[ charlesarmstrong ]

[ 01:23 thursday 16 april - piscita, isola di stromboli ]

here i sit at the little table in front of the window where i have spent so many thousands of hours typing at successive computers. the window is open, admitting the rush and scrape of waves breaking on the beach beneath. the lights of a yacht several miles out glitter against the dark horizon. the air hangs still and listless, hung between the passing maestrale and the coming scirocco. these are weeks of constant change and volatility for stromboli.

just before eleven i set out on the mule track to punta u brunzu. as is my wont i carried no torch. the night is moonless but once my eyes have habituated themselves the starlight is enough to sense the outline of the path in peripheral vision. i enjoy the heightened sense and alertness that comes with this. one’s feet become like cats’ whiskers, sensing with each step for a loose stone or unexpected root, ready to reply in a moment by switching weight or springing aside. in the absence of artificial light one walks in a world bounded by stars and the wide horizon, whilst a torch shrinks one’s awareness down to the immediate cone of light. tonight the island’s air is thick with the perfume of bushes and shrubs still verdant from the winter’s rain.

having reached punta la brunzu i spent an hour and a half sitting on the helipad watching the volcano. two craters emit a continuous red glow, the pulsing light indicating that magma is close to the surface. one of these, to the ginostra side, erupts every fifteen minutes or so with a broad orange fountain of lava several hundred metres high. the other, to the stromboli side, erupts less frequently with a narrow white-hot jet of similar height, accompanied by a terrifying report and roar. walking up the sky was clear and bristling with stars. as i reached the helipad the whole sky became covered with cloud and within ten minutes not a star was visible. an hour later the cloud dissolved as swiftly as it had appeared and the full panoply of stars was revealed once more.

when i arrived on saturday it was serene and sunny. that night a strong scirocco sprang up and easter sunday saw huge waves crashing on the beaches at punta lena and scari. the waves were breaking over the quay so the island was completely cut off. the evening brought heavy rain. then on monday the wind and waves subsided but later in the day a maestrale sprang up and blew through the night throwing the sea against the rocks here at piscita. this in turn dropped off and tuesday was a glorious day of intense sun. everyone on the island has changed colour, myself included. again today again was hot. tomorrow another scirocco is expected.

to my delight caroline was was able to come over from saturday until tuesday, joining the small group of friends who have visited me on both islands of st agnes and stromboli. meanwhile almost all my stromboli friends are here and there has been the usual thrill of catching up with each other’s lives and adventures. it remains a thing of wonder that so many years after i left the island and returned to london it still feels like i have a life here. after two days gathering threads and absorbing myself into the island’s rhythm it’s as if i never left. every time i come here i’m confronted with this parallel life and the opportunity to pick it up again. but every time it’s clear to me that my path still lies with the complexity and abstraction of my other life and to that i willingly return.

this visit has been particularly freighted with memories. paolo kindly let me stay in his beautiful little house on the lava promontory overlooking spiaggia lunga, which was my first house on stromboli. i lived here for my first six months, my first winter. at this table i wrote the specifications for the school for social entrepreneurs’ learning web in november 2001. in this room i was joined by friends from all over the world to celebrate the arrival of 2002. in this room i learned of michael’s death in january 2002 and constructed my simple shrine as a focus for my mourning.

it was cold on monday evening so i lit the wood-burning stove. i remember it being delivered from lipari and installed by paolo. the only other time i’ve stayed in this house was in june 2003 when sergio and i stayed here for my final week before moving back to london. we organised a huge dinner on the terrace for my friends. sergio and i cooked far too much food including a vast rice salad which ended up being fed to the fishes.

tonight is my last on stromboli for now. i declined several dinner invitations to be here on my own. this afternoon i collected the huge painting of neptune that antonio’s been working on for the past year. it will hang above my piano in london.

: c :

[ 22:13 friday 29 august - ginostra, isola di stromboli ]

it’s eight years since i last spent a night here in the tiny village of ginostra, huddled the opposite side of the island from stromboli’s principal settlement. back then there was no electricity and no quay big enough to accommodate the ferries and hydrofoils which ply the rest of the archipelago. having a shower meant pumping a lever for five minutes to fill a header tank. houses were lit in the evening by paraffin lamps and candles. mobile phones were turned on for just a few minutes a day and could be taken to gian luca for recharging via his solar panel for a modest fee. ginostra has historically attracted a particular class of tourist, predominantly wealthy intellectuals from milan, florence and bologna. they came to live in ginostra for a month or two each year during july and august, a self-conscious retreat from the hubbub of the modern world. they would dress in simple clothes, eat simple food and positively relish the non- electrified inconvenience of the place.

this is what i found when i came eight years ago. the peculiar intensity of the location and the bizarre community there gathered represented a fascinating blend of real and artificial to me. only thirty people lived there all through the year, too few to be a viable community in its own right. they were more like stage-hands, keeping the wings swept tidy and sustaining the illusion of a real village for the gratification of the ethereal summer residents. more than anything it brought to mind marie-antoinette with her shepherdess fantasies at versailles.

that was in the august of two thousand during my very first visit to stromboli. now, eight years later, many things have changed in ginostra. during a fateful san remo festival, broadcast live to the italian nation, a plea went out that the people of ginostra should be provided with electricity that they might share in the delights of the festival. the machinery of the italian state duly creaked into action and a huge solar generation facility was installed. as a result the houses now have electric lighting, hot and cold running water and televisions. mobile phones remain turned on throughout the day. at the same time a huge cement quay was being constructed, dwarfing the old harbour (the “pertusa”) which is suspected to be the tiniest in the world. five hydrofoil services a day now dock at ginostra during the summer months, with ferries arriving three times a week.

other things remain unchanged. there are no roads, no motor vehicles and no street lights. everything arriving at the new quay is still carried up the steep cliffside on the back of a mule. after midnight the village is immersed in an intoxicating silence, even in august. but the advent of electricity and easy transport have upset the previous delicate equilibrium in which tourism was poised. life in ginostra no longer demands such an exacting or spartan sensibility. different people are coming, seeking different pleasures. being here the last few days it has sometimes felt as if an unusually chic suburb of milan had been transplanted to this remote outpost, preserving its complex web of parties, social obligations and status distinctions intact. this is no less surreal than the marie-antoinette fantasy i found before but i cannot help but reflect that its aesthetic qualities are somewhat diminished.

personally my preference has been to seek a certain pensive solitude. right now i sit writing by candlelight on the terrace of the house where i’ve been staying the last few days. ripe bunches of musty purple grapes hang from the vines entwining the roof. the sea stretches dark before me with the lights of the other six islands in the archipelago glimmering on the horizon. a million stars blaze above me with an occasional flash of silent lightning to my left. the air is hot and humid, sweet with the perfume of fallen prickly pears fermenting on the path in front of the house.

for me this is not an idle vacation. there are many choices to make about the next chapter in trampoline’s development. i have come here to unclutter my mind and see things with a clearer perspective. during that first stay in ginostra eight years ago i wrote the specifications for the simple prototype system which was destined to be the seed that later sprouted into trampoline and has consumed these last years. It is fitting that this should be the place to which i return now to consider where the path leads next.

it’s not all been work, though. on wednesday evening i gave a little performance of bach’s goldberg variations for the crowd at stromboli’s bookshop and on the street outside, for which i was accompanied by several cockerels gathered in the neighbouring garden. also gusti has brought a clutch of fire jugglers and artists to the island who are giving a series of performances. and these last days in ginostra i’ve spent many hours sitting on rocks, swimming in the azure water and reading. last night at half past midnight i decided to go to punta u corvu and watch the volcano erupt. i’d never been there before and ginostra is a maze of paths and alleyways but after a variety of wrong turnings my instinct led me where i wanted to go. i sat there an hour or so watching the lava arcing gracefully into the air and everything fell into place around me.

: c :

[ 19:33 friday 8 september - stromboli ]

i’m on top of the volcano with irena, angelo and their two dogs niki and tano. we got here half an hour ago after a brisk ascent. the sun melted into the sea ten minutes ago but it’s still just about possible to see the islands of salina, filicudi and alicudi stretching away to the horizon.

we’re perched on the edge of the escarpment where it falls away to the craters below. the volcano’s more active than i’ve ever seen it. the westernmost crater has built up a lava cone with a constant glow of magma inside. every ten minutes or so there’s a blast of gas followed by a deafening roar as a jet of magma shoots vertically upward. thirty seconds later we’re dusted by a shower of fine grit falling from the sky. a second crater ejects a more typical fan-shaped eruption every twenty minutes and a third wide-mouthed crater makes a deep explosive boom, scattering lava in all diirections.

i don’t stand a chance of describing what it’s like to be here so i’d better shut up.

: c :

[ 02:15 friday 5 may - stromboli ]

i’m wedged between rocks about eight hundred metres up the volcano, on my own.  scrambling up the scree on hands and knees a few minutes ago i was suddenly engulfed in thick cloud. visibility is down to three metres. the wind whips and tugs from unpredictable directions. from time to time there’s the roar of an eruption, above me to the left, and the cloud glows orange. it’s cold. the rocks glisten with moisture. i feel completely alone.

as i write, the clouds open above me and the vast mantle of stars is unveiled, but i know the cloud may close around me again at any moment.

i was planning to go to the summit tonight but this is the first time i’ve come up alone and the cloud is scaring me. even in clear conditions it’s easy to lose your way up here and find yourself on the edge of a precipice.

03:33 / the last hour has been hard work. after writing the previous entry i agonised about whether to carry on upwards or give in. finally i couldn’t resist being so close to the top and started scrambling upward again. sure enough the cloud closed around me five minutes later, punishing me for my arrogance. since then i’ve been painstakingly picking my way down the mountainside, straining to pick out the path (such as it is). several times i’ve erred and had to retrace my steps some distance. i never imagined i’d feel such gratitude for the occasional splashes of white paint left behind by consciencious guides.

the cloud extended about six hundred metres down the mountain and i only emerged a moment ago. looking with gratitude at the starry sky i was rewarded with the second-brightest meteorite i’ve ever seen, streaking across the mountain leaving a brilliant fizzing trail behind it. i made one hell of a wish.

04:40 / back home, relieved, tired.

[ 00:31 wednesday 3 may - punta u brunzu, stromboli ]

this is one of my favourite places in the world, though i don’t think i’ve ever written from here before. i’m sitting cross-legged on the corner of the helipad at punta u brunzu, a hundred metres above the sea at the northernmost tip of the island.

walking along the mule track to get here there’s a powerful sense of leaving the settlement behind, entering the wilder presence of the mountain. from here you see no houses, no lights. humanity feels far away.

all around me the bamboo rustles in the warm breeze. above me the inky sky is splashed with a million stars and a few wisps of cloud. behind me the sea stretches mysterious to the dark horizon. nesting gulls grumble on the cliff below. and dominating the scene, in front of me, rises the triangular silhouette of the volcano with its scar of bright fire on the right side of the apex.

it doesn’t matter how many times i sit here watching it, i still feel the same sense of incredulity and awe i felt the very first time. tonight it’s more active than i’ve ever seen it before. one crater is in continuous eruption, emitting a pulsing fan of lava. two of the other craters follow a more typical pattern, blasting out a jet of lava a hundred metres high every ten or fifteen minutes.

during the two years i lived on stromboli i came up here every week or so. when michael died i lit a catholic funerary candle here on the corner of the helipad and sat with it through the night. all my hopes and fears have been brought here over the years. my eyes have seen a thousand shooting stars. here everything is in proportion.

i watch as the final tip of the crescent moon sinks reddish beneath the horizon.

: c :

[ 23:25 saturday 21 june - piscita', isola di stromboli ]

seated in a deck chair with stars in the soft air above me and waves breaking on the beach beneath me. a candle flickers amidst the succulent mesembryanthemums covering the ground. my mobile phone is perched in the plants in front of me, the only place where it can find a signal. the phone in turn is connected to my computer by infra red. so long as i sit fairly still i have an internet link fast enough for me to be listening to thursday’s “late junction” programme from the bbc radio 3 website. a diverse selection as usual. it kicked off with some old skool ska and has now meandered into brazilian experimental jazz. turning my head 90 degrees left i can see the silhouette of the volcano with the now-familiar red glow in the sky above the right shoulder.

today was the solstice, the longest day of the year. as sunset approached i scampered round taking photos; then as the reddening sphere descended to the horizon i left the camera on a rock and threw myself into the sea, swimming out to watch it set with the silvery water all around me. there was nobody else in sight. wonderful.

there’s a party tonight on the beach at punta lena. i’ll head down there after writing this mail.

righto, time to backtrack a bit. when i arrived here on stromboli at the beginning of february there were about 60 people on the island, somewhat reduced from the usual 400. the rest of the population had evacuated to lipari (main island of the archipelago) and milazzo (nearest port in sicily) whilst hordes of vulcanologists checked out the situation and protezione civile installed an elaborate early warning system.

the top of the volcano was covered in snow. the island was veiled in swirling cloud. a layer of fine grey ash covered absolutely everything. and all around the coast was evidence of the wave which had hit a month earlier. at punta lena twisted remains of boats were piled on top of each other. the mesh fence in front of the power station was bent horizontal. daniella’s newly-planted garden was a bare patch of mud. the kitchen of a house at one end of fico grande had been demolished. sections of a substantial wall which used to stand behind the beach were scattered around at crazy angles. trees had been ripped off their trunks, leaving only ragged stumps. the narrow roads leading up from the beach were blocked waist-high with rocks. the whole front of a house at punta lena was taken off. everywhere the sand-covered ground was dotted with table lamps, pan lids, clothes, cushions and other everyday items, snatched out of their usual context by the water.

returning to casa schuldes, as i wrote at the time, i found the main house happily undamaged. there was a 5cm layer of ash on the courtyard and terraces. inside there was a fine layer of ash on every surface, and inside every cupboard and drawer. the magazzino (store-room) down near the beach was another story. this had taken the full force of the wave. all that remained of the stout wooden door was a foot-long piece of wood hanging from the padlock. inside was a scene of complete devastation. cupboards full of tools, cans of paint, the washing machine, an oil-drum full of petrol, an ironing board, hundreds of cassette tapes; everything had been picked up, thrown around and deposited in a tangled heap. i salvaged some items i found which were still intact but it didn’t amount to very much. the fridge was nowhere to be seen, either in the magazzino or further down the beach. the receding water had dragged it right out to sea.

eye-witness accounts of the event vary considerably. the picture which emerged was like this: a huge ash cloud rose up from the sciara and started drifting over the village, then the sea receded about five metres all round the coast, then the water catapulted back with enormous force, inundating low-lying areas and destroying anything in its path. it doesn’t seem as if the wave was enormously high, just a few metres. what marked it out was its extraordinary force. people who saw it describe the water hitting the coast as if shot from a gun.

there is little consensus about what caused the wave. initially the vulcanologists announced that there had been a large landslide from the sciara in which 5 million cubic metres of material had fallen into the sea, sending up the ash cloud and triggering the wave. this seemed like a reasonable explanation for the cloud but pretty implausible as the cause of the wave, which arrived at many points on the coast from directions inconsistent with a landslide at the sciara. the theory was later modified with a suggestion that the landslide above the water had triggered a larger one below the water (the volcano continues 2km beneath the sea) in which another 15 million cubic metres of material had slipped, and this had caused the wave. this sounds very grand but i still haven’t heard of any evidence for this theory.

the older islanders, on the other hand, say that part of the mountain under the water split away, sucking billions of litres of sea water into the fissure (thus the receding sea) after which the highly-compressed water exploded back out again (hence the super-charged wave). these people are hardly scientists but to me this sounds like a more credible explanation. there are others who believe there was a gas explosion on the side of the volcano deep beneath the surface.

whatever the cause, seeing a familiar environment so transformed is a powerful experience. it imparts a tangible sense of the terrifying forces lying dormant in this environment and the fragility of human tenure here. through february and march there was an unspoken sense of anticipation amongst the people who remained on the island. was there going to be another wave? would it be even more devastating than the first one? initially the protezione civile barred anyone from sleeping in houses less than 20m above sea level. this was ridiculous, and was of course ignored (not least by myself). then as the weeks passed and the sea showed no signs of further untoward behaviour people began to relax and those who had fled began to drift back to their ash-filled homes.

:

[ 00:50 thursday - off the sciara del fuoco, isola di stromboli ]

as i sit here on the boat with my friends there’s an explosion from the top of the volcano, sending up a burst of fire followed by a puff of dark gas which coils up into the air.

: c***

[ 00:10 thursday 12 june - isola di stromboli ]

i’m sitting on the starboard bow of antonio’s catamaran on a flat flat sea looking up at the stream of lava coming down the west side of the island. the air is hot and humid. i’m sitting here without a shirt. a three-quarter moon casts a ghostly blue light over everything. the black silhouette of the volcano in front of me is sliced down the middle with a line of bright orange. to the right it forms a solid stream. to the left it breaks into pieces which tumble and bounce down the mountainside. it’s indescribably beautiful. there’s a sense of incredible force, but also a filigree delicacy to the shimmering particles of fire.

the lava makes a continuous grinding sound, underpinned by a deep bass rumbling. every few seconds there’s a fat crump as a mass of solidifying lava hits the sea.

this is the first time i’ve seen the lava flow from the water.

with my new sony ericsson telephone and gprs account i can send this message right away, from where i’m sitting in the boat. i’m still a bit awed by the fact.

: c***

[ 22:00 sunday 4 may - casa schuldes, isola di stromboli ]

sergio and i spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon in snorkels and masks scouring the coast below the house for limpets. armed with blunt knives we hunted out the biggest juiciest specimens in every nook and cranny, trying to catch them by surprise before they could fix themselves immovably to the rock. all the while we kept a lookout for the purple jellyfish currently swarming around stromboli’s shores, which have tentacles several feet long and give a nasty sting. we came up the steps to the house with a good harvest and left them in fresh water to purge themselves of sand particles.

in the evening, joined by maria, we made a cous cous in the manner traditional to trapani (sergio’s home town at the western tip of sicily). starting with semola flour and hands dipped in olive oil we painstakingly rolled little pellets between our fingers. when these were fine enough we boiled a pan of water with bay leaves and steamed the cous cous above it for what seemed like an eternity. in the meantime we steamed the limpets vigorously for 15 minutes, during which time they obligingly shed their conical shells, then put the rubbery little chaps into the water in which they’d been steamed, added tomatoes, dried chilli pepper and garlic, and boiled the sauce gently for about half an hour. a little scorpion emerged from the chimney above the stove to investigate what was cooking. i took his photo then squashed him with a stone without much scruple. they’re not very friendly creatures. it was getting on for midnight when we finally transported everything up to the table on the roof and tucked in with the waves lapping the beach below us on one side and the volcano brooding above us on the other side. it was absolutely delicious.

i’m a big fan of wild food, as readers of this journal will know. but until recently i regarded limpets as somehow beyond the pale. they are plentiful and grow very big in cornwall and the isles of scilly, yet the people hold them in a disdain which exceeds any other shellfish. i never met a single person who likes them. they are described as tough, tasteless and inedible. in the isles of scilly there is a sort of folk-memory that during periods of starvation in the eighteenth and nineteenth century limpets were the “last resort” source of sustenance, and consequently they have particularly unpleasant associations. yet here in the south of italy “patelli” are highly regarded. last month i had a revelatory experience with them during a magnificent dinner cooked by giuseppe and emanuele. this meal also included sauro, ugly deep-water fish hauled up that morning by emanuele, which we ate raw with lemon juice, olive oil and wild fennel.

whilst we were gobbling up our cous cous last night dad, mum, anna and adam were at rick stein’s fish restaurant in padstow, cornwall, for a surprise dinner to celebrate dad’s 60th birthday and anna’s 30th. i had a romantic notion that i would fly from palermo to stansted, then fly on from there to newquay in cornwall and get to padstow in time for dinner. but none of the connections connected properly and it would have taken two days, so i had to be content telephoning my congratulations when they’d finished dinner. dad still acts younger than many of my contemporaries (he and mum are just back from skiing in the canadian rockies) so i presume he’ll be wearing this decade as lightly as the previous ones.

it’s three months since i wrote my last despatch, describing my illicit return to stromboli in the middle of a force 8 gale. during this period my attention has been obsessively focused on building up the intelligence i will need for the next stage of my trampoline project. it feels as if i have retreated into a sort of cocoon, continuing frenzied activity connected with the venture at the expense of almost everything else in my life, including communications with family and close friends. possibly this despatch marks my reemergence.

being in stromboli through these months has been a remarkable experience. but i’ll write about that later.

: c*

[ 22:10 thursday 6 february - piscita, isola di stromboli ]

i’m here, i’m back on stromboli!

the conditions yesterday did indeed render a landing at stromboli impossible. i sat watching its grey triangle emerge out of the rain on the port bow and pass agonisingly by. i could see clouds of steam rising from the sciara where the new lava flow enters the sea. we passed by panarea too without attempting a landing. at lipari the captain made five runs at docking, which took over an hour, but each time the wind forced him to back away again. in the end he abandoned the attempt and headed straight for milazzo on sicily’s north coast. there we docked at half past seven, twenty-two hours after i’d boarded the ship.

first i checked into a little hotel and deposited my bags. then, not having eaten a proper meal for two days, i went to a fish restaurant i know and wolfed down a pile of their home-made pasta with broccoli and bottarga di tonno (tuna eggs which have been dried and seasoned). yes, it was exquisite. then i went back and fell asleep at once.

this morning i woke at nine and phoned the shipping company office to check the situation. they said the 10:00 ship would be operating and they thought things had calmed down enough that it would be possible to land at stromboli. so i got my things together, grabbed a couple of jam-filled croissants and got to the ship. it was a beautiful departure, a broad panorama of snow-covered mountains with alternating patches of black rainstorms and sunlight roving across the leaden sea. slowly stromboli grew larger ahead of us. an officer came round asking for documents from everyone who wanted to land at stromboli to be checked against the list of formal residents. i sat with my book and pretended not to hear, my heart beating noisily.

after two hours we were drawing close. suddenly we were engulfed in a fierce rainstorm and visibility dropped below a hundred metres. the ship slowed to a crawl and we continued. once again the scattered passengers were pressed against the windows in silence. from time to time a gap would open and we would glimpse a part of the mountain before the clouds closed over again. one such opening revealed the miraculous fact that the top of the mountain was white with a once-every-thirty-years covering of snow.

the rainstorm passed and we came in sight of the quay. the sea was still rough, breaking white over the concrete platform. but it was clear the captain was going to try to dock. the anchors dropped, we turned slowly and crept astern metre by metre with the anchor cables holding us steady. the first line thrown across to the quay fell short and the stern began to drift sideways. the second line was caught and secured. other lines went over and little by little the ship inched backwards until the gap was just a couple of metres. at this point i quietly collected my bags and slipped down the companionway to the stern.

i got down there just as the ramp began to lower. one of the officers saw me and came over with a quizzical look. my heart was in my throat as he said surely i was going to panarea. i did my best to look surprised and said very emphatically “no, i live on stromboli”. he still looked unhappy but at this point the ramp bumped down onto the concrete quay and everyone was shouting “vai, vai, vai!” and people were running in all directions. in a couple of bounds i was on the quay, back on stromboli, with a great sense of jubilation.

the description of what i found here must wait for another time. for now suffice to say the house is fine, although the storeroom is indeed devastated. my slides are undamaged. i’ve started the job of cleaning the place out. there’s a fire burning in the wood stove. i’ve greeted many of my friends and established details of what’s going on.

right now the sea is growing rougher again and the wind is strengthening. from time to time there is a flash of lightning. occasional squalls of rain pass over but between them the stars are bright in the inky sky. the clouds over the entire western flank of the mountain are glowing a deep red. after sending this mail i’ll set off for punta u bronzu. it’s time to see this new lava flow with my own eyes.

i’m back.

: c* * * * *