Our 2nd Chapter on the Aeolian Islands

by Chantal & David · Published August 27, 2023 · Updated January 3, 2024

A new dawn, a new day, and with our dinghy safely back on board Seaclusion we set off on the 1st August northwards to Stromboli, the northern most island of the Archipelago, passing the island of Panarea, it is the smallest of the seven inhabited Aeolian Islands. We had planned to stop for a brief explore but it was’nt possible to anchor and the mooring field was rather busy, after all it is August, what did we expect!

Panarea from the Sea

So we continued northwards on a wonderful beam reach in a W4, tacking past a couple of uninhabited islands…

Until we finally arrived on the east coast of Stromboli, where we dropped our pick in seriously deep waters so close to the beach it was far from relaxing!

**Not sure you can get the sense of how close we were, but trust us, we were!**

The whole reason for going to Stomboli was to see the one of the most active volcanoes on Earth and has been erupting almost continuously since 1932. Because it has been active for much of the last 2,000 years and its eruptions are visible for long distances at night, it is known as the “Lighthouse of the Mediterranean” of the four active volcanoes in Italy. The most captivating time to see this is after dark! So as the sun started to lower, we pulled up our anchor and motored towards the northern tip, passing the most ridiculously and uncomfortable mooring field we have come across, which despite all that was full!!

We rounded the headland, passing the town, oh yes, it is an inhabited island, crazy I know.

And then motoring further west as we had to stay more than 2 NMs offshore, a) to see it properly, and b) in case the spout was super vigorous!. We saw the blackened slope that most of the lava rolls down and patiently waited until it got dark, glancing at the steam and cloud forming at the summit.

After dark, the eruption was spectacular but the sea was far from calm, so there was no way in heaven we were going to be able to photograph it, so to show you what we saw we have pilfered some images from the internet…

Stromboli Volcano glowing at night, Aeolian Islands, Italy

**We wish, it wasn’t quite so active when we were there!**

At 9pm, we set sail southwards to the island of Salina, to drop anchor for the night just after midnight, where we stayed put for a couple of days, taking the dinghy ashore to explore.