Breakfast was on the sun deck, with a nice view of the still smoking crater on Vulcano. There had been 5 boats in this lovely sheltered bay overnight, but one was gone before we were up and another left soon after. We were in no particular rush, so took our time to get ready to depart. We were heading back to the Sicilian mainland. Our route took us between Vulcano and Lipari, which is a gap less than half a mile wide. Even so the water is still deep, we were between the islands before the depth sounder started to read, it doesn't get an echo when the water is more than 120 metres. (We were slightly surprised a few days ago, when we encountered the dolphins. The depth had been similarly off the scale, when all of a sudden it registered 1.2 metres. There must have been a dolphin swimming directly under the sensor.)
Our route today was to Milazzo, the main ferry port servicing the Aeolian Island. Unsurprisingly the ferries were on the same track as we were, and we had to keep a careful watch on the AIS to see what was coming our way. At one point we had one of the hydrofoils coming in each direction at 34 knots and a car ferry as well, who seemed to think that we should not be in his way. We had to wait until the hydrofoil overtook us, before we could turn to get out of the path of the ferry. All successfully accomplished in the end.
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| The guide book says the town would be pretty except for the petro-chemical works. This was the best view of them that we could find. |
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| We can just about see Etna through the haze in the distance |
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| The Castle dominates the town |
We have become aware that the season here only really starts on the first of May. We had been trying repeatedly to contact the marina we wanted to stay at, but had been getting no response. On what was going to be our final attempt to call them, they answered, and said that although they were actually closed, we could come there. When we arrived it was clear that there were people there, preparing to open at the weekend. We saw a diver down, obviously checking the lazy lines and there was various other maintenance ongoing. They could not have been more friendly and helpful.
After a couple of days away from much in the way of shops, our stores were running low, so we went on a route march in search of a supermarket, which ultimately we found. In addition to the other things we needed, we saw that they were selling off factory made Colomba cheap, as it was no longer Easter. We debated for a few seconds and then decided that the investment of less than 3 euros was justifiable. We went for the Lemoncello flavour. When we were back at the boat and sampled it, we found it quite different to bakery made version we had previously, but it was still very nice and will last us several days.
Miles Today - 20
Miles 2022 - 202
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