I’ve been chartering in the Mediterranean for over a decade, and there’s a certain comfort in bringing a group back to wherever I have some local knowledge. I know where to drop the hook in many places in Greece and Croatia, but my venture into the Aeolian Islands this summer was a whole new ballgame that entailed extra study time. My comfort zone was about to be stretched.
The older the dog, the harder the new trick as it goes, so our first mooring catch was flustering. It would have been helpful to have been told that the moorings at Stromboli, unlike in most parts of the world, weren’t designed to be self-serve. The hawsers were thick and hung low below the mooring buoy and our short boathook kept me circling the boat around for repeated attempts to catch the ball. When the “mooring attendant” shot across the water in his RIB, he let us know that it was their job to help and that no boat managed this on their own. Lesson one—check.
That evening we were picked up by a speedboat and whisked around the corner for a better view of Stromboli doing her thing. Orange streaks shot up into a star-filled sky as the volcano spewed lava up over our heads. At times, we could even hear the old gal rumble and the rocks tumble down her 3,000-foot face. This new experience was well worth whatever unfamiliar moorings and sketchy dockings laid ahead.
This northeast corner of Sicily is a cauldron of steaming volcanos. We could even see Etna smoking on the horizon. Of course, this territory comes with its own challenges. The steep drop-offs from the sheer cliffs make anchoring spots few and busy, the fast ferries are terrifying and a bit predatory, and soon we were finding black volcanic sand in all of the boat’s (and our own) crevices. All in all, though, not exactly insurmountable issues.
The boat was sort of a new experience as well. Dream Yacht Charter provided us a 53-foot monohull with electric propulsion. I’ve been driving cats for so long now that the prospect of executing Med moorings with only “half a boat” made me plenty sweaty. A boat with one hull was so old for me that it was new again. In the end, all went well except for the last landing, which was a thing of beauty, until it wasn’t. You know how it goes—the more people watching, the more spectacular the disaster, but at least no fiberglass was lost that day.
I approached the prospect of the diesel/electric hybrid system with trepidation because an electrician I am surely not. Luckily, it was idiotproof, so I was only slightly overqualified. The freshwater heads kept our watermaker busy, and the giant ferries throwing monster wakes did make me wish just a little for that second hull, if only for the stability provided when shimmying up the slippery passerelle to get back aboard after a night out on the town.
And then there was the reminder of what makes monohulls so sweet, and that was actually sailing in very light wind. Our Dufour hull was slippery, and we managed some hours under canvas, which put smiles on a few faces. (The freshwater heads though you can keep because running down the dock at 4:00 am looking for a hose to fill up just so you can flush isn’t a great way to wake up.)
Our circuit around the Aeolians was brief, leaving plenty more to explore in the future. As we ticked off Stromboli, Lipari, Panarea, and the other islands, something new turned into something old or at least something comfortably familiar. If I find myself once again looking up at the stars under a sputtering volcano, I’ll be happy to consider this corner of the world a part of my newly stretched comfort zone, and that feels pretty darn awesome.
November/December 2025
