June 30 – 4, 2015 —
Stromboli, the northern most of the Aeolian Islands, has been known since ancient times as the lighthouse of the Mediterranean. It is almost continually active. Hoping to see it at night, we left the anchorage in Cetraro about 2000 hours to do an overnight sail. It was a beautiful night, short on wind, but nearly a full moon. About 5 am, with the daylight arriving, we passed the western side of Stromboli. Bummer, it was sleeping. There was a plume of steam being vented from the crater with an occasional spit of brown cloud, but a lighthouse–not. It is, however, clearly active. According to locals, there is a show if you hike the 
6-7 hour trip to the top with a guide.
Lipari is the most populated island in the Aeolians and the center point for all of the ferry service from mainland Italy and Sicily. After a night there to check it out and get a swim in their pristine waters, we were off to Palermo to meet friends who were joining us for a week.
Palermo is the corporate headquarters of the Mafia. We understand that they are still actively in business, but we did not see any of it. 
It is a gritty city with heavy traffic and garbage scattered everywhere. Parts of the city are beautiful with nicely preserved landmarks while a lot of the city is in ruins.
Our arrival in Palermo had some added excitement. We pulled up to the fuel dock, filled the diesel tanks and gave the attendant our credit card. As he handed it back with the two receipts, the receipts made the transfer, but the credit card fell to the bottom of the harbor. Not good. We could see the magnetic stripe glistening up at us, but well out of reach. A marina worker who was in a dinghy waiting to show us to our slip told us to wait there–or at least we believe that is what he told us. About ten minutes later he arrived with a swimmer in mask and fins. We pointed to the location of the card, he jumped in, and 30 seconds later we had the card back. With hand signals we were told to give the swimmer some cash–done, and they disappeared again. We figured out that the marina worker had gone around to the local beach, found someone with mask and fins and talked him into doing the task. We just needed to provide a tip. It was well worth it. Note to the file; always pass the credit card over the water in a sealed, floatable zip lock back.