The next island on the tour was Vulcano, which had (as you may have guessed), a volcano. It was another no-wind day so we motored over after swinging by the water front of the town of Lapari, which had colorful store facades and a walled old town.
The first anchorage at Porto Levante was very deep and already crowded so we headed through the pass between the two islands, and found a nice spot in Porto Poniente. The water was slightly murky and darker overall from the volcanic sand. Todd ran the 3 of us to shore so we could hike up to the crater, but stayed behind to work on a splicing project. There was the usual schlepping of garbage and recycling to drop off en route to the base of the mountain. The little town of Vulcano was at the beach-end of a green valley, with the two anchorages on either side of a peninsula.
It was afternoon and warm, but at least we had intermittent cloud cover and a nice breeze for the plod to the top. Surprisingly we didn’t see any obsidian (black volcanic glass), although there was heaps of it on the beach at Porticello on Lipari island. The views from the top were for miles, and we could see Stromboli doing it’s thing in the distance. The crater was deep and dry, and some daring souls had marked out their names with rocks at the bottom. There were several sulfa-spewing vents around the rim, (which made the air a bit miffy!), and the terrain was as inhospitable as a moonscape. It was surprising that the volcanic soil in the valley was so fertile when the stuff on the slopes didn’t support a tuft of grass.
The trip back down was a pleasure and we stopped at the “base camp” stand for fresh squeezed Sicilian orange juice and icy lemonade. The vendors were having their Sunday lunch with some friends, but they seemed happy to hop up and make us drinks. We had observed a couple of Sunday lunches in progress on our walk through town, with families seated at long wooden tables under the shade trees in their yards..we just couldn’t see what they were eating!
Todd met us at the bar near the dinghy dock where we enjoyed a much deserved frosty beer after the hike. Back on the boat it was swims and then Sunday dinner of seared tuna (the last of the one fish we had caught), mixed grilled zucchini and greens salad, and coconut rice. Actually we almost bagged it as we got absolutely mobbed by mosquito’s at sunset. Our USB rechargeable bug rackets saw a lot of action, and the cockpit was littered with dead mosquito’s..although we all sustained several bites during the fray.
Monday was a wander around town to get some supplies, swims and naps. We did locate the mud pool but this did not look nearly as therapeutic as the mineral springs up the road. We had hoped to get pizza for lunch while in town but apparently we were too early and the pizza ovens weren’t firing up until later, so we had left overs instead.
Tuesday we took care of boat stuff and then headed to town for a few hours at the mineral bathes, which was a delight. There were three main pools each with a different “tonic”. One was jasmine, one was broom, and one was orange blossom. They each had different “stations” with jets aimed at various body parts for say glutes, lumbar, calf, feet etc, and the water was pleasantly cool. It wasn’t busy at all, and we looked quite stylish in the swim caps they provided. (Well Todd didn’t need one, and he didn’t have to rent short shorts like in France, so he was “molto” happy!). We stopped off at the wine store on our way back and filled our 10 liter wine jug (for 2.20 euro/liter), with a pleasant dry local white wine they had on tap. Of course it was still a little early for pizza but the guys went back to shore after dropping us on Sah Sen, and picked up pizzas (sun-dried tomato and olives, sausage/mushroom/onion and olive, Margarita, and spinach/ basil/ mozzarella/mushroom/ham), for dinner which hit the spot!