Stromboli Island – Sailing past an active volcano
After leaving Messina in Sicily on the Queen Mary 2 the captain informed us we would be passing the volcanic island of Stromboli. I have never even heard of this before and only thought I would see Mount Etna whilst travelling in Italy.
The passing was to coincide with the sunset so me and my travel buddy decided to have dinner in the self-service restaurant so we could sit out on deck to watch the view.
As we were cruising past Sicily we could work out a large volcano shape, we are not quite sure if this was Mount Etna so we started calling it Edna just in case, anyway she was covered by cloud in the distance so we didn’t get a very clear view nothing like what we saw of Stromboli which was amazing.
Stromboli is an active volcano in Italy, now as we are sailing very close to this island they decide to tell us that it is active, even though I know it’s not suddenly going to erupt due to the advances in science and they already know about it, it still was quite exciting to go pass and see the plumes of smoke coming out.
At one point some people saw a burst of magna which I am gutted because we missed that. The last major eruption was in 2009 and stands 926m above sea level (source: Wikipedia ) I like its nickname of “the lighthouse of the Mediterranean” makes it sound quite romantic.
Sailing past Stromboli Island
As we went pass Stromboli you could work out houses on the island and it turns out around 500 inhabitant live on the island. In the 1900s a few thousand people lived here but over the years it has dwindled probably because they have an actual volcano in their garden!!
I am not sure I would want to live on a volcano every time I felt a rumble I would be running for my rubber dingy to get off the island. But I bet it has excellent health benefits as they say volcanic rock is rich in minerals.
It was beautiful sailing past just as the sun was setting, giving us the perfect photo opportunities but as usual I was more interested in actually watching the scenery than taking photos so mine are not the best but I have brilliant memories which is the main thing for me.
Also as we were approaching the volcano I kept thinking there was a ship near us but as we got closer it turned out to be a very small island jutting out of the water good job I am not sailing the Queen Mary 2 as I would have been expecting it to move out of our way.
Do people live on Stromboli Island
I still cant believe that people live on Stromboli I don’t think I would have the guts.
If you would like to spend some time on the island there are hotels and you may get to see a full eruption. For further information check here. I will leave you with a video of the , this wasn’t taken by me thankfully.
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1 Comment
I’ve never heard of Stromboli, either. My first thought was “geez, that sounds delicious!” I didn’t realize there was an active volcano there. And those people who live there are indeed brave!