LIFE: Part 2

Current Location: Otok Koludarc, Croatia
Current Position: 44°33.07'N, 14°25.73'E
Distance sailed since last post: 166 nautical miles

Since Ben has booked a flight to arrive in Pula on Tuesday, we figured it was time to get ourselves in that direction!

So, after our visit to the waterfalls on the Krka river, and with 130nm to go to Pula, we decided to press on. Unfortunately, the normal wind here is NW. And we needed to go northwest.

Ah, but a closer look at the weather charts revealed that at night the wind was in the right direction, but by lunchtime it switches to the wrong way. So, steeling ourselves for a couple of early mornings, we decided to leave the curtains open in our bedroom.

What does that accomplish? Well, it gets light at 5:30am and thus wakes us up. And, sure enough, yesterday and today we were sailing by 6am.

As you can see from our course, yesterday was fine for the first few hours – after doing just 1.8 miles in the first hour, followed by an hour of motoring, the wind then picked up and we were chomping along in the right direction at 7kts.

Alas, at 11am – three hours earlier than promised, the wind did a sudden switch and now we had to beat the rest of the way.

In the end, we sailed for 12 hours, covering 37 nautical miles – for a very slow average of just 3kts. If there is one complaint about this boat it is the lack of upwind performance! Very frustrating watching racing monohulls zoom past us pointing 15 degrees higher! Oh, well – they have to cope with heeling all the time. Hee hee.

We anchored in a beautiful peaceful cove with two other boats, and then again set off this morning by 6am.

This time we were stomping along – speeds of up to 9 kts with winds of up to 32kts. Two reefs in the main and some rolls in the jib. My new water generator was churning out the power!

And then, after 29.5 nautical miles, guess what happened?

Yep, at 10 am the wind vanished. Now instead of doing 9kts, we were doing 1.6kts with barely 4kts of wind. What happened? Crazy forecasts here that bear little resemblance to what the wind actually does. And then, half an hour later, the wind does a 180 deg shift – again, several hours earlier than forecast. So, once again, we are on a beat. Just as well we set off so early so as to catch the good wind on both days.

Still, we decided to press on an extra 7 miles from our original goal (at which we had almost arrived), to put us near the town of Mali Losinj, a mere 27 n miles from Medulin from where we can pick up Ben at the nearby Pula airport. And still two and a half days to go before he arrives, so we should be able to make it on time!

Actually, it turns out we just had to do a couple of tacks to clear an island, and then we are good again – on port tack close hauled instead of starboard on a reach – for about 10 minutes before the wind changes again, and again – up to 22 kts, down to nil and so on.

Finally we made it. The last 10 miles took four hours, plus ages trying to get our anchor to catch. And here we are in a beautiful peaceful bay.

Ah, another great day at sea!

Current Location: Mljet National Park, Croatia
Current Position: 42°47.43'N, 17°22.63'E
Distance sailed since last post: 34 nautical miles

Having checked in at Cavtat (pronounced Tsavtat) our first stop was at World Heritage Site Dubrovnik.

 

We sailed around the corner and, apart from the bridge ahead, what we saw were lots of seagulls diving the water, and the water itself churning with fish. Clearly there was a predator or two down there chasing them all.

Well, we had to stop and join the action. So around we motored about five times, trying to drag our lure through the action to entice a fish to take it. Alas to no avail.

 

 

 

So then we motored up the river, and anchored just outside the ACI marina, about 2 miles outside of Dubrovnik town. Incidentally, see where those cruise ships are? Just behind them is a town quay – we discovered that if it is not too busy they will let you tie up for a couple of hours while you do some shopping, as long as you ask (VHF channel 9) first. And we also were able to snag some free water for our tanks. Fortunately the next day the cruise ships had gone, and the crowds went with them.

The following morning at our anchorage we had our Encounter #1 with local fishermen.

Early in the morning we heard some banging on our boat, the sound of a fisherman’s boat bumping in to us. Apparently we had parked ourselves above this guy’s fish traps and he couldn’t get at them to raise them. There were no buoys or markers – he just seems to know where they are, and hooks them up with a long hook. So  how were we supposed to know they were there?

Well, no big deal. He managed to get at them, and all was good.

So we took a bus (15 Kuna each ($2)) to town to walk around the old city:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goodness were we glad it was May and not August! I can’t imagine how busy it must get then.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are these on the railings? First, why are the railings here? Because behind them is a big cliff, famously known as a suicide leap.

And these locks? Who knows how it started, but each one is engraved with the two names of lovers, their love locked together, forever, by the padlock. There is even an online company that will supply you with specially engraved padlocks in different colours.

 

 

While I went to sort out a Croatian internet connection, Ceu went to the local market, right next to the dock. It was, apparently, the day before Croatian Mother’s Day – hence all the flowers.

 

 

 

The next day we set off for Lopud island, just 8 miles away. Beautiful and peaceful.

Well, ok, it wasn’t totally peaceful. We did have some tourist boats coming to visit for day trips.

But none of them ventured as far as the delightful little park, just off the waterfront:

That, in the background, is NOT a cruise ship. It is, in fact, a hotel built solidly on land.

It seems our internet connection didn’t get properly activated, so we will have to go back to Dubrovnik on Monday to get it fixed. In the meantime, time for a beer. This is at the other beach, diametrically across the island, just 2 km walk. See how busy the beach is? The girl at the bar said that in two weeks time it will be packed.

 

No, not a forest fire, just another sunset:

 

 

 

And then the next day, another sunset. In fact, we had beautiful sunsets every night on this island.

 

And, just to complete the picture, a dolphin:

 

Onwards and upwards took us to the Island of Mljet, the first of the National Parks. Again, not yet busy. That’s us anchored below, and no one came to charge us anything.

 

We had a full day of hiking. Great views. Lots more trails we could do – maybe on the way back down again in a few weeks.

Here you can see the two salt-water lakes that connect to the sea through a very small channel.

There is, of course, a monastery on the little island. It seems there always is in Croatia!

 

 

The scenery is very reminiscent of BC.

 

And even a swim in one of the lakes!

 

 

 

 

The bridge over the channel that connects the large lake with the sea exists no more. Want to cross? Then get a taxi:

The smaller lake feeds into the larger lake under this little bridge:

 

So far Croatia has been fantastic. Beautiful landscape, friendly people, wonderful sunsets, but still rather chilly.

Nope, despite what everyone said, no one has charged us for anchoring, nor hassled us for money. In fact, everyone has been very friendly.

Next stop is Split and then the waterfalls at Skradan.  We will update with pictures soon!

 

 

 

Current Location: Dubrovnik, Croatia
Current Position: 42°40.28'N, 18°7.26'E
Distance sailed since last post: 193 nautical miles

Well, we made it to Croatia!

We left Corfu in pretty calm conditions with both the jib and mainsail up, just about making 3.5kts. After a little while the wind disappeared totally and, when our speed dropped to zero we did put on the motor for about an hour.

Then, as expected, the wind started to fill in from behind. Since the main blankets the jib when the wind is astern, there is no point in having both sails up, unless you can persuade the jib to fill on the opposite site of the boat to the main, so called wing-on-wing or goose-winged. Since the jib alone is easier to handle if the winds pick up, we dropped the main. And that was how it remained for the rest of the trip.

Pretty soon we were getting gusts up to 30kts, and were surfing down the 1.5 to 2m waves at up to 12kts, with an average speed of 7-8kts. Our new water generator was working fabulously so that, with the wind and water generators combined, we were getting plus 12-14 amps in the middle of the night – despite the demands of the fridge, autohelm and navigation lights.

But the wind was dying again and by the afternoon our speed was, once again, zero. The forecast was for ongoing light wind, so after drifting for about half an hour, we then motored for another hour at low revs, just to keep us moving. By the time we finished our pineapple chicken with rice the wind was filling in from starboard and before long we were back at 4-5kts with the engine off and just the jib up. Through the night there was some light rain and distant lightning, but nothing exciting back home. The seas have settled down with just small waves now. It is almost a full moon at the moment, so the night is bright, even with the high level cloud cover. There has been minimal shipping traffic.

We arrived at Cavtat at 9am for a 5kt overall average and checked in with no difficulty. Prices have gone down since Croatia joined the EU, but even so we had to pay 1638 Kuna (about $300) for a tourist tax and cruising permit, but both last for a year. They also told us that all the fuss we have heard about people trying to charge one for anchoring have been resolved in a court, and no they can charge ONLY for mooring balls, no matter how close you might anchor. It seems that joining the EU has brought some sanity to here!

The weather is iffy. A low is passing by, and gales with thunderstorms are expected, so having checked in we decided to move up to Dubrovnic and anchor in the river there, where it is nice and sheltered – but with quite a bit of current flowing.

So now we are having lunch and trying to decide what the plan is. We seem to have internet through the marina, next to which we are parked, so that is a plus! But we do need to sort out a 3G internet connection somehow.

It was a good trip.

Current Location: Agio Stefanos, Corfu, Greece
Current Position: 39°45.97'N, 19°56.99'E
Distance sailed since last post: 280 nautical miles

Our strategy on leaving Turkey and dashing across to Greece was to get the south winds up the Adriatic before the prevailing and constant northerlies set in. Well, the tactic seems to be working! Today the winds have swung around to the south, and will stay this way until Tuesday night – just enough time for us to sail from here to Cavtat, the entry port for Croatia.

So that is what we are going to do. We will set sail at 8pm tonight, and hope to arrive at Cavtat sometime between dawn and 6pm on Tuesday for a distance of 190 nautical miles. As always it is so hard to predict the actual sailing time, so we calculate our times based on 4kts, 5kts and 6kts and then set our departure time so as to best ensure that we arrive in daylight.

It should be a reasonably crossing with winds from 10 to 20kts from behind, although we might hit some calmer patches. In the daytime we may have our spinnaker up, at night probably only our genoa. Most likely we won’t hoist our mainsail at all.

We have also been rigging up our new parachute anchor so it is ready to deploy at any time. If we do arrive before dawn we will use that to anchor out at sea until daylight.

Meanwhile Ceu is cooking up a storm – shepherds pie and chicken with pineapple on the menu for the next two days 🙂

So, our next contact with you should be from Croatia!

 

Current Location: Milos, Greece
Current Position: 36°43.37'N, 24°26.45'E
Distance sailed since last post: 53 nautical miles

Long long overdue.

Here is the update from when we left Finike end of Nov 2013 to returning again in March from Canada, Portugal and England. In that order!

We celebrated the Winter months with much fun, friends and family. Christmas and Birthdays, Valentines and Snow…….

 

 

 

 

 

I know that most foreigners think that this what Canada is all about!!!

Above typical road conditions driving through the Rockies. We were on the way to Edmonton, Alberta.

We actually did have a very mild Winter where we live in BC. Not very cold and barely any snow to make a snowmen with the kids.

 

It was a great and early start Ski Season. This is the great Revelstoke ski Resort

And more family fun in Kelowna

 

 

 

My Grandson celebrating his 4th Birthday. It was sure hard to leave them behind!

We left Canada end of February to Portugal where all 7 of us siblings got together to celebrate my Mom’s 80th birthday

 

 

 

Sisters….celebrating Woman’s Day in my hometown, the small village of Casegas where a dozen men cooked and served a big dinner for 60 great ladies. Included a concert with beautifully chosen pieces for us women. They also surprised us when they played “O xaile de minha Mae” the famous fado song.

Also the theme was the Xaile, which means “scarf” and we all had to wear one for the night. They had a prize for the nicest, most typical, which at the end of the night the prize went to a 97 year old, who was still out partying with us! It was so much fun!  In Portugal Woman’s Day is very much celebrated throught

More family fun in Portugal…

We took a day trip to the beautiful pools and Spa near our hometown. It is built onto the rocks in a beautiful valley. It has many different saunas of different temperatures , indoor/outdoor pools jacuzys and waterfalls. It was busy with visitors form all over the country, including many Spanish.

 

In our small Village we also celebrated Carnival. Here they are just getting ready for the Parade. The beautiful smile is my niece’s. She is part of the boys and girls club and the theme this year was Multicultural. It was so much fun watching the town celebrating the different cultures.

 

I love how they put the pantyhose over the doll’s head!!! It’s great!

 

 

 

 

We left Portugal beginning of March and visited Noel’s family in England.

We stayed at Noel’s parents and Ben and Josh cane down from London for the weekend. We had fun there and we were also very lucky to have some nice sunny days there, after all the bad weather they had.

 

 

Mid March was time to finally get on that plane in London on our last leg to Life Part2.

Wow….Winter months went very quickly and Spring has Sprung.

And guess what was waiting for us???!!  WORK

But it was very exciting. The home was so nice and tidy, everything was working on a flip of a button. Lots of cleaning but mostly on the outside. All the dust form all Winter. Lots of it was yellow pollen from the blossom of the orange trees.

 

It was time to put the sails up. Here goes the jib! I am wintching it up while Noel guides it through the forestay. We had taken our sails down the past November before we went to Canada. We had them all re stitched.

Noel also servicing the wintches. My place did not stay nice and tidy for very long!  I couldn’t wait to leave the marina so I could have him stop working and mess it all up..lol

He did accomplish a lot though…. Did you read about our water generator he practically made on his own???? He was awake at night, dreaming it up going all over the stores in Kelowna collecting parts to his new device. One day while we were in Kelowna it was quite funny when he showed up at home late and all dirty after spending a whole afternoon at a car wreck looking for parts to practice with. Read his blog post on the water generator.

We took a break from work with many social events at the marina. So many wonderful people and always lots of activities, from games night ,movie night, pub night and darts, barbeques, waking groups,yoga and more!

 

We rented a car with another couple, Margaret and Wil and made a trip to the nearby towns with very interesting history and very popular with tourists.

Demre :  a Lycian town of Myra, home to St Nicholas

Bellow is our beloved Santa Claus, the 4th century Bishop of Myra. St Nicholas of Myra.

Legend has it that he’d drop small bags of gold coins down the chimneys of houses with poor girls who were old enough to marry, but had no dowry. Another story says he’d leave gold coins in the shoes of the poor who put them out for him. Sanctified for his good works, he became the patron saint of virgins, sailors and  children.

His church has some really nice still well preserved mosaics

And beautiful frescoes..It was nice to see their faces were still there, unlike many in Turkey that were scratched off by the Muslims.

 

St Nicholas tomb inside the Church. St Nickolas was born around 300 and died around 350. Sometime in the 1800’s a group of Italian merchants pushed past the monks and broke open the saint’s sarcophagus. They stole the relics and took them to Bari, in Italy, where they were placed in a shrine in the cathedral.

 

The ancient site of Myra

The many carved theatrical masks decorating the whole area of this ancient site.

 

 

The famous rock-tombs of Myra are very impressive. Charles Fellows tells that upon his discovery of the city in 1840 he found the tombs were painted red, yellow and blue.  The entire cliff face must have been pretty bright then…

Most of the tombs are from the 4th century BC, and many contain carved funeral scenes, and some the daily life of the deceased.

Myra’s Greco-Roman theater is the largest  theater in Lycia and one of the main attractions of Myra, still in good shape.   Its double-vaulted corridors are still well preserved.  It has 38 rows of seats and its facade was richly decorated with many theatrical masks and other scenes

 

 

We also stopped at this famous eternal flame, is located on the Lycian way hike and visited by many hikers as well as other visitors.

 

 

It is called the Chimaera.

The site is located near Olympus and is known as Yanartas (burning stone in Turkish) because of the blue flames sparkling out from the rocks at the bottom of the Taurus mountain and 250 meters above the sea level. Amazing site!  Methane gas coming out of the earth since 4th century BC. It was unbelievable, walking around this place with all these flames coming from underneath the rocks.

It is said that flames used to be  much larger then, and that sailors in the past used the flames as a lighthouse while they sailed along this coast at night time.

To get to the site , you pay a entrance fee and hike up about 1 mile or so to get up to these flaming rocks, the view is very interesting. There are some ruins near the flames  from the Byzantine period including churches and houses, with some other ruins from earlier periods but not excavated yet.

It was sure a full day of fun and History. Turkey sure has been a world of discoveries. We enjoyed Turkey very much.

Our last night at the marina, they had an organized bus of 50 people going to a concert in Antalya. We joined the great trip and watched a beautiful classical  Bethoven’s 9th. Despite Noel not wanting me to take photos because it was too distracting…I had to sneak in one or two.

The trip also allowed some time for shopping, so we did some provisioning, since we were leaving the marina the next morning

Saturday April 6th we said by to everyone at Finike marina and started our new 2014 season.

Our destination: Rhodes. Some night stops in some nice anchorages and towns. Included a 3 day stay in Marmaris where we met more nice people. Lamb dinner at Australian Domino’s whom we just met at the anchorage along with some other sailors we have met along the way.

We also made a stop in Fethye, which we have visited before and really like. Plus, we were told by Melanie and Carl they serve good fish and chips there, so Noel could indulge. The meal was good indeed. All he was missing was his English pint.

We also got to read a Turkish newspaper but in English, its rare…but many English people live here.

We also just missed Russel Crowe who was in town and staying at the Hotel with his crew just across from our boat!

Read on:

 

 

 

Below is a picture of  the abandoned village of Kayakoy. I took the picture from the air last October while paragliding above it.

 

Haha, gotcha… it does not play!  I stole this photo from the video I bought from my pilot. Could not resize the photo smaller either.

 

Above and bellow is the Hotel where he was staying.

I can imagine the fuss over at the little town. Noel and I hiked that area last fall. Kayakoy…..the abandoned village. I wrote about it last November or so. The town is tiny and very rural. Everyone in their backyards had a cow, a donkey and a goat. I would love to have been around at that time !!!

We look forward to watching the movie. It is based on the events at Gallipoli during the First World War and is supposed to come out at the end of 2014 to coincide with the 100  year anniversary.

Goodbye Turkey…we sure had some great adventures there!

Hello Greece! Kalimera!

It feels so good to be back in Greece again….

In the last week we have visted  the beautiful medieval town of Rhodes and the island of Santorini.

In between those two, we spent a very interesting Orthodox Easter in a cute non touristic island of Astylalea on the way to Santorini.

Noel is writing that post right now.

We have been busy. When we are not socializing with all the wonderful people we have met, we are shopping  all over town for all kinds of things, or we  are out busy visiting places, or sailing!  And let’s not forget some internet connections problems too! (and house work and maintenance of course…so dont ask what do we do all day! lol)

Stay tuned for Greece.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Current Location: Santorini, Greece
Current Position: 36°20.2'N, 25°26.04'E
Distance sailed since last post: 46 nautical miles

 

 

 

Welcome to Santorini. Easter Monday we departed from Astypalea  at 8:30 am on very light winds with Spinnaker up.

It was a great trip, ended up having to motor for a couple of hours,when the wind vanished. Santorini is not very anchor friendly, so arriving at sunset, we chose to go straight to the Marina.

Dimitris Taverna was a great spot to stop for a beer and for some info on how to get around in Santorini. Marina is quite far from the tourist areas and in Season it does have buses running. Being  early in the season the buses were running till May. We rented a car from his friend who dropped it off to us the next morning at 9:00 am.

Santorini is a small island. Although it is beautiful and you want to stop many times, in one day you can visit the island.

We started our drive right at the south end of the island and the main road took us all through these beautiful cultivated fields. Mostly vines which are very short and low to the ground. Many many signs advertising wineries. So if you are into wine tasting…definitely one day in the island is not enough. Many cute villages some not so touristic but yet charming. We stopped at a few beaches, nothing really spectacular still waiting for the famous real  Santorini photos you see in Google. I was starting to wonder if those pictures were actually real (you know the ones…beautiful beaches, cliffs and of course the white houses and blue roofs!)

Before we show you the real nice touristic towns of Fira and Oia : below are photos that you don’t see in Google:

There are so many unfinished buildings all through the villages, along the cliffs and with the most beautiful views of the sea, the caldera and the far cuter towns of Fira, Imerovigli and Oia in the backgrounds it is such a shame to see all these skeletons all over the place. Rather similar to Spain, in fact, so I guess they had the same building boom and bust here.

 

 

 

Then, of course, there is a different kind of skeleton – these ones from decay over many centuries, not from abandoned building:

 

These are the ruins of ancient Thira built up in the hills above the East coast of the island, whereas modern Fira is on the west coast, facing the caldera. As usual there are remnants of ancient temples and baths, etc.

 

So many beautiful wildflowers at this time of the year. No tourists AND pretty flowers!

 

 

 

 

 

Above you can see a lion and a bird carved into the rocks. From up here you can look down on the only two real beaches in Santorini, on the East coast. Both with black volcanic sand.

 

 

And, of course, there are white houses and blue roofs, just like in the brochures. These are views of Fira and Oia from the water:

It was very hazy, not the greatest day for photos. But it is easy to see the white villages perched on top of these cliffs.

 

Above is the busy tourist town of Oia. Bellow foto is also Oia but viewed from the boat as we sailed around the next morning

 

 

 

 

And looking along the coast from one village to the next:

 

 

 

See, there really are churches with blue roofs here!  But, to be honest, you will see more white and blue in Mykonos and in Panarea (which is actually an Italian island just north of Sicily)!

The towns are very cute and picturesque.

 

Now here is a place for your wedding reception!  Actually we saw quite a few wedding parties wondering about with their photographers who were gamely trying to get the perfect pictures without heaps of tourists in them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

So many cute narrow streets full of vendors and still many tourists around, even in low season.

 

The cruise ships do not have a dock there. They just hold position there and tender the passengers ashore, sometimes the fishermen help out as well. There are 580 stairs to get up to the town. You can do that for free or for 5 euros you can take a mule or a cable car.

 

 

 

Then, of course, there is the famous Oia sunset that one is not supposed to miss!  Some clouds got in the way but it was still pretty.

 

 

After which we drove back down south to catch a delicious meal in the restaurant at the top of the cliffs above the marina.

The next day we sailed onwards to Milos and en route to Corfu.

We had to update our blog today because we are on to another adventure..in another country. Long trip starting tonight…in a couple of hours actually

I got Noel to update Rhodes this morning while I was busy cooking a couple of meals ahead.  Some shepherd’s pie and pineapple chicken, hummus and tatziki with cut up veggies, some pita bread and lots of fruit for snack times. Ohh and chocolate too!!

Croatia…here we come!!!!

Current Location: Astipalea, Egeo, Greece
Current Position: 36°32.85'N, 26°21.25'E
Distance sailed since last post: 91 nautical miles

We love visiting new places, but most of the time we are just another yacht bringing yet more tourists from whom the locals can extract some money.

Sometimes it is ridiculous fees and charges – like the total of 300 euro to check in and out of Turkey – plus another 350 euro to get an extended stay so that our boat could stay for the winter.

Then there are the merchants who hassle you to buy. First they try to guess your nationality. Then, using the appropriate language, they call out,

“Hello. Where are you from?”

Now, why do they ask that? Because they know that you won’t want to appear rude by not answering.

But, once you answer, you have now entrapped yourself in a conversation. And are they just being friendly? Far from it – their goal is to entice you into their store, “just to look”. They may also offer you some tea, and tell you that it is rude to decline.

But, apparently, it is not rude for them to then try to sell you stuff, and refuse to accept a polite, “no, thanks” as an answer. In fact, often you do have to become quite rude to get away.

In Tunisia it was often so bad that you dare not stop to admire something, lest the whole procedure begins. Such a shame that they spoil it – they miss out on potential sales, and we miss out on potential bargains. But just not worth the agro.

But every now and again you have true cruising experience. Such was our Easter weekend in Astypalea.

On Good Friday we were anchored in Agios Andreas, on the north side of the island to avoid the SE winds. We decided to take the 6km walk to the town.

After 2km we hitched a ride from a large friendly fisherman who drove us all the way up to the Hora at the top of the hill.

We spent half an hour poking around the old castle and then went down to check out the small harbour. After that, we climbed the 200+ stairs to the Hora again, and found a delightful restaurant, Al Dente, at which we had the best meal we have had in ages – octopus in red wine sauce, calamari with linguini, and cheese croquettes, plus half a litre of wine, all for 18 euro.

The owner, a big fat cheerful lady in her 30’s then told us to come up on Easter Sunday afternoon for a party in the square.

On Saturday night we went to the Greek Orthodox church to see what happens.

We arrived at about 5 to 11 at night. We sat down on some chairs where some women were sitting. A handful of others also came in.

At 11pm two women at the front started singing and chanting.

We all stood up. They carried on singing and chanting.

After a while we sat down again.

Every now and again the priest would come out of a painted door, speak to the singers, and retreat behind the door again.

More people kept arriving. Each one would pick up a few taper candles. They would kiss the picture in the middle of the hall, and then light and place the candles in a sandbox. Then they would kiss a couple more pictures on the side wall before they sat down.

The singers continued. The priest wandered in and out. Every few minutes there would be a big bang as a youth outside set off a firecracker.

Most people sat quietly, but a few talked. After a while we noticed that all the women sat where we were, and the men sat in another section. Oops, I guess I was sitting in the wrong place! We noticed that most of them were carrying additional candles or lanterns, unlit.

At about 5 to midnight the priest came out with a censer which he shook at various corners of the room, filling it with incense.

He retreated behind a door. Then the lights went out, leaving only the candles burning. This, I presume, represented the darkness of Christ in the underworld.

Then the lights came on and the priest appeared with some lighted candles. The congregation lit their candles and lanterns, and everyone, including the singers went outside into the courtyard. Once we were all out, the church door was shut.

The priest then talked for a few minutes. Presumably he told the resurrection story.

When he was done, the bells started ringing. Huge numbers of firecrackers exploded with a concussive deafening noise that reverberated around the closed walls of the courtyard. Fireworks exploded above us, dropping spent ashes on our heads. And the house next door looked like it was aflame, so bright were the red flares on its roof. Sorry, but Ceu was too busy covering her ears so no pictures of the fireworks!

And then everyone went home.

The next morning we were invited our supper by our neighbours, Boudewijn and Schubert on El Canard from Holland, who also invited Knut form Nocturne, our other neighbour.

But first we had to go and checkout the party in the square.

After climbing the 200+ steps we found not a lot.

But the lady from Al Dente waived us over! We were to join their family and friends party – about 10 people enjoying pork, lamb, lamb livers, salad and wine.

So we did. And we ate. And we drank wine, and some more wine, and some wine, and a bit of wine.

People danced on the patio. We even joined in.

People danced on the tables. We didn’t join in. But we did clap.  The lady on the right is our hostess.

 

George, who had retired from Athens as the living here was cheap (180 euro a month for an apartment) and the government had cut his pension, supplied the beat with his bongo drum. There was Greek and Cretan music.

 

One man had his eye on one of the women, so they tried to pair them up. There was dancing on the tables, and many calls of “Yammas!” as more wine was poured.

Alas, eventually we had to depart so as to make the dinner date with El Canard.

Once there we had some more food – a fantastic past, with more wine and some rum.

And many tales of adventures on the seas. We got to bed at midnight.

The next morning we left early to sail to Santorini with a nice fresh breeze on our port quarter.

Now THAT is what cruising is all about!

Current Location: Rhodes, Greece
Current Position: 36°26.89'N, 28°13.75'E
Distance sailed since last post: 93 nautical miles

Having finally picked up our liferaft in Marmaris, and having paid our 90 euros to check out of Turkey, we set sail for Rhodes in Greece with some pleasant winds of up to 25kts giving us a great sail with one reef in.

 

We arrived in Rhodes harbour and turned immediately to the left, as one can dock on the small fishing dock without having to pay marina prices. That’s us tied up just below the defending fort:

 

First stop was the friendly check-in authorities and then a pita gyro! Ah, pork!

First thing next morning before anyone could come and ask us to pay something we moved around the corner outside of the harbour breakwater, but still in the protection of the commercial harbour. There we anchored for two nights.

 

We were anchored right outside the town walls and the old windmills.

 

Tied up and secure, we then took our tourist walk around medieval Rhodes.  It really is a beautiful old town, with a moat around the walls.

And full of beautiful buildings, most in very good condition.

 

Though some older, pre-medieval ones could do with a bit of maintenance:

 

 

 

The main square is cute, and gave us the opportunity to have another pita gyro. Ah pork!

 

 

This is the street of knights, where all the different countries had their ‘lodges’ where their knights would hang out.

The palace is also impressive, with some good mosaics.

 

 

 

 

 

This is one of the main gates into the town through the town walls:

 

 

 

 

We also got our Greek butane bottles filled up at a supermarket.

The next day, rather than sailing down and using up a day, we decided to take a bus to visit Lindos, about 90 minutes away.

 

Here we walked up to the castle. Of course, if you are feeling lazy, you can just take a donkey up:

 

 

 

Who’s that looking so cute up on the castle steps?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just south of the Lindos bay is a tiny enclosed bay which is just big enough for a yacht or two:

 

Lindos town is all whitewashed walls, though not as pretty as some of the other places we have visited, such as Astypalea. However, we did like the decorative snow patterns that the town put in many places on their streets and their steps, and even inside the buildings:

 

 

 

But, we are in a hurry to get to the Ionian and up to Croatia, so the next day we took off in 10kts mostly with the spinnaker up. We had to dodge a few tankers on our way to Tilos. I guess we crossed  the main shipping route from Athens to Suez.

 

 

 

 

Current Location: Finkie, Turkey
Current Position: 36°17.55'N, 30°9.03'E
Distance sailed since last post: 0 nautical miles

Last night we arrived back on board Life Part 2.

It is good to be home. The sun is shining, the shorts, sandals and T-shirts are out again,and life is good.

Everything on the boat also looks good – apart from all the brown dust all over the decks that need a good scrubbing.

So, a few tasks to take care of, and then we will be off on our next adventure within the next 3 weeks.

The plan this year is to cross around the Peloponnese again, and then head north to Venice, and then more slowly south through Croatia.The theory is that we will have south winds to carry us north, and then as summer kicks in we will have the north winds to bring us back down again. Well, that is the theory anyway.

We will keep you informed 🙂

Oh – and I have some brand new fishing gear, so look forward to some Big Fish stories.

Current Location: Mount Nemrut, Turkey
Current Position: 37°51.73'N, 38°35.1'E

Bellow are the photos of the city of Antalya we visited for a day before getting on the night bus to Cappadocia All the gulets here had a pirate theme to them, with many of them having larger-than-life models of pirates to greet you as you come aboard. They also had fake square-rigged sails. The beautiful harbour of Antalya with some impressive waterfalls We enjoyed a beautiful walk along the sea wall, backed by a really nice park and restaurants. Look how neatly piled these spices are! Enjoyed some fresh squeezed juice from this nicely decorated bar, one would think they celebrate Halloween around here! At sunset we started looking for a place to eat and enjoy the views of the harbour and have a rest. One of the many pirate ships is on its way in. We had a really nice meal here, with some amazing views. We had fun watching the fancy pirate theme gullets going in and out of the harbour for their sunset cruises. We did have the waiter take a photo of us here at the dinner table. He actually took 2, and again they were terrible photos. After dinner we left to the bus station for the night trip. The bus station was huge. It was like being in a small airport. Inside there were not only snacks available, but a few cafes serving pizza, muffins and all kinds of baked goodies. The place was very clean with cleaners making sure of it, and emptying garbage cans often. Buses were very organized. Off we went to Cappadocia.

Mount Nemrut

Below are the photos from our trip down to Sanliurfa, East of Turkey from Goreme, Cappadocia. We left Goreme on a small bus with a group of 10 people and our tour guide. The scenery changed very often from plains to hills, mountains, rivers, lakes and gorges. Fruit trees, potatoes and lots of other vegetables and many cotton fields. Cotton was being picked and transported by trucks into big warehouses at the sight of the first clouds in the sky. There I think it was the first time we actually felt we were in a foreigner country. It is not touristic place, no English speaking and the people are very religious and modestly dressed. Compare to most places where only a small percentage of women wear a scarf, here was totally different. They all go about their own lives, no one harasses you into their stalls that all look the same to buy all this touristic stuff. None of that here. Shopping. A totally different experience! 3am wake up call: We spent out first night in Adyaman, the popular place for visiting the next morning. Yes, our wake up call was at 3:00 am. It was a 1 hour drive to the base of the mountain. There, we stopped at a coffee/souvenir shop coffee or tea, souvenirs…etc. Afterwards we walked up the hill, with newly built steps to the summit and watch for the sun rising over the statues. Wow! Mount Nemrut is situated in Southeastern Turkey. Large statues and heads of Kings and Gods statues are erected around a royal tomb from the 1st century BC. At some stage the heads were removed from the bodies above and are scattered around the Tumulus. These are photos of the East side Terrace. Early cold morning, but lots of fun and sure worth it! Incredible! The sun was a bit late showing up, we had a few clouds that morning, but what an experience. I will share this, but for the history on it just google Mount Nemrut, it’s fascinating. The photos bellow are from the West side terrace The Taurus mountain behind. The sun finally showing up!! Ceu communing with Hercules and King Antiochus Beautiful scenery Ancient Roman bridge Cotton fields Above photo: what looked like greenhouses to me, were in fact refuge camps form Syria. We saw 2 guys being dropped off on the side of the road with their duffle bag and walking towards camp. We were only 15km from the border. Antaturk Dam. The biggest dam in the Middle East. Our guide told us if we had time he would show us something that was not mentioned in our itinerary. He surprised us with a visit to the oldest Temple in the world, Gobekli, just being excavated. It is older yet than the Sanctuary in Malta we visited before (and was advertized as the Oldest in the world) Welcome to Abraham ‘s Cave, where he was supposed to have been born: Please google for information on the sites if you like. Entrance to Abraham’s cave. Inside people pray… Beautiful mosque and courtyard next to the cave Outside…the famous pool with the holy carp Its a beautiful sight They sell you little bowls of food to feed the fish. Wow, they go crazy! Its a beautiful sight indeed. Surrounded by a big park nicely landscaped, fountains restaurants and cafes. It is always open and free to everyone We enjoyed our tour very much, the scenery, the history, all the legends that go with it, Fascinating! We moved on to our last stop of the day, Harran. This is where Abraham lived for a while. The village of mud- brick beehive houses. According to the book of Genesis, Abraham spent the last years of his life here. The dressing room. Our guide had fun dressing us up, Noel and I. We took a tour through the house and all the rooms. They were so cute. This is an old yogurt mixer. We are in the kitchen A view of more mud-brick houses in the village of Harran. As you can see is about to get dark and we re just about ready to leave our cute village. What a full day! So many places, so much history. So wonderful And this is my last blog of the season!!!!! Soon we are going home