Stromboli Port Intel

The verdict

Stromboli is the one you came to the Aeolians for, and it is the worst-equipped island for a yacht. There is no harbour for visitors, no all-weather anchorage, no fuel and no chandlery. The coast is steep-to, the bottom drops away fast, and the ferry pier at Scari is for scheduled boats. The sensible answer is the licensed buoy field off the village, a settled forecast and a full tank from Lipari. We lay to a buoy off the village in late September 2026. Get that right and you have eruptions after dinner and a black-sand beach before breakfast.

Shelter by wind direction

The village coast (Scari, Punta Lena, Ficogrande) faces north-east. It is open from north through north-east and east to south-east, and local guides rate Ficogrande as the spot for southerly winds.
North-west, the usual summer wind: the village side gets some lee, but swell and ferry wash still reach it. Expect roll.
Gregale (NE) or scirocco (SE): do not stay. Run for Lipari and pick your side there (see the Lipari guide).
Ginostra, on the south-west corner, is in the lee of north-easterlies but has only a tiny hydrofoil landing and deep, rocky ground. It is not a yacht stop.
The north-west flank is off limits whatever the wind. See the Sciara del Fuoco zone below.

The exposure notes combine published guides with our reading of the chart. CruisersWiki is blunt: none of Stromboli’s anchorages suits anything but the calmest conditions. Check the forecast, the chart and the buoy operator before you commit to a night.

Berths, buoys and landing

Marina del Gabbiano buoy field, Punta Lena, about 600 m north of Scari port between Scari and Ficogrande: VHF 9; +39 377 389 9607; info@marinadelgabbiano.it. The operator calls it the island’s only licensed mooring. It offers a motor tender on request outside the taxi-boat hours, plus mooring assistance, laundry, ice, provisioning and food delivery to the boat. Its season and prices aren’t published: call ahead.
Anchoring: steep-to, deep and exposed. Guides mention sand at about 20 m off Ficogrande and east of Punta Lena, but reports on holding are mixed. Anchoring and fishing are prohibited off Punta Lena because of submarine cables. Watch for the rock between Punta Lena and Strombolicchio and a reef about 100 m off Punta Labronzo. In the bathing season you also cannot anchor within 300 m of the shore (see the rules below), so the buoys are the realistic option.
Scari port is the ferry and hydrofoil pier. Keep clear. After storm damage from Cyclone Harry in January 2026, the Lipari Coast Guard banned non-scheduled craft from landing there (Ord. 03/2026, amended by 04/2026), and repair works were scheduled from 13 February to 22 May 2026 (Ord. 07/2026). Whether any restriction still applies: check locally. Land by the operator’s tender.
Ginostra: one of the smallest landings anywhere, repeatedly damaged by storms. The hydrofoil berth reopened on 15 March 2026 after a month of repairs. We could not verify reports that a 2023 landslide made it unusable, or reports of a buoy field there. Treat it as closed to yachts unless you hear otherwise locally.

Coast Guard (Circomare Lipari): 090 9880819. Sea emergency: 1530.

Rules afloat and ashore

Sciara del Fuoco: 2 NM no-navigation zone. Navigation is prohibited within 2 nautical miles of the coast of the Sciara del Fuoco, between Punta delle Chiappe and Punta Labronzo, under Capitaneria di Porto di Milazzo Ordinance 81/2022. INGV still lists it as the rule in force. Older sources, including some tour sellers, quote 1 mile or 400 m. Those figures are out of date. If in doubt, ask the Coast Guard on VHF 16.
300 m from the shore in the bathing season. The Lipari Coast Guard’s bathing-safety Ordinance 42/2025 bans all sail and motor craft from transiting, stopping, mooring or anchoring within 300 m of the coast and 200 m of sheer cliffs, except inside marked launch corridors. Unpowered small craft such as a rowed dinghy or kayak are exempt. In 2026 the Sicilian Region set the season as 1 May to 31 October. We found no 2026 replacement for this ordinance.
10 knots inshore. Between 300 m and 1,000 m from beaches (200–500 m from cliffs), keep to displacement speed and no more than 10 kn.
Cliffs and landslides. Coast Guard Ordinance 20/2020 closes cliff-foot areas and coastal stretches with a collapse risk. Figures of 100 m off cliffs, and 150 m at Strombolicchio and the Ginostra cliffs, are widely quoted, but we could not confirm them from the ordinance text. Give every cliff a wide berth anyway. The bathing ordinance also bans stopping within 10 m of any cliff edge or foot.
Walking on the volcano (Mayor of Lipari Ordinance 16/2025, 5 May 2025, the latest in the INGV archive on 29 September 2026). From Stromboli village you may walk alone up to 290 m, only via the Strada vicinale Parroco and the Mulattiera Salvatore di Losa. With an authorised volcanological or alpine guide you may go up to 400 m. On the Ginostra side it is 130 m alone and 400 m with a guide (Punta Corvi path). Guided excursions run between 11:00 and 24:00, in groups of up to 25, with no more than 75 people above 290 m at a time. Above 290 m you must wear a UIAA mountain helmet and a dust mask, which the guides supply. The Sentiero Natura is closed. The summit craters are closed. The fine is €500.

The volcano: alert level YELLOW (giallo). The Dipartimento della Protezione Civile shows yellow, checked on 29 September 2026. INGV’s Aeolian monitoring page also gives yellow, from the 3 December 2025 review. The scale runs green, yellow, orange, red. Levels can jump without stepping through the scale, and paroxysms can happen whatever the level.

Latest INGV weekly bulletin (issued 22 September 2026, for 14–20 September): ordinary Strombolian activity at both crater areas, with medium-high frequency, low-intensity explosions and SO₂ at medium-high levels.
INGV’s expected scenarios: persistent Strombolian activity with lava overflowing down the Sciara del Fuoco, rockfalls and debris avalanches, and possible lava–sea explosions throwing blocks a few hundred metres offshore. INGV cannot rule out explosions stronger than ordinary. That is why the sea exclusion zone exists.
Paroxysms happen. On 3 July 2019 a paroxysm killed a hiker, and on 28 August 2019 a pyroclastic flow ran down to the sea.
Tsunamis have hit the island five times in the last century, most recently in 2002. The island has siren warning systems for paroxysms and tsunamis, with voice messages in Italian and English. A new system was tested in May 2026. If the sirens sound and you are afloat, head offshore at once. If you are ashore near the coast, go inland and uphill and shelter in a building.

Fuel, water and laundry

Fuel: none found. The old marine pump on Via Marina at Scari is listed as inactive, with its last recorded price in 2016. Arrive with what you need.
Nearest fuel: Eolian Bunker, Marina Lunga, Lipari (090 9812335). Hours conflict across its own pages, so check locally. There is also the IP marine station at Santa Marina Salina.
Water: no visitor berth for watering. Ask the buoy operator.
Laundry: Marina del Gabbiano lists a laundry service for moored boats.

Chandlery & boat jobs

No chandlery found on Stromboli, and no verified hardware store. OpenStreetMap shows a small DIY shop and a motor mechanic in the village, but we could not confirm either from any other source. Ask the buoy team who can help. For parts, Lipari is the answer:

Ferramenta Granata Natoli, Via Prof. E. Carnevale 49, Lipari: 090 9811503. A hardware store with a marine section.
Lipari Service shop, Via San Vincenzo, Canneto: marine accessories, spares and tools, parts line 090 8960940.
Pontoons, water and power are at Pignataro and Marina Lunga. See the Lipari guide.

Provisions, pharmacy & doctor

Food shops, as listed in a local guide updated August 2026: L’Oasi del Marano, Via Roma, Scari (090 2408184); Da Ale Gastronomia, Via Roma, Scari (388 9734273); Alimentari Max, Piscità/San Bartolo (339 9274550); Panificio Stromboli, the bakery (090 986408); and L’Angolo del Pesce, a fishmonger on Via Vittorio Emanuele. Hours: check locally. Stock is small-island stock. Do the big shop on Lipari.
Pharmacy: Farmacia Simone, Via Roma: 347 184 0322. Hours vary by source; check locally.
Doctor: Guardia Medica (out-of-hours service), Via Vittorio Emanuele: 090 986097. Ginostra has its own post (090 9812822). There is no hospital on the island. The nearest is on Lipari (090 98851).
Carabinieri: 090 986021.

Getting around

No cars worth the name. The lanes are for walking, scooters, electric carts and three-wheeled ape taxis, which meet the boats at Scari. Local guides list taxi numbers; ask at the port.
Ginostra has no roads at all. Get there by boat or hydrofoil.
Liberty Lines hydrofoils run to Milazzo (about 1 h 10) via the other islands. Call centre: 0923 022022.
Siremar ferries run to Milazzo and Naples. SNAV runs a seasonal hydrofoil to Naples. Late-season timetables thin out, so check the current timetable. Ticket agency at the port (Liberty Lines, SNAV, Siremar): 090 986003.

A little history

The Greeks called it Strongyle, “the round one”, and made it a home of Aeolus, keeper of the winds. Its near-constant eruptions, visible far out to sea, earned it the name “Lighthouse of the Mediterranean”. A few thousand people lived here in the early twentieth century. The eruption of 11 September 1930 killed six people, and together with hard times it drove an exodus. By the mid-1950s only a few hundred remained. Ginostra, on the far side, still clings on with a handful of residents and no roads. In 1949 Roberto Rossellini filmed Stromboli (1950) here with Ingrid Bergman, and their affair became an international scandal. The rust-red house where they stayed, on Via Vittorio Emanuele below San Vincenzo church, carries a white marble plaque. Jules Verne ended Journey to the Centre of the Earth by shooting his heroes out of Stromboli. More recently came the paroxysms of 2019, and in May 2022 a fire started during filming of a TV drama about the civil protection service burned much of the slope above the village.

What to see & do

Piazza San Vincenzo and its church: the village terrace, looking across to Strombolicchio.
San Bartolomeo church, down towards Piscità.
The Bergman house and its plaque, on Via Vittorio Emanuele.
The Osservatorio at Punta Labronzo: the classic place to watch the explosions from the free-access zone. The old pizzeria there says it is “temporarily closed until a date to be determined”, so bring your own supper.
Strombolicchio, the volcanic plug about a mile north-east, with its 1925 lighthouse. Admire it from a respectful distance.
Black-sand beaches at Ficogrande and Forgia Vecchia. Remember that the swim zone means boats keep 300 m off in season.
INGV information centre, on the seafront about five minutes from Scari: free, with scientific guides and VR. It opens in summer, with published dates running to 30 September. Late season: check locally.

Excursions

Guided crater-side trek to 400 m, within the ordinance, with helmets and masks provided. Magmatrek (090 9865768) is one long-established local guide company, and there are others around the piazza. Book the day before and expect it to be cancelled if conditions change.
Evening boat trip to the Sciara del Fuoco: local boats leave Scari around sunset, sometimes with supper at Ginostra, and watch the eruptions from outside the exclusion zone. Ask the operator how far off they stand. The legal limit is 2 NM.
Round-the-island trips with a swim at Strombolicchio.
Kayaking is exempt from the 300 m rule, but we found no verified kayak hire on the island. Check locally.

Eat & drink

Ritrovo Ingrid, Piazza San Vincenzo: the famous bar-restaurant on the square, named after Bergman, with a view of Strombolicchio. Hours: check locally.
Punta Lena, Via Marina 8 (090 986204): fish on a terrace near the buoy field.
La Lampara, Via Vittorio Emanuele (Ficogrande): pizza and fish on a big terrace, reviewed as open through 2026.
Trattoria ai Gechi, Vico Salina 12 (338 357 7559): homemade pasta on a panoramic terrace.
Da Zurro, Via Crivelli 5, on the black beach: known for spaghetti alla stromboliana. Late-season opening: check locally.
L’Osservatorio pizzeria: temporarily closed, per its own website.
What to order: the day’s fish, capers, pane cunzato, granita, and a glass of Malvasia delle Lipari while the volcano does the lighting.

What I’d do

Fill up with diesel and groceries on Lipari. Arrive in settled weather and call Marina del Gabbiano on VHF 9 before you get close. Take the buoy, not your chances with the anchor. Land by tender, walk up to the piazza for a drink at Ingrid, and book a guide for the 400 m trek. Watch the Sciara from the sea, from outside the zone, on a calm evening. If the forecast turns north-east or south-east, leave before dark, not after. And if the sirens ever go, point the bow offshore and go.

Sources & verification

Sources checked 29 September 2026. The volcano alert level and rules can change at short notice: check the Protezione Civile and INGV pages and the Coast Guard before you go. We have not phone-confirmed opening hours, shop stock, buoy availability or prices; anything marked “check locally” is unverified. We could not confirm from primary text the 100 m and 150 m cliff distances in Ordinance 20/2020, a 2023 Ginostra landslide, a Ginostra buoy field, or whether the Scari restrictions still apply. The shelter notes summarise published guides and the chart; they are not a pilotage plan. No private boat position, berth or guest information is published.