A visit to the Aeolian Islands would not be complete without also visiting Isola Stromboli, a conical volcano rising to 3,036ft and in an almost continuous state of activity, spewing smoke and embers bit by bit each day rather than one big eruption. In ancient times, it would have been an unmistakable signpost for navigating away from and to the Strait of Messina.

We headed over to the island expecting to anchor in one of just two places that you can actually spend the night at on the island. However, anchoring was not possible because the bottom is all rocks and we could feel the anchor jumping over the rocks rather than holding fast in some lovely sand. We then realised why there were mooring buoys everywhere and took one. The original plan, once it had gone dark, was to motor around to the other side of the island to get a good view of the volcano and then motor back and re-take the mooring buoy. But, the wind was starting to get up and we were planning an early start the next day and didn't feel like having to return to the anchorage to find and attach ourselves to a mooring buoy in the dark and wind. So, we decided to get up at 4.30am, motor around to see the volcano whilst it was still dark and then continue on our journey. We were glad that we did, as it gave us the chance to be the only boat there at that time. We saw the glowing red smoke at the top of the volcano that seemed to be pulsating as the pressure inside was building up. Then, we saw a small 'eruption' as glowing lava was spewed out, similar to a firework. We had hoped to see lava running into the sea, as our pilot book had indicated, but we did not see this at all. All too soon it was over and we continued on our journey watching a beautiful sunrise as we went along.