On the last leg of our Mediterranean cruise, the ship passed through the Straits of Messina, on its way back from Athens to Savona, Italy, the home port of Costa Cruises, with whom we were sailing. About 6 a.m., while it was still dark, we passed the Aeolian Islands, and the most active volcano in Europe, Stromboli.

There’s a lot of truth in the saying "It’s always darkest before dawn," and I really don’t know what made me get up early to see it. After all, on that very cruise, we’d been driven around the lower slopes of Vesuvius, and told we could have seen Mount Etna if it hadn’t been so hazy.

Fellow passengers had been on the hike to the summit of Mount Etna, and had pronounced themselves disappointed, for the summit crater had been shrouded in mist.

My wife Lorraine pulled the blankets over her head, and said something like, "If you’ve seen one volcano, you’ve seen them all," and that I should bring her back some coffee when I returned. That’s a good thing about cruising on the Costa Atlantica; you can get free coffee and tea at any time of the day or night.

So, the hot-drink station was my first port of call, after which I went out on the deck with my coffee. Would I see Stromboli? It was as black as the inside of a cow out there, and certainly no good for photography; the vibration of the ship put a tripod and a time exposure out of consideration. I didn’t have a tripod with me, anyway.

But, quite a few passengers had gathered on the deck, so, presumably, we would see something?

Soon, the volcano’s classic cone shape loomed out of the darkness, and the crew considerately doused the lights on deck. And, as we watched, the volcano coughed! All right, it wasn’t a great eruption, but the momentary red glare of upflung lava against the night sky, the shower of sparks and the smoke drew "oohs" and "ahs" from the watching passengers, like a firework display.

I began to curse myself for not bringing my camcorder with me. "Bet it doesn’t do that for another hundred years!" I said to a couple standing next to me. And, scarcely were the words out of my mouth when it happened again!

This time, it was slightly more powerful than the first … but Stromboli didn’t perform again after that. Dawn was breaking, and I did manage to get some movie footage on my digital camera, although the "stills" turned out to be a failure.

As it became lighter, and Stromboli disappeared into the haze on the horizon, more passengers began to appear, to video and photograph the scene. An hour too late, I thought; you’d need to get up early to see the best of Stromboli.

I remembered the coffee, and took a couple of cups down to the cabin, where Lorraine was sitting up in bed.

"You really missed something!" I said.

"No, I didn’t!" she replied, pointing to the television screen. "You can get the ship’s webcam on that!"