We went to three empty marinas in a row. The first one was called Arenella and we left the next morning. Then we sailed to Cefalu. It was sketchy because it was a fishing harbour and only had concrete walls instead of pontoons. The walls were rough and had many things sticking out of it, so we had our fenders out (rubber balls that you tie to the side of you boat when you are at a dock so that the dock doesn’t scratch your hull) at different heights to prevent all the stuff sticking out of the wall from scratching Blue Hour. It was rough at the dock and we had our docking lines everywhere to hold us suspended so that we wouldn’t crash into the hard-looking wall or the fishing boat next to us. Then we went to Sant’ Agata Militello. It was also sketchy because the guy that helped us dock didn’t know what he was doing. It was rolly there, too, and the marina people were grumpy. We were going to go shopping, but then Dad decided to go refill on diesel. We waited for a long time for the taxi that the marina guy had called and Mom, Jonas, and I went grocery shopping. The grumpy marina guy actually turned out to be nice, and he drove Dad to the gas station in his car. It was really tricky to get back on board because we were Mediterranean moored (what they do in the Mediterranean instead of docking. The boats all dock on one long pontoon with their bows to the dock and their sterns attached to a mooring. The boats dock against each other instead of on pontoons).

The day after that, we sailed to Aeolian Islands, which are a small Italian island group off of Sicily. It was a relief to get out of the sketchy marina area. We anchored on the island Vulcano. There was a really small town there, and a volcano. The hike was really fun. The path had been washed away in the beginning parts so we had to scramble across crevasses and we took a shortcut and scrambled up a steep sand hill. Then we hiked along a ridge cut in the mountain and at the top, there was a big crater. We had to walk through sulfer smoke for part of it, and it really stank. We met a nice Irish lady named Gana who said we could come visit her in Ireland when we went back there next summer.

The volcano on Vulcano