Hello from Sicily – Goodbye Vulcano,
Dolphins, Tunas, and Hello Milazzo
The days on this sailing trip are so compressed and amazingly full
of diverse experiences: waking yesterday in beautiful Lipari, followed
by a driving tour of this, the largest Eolian island. Then our
journey continued to Vulcano, where we had an intense Italian
lesson, followed by a nourishing on-board dinner and candlelit evening
of soulful music, provided by two of our shipmates. There are hardly
words to describe the intense sensations that one experiences on
a trip so outside of the norm.
Hiking up to the Gran Cratere on
Vulcano
Today was going to be our last day at sea, time was passing just
so quickly. We got an early start this morning at about 8:30 am,
and using the dingy, our trusted skipper Francesco ferried us on
land from our location in the bay in front of Porto di Levante.
The plan was to hike up the mountain of Vulcano to the “Gran
Cratere” (the Great Crater) to see an active volcanco up close.
The Gran Cratere
After a brief morning granita, the crushed ice drink that I had
gotten so fond of, we all gathered and started our ascent to Vulcano.
We started to climb along a pathway covered by black volcanic sand
that turned into a hard brown rock closer to the top. The total
ascent took only about an hour and was not extremely strenuous.
The view got progressively better the higher we climbed, and from
the top of Vulcano, all of the seven Eolian Islands can be seen.
What a phenomenal view!
This was my first exposure to a volcanic crater. Although over
the last 6 months I had visited two other volcanoes: Mount Teide
on the Spanish island of Tenerife, and Mount Etna, during my current
trip to Sicily, I had not seen the crater of either one of these
volcanic mountains. Vulcano’s Gran Cratere is indeed an interesting
sight: a perfectly round indentation with a higher wall on the south
side, surrounding the crater like a natural amphitheatre. Sulphur
fumes emanate from fissures in the yellow-orange rock. Warnings
advise you to stay away from the noxious fumes. I just caught a
whiff of a sulphur cloud and it was so strong it almost took my
breath away.
Sulphur fumes emanating from the rocks
One of our travel mates, our shirtless Catholic priest Lorenzo,
trekked up all the way to the back wall of the crater and waved
to us from a couple of hundred meters away. Tourists of all shapes
and sizes were starting to congregate at the top of Vulcano and
we enjoyed the view from the top for about 20 minutes. Of course
the descent was much faster than the ascent, it only took us about
20 minutes to get back down into the village of Porto di Levante.
Our awesome crew from the Solitaire II
We arranged to meet for an Italian lesson just shortly after noon
and had about half an hour to explore the waterfront around Porto
di Levante. The main feature in the area is a big volcanic rock
right next to some sulphurous mud baths that are supposed to have
healing properties, particularly for ailments such as rheumatism
and arthritis. For about 2.50 Euro you can get access to the mud
baths, and for about 1 Euro more you’ll even get a chance
to use the shower in this fenced off area. We saw various tourists
frolicking in the rather foul-smelling mud while for me personally
the smell was a bit too much.
Descending from the volcano
While our colleagues Lorenzo and Herbert were going to have their
lesson on the sailboat in another location, us three ladies were
going to study Italian with our teacher Franco on the outdoor terrace
of a bar overlooking another bay on the island of Vulcano. I have
really started to get into this outdoor language learning experience
provided by Laboratorio Linguistico. It’s relaxed, yet intense
and effective. We spent a couple of hours forming conditional sentences
and abstract nouns from common verbs and adjectives. Overall I mused
that two weeks ago I spoke no Italian, I had only been reading an
Italian grammar book for the two months prior to coming to Sicily.
Now I was speaking Italian semi-competently at intermediate level.
I have become a huge fan of language study travel and of immersing
myself in a foreign culture and language. And learning Italian on
a sailboat so far ranks at the very top of my language learning
adventures.
An Italian lesson on an outdoor patio overlooking the Med
During our studies Claudia and I grabbed some fast food from the
bar, some type of calzone and other quick Sicilian snacks and I
could not resist the temptation of buying a cone of delicious ice
cream. Along the way I admired the colourful works of art made of
marzipan that were appetizingly displayed in their glass cases.
Now there’s a another great concept: studying Italian with
a delicious cone of nocciola e limone (hazelnut and lemon) gelato
in your hand. Just make sure you don’t splatter the gelato
all over the dictionary…
Marzipan masterpieces
Well, all good things must come to an end, and by about 3:30 pm
we met at the beach to get whisked back on the boat by our trusted
skipper Francesco. Before we hopped into the dingy, our entire group
performed a final rendition of “umm dari dari”, a song
that music student Agnieszka had taught us a few days earlier. The
men of our group provided the percussive background, producing sounds
such as “ummm pffff psshh, ummm pfffff pssshh”, while
Claudia and I provided a chorus of “umm dari dari dari, umm
dari dari” that sounded like it would be appropriate somewhere
in Saudi Arabia, in the company of a herd of camels. Agnieszka provided
the leading melody with her brilliant soprano voice. What a fun
and humorous ending to seven days at sea in the Eolian Islands.
Our travel group certainly had come together very nicely…
Our return to Milazzo has begun
Our last few hours on the boat had begun, we embarked on our voyage
from Vulcano to the town of Milazzo located at the northeastern
tip of Sicily, about 30 kilometers from the Straight of Messina.
I thought our week long adventure would just peter out and come
to an anti-climactic ending, but no, the goddess of travel had more
adventures in store for us.
We were all in the back of the boat when Herbert, our experienced
TV travel journalist, called us excitedly and said “Dolphins!
Come on, see the dolphins”. Sure enough, we all scrambled
to the front of the boat and there were four dolphins, swimming
beside our boat, swimming ahead of us left and right, jumping out
of the water, and generally playing with us. Herbert explained that
they hear our voices, and being the curious, playful creatures that
they are, they come say hello to accompany us for a while.
DOLPHINS!!!!
These four graceful grey creatures were beautiful, and all of us
were in awe at this unexpected display. The dolphins swam and jumped
alongside our boat for about 5, 7 minutes until they had enough
and swam off in a westerly direction. I had caught everything on
my camera and made several video clips and was still tickled pink
about this experience. For some reason, dolphins always seem like
they are smiling to me, and these four sleek water animals certainly
appeared to be in a great mood.
I already thought the excitement was over, but no, the Mediterranean
had even more surprises in store for us. We had been trailing fishing
lines behind our boat and with all the excitement surrounding the
dolphins we had basically forgotten about the fishing lines until
our skipper shouted that we had made a catch. Sure enough, we saw
him reeling in the line and a beautiful silver fish about 15 inches
long was pulled on board. Francesco explained it was a tuna, cut
the line and placed it on the floor at the rear of our boat.
Three headless and gutless tuna
I was fascinated by this, until the fish started flopping around
in a panic and blood started spraying from its gills. That’s
when my tender vegetarian soul said it had enough and I retreated
to the front of the boat. I just couldn’t watch this fish
flop around, spraying the whole back of the boat with its blood,
trying to fight for its life. Our captain put it out of its misery,
cut off its head and gutted it right there. I just caught a quick
glimpse, but the dripping red innards of this poor tuna had me completely
grossed out.
You might think that the excitement might be over now, what with
the dolphins and the tuna capture, but no – the ritual repeated
itself two more times: we caught two more tunas and I wisely stayed
away from the decapitation and evisceration scene. At any rate,
Francesco had caught three nice-size fish and said that he was going
to bring them home as a special treat for his two year old son Davide.
Sundown approaches over the mountains of Tindari
A short while later at about 7:30 pm we arrived at the harbour
of Portorosa, and Francesca and Davide, our skipper’s wife
and son, were already waiting to welcome us. Davide’s excited
two-year old calls “papa – papa” indicated that
he had definitely missed his daddy. Francesca herself said that
“papa” was indeed the first word that her son ever spoke.
Our usually quiet captain himself was visibly elated to see his
family almost after a week at sea.
Now it was time to get organized and unload. Francesco gave us
a choice: we could either spend one more night on the boat, or we
could unload the boat, drive back to the apartment which is located
conveniently right above the Laboratorio Linguistico School, and
go for dinner in Milazzo.
A warm welcome in Milazzo
Well, this was a no-brainer. After almost a week on a nice, but
rather crammed sailboat with a tiny cabinet that served as a toilet
/ shower facility, there was no question that all of us preferred
going on land. Our first priority as a matter of fact, was to take
a land-based shower, and Claudia, Herbert and I headed to the comfort
station at the Portorosa Harbour to take a well-deserved, long awaited
shower on terra firma. Strange, but after a week on a sailboat you
start appreciating the little things in life, and a real shower
and a toilet separate from the shower rank pretty high on the list
…
Our crew celebrates over a final dinner
Francesco and the rest of the gang had already started to unload
the boat, and we quickly packed our stuff and help load all our
luggage and the remaining food into Francesco’s car. By the
time we had everything organized back at the apartment it was already
about 10:30 pm, but that did not deter us from having one last joint
dinner together.
Seafood galore
Francesco and Franco packed us into their respective vehicles and
drove us out to a restaurant at the tip of Capo Milazzo, the peninsula
that protrudes about 6 km into the Tyrrhenian Sea from Milazzo.
We had this entire establishment to ourselves, and another Sicilian
feast was unfolding. Fish, wine and pasta arrived in large quantities
while I enjoyed a vegetarian Sicilian pasta with pistachios. In
addition, it was Agnieszka’s 23rd birthday today, so all of
us got to celebrate, and a big hazelnut ice cream cake capped off
the feast.
Agnieszka's sweet 23rd birthday
We all said goodbye at the end of the evening. Since Herbert was
going to fly out tomorrow in the wee hours of the morning we would
not have a chance to say our goodbyes in the morning any more. Seven
days of adventures in the Eolian Islands had come to an end, and
I think all of us experienced just a tinge of melancholy. The seven
of us had made a great team on board: Claudia, the Lufthansa flight
attendant from Germany & my wonderful cabin mate; Herbert, the
knowledgeable TV travel journalist, also from Germany; Lorenzo from
the US of Italian background and the coolest Catholic priest that
I have ever met; our talented singer Agnieszka; and our two experts
and teachers from Laboratorio Linguistico: Franco and Francesco,
our skipper.
Sicily is for seafood lovers...
My first sailing trip had come to an end, but I still four days
of discoveries left in Sicily. Tomorrow’s agenda will include
Milazzo.
