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| Smokin' Stromboli as seen from our Easyjet |
As we flew home to London Gatwick Toot took this photograph through the aeroplane window . Stromboli is everyone's image of what a volcano should be: a smoking cone with white hot rocks and red hot lava rolling down its slopes. Add to this its fantastic location: rising from a mineral blue sea and surrounded by sparkling black beaches of volcanic ash and water worn lava pebbles, and you have your best ever geological experience.
We arrived by boat and spent some time collecting rock samples from the beach beside the landing jetty. Toot had a swim in the sea and was amazed at how buoyant she was. We guessed that the sea water around Stromboli was supersaturated by volcanic minerals.
It was very easy to assess the position of high tide as it was picked out by a line white pumice stones. Pumice has such a low density it floats upon the sea water. We both remembered a time, thirty years ago, swimming with our children and good friends Trevor and Christine in Oslo Fjord, when we first discovered that pumice floats in the sea.
Whilst I waited for Toot to emerge, like 'Botticelli's Venus', from the waves, I took some photos of the sun setting behind the smoking calderas and penned a poem in celebration of Toot's assistance in enabling my access to Etna a few days before.
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| Beautiful Toot braves the 'Briny' |
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| Rock samples from Stromboli |
The teacher and her triskelion man
The sun too bright to resolve or cursorily scan
Climbs sleepy from its nocturnal seabed
And waking too, the teacher and her triskelion man
Begin their ascent in search of yellow sulphur and chimera red
Traveling first on Babel's bus and then by suspended wire
The partners in adventure, life, love and time
Mark falling barometric pressure and summer's last breath
In pursuit of internal and external seismic fire
Side by side they enter a basalt new made land
A moonscape of twisted lava and calderas
They look into ash cone's fiery eye and back in time
As Orpheus once did for Eurydice
George Roberts
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| White hot rocks and lava skitter and slide down Stromboli's slopes to the sea |
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| Sunset over the Stromboli's smoking Calderas |
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| Stromboli at dusk as photographed from the boat, dusk suddenly renders the red hot lava visible. |
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| As it gets darker the brightness of the lava streams becomes more pronounced |
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| The river Phlegethon |
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| A fiery cascade from overflowing caldera |
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