We did not have a good night. We fell asleep right away, but were
awakened at 4:00pm by loud wind noises.
It has blown up to a gale!
There certainly was no suggestion of this in any of the weather
forecasts we have seen.
We are not sure what to do. The holding here for the anchor is not
great. It is stony. Some other boats are on the move,
presumably having dragged their anchors.
But we do not seem to be dragging ours and there is really nowhere else
to go. Luckily after about half an
hour while Richard was up watching the situation, the wind subsides and he says
it is OK for us to go back to sleep.
When we wake up all is quiet. We have a quick breakfast and make our way
off to Lipari, the main island in this group. There is still little wind. It is blowing 6-9 knots, but it is on the nose, so we are
motoring again. We decide to go
around Stromboli again to see the eruption during daylight. It is not nearly so spectacular,
because you can’t see the fast flowing red lava. What we do see is lots of smoke and steam coming from the
flow and at the top occasional puffs of black smoke.
We stop for lunch at another island,
Panarea. We just anchor and have a
swim. I am very short on
provisions for lunch, but manage to make us a sandwich with my last bake it
yourself baguette. Then we set off
again, motoring to Lipari. We have
been debating where to stop for the night in Lipari. The pilot says there are a few pontoons in the heart of the
town, but they do not give good shelter and thunderstorms (with attendant high
winds) are forecast for the night.
So in the end we go into the marina at the far end of town away from
anything. But we are safe and have
water and electricity.
When we stop we realise that the whole boat is
covered in a thin layer of black sooty like dust. This must have been from Stromboli, because we washed her
only two days ago and she was spotless.
It is amazing how the volcano deposited this stuff on every inch of the
boat. It takes us ages to hose it
all off.
We try to find somewhere for a drink here before
dinner, but there is nothing. So
it is back to the boat where we open a bottle of red Italian wine and eat a
pasta dinner. We shall decide if
we want to move in to the town tomorrow.
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