Internet connections recently have been as scarce as Woolly Mammoths. I think I saw one (a Woolly Mammoth that is) but it turned out to be a bush. Don't hold your breath awaiting posts. I will write up the posts as I go and then load them all up when we get a connection. Anyway, the active volcano. Yes, we are parked next to an active Volcano which is venting smelly gas. Eeek!!! Now Pam usually sees the blackest picture when anything happens but was a bit perturbed when I asked what we do if the volcano erupts! (the answer of course is have another beer). As you might have guessed we have made it to the Aeolian Islands or the island of Vulcano to be more precise.
We left Palermo on Wednesday morning and headed east aiming for an anchorage at Porticello about 10 miles away (only the two of us on board as Martin had flown home). It was good to get away from the dirt and grim of Palermo. One thing to watch out for is the dirt on the ground. You pick up a thick oily deposit on shoes walking around town which mark the deck with oily black marks which are very difficult to remove. This is much worse when you go "bow to" so are walking down the deck each time you come back from being ashore. We must remember to take our shoes off.
Porticello turned out to be a bit naff. The anchorage was well protected but a bit industrial and the water not too clean. We had planned to go onto one of of the two harbours further east if this one was no good but instead we decided to go on a further 25 miles to Ceflau, an old town with a harbour and anchorage. We arrived around 6ish - a trip of 8 hours of which we managed to sail for 4 hours (that's a record then!!). Ceflau harbour was relatively empty with what looked like lots of room for visiting boats. Loads of room on the outside of the pier. We decided to anchor in the south east of the bay which was fine. There was also a boat anchored in the north of the bay. The whole of the harbour seemed well protected from the NW swell but it might be a different story if the wind was in the east.
The doom and gloom book wasn't too helpful saying "but not everywhere good holding". Why not be positive and say mostly good holding - it was anyway! Ceflau is meant to be a nice town but the anchorage was not the clean water we were looking for so we decided to just stay one night and head off for the Aeolian's the following morning. We made an earlyish start and 8.30am and headed North East for the 50 mile motor sail. The wind was mostly NW around 5 knots (I did see 7knots once) so we had both sails up but motored. We arrived at Vulcano around 5 ish and set about finding somewhere to anchor. Our plan was to go to Porto di Ponente on the north west side but the swell was around 2 metres (left overs from a storm far to the north) so that put paid to that. We motored round the top of the island and into Porto di Levante, the main harbour. The anchorage is to the north of the ferry quays.
The doom and gloom book is now a little out of date as there is a visitors pontoon to the south of the ferry quays - where the diagram shows "moorings". There were 3 or 4 boats on the pontoon but it was empty by midday. There was also a second pontoon totally empty. Price is 40 Euro per night for a 12m boat.
There is a small village with lots of restaurants and tourist shops but a good supermarket (surprisingly cheap given it's a small island). We have decided to stay a couple of nights so plan to leave Saturday morning. We had a nice meal ashore last night (less than 35 Euros for 2 but the beer was expensive - the wine very cheap). Highlights of the place are the huge volcano cone, steaming away that dominates the place and the funghi - a sulphurous mud pool - smelling strongly of hydrogen sulphide (!!!!!) - which people bathe in to get rid of their troubles. The tourist book we have says that it is also radioactive!!! Anyway that doesn't deter the scores of people plastering themselves in mud. The smell from the mud pool gets to most places but you learn to live with it.
One problem we are finding is that our Nationwide debit card is not working in many of the ATMs. We are getting about a 2 in 10 success rate. I rang them and they said there are problems with Visa internationally!! My Nat West card seems to be working fine. Both times the Nationwide card worked was at Banco Di Sicilia - so that is the one to try - if you can find one!
Now we are in the Aeolian Islands, we will try and spend at least a week here provided the weather is settled. Tomorrow is Saturday so we will probably head for one of the smaller islands further away from the mainland in case we get overwhelmed by tourists! - but then it all depends on which way the wind is blowing.
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