Porto di Ponente

From Scilla we bearded across the straits and anchored on the west edge of the Milazzo headland on Sicily. There were a few day boats there as it was Sunday but they had all gone by early evening leaving just us it was very quiet and very calm. Next day we moved north to Port Ponente on Isola Vulcano, it’s a bit sulphurous, rotten egg smell, but depends on wind direction. This morning we had an early start and started our walk up to the crater rim at 7am, it’s been so hot the last few days that we wanted to get up and down from the sun reached melting temperature. Am glad we made the effort as the views were pretty good, there was some heat haze but we could still see Stromboli. We had planned to walk up and the around the rim but because of the breeze we could only go 3/4 of the way this meant we got to the high point but not close to the very yellow section as the sulphurous gases were very strong here so we turned back. Also on the island are mud baths, but I know from a previous experience that it is nearly impossible to get the smell out your bathers, it’s pretty tough getting it off your skin! Wind direction due to change tomorrow so we will be heading to another of the islands Panarea before possibly a late night cruise to Stromboli in the hope of seeing an eruption. Apparently it is almost constantly having little eruptions and we might see molten lava which would be kind of exciting!Les mer