A week sailing off the coast of Italy! Jess and Matt joined us as we explored the Aeolian islands located 35 miles off the toe of the Italian boot (very close to Sicily).
We chartered a boat out of Tropea, a great little Italian town overlooking the sea and a new marina. The town itself is perched upon a cliff with sandy beaches down below.
After a night at a local hotel, dinner in the old town and provisioning the boat, we were ready to go. This was our first trip out of sight of land, although we were only going to be a little ways off the coast. The GPS went out half way across, but the trusty Blackberry came to the rescue with its GPS telling us we were on the right track. Our first stop was the island of Stromboli.
Stromboli is known for its volcano and its black sand beaches. The volcano was fantastic and the beaches were...HOT! Lovely sitting on the boat or swimming off the stern. Beautiful as the sun went down.
We visited several of the Aeolian islands in addition to Stromboli including Filicudi, Salina, and Vulcano. The crew was well fed, although it took me until the last day before I came up with a salad that they weren't able to devour in one meal. We did a lot of swimming. Jess did a lot of snorkeling. And because there wasn't a lot of wind, we did a lot of motoring - didn't matter though because the weather was beautiful and it was so easy to get from island to island.
Highpoints included dinners on deck, the pizza place on Vulcano, anchoring in a secluded cove on Vulcano, deck showers, a very nice restaurant on Stromboli and toasting the sunset every single night.
Even returning to Tropea was great. Dolphins joined us for a swim off our bow for a good 20 minutes as we were heading back and then we anchored for the afternoon off the beach in Tropea having lunch, swimming and snorkeling on our last afternoon.
Our last day consisted of shopping and a lovely dinner up on the cliff overlooking the marina and the Med.
Here's a few of the pictures:
