Growing up in coastal New England, in and out of pools and surf, often sparks a yen to sail and for me, one I have had for most of my life. Trips to Cornwall in England and plans to learn on the Isle of Wight which never came to fruition kept those thoughts firmly anchored in my mind and were part of a renewed desire to experience adventure and not just mark time in an arc of increasingly acute measure, or at least seemingly so.

So I joined a small but merry band of non-sailors, one able sailor and his wife, and a friendly and knowledgeable skipper for a magical week on board a catamaran on the Tyrrhenian Sea visiting the volcanic Aeolian Islands off the northeastern edge of Sicily, past mythical Scylla and Charybdis. The availability of this experience was the brainchild of Warren Marland, our able sailor, originally from Manchester, UK, who made Aliyah decades ago and had a dream to bring sailing to shomer shabbat folk who probably didn’t know a jib from a mast but wanted to learn.

This trip is pitched as seven volcanos for seven days but it was so much more than that, though to be sure, the volcanos were supremely awesome and justifiably deserving of star billing.

The adventure started at a marina a few hours........

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