After Filicudi we headed for Panarea.  There was absolutely no wind and it was getting hot early in the day. Motored the whole way as the sea was like glass. Got good anchorage on Panarea. It was a beautiful bay right next to a mooring field on the east coast with a lot of big, expensive boats. Water was nice and warm so we dropped the swim platform and checked the anchor and hung off the back to cool off. Tried the instant pot for first time and made chicken pasta with vegetables. Delicious!

On many islands we saw what we thought were sinking cargo ships. All of them were down at the stern and all very close to land. We figured out that these were fresh water delivery ships for islands that could not produce their own water so what got shipped to them and pumped ashore to tanks. They were down at teh stern so that teh water could drain there and be pumped out.

Huge electrical storm that night, and got lucky on my second photo (of about 200) with a strike hitting a house (no that wasn’t PhotoShop’d). Couldn’t have timed it better if I tried. Very spectacular an lucky it was a few nautical miles away from us out of our location. 🙂

At night we also saw an orange glow coming from the top of Stromboli in the distance. Lava eruption! – Very cool to see.

BTW, we saw yet another cargo vessel that seemed to be sinking. It turns out that these are not boats that have hit a beach or reef close to shore but are water carriers and are pumping water ashore to supply the local inhabitants. The boat is ’tilted’ so that the goes to one and to make it easier to pump ashore.