a Scirocco wind! Another day of 30 to 40 knot winds followed thankfully coming from the South and therefore the shore so it wasn't too bad for us. We managed to do a load of handwashing and school etc. The washing dried in minutes as the Scirocco wind comes from the deserts of Africa and it is like standing in front of a huge hair dryer on full power, very strange indeed!

In the afternoon the wind died so Ali took the girls off to the beach. It was nice and peaceful until the wind did a 180 degrees shift and blew up from the North pushing us towards shore. Ali and the girls had a bit of a struggle to get our little dinghy back to the boat through the chop. We upped sticks and went around to the harbour at the East end of the town and anchored there in what must be one of the prettiest little harbour areas we have been in yet. there are two little roky islands in the anchorage and it is just lovely.

We had no food onboard and went into town for dinner. We ate at a restaurant just at the bottom of the steps to the Norman Cathedral. Ali was drawn in by the piano player and the general ambience which lasted until the thunderstorm which soaked us all.....



The thnderstorm didn't last for long and once the waiters had tipped the water out of the awnings we had a very pleasant meal. The girls spent most of the time at the top of the Cathedral steps dancing and singing. Kaylee wants to be a singer and was a little dissapointed when she came back to the table asking,"Why ween't people crowding around me and throwing flowers at me I was singing my best!" Ali and I couldn't stop laughing.



This is the cool dude piano player, he spent the whole night with a pint of lager on the top of the piano and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and if you can spot it he has a TV on top of the piano too and guess what he was watching, yes that's right footy whilst playing flawless easy listening tunes!

The next day started off quite poorly as we went to the pier for water (just like the two other boats had done) no sooner had we tied up than a coast guard came over and told us to get off the pier immediately. We tried to argue but he said ten minutes and be gone when he got back. Unfortunatly the water was so low pressured it went off so we went around to the marina at the other side they too told us to go but we ended up just having to tie ourselves up and take water as there was no where else to get it for thirty miles and we had none at all.

Once we got back to the anchorage Ali took the girls swimming to the little island and over to the shore Alisha leading the way!



In the afternoon we went to the Cathedral.....









An old water tap in town.

We went to the suprmarket at the other side of town, a bit of a tek in the searing heat! The old streets are lovely though a real rabbits warren with washing hanging everywhere and teenagers on scooters weaving their way through and old women sitting out on charis in the shade gossiping, a nice feel to the place.

That night we had a lovely couple on board Colin and Moira from somewhere around London. We had a bit too much wine and a great laugh. One of the funnier moments of the night was as it got dark Ali started talking about his LED lights he put in last year and how bright they were. He went to turn on the cockpit lights and they flickered for two seconds then died. Colin said " I can hardly stand the light it's dazzling me!" Poor Alistair (hee hee!)

That's all for Sicily, we really liked the place but it was time to leave the next day for the Volcano islands.......