We stayed a third day in the anchorage at Capo Palinuro. Time flew by with paddle boarding, swimming, eating and drinking. The Admiral is now an established “stand up” paddle boarder - congratulations! We also spent some time with Greg and Jane, a nice couple from Florida in their boat “Cap des Isles” - a 40 year old Amel Sharky just 39 feet long, but also a ketch.

We didn’t know much about our next stop, Cetraro, other than that we wanted to meet our friends Alexander and Siglinde there as it is semi-convenient to the airport for Calabria, Lamezzia Terme. It turned out that this was probably the worst harbor of the entire season. It started with our two neighboring boats - one an old, dilapidated schooner with a broken main mast scattered about the deck. The other an incredibly dirty, dilapidated old Beneteau with fenders that smeared our topsides. Grrrrr! And then we had wanted to rent a car to take a little road trip to a nearby national park - no dice on a Monday! And then we had wanted to do some shopping - which ended up being possible but very difficult to do. Did I mention the disco every night right in the harbor? So strike that one!

Things are looking up, though. After 54 miles of travel across an empty, quiet Tyrrennian sea, we anchored right underneath an active volcano, Stromboli. Every 20 minutes or so, it burps, luckily away from us. A big black cloud of smoke emerges and pollutes the lovely blue sky. We did not ascend to the top as one can from here. We saw many who did last night - a procession of lights moving up and down the slopes in the pitch dark with the little lights. The guidebook says one can see the cauldron of fire when Stromboli burps. Ashore there is a village of white houses like one imagines a Greek island, set among very green shrubbery and just up from a truly black beach. They must have a hard time keeping up that white color!

We are now on the Western side of the island where the lava field is very fresh and obvious. Burps from here are a lot more serious looking and we can see boulders being thrust into the sky and roll down the slopes towards us and plunge into the sea! After the last, somewhat bigger burp the two Italian motorboats floating just a few meters from the shore decided to move out. We’re, of course, the prescribed 400 m from the shore where it is supposedly safe ….