Mediterranean: Island of Lampedusa

I am sitting, on a May evening, in an Italian restaurant near the coast of North Africa. The day has been overcast and breezy, but not enough to make me think twice about wearing anything more than shorts and T-shirt. Chatting with a friend over bruschette and Sicilian wine, we are suddenly silenced by a loud and insistent banging on the window shutters. It stops for a moment, then returns ÿ even louder then before. This time, the shutters fly open and crash against the wall as if the room is being invaded by an entire platoon of ghosts. The restaurant staff drop what they're doing and scurry about securing the building against further attack. They've done this before. The marrobio has arrived.

I am sitting, on a May evening, in an Italian restaurant near the coast of North Africa. The day has been overcast and breezy, but not enough to make me think twice about wearing anything more than shorts and T-shirt. Chatting with a friend over bruschette and Sicilian wine, we are suddenly silenced by a loud and insistent banging on the window shutters. It stops for a moment, then returns ÿ even louder then before. This time, the shutters fly open and crash against the wall as if the room is being invaded by an entire platoon of ghosts. The restaurant staff drop what they're doing and scurry about securing the building against further attack.

They've done this before. The marrobio has arrived. The marrobio is a sudden and violent storm peculiar to Lampedusa, the largest of the three-island Pelagie archipelago, slap in the middle of the Mediterranean halfway between Malta and Tunisia. I "discovered" the island years ago, browsing through my atlas and noticing the abbreviation "It" alongside three lonely smudges in the sea. Italian? Lying almost precisely on the 35th parallel, well to the south of Tunis, they're a long, long way from Rome. It was as surprising as the letters "Den" next to Greenland. The location alone suggested an enticing mix of Latin and Arabic, set in peaceful, unpolluted waters under a fierce Mediterranean sun. When the chance to visit arose, I seized it without hesitation. Atlases can mislead spectacularly. Nothing about Lampedusa was remotely as I'd expected.

The marrobio was just the first of many surprises. The restaurant and its diners escaped unscathed – the menu boards were rescued from their pavement easels just in time, and the hatches were safely battened down as the storm raged outside. We ordered another bottle and sat it out.

Many parts of the world, particularly islands, are prone to sudden changes of pressure and high winds that cause physical damage and, it is said, violent mood-swings among the inhabitants. But no scientist has satisfactorily explained the peculiar alchemy of Lampedusa's unwelcome visitor. On a bad night, the wind drains every drop of water out of the port, where normally it lies more than 15ft deep. The fishing fleet, on which many of the island's 4,000 people depend, takes many a battering as the boat-hulls bump on to the rocky sea bed. Then, as quickly and inexplicably as the water disappears, it returns – and normal life resumes.

The storm I experienced turned out to be relatively mild, and only one vessel was damaged. But Paco, the resident Mr Fixit who had rented me a room, warned me to keep a look-out for locals "acting crazy".

Paco was one of the few people I met who spoke even a modicum of English. The island is tricky and expensive for northern Europeans to reach, and the vast majority of visitors are Italians – mostly from Sicily. They are drawn by the excellent scuba-diving in the clear waters; a single, sheltered beach of outstanding beauty; some spectacular cliffs best viewed from the sea; and the absolute guarantee of summer sun. (The wicked wind has not dared make an appearance since the high season began on 1 June – the lightest of breezes has cooled off summer days hitting a steady 25C). For the next four months, Lampedusa transforms from a scrubby, dusty frontier post on the very edge of the map of Italy, to a buzzing, off-beat tourist haunt.

Buzzing is the word. Attempts at conversation outside the cafés are frequently drowned out by the unceasing, wasp-like sound of Vespas and Piaggios ridden by virtually everyone between the age of 12 and 60. And scooters play a central role in the daily ritual, the passeggiata, which Lampedusa shares with the whole Italian nation. Up and down the main street, the via Roma, they go – the young blades showing off flirtatiously, sunglasses clamped across their foreheads; the girls, usually two to a bike, proceeding more carefully – dressed to kill, yet still managing to look demure and unattainable.

So my image of an exotic Afro-Euro mélange, sharing languages, cultures and air-kisses was quickly dispelled. Lampedusa is as Italian as cappuccino (if only they'd learn how to make it). There has been no cross-fertilisation whatever with its African neighbour: no immigration, no mosque, not even a Tunisian restaurant. This is not for the lack of trying by African refugees who periodically attempt to slip past the island's sea patrols en route to Sicily or the mainland. Earlier this year, more than 50 boat people were drowned off the island when their flimsy craft overturned. The Italian navy, which was shadowing them, is having to explain why it picked up only two survivors. The door to North Africa is firmly bolted.

As for my vision of a palm-fringed oasis set in an azure sea – well, there are palms aplenty in the tourist areas, but scarcely a tree to be found anywhere else – they were remorselessly cut down a century ago for fuel and timber. Erosion then stripped away the soil, and today virtually nothing grows. All fresh food, apart from fish, has to be imported from Sicily, and the interior of the island's 12 square miles is a grim wilderness of rock and scrub. And rubbish. Few people bother to explore Lampedusa's circular road – and with good reason. Helmetless on my hired scooter, I was struck first by the smell, then by the gruesome sight of several acres of wrecked cars, discarded fridges and freezers, and piles of half-incinerated plastic bags.

Paco, whose business dealings had enabled him to take recent delivery of a spanking new Range Rover, gave me a sheepish explanation. "We have lost our sense of balance," he said. "The tourists arrived and we did not have the money to buy the machinery needed to deal with the waste. We never stopped to think what it was that brought the visitors here."

So they bulldozed an access road out of sight of the hotels and beaches, and dump everything there. And, I assume the thinking goes, if nobody bothers to visit that benighted part of the island, and the tourists continue to pour in uncomplainingly – who cares?

But enough pontificating. After two or three days of scooter-paced island life, senses dulled by the sunshine, sea, fish and wine, I found a way of living with my misgivings. Instead of glaring at the poisoned soil, I lay back on the warm sand and inclined my head skyward. A white bird was gliding so far above me in the clear air that it might have been a plane. Paradise.

That's all you have to do, then; adjust your angle of observation. If the earth displeases you, hold your nose and look to the heavens, which in this part of the world, are still without blemish. Until, that is, the next marrobio comes around, after the tourists have gone.

Getting there: Travelling from the UK to Lampedusa is far from easy. First you have to reach Sicily, to which there are no non-stop scheduled flights; Frank Partridge bought a f on Alitalia (08705 448 259; www.alitalia.it) from London Heathrow via Milan Malpensa to Catania in Sicily, which cost £226 through www.ebookers.com.

This is followed by a three-hour bus journey across Sicily to the western port of Empedocle, near Agrigento, for about €20 (£13); then the nine-hour overnight ferry crossing to Lampedusa, including a couchette, for about €43 (£27).

Lampedusa can also be reached by air from Palermo; the round-trip fare with Air One (www.flyairone.it) costs about €160 (£100).

Accommodation: The writer rented a one-bedroom self-catering apartment in a small complex called Residence La Salina at via Della Grotte 8 in the main town in Lampedusa (00 39 0922 970733, www.pacolampedusa.it). It costs €205 (£130) per week in low season (September-May) and rises to €525(£330) during the first two weeks of August.

There are numerous good hotels on the island. A typical example is the three-star Hotel Martello (www.hotelmartello.it; 0039 0922 970025) in a fine location overlooking the main harbour. A standard double room with good facilities and breakfast costs between €62 and €111 (£40-£70), depending on the season. Cupola Bianca, in a quieter spot a mile from the main town (www.emmeti.it/Cupolabianca; 0039 0922 971274) – also three-star, with a price range of €62-€119 (£40-£75) per night.

More information: Italian State Tourist Office, 1 Princes St, London W1R 8AY (020-7408 1254, www.enit.it).

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