You arrive in Portorosa in the afternoon and find the galley already made. The shopping for the week is on board and already arranged, an extra service that we take care of, so you don't have to spend the early afternoon between the supermarket and bags. Time to settle into the cabin and listen to the skipper's briefing, and we cast off. As the sun goes down Vulcano gets closer and closer, and the first dinner together will be at anchor in the south of the island!

The day begins with a surprise. Near Panarea there is a rock, Lisca Nera, where hot bubbles rise from the bottom of the sea, and when you swim on it with a mask you feel like you have ended up in a glass of sparkling water. The first time it's hard not to laugh. The afternoon passes slowly among the coves of Panarea, the smallest of the Aeolian Islands and also the most mundane. You sleep at anchor in Cala Zimmari, but in the evening the advice is to go ashore: a taxi boat takes you in a few minutes to San Pietro, where in the white alleys you can walk, have a drink and experience the schick atmosphere of the island. An aperitif, a dinner on land or even just an evening walk. When you get back on board, Stromboli is there, on the horizon, and reminds you where you will go tomorrow.

Before leaving Panarea there is still a swim to do, in Cala Junco, a natural pool of transparent water closed between the rocks, where you can also stop for lunch. In the afternoon, the sails are raised towards the volcano, which grows larger with each mile. At sunset comes the time of the Sciara del Fuoco. You can look at it directly from the bow net, you can get there comfortably with the local fishermen's boat, or on foot to the belvedere: a half-hour walk, at sunset. However you get there, if the volcano is in the day you see the lapilli light up in the dark, and around it comes a silence that no one wants to break.

The next morning we leave calmly towards Basiluzzo, an uninhabited islet where the water has the deepest blue of the week and the first dip wakes you up better than a coffee. Then we sail towards Salina, the greenest of the Aeolian Islands, and in the late afternoon we enter Pollara, the bay of the film Il Postino, which is nothing more than an ancient crater open to the sea. Here you wait for the sunset, perhaps with a glass of Malvasia, the sweet wine of the island, watching the sun go down behind Filicudi and Alicudi.

Today breakfast is served on land, in Lingua, with granita and croissants at a table in front of the sea. Everyone says that it is the best of the Aeolian Islands, and after tasting it no one has ever wanted to contradict them. Calmly we get back on board and go down to the white beaches of Lipari, where pumice has colored the seabed and the water is a turquoise that seems fake. The night is spent at anchor in front of the village, and those who feel like it go ashore for a walk among the lights of Marina Corta.

The morning is for the Faraglioni of Lipari, high rocks that come straight out of the sea and under which you swim with the feeling of being very small. After lunch we return to Vulcano, where the week had begun, but with a completely different spirit: now we get to know each other, we laugh at the same things and we have time to discover the island on land, between the village, the smell of sulfur and the black sand beaches. Dinner in the roadstead, that evening, lasts a long time.

Those who feel like it wake up early to climb the Great Crater: an hour's walk in the cool of the morning, and from above you find all the islands of the week, one next to the other, like in a postcard that you have seen born day by day. On the way back there is still a swim and the last lunch in the roadstead, then we head for Portorosa, watching the Aeolian Islands become small behind the stern. The last evening is spent in port, with the farewell dinner and that exchange of photos and phone numbers that usually marks the beginning of new friendships.