No fire

The thing I most wanted to do on this holiday was have a boat trip round Stromboli at night, to see the eruptions from the sea. Reading internet reviews back in March, I found the name of someone with a small boat, Pasquale, who came highly recommended. Some Sicilian friends of a friend of mine managed to find his phone number and I phoned to book him for tonight. Ever since, I've been trying not to raise my hopes. Volcanoes are not controlled by humans.

We spent the day lazing. Secondborn made some mosaics on the beach from sea-worn tiles (extras); Firstborn and A bought ingredients for an excellent vegetable and salad supper (we've been eating far too much bread) and a bit after 7 we walked down to the pier to meet Pasquale. He'd offered to take us via Ginostra for a drink before sunset but somehow that didn't happen. He turned out to be superficially friendly but actually fairly taciturn, probably bored. 

When we got round to the west side of Stromboli and a view of Sciara del Fuoco (the lava path into the sea) there was a bit of cloud on top of the volcano that we could almost pretend was smoke. As we watched, it descended and I persuaded myself that we'd be able to see any fire glowing through it. We watched the sun set. We watched the other small boats gradually leave then at 9, we left.

Hope-raising. I hadn't tried hard enough.