Makarma's log

Fast & Furious to Finike

2011-10-17T15:48:00.000+01:00

Finike, journey's end for this season - 17th October

We made the most of a run of five days of fine weather anchored in Gokkaya Limani just beyond Kekova. It's a beautiful spot, and home to a several loggerhead turtles that would surface from time to time for us to watch. Leighton is distinctly wary of turtles from his time as a diver in a marine park when he was a student. As the seawater had a layer of icy cold spring water on the top, it was no great hardship to leave the swimming to the turtles.

Idyllic Gokkaya Limani

We were anchored close to Petronella, a 39' Joshua steel ketch, owned by John and Jill from Cumbria, whom we'd first met in Ucagiz. We spent every evening with them over a drink or two swapping sailing stories and using up our remaining locker stores. We enjoyed being with them and found we had a lot in common, so we were sorry to discover they're overwintering in Kas.

We met these goats along a stretch of the Lycian Way from Gokkaya Limani

We decided to spend our last night before tying up for the winter in Karaloz. It's a tiny fiord-like inlet on the east side of Kekova island. When we arrived there was only one other boat there, but by the end of the day four charter boats squeezed themselves in as well. One boatload of Swedes, three boatloads of Germans. One with small children onboard; another with a crewmember who fancied himself on the guitar. Peace shattered.

Morning calm in Karaloz

According to the pilot, the passage between Kekova and Finike is often windless. Determined not to motor our last day if we could help it, we'd waited until there was wind forecast. We got it. Plenty of wind and a steep swell gave us a fast and rolling downwind ride to Finike. Leighton hand steered all the way as it was too tough for Cathy.

Surfing downwind to Finike

Approaching the marina at Finike

"You're just in time for the BBQ", announced our neighbours as the marinero was expertly tying Makarma to the pontoon in the marina. And so our feet had hardly touched the ground before we were getting to know the liveaboard community here over a few beers. What a welcome!

Our mini Vlicho moment

2011-10-12T13:55:00.000+01:00

At anchor in Kekova Roads - 11th October

Today we're mopping up after three days of torrential rain and wind - one heavy shower after another.
Yesterday evening just before dark a sudden squall hit us with a ferocious 50 knot blast that sent the boat heeling right over. The visibility went to zero and raindrops came at us like bullets. We got soaked to the skin and thoroughly chilled standing in the cockpit with the engine on in case the anchor dragged. It proved a good call to have put 35 metres of chain out in 3.5 metres of water as the anchor held fine. Twenty minutes later and it was all over. We poured ourselves a generous gin and tonic each to celebrate coming out of it unscathed.

Then in the early hours of this morning, another squall came over. This one was a feeble 35 knots - hardly worth getting out of bed for, we reckoned. Although our storm was nothing like as bad as the tornado that hit Vlicho recently, it's left us feeling a bit rattled. It's still unsettled today and the barometer's yet to show a rise, so we keep anxiously scanning the clouds for anything threatening that might hit us again.

Annoyingly, the rain's left a layer of red dust everywhere on deck and it found its way through the dorade vents to drip down below.

A sign that the worst is over?

Extreme Sightseeing

2011-10-10T09:17:00.001+01:00

Kas - 5th October

Edd's visit wiped us out. More accustomed to gentle days at anchor, we weren’t prepared for a week of high-octane sightseeing. During his stay we've done two 20km walks over rough mountain terrain, visited a ghost town, numerous historic sites and a mountain gorge. On top of all that, Edd ran 10km every morning!

Kale Koy - 8000 Greek inhabitants were forced to abandon the town during the infamous population exchange between Greece and Turkey in the 1920's

With the help of Kate Clow's excellent Lycian Way guide we trekked up to the ruins of Phellos perched high above a fertile plain.

The former Lycian garrison was well worth the climb. Lycian rock tombs and monuments untouched for centuries stood in majestic surroundings on a strategic ridge with views on all sides. We had the place to ourselves - no great surprise, given its inaccessibility.

The final leg of the walk took us 1500 feet down a precipitous mule track back into Kas, our leg muscles complaining every step of the way.

The view over Kas from the top of the mountain path

Next we hired a car to visit Xanthos, the old capital of Lycia.

Rock tombs with modern polytunnels behind


Sir Charles Fellows kindly left these behind

Yet more tombs, a Greek theatre, a Roman agora, a Byzantine church. Sadly part of the site was looted by Sir Charles Fellows in the 19th century and put in the British Museum . The biggest challenge was to avoid the unofficial guides who lurked behind tombs to insist on showing us around. We drove on to picnic at Patara, which was Lycia's chief port and then its capital after the people of Xanthos committed mass suicide when the Romans defeated them rather than face captivity. Patara's ruins lie mainly unexcavated under sand dunes on the coast, its harbour now silted up and 3km from the sea.

The silted harbour at Patara

Taking a break at the Greek theatre at Patara

It's a magnificent place. We were in need of a swim after clambering over all the old ruins in the midday heat and went to the beach.

The day's highlight came at Delikemmer, a marvel of engineering on a hillside along the Lycian Way.

Roman engineering - interlocking stones to form a pipe

The 2,000 year old Roman water siphon system and aquaduct carried water to Patara from a spring several kilometres away. This section is at the top of a 20 foot wall. To our surprise we could see below us the Yesilkoy anchorage where we'd spent the noisy night with the gulets.

If we thought our exertions would bring a good night's sleep, we were wrong. Late in the evening a strong wind began to gust down off the hill. Towards midnight we heard a loud bang and all the lights went out. Some power lines had been blown together, and the resulting sparks set fire to the scrubby hillside, the flames fanned by the gusty wind. It looked more dramatic than it actually was, but the fire brigade were still at work in the morning to keep the blaze from spreading.

Hillside ablaze seen from the marina

Our second walk was the more strenuous of the two. It took us from the small farming village of Bogazcik down 1,000 feet to the ruins of Aperlae, where we could snorkel over the remains of a sunken harbour. Then back again. It was downhill through the scrub, the path getting steeper and stonier as we went.

Spot the path!

We'd overdosed on Lycian tombs by now so Aperlae was a bit of a disappointment.

Yet more Lycian tombs....

The snorkelling wasn't that great either - the water was murky and the underwater ruins were hard to pick out. It was a long and exhausting trudge back uphill. On the way back we foolishly took a detour to the ruins of Apollonia and were exhausted by the time we'd picked a path back across a scrubby hillside to the car.

On the last day of Edd's visit we went to the Saklikent gorge. It's a tourist magnet with loads of tatty souvenir stalls, but wading up the gorge itself was great fun. The air was fresh and the spring water was icy cold. After only 1km the gorge is blocked by a waterfall and you have to turn back, so we were spared a strenuous outing that day.

Thawing out after wading through the gorge

After we got Edd to Dalaman airport for his flight back to London, it was a relief to put our feet up for a rest. It was great he came out to see us and we loved having him to stay. He's excellent company these days. It may have been exhausting, but we also loved getting off the boat and seeing more of Turkey.

Overheating

2011-10-07T11:31:00.000+01:00

Kas - 2nd October

"Yet another thing to fix," groans Leighton. The list gets longer by the day. Unless we keep below 1,000 revs (which gives us 4 knots of speed) the engine has started to overheat. Apart from the heat exchanger cap problem that now has a temporary fix, the thermostat is sticking. A firm tap on it brings the temperature down a little. Once we're in Kas we'll sort it all out as Edd is bringing some spares with him, but first we've got to get there.

Our stay in Kapi Creek turned out to be unusually sociable. Soon after Colin and Bronwen left to explore more of Skopea Limani, we were hailed from the dock by some old friends who we last saw three years ago. Wilma and Francis were our neighbours back in Ayamonte, Spain. They happened to be passing the entrance to Kapi Creek and seeing it was busy decided not to stop until they noticed Makarma. We celebrated the extraordinary odds that our paths would cross by spending the evening reminiscing and sharing our adventures.

We timed our departure for some wind in the forecast but to our frustration there was almost no wind at all. We managed only three miles of slow sailing to Karacoroen and another six miles the next day along Patara beach on the way to Kalkan. We crawled the rest of the way under the poor old donk, eyes glued to the temperature guage.

We sailed past Patara, the site of a Lycian city & birthplace of Santa Claus

We anchored in Yesilkoy Limani just west of Kalkan for one night. It was a peaceful place until six gulets came and parked close by.

Once the partying had died down around midnight, the wind got up until 4am. Between 5am and 6am the gulets left one by one. We felt distinctly bleary-eyed when we left in the morning for the last stretch to Kas - motoring of course.

Summer comes to an end

2011-09-23T07:00:00.001+01:00

Kapi Creek - 22nd September

We climbed up to these Lycian rock tombs from Tomb Bay

A dramatic thunderstorm yesterday evening broke the long run of settled summer weather, bringing the first rain we've had since May. We were safely tied up to the restaurant quay in Kapi Creek.

The storm approaches

We watched the rain bucket down over a meal of meze and shish in the excellent company of Colin and Bronwen. They're on a week's charter out of Gocek and we met them in Tomb Bay when they moored alongside us in one of the tiny coves there.

After the rain washed the dust out of the air overnight, the visibility is pin sharp this morning. The deck's beautifully clean too.

This morning also brought sobering news of a vicious Force 11 squall lasting half an hour in Vlicho Bay, one of our favourite bolt-holes in the Ionian. It caused the tragic death of a Frenchman who fell overboard and drowned. It also damaged at least 100 boats. Take a look at the pictures of the devastation at http://www.theionian.com.
We get the message - don't get too complacent, even in idyllic surroundings. The weather has a habit of sneaking up and biting you when you least expect it.

At the height of the storm

What's not to like about Turkey?

2011-09-21T13:47:00.000+01:00

Gocek - 19th September

We're enjoying the sheltered waters of the Gulf of Fethiye. You could spend weeks here pottering from one little bay to another without getting bored. Pines grow down to the shore, the water's clear and the going's easy.

Yet another idyllic place to spend the night

Things we like about Turkey:
The people are friendly and very obliging - nothing's too much trouble
They are enterprising too - a village lady makes pancakes in the bow of a motorboat while she's ferried about by her son; a barber stopped Leighton in the street offering to cut his hair; mini-market boats ply up and down the anchorages to sell us fresh bread and produce.
It's green - perhaps because they keep fewer goats than the Greeks?
The food is fantastic with loads of fruit and vegetables in the markets. Cathy's personal heaven right now is the plentiful supply of fresh figs and pomegranates.
Prices are cheap and our pounds go further in lira, the local currency.

The pancake lady touting for business

Beachside beauty parlour

Things we don't like about Turkey:
Enthusiasm to sell you something can stray over into pestering - Leighton found it hard to browse the chandlers without being hassled
Small biting flies, which invariably bite you on the ankles when you're trying to berth in a tight spot
Anchoring in deep water - we realise our 65 metres of chain isn't enough
Gocek is the only town we haven't taken to - too many yotties for our taste

Today we took the bus from Gocek to Dalyan to see some magnificent Lycian tombs cut into the cliff above the river that flows through the town. The ancient city of Caunos sits on a hill a short way downstream. It fell into decline when the river silted up the harbour and cut off access to the open sea.

The ferrywoman who rowed us across the river to the rock tombs

Tombs ancient and modern

Gateway leading to old harbour

Theatre at Caunos overlooking the Dalyan river

In case you think we've been having too much of a good time, there is a fly in our ointment. Just recently our engine has been overheating unless we keep to low revs. The neck of our heat exchanger has been patched many times over and the last time we did it, the repair only lasted a couple of weeks. We've sourced a new one that we hope will come out with Edd who visits us next week. Meantime, this is Leighton's ingenious fix using a wooden bung, and we keep our fingers crossed we won't have to use the engine much until it's properly repaired.

A boat called spaghetti

2011-09-11T16:49:00.000+01:00

Marmaris Harbour - 11th September

We left Ayamonte on the Spanish Algarve on 10th May 2009, bound for Marmaris in Turkey. Yesterday we finally got here!

Leighton's page from our scrapbook back in 2009

Not bad going for a boat called 'spaghetti' in Turkish. The Turkish word for pasta is 'makarna'. It explains why we're often asked here what our boat name means. It's a bit of a struggle explaining the concept of karma to someone with limited English!

On Thursday we rounded Karaburun Point on an exhilarating beam reach in 20 knots of wind. Here the Aegean ends and the eastern Mediterranean begins. We say a fond goodbye to the Aegean after just over a year's cruising there. Our first night round the corner is in Lorymer. We've come to visit the Hellenistic citadel on a headland which has a commanding position overlooking the Rhodes channel.

The view from the citadel over the anchorage of Bozuk Buku

The Turkish flag flying over the ramparts of the citadel

After a day's rolling downwind we're ready for our next stop in Ciftlik, which is reputed to be full of Russians. We're disappointed not to hear a single word of Russian, and Leighton picked up a stomach bug from something he ate for dinner ashore. A strong katabatic wind blew up overnight to keep us awake for a while, despite being tied to a pontoon. That left us with the short hop to Marmaris yesterday.

We're now anchored in a sheltered rural corner of this magnificent natural harbour with pines growing right down to the shore and covering the hills behind. It's a popular spot for local holidaymakers to come and have a picnic and swim. A short dinghy ride takes us to Pupa Yat marina where we can catch the dolmus into town. We'll be here a few days for Leighton to browse round the chandlers for spares and Cathy to get a haircut and reprovision the boat.

Having now seen what the huge Marmaris Yacht Marina is like, we're very glad we decided not to overwinter there. It is miles from town and has a very impersonal feel about it. The winter liveaboard community apparently want you to join all manner of group activities every day of the week. Fine if you like quiz nights, gossip and knitting circles, but if definitely isn't for us.

Night-time Intruders!

2011-09-06T08:33:00.000+01:00

Selimiye - 6th September

Last night on the town quay at Selimiye we had two unwelcome intruders. The first dropped down through the workshop hatch and when challenged by Leighton, shot through the cabin to escape to the nextdoor boat. It was one of the town cats and it gave us a bit of a fright. Later we heard footsteps on the deck and shooed away a second cat, a different one this time. I think we'll be anchoring tonight.

A first for us - we took the dolmus (the local minibus) from Orhaniye to Marmaris to get set up with internet access and a Turkey sim card. It was a tight squeeze for the 25km journey. The 12 seater vehicle carried 23 adults, one baby, one puppy and a 30kg Bruce anchor. The springs complained most of the way and we ground up the hills in first gear, but somehow we got there.

The pilot is right to describe Orhaniye as a gem. It's a bullet proof anchorage with excellent holding, and we stayed there several nights. One day we tied up to Ersoy's ramshackle pontoon for the night as recommended by Suzie & Robin of True Blue. When we mentioned their name to Mustafa, we were instantly one of the family and he ceremoniously gave us a handful of figs fresh from the garden. We enjoyed a fish supper on the terrace, a free berth with electricity, drinking water and showers thrown in. You can't beat it.

There's someone in Wilmington Delaware who owns a lot of boats. We've noticed several pleasure boats are flying the stars and stripes and give their port of registry as Wilmington.

What's going on? The boats are obviously local and owned by Turks. Is it a tax dodge? How do they qualify to fly the US flag? Has someone in Wilmington got a scam going? Answers on a postcard please.

Paradise Found?

2011-08-31T16:31:00.000+01:00

Paradise Bay, Hisaronu gulf, Turkey - 28th August

As Greece has been our home for almost two years, we were finding the prospect of leaving the country a bit of a wrench. When it came to it, Symi made it easy for us. Everyone raves about Symi, but we found the island a complete disappointment. After a dull 30 mile motorsail from Nisyros, we anchored in Panormitis on the southwest corner of Symi. We met the high season crowds and our first flotilla of the season. A monastery stands on the shore with a large hotel wing that looks like it was designed for Soviet-era workers' holidays. Although the anchorage is almost entirely sheltered from the sea, a slight swell rolled in, making for an uncomfortable night.

We decided to move on the next morning to Pethi, just south of Symi town. Don't bother to go there, the holding's dreadful and boats often drag their anchor. As we weren't happy we were properly hooked, we tied up to the quay used by the Rhodes water boat so we could leave the boat to take the bus to Symi town. There we found a heaving mass of day-trippers and souvenir shops. We stayed just long enough to cancel our Cosmote broadband account, pick up bacon, beer and wine and check out.

Crossing the border

Eight miles across from Symi and we arrive in Turkey. Bozburun is situated at the head of an attractive gulf littered with islands and bays. Approaching the harbour the first thing you see is the silver dome of the town's mosque. Gulets are tied up in the harbour, we find loads of fruit and vegetable stalls and a hyper-clean toilet/shower block.

Tied up in Bozburun harbour

Two hours after we arrive, our entry formalities are all complete - thanks to a shipping agent who sports a paunch and a pony-tail, and gets about on a tricycle.

We are in the Hisaronu gulf. Our first reaction to sailing here is if it's all like this, we won't ever leave. Crystal clear water, no swell, a gentle afternoon breeze and calm overnight anchorages. What a pleasant change from the Dodecanese!

Taking it easy

Just when we're thinking it's too good to be true, an unwelcome reality intrudes. We've noticed that water has started to creep into the bilge and go to investigate. A hot and bad tempered morning later, Leighton sources the leak to the holding tank (oh joy!) and fixes it. He'd just fitted a new diverter valve (our second from the UK as the first turned out to be the wrong size), but this one is faulty and was letting water flow unimpeded into the tank even when it's closed. This made the tank overflow - with seawater I hasten to say, not the contents of the loo. Turkish environmental regulations are very strict, so we had to be very discreet about pumping the bilge out in the harbour. A hefty fine on our first full day in Turkey would not have been a good start. The bad news is we can't use the holding tank for now, but the good news is the bilge is now bone dry again.

Yesterday we put the whole episode behind us with a leisurely lunch on a mooring buoy off Bozburun followed by a glorious sail closehauled to Dirsek where we tied to a restaurant quay and feasted on all-you-can-eat meze for supper.

Shoreside restaurant in Dirsek

Today we're anchored in Paradise bay tied back to the rocks on shore, watching the kids on a neighbouring gullet try to windsurf. The hills are green with woody shrubs and pines. It's back to home cooking tonight.

Facing down the wind

2011-08-21T13:03:00.002+01:00

Paloi Harbour, Nisyros - 21st August

Makarma is the kind of boat that likes a bit of wind - especially when we're going downwind. The trouble is, if you want wind around here there's usually too much of it. Take Friday when we left Pothia on Kalimnos for instance. After a gusty night on anchor watch, we set off to head round the west of Kos bound for Nisyros. The meltemi was blowing 20-25 knots, but the gusts off the hills as we left Pothia had the wind instruments leaping to 40 knots. It actually never occurred to us to turn back as with our stern to the wind and a bit of jib out the boat wasn't overpressed, especially once we got beyond range of the gusts. Later we had a 3 metre high following swell and below decks got to look a bit like a car crash with books, tools and papers flying about. Thankfully our trusty Aries did all the steering for us, or we wouldn't have coped. We were pretty tired by the time we surfed round the newly extended breakwater into Paloi harbour on Nisyros 32 miles later. We tied up beside a Russian boat whose skipper clearly thought we were either very brave or very stupid to have been out. We were lucky to find a space as the harbour was packed with boats that had opted to sit out the wind in harbour - I wonder why?

Our Italian friends Neil and Erica had told us we must go to Nisyros. They used Paloi as their cruising base last summer. On their advice, we sought out Mike at Eagle's Nest who hired us a scooter for the day to go and see the island's dormant volcano.

When the crater attendant saw we had one of Mike's bikes, he said, "I am Mike's second cousin, so you are family. If you want anything just ask me!" It's a short but smelly climb down from the crater rim to the floor. We could have done with gas masks.

Fiumeroles belch out sulphurous steam and superheated mud bubbles in the cracks. Everywhere we heard the disturbing sound of liquid boiling below the surface.

Leighton's postcard to his nephew Alex and the real deal

Besides attracting loads of daytrippers from Kos, the volcano has produced a bonanza for the island in the form of Yiali, an offshore outcrop of pumice which is quarried to fill the municipal coffers. Later we had an bird's eye view of the crater from the St John the Evangelist monastery and the hilltop village of Nikia, which regularly features as one of Greece's loveliest villages.

The hilltop village of Nikia overlooking the crater

We ate tender roast goat for lunch there on a terrace overlooking the sea, swam among black basalt rocks at Avlaki afterwards, and finally ended our tour of the island at the Palaiokastro, a massive 8th century BC fortress made of giant polygonal stones.

Palaiocastro, Nisyros

We can see what Neil and Erica liked about Paloi. The harbour is small with a handful of the usual pretty whitewashed houses along the waterfront. We are bows-to the quay facing the Aphrodite and Ellinis tavernas. There's a baker and minimarket and we have electricity and wifi.


Paloi Harbour

For the moment it's quiet without anchor dramas, although that could change when the charter boats arrive later from Kos. From here we're heading east which will take us off the main track of the meltemi. There's not a breath of wind out there today, and it's not looking like there'll be enough for us to sail tomorrow either. It may be some time before we get a good day of downwind sailing again.

Home Again

2011-08-17T12:11:00.000+01:00

Lakki harbour, Leros - 16th August

Over the last month sailing has taken a bit of a back seat in favour of family visits, here and in England. We're not sure where the time went. Cathy's sister Fiona and her children Tommy and Rosie arrived in Skala on Patmos on 14th July to join us for a week's sailing to Arki, Lipsoi then Leros. As usual when they come, we went in the search of different places to relax, swim and snorkel every day.

Sunbathing at anchor at Archangel Island

Rosie wins at Rummikub

Having two growing teenagers and all their kit onboard makes Makarma seem rather cramped, but we made out OK.

Tommy sleeps late in the cockpit

After they left, we berthed the boat in Leros marina. Two days of repairs and cleaning later we flew from Kos to Bristol for the family get-together of the year - Cathy's parents' Diamond wedding party. We'd timed our arrival a week beforehand to help get everything ready for the big event - a sit-down lunch for 100 in a marquee at Fairview. Leighton decorated the tent with Makarma's dress flags, Cathy did flowers and earned her merit badge for diplomacy putting together a seating plan for the guests. The four daughters compiled an album of photos which told the story of their parents' sixty years together.

Cathy with her parents and sisters

Proud mum with Honor

We packed a lot more into our trip as well. Cathy signed a contract with a literary agent who'll help get her book published; we wound up our consulting company after 15 years of trading; we met Edd's Italian girlfriend Elena for the first time - a big hit; Leighton rebuilt a breezeblock wall, repaired the kitchen lights and Cathy made 25 pots of plum jam!

Eating pizza by the metre with Edd and Elena

Before we left we'd dreaded the prospect of keeping to a tight schedule and the horror of wearing proper shoes, but we were lavishly looked after by family and friends (our thanks to Marion and Brian/Liz and Andrew), and the lush greenery of Devon in summer was a feast for the eyes after the parched Aegean islands.

But we were pleased to get home to Makarma on Sunday and have our life back again. Today we've left the marina to anchor in the harbour at Lakki. We've topped up with water, fuel and food. We're even flying a new CA burgee. Tomorrow we're heading south to Kos, then Symi - can't wait!

Makarma goes walkabout

2011-07-13T11:27:00.000+01:00

11th July, Grikos, Patmos

It was supposed to be a quiet Sunday lunch at the waterfront taverna.

Spiros, the taverna's resident pet

We've just finished our chilled watermelon and we're preparing to spend a leisurely afternoon watching the world go by, when we notice something odd about Makarma, anchored out in the bay. Her bow is falling off the wind but is not being pulled back up again by the anchor chain. Her anchor can't be dragging, can it?

As we watch in mounting horror, she drifts off in the gusty breeze trailing the anchor and 40 metres of chain. She is soon picking up speed across the bay. Oh my god! Leighton throws some money on the table and we sprint for the dinghy to race after her. Makarma meanwhile narrowly misses a large motorboat and is sliding sideways towards the bows of an Australian sailing boat.

Our progress in the dinghy feels agonisingly slow as we watch the drama unfold. We're helpless to do anything about the inevitable collision. Come on, we urge the outboard. This is the moment we're starting to regret exchanging our old 10hp engine for a sluggish 2.5hp.

By the time we reach her, Makarma is pinned on the bow of the yacht with our man-overboard A-frame caught in its pulpit. A guy from the motorboat is using his tender as a tug, trying to push us off. Back onboard at last, we help the yacht's owner disentangle us from his bow and Leighton gets the engine started in record time to reverse us out of harm's way.

After we get re-anchored and the adrenalin's stopped pumping we wonder how on earth it happened. We have huge confidence in our 20kg Bugel which doesn't usually let us down. This time we've been anchored here for three days in strong wind and we've checked every day that our anchor is still well dug in. The only possible explanation we could come up with was a boat anchored very close to us left while we were ashore and disturbed our anchor.

Whatever the reason, the incident has a happy outcome. When Leighton went over to apologise to the Aussies and check they were OK they generously invite us over. Mike and Sue on Skedaddle Again, who we'd - literally! - bumped into have no hard feelings. To our relief, no damage has been done to either boat either. Although we wouldn't choose to meet people this way, we're glad we have.

At anchor as she should be

Revelations - Patmos 4th July

2011-07-05T06:47:00.000+01:00

Skala, Patmos - 4th July

Today marks the date five years ago when we sailed from Plymouth at the start of our journey to the Med. We've come a long way - in many senses. On the day we arrived here in Skala, we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary as well.


Still together!

We reckon that it's quite an achievement to stay together when you're living together in a 40 foot box. We may have had some low points, but on balance we've had some of the happiest days of our lives onboard and we have no regrets about doing what we're doing. What's more, we're collecting some amazing experiences to remember in years to come.

It seems fitting that we went to visit the cave where St John had his vision of the Apocalypse. He's the reason that Patmos is on the tourist trail. Cruise liners bring them in by the thousands. By a lucky stroke, a service was in progress when we entered the little chapel enclosing the cave, and the priest blessed us with holy water flicked from a bunch of wet parsley.

The chapel at Profitis Ilias

One lunchtime we stopped for a drink at a taverna and got talking to two ladies who were decorating the poles holding up the awning over our heads. It turned out that one of them lives in Florida but spends three months a year for the last ten years volunteering at a local farm owned by the church. Joy (or Hara in Greek) invited us to drop by the farm at Kalogiro. Inspired by her story, we did.

Kalogiro is a small farm lying in a fertile valley that runs down to the beach on the northwest coast of the island. Hara was hoeing when we arrived but stopped to show us around. Aubergine, peppers, tomatoes and watermelons were growing in the fields; we saw apricot, fig and pomegranate trees; and stooks of oats were piled up ready for winnowing in a traditional threshing circle. There was grazing for goats, a cow and some mules.

At its heart stood a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Tenant farmers Nikolas and Kristina live with their family in the old monks' cells. The place has an in-tune-with-the-seasons quality, a place that's far removed from worldly pressures. No surprise then that Hara has a calm grace about her - a living example of taking things slowly.

However it may not last. Hara told us this year the monastery tried to evict the farmers. They've been granted a two-year reprieve. She may yet turn out to be their best defence - she fund-raises for charities back in US, and would get backing to save it if it's threatened again. We wish them well.

Mainstream Meltemi

2011-06-28T08:10:00.000+01:00

Port Augusta, Arki - 26th June

You don't see too many trees about on the islands of the Aegean, and those that you do see grow at an extreme angle, leaning away from the wind. If you sail around these parts you soon know the reason why - it's all down to the meltemi, the summer north wind that sailors treat with great respect.

The meltemi blows at the boundary between high pressure over the Balkans and low pressure over Asia Minor. It blows on and off from the end of June until the end of September from between a northeasterly and northwesterly direction.

This summer wind is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it takes the edge off the summer heat, and gives our windgen (which we call Moaning Minnie for the noise it makes) the chance to top up the batteries. And its reliable direction allowed early sailors to navigate the Mediterranean and by a magical process of cross fertilisation between different cultures, laid the foundations of our western civilisation.

A curse because it blows hard - anything up to gale force - night and day without let-up so there's no respite when you want to sleep at night. It sucks all the moisture out of the air and one's skin. Anything not tied down on deck goes flying. And it kicks up a vicious sea making sailing a bit of an ordeal even if you're going with it downwind.

The Dodecanese islands are bang in the fast lane of the meltemi. It is blowing 35 knots of wind over Arki at the moment and will keep it up until tomorrow evening. We managed to get a space on the small quay in Port Augusta when we arrived on Friday and we're sitting it out along with the eight other boats here.

Not that staying on the island is any hardship as Arki is our ideal sort of place.

It has only 42 permanent residents, no cars and no direct ferries from any international airport, so few visitors make it here apart from a few sailing boats. It is simple and unpretentious, and the harbour square where everyone hangs out is a leisurely, friendly place with shady terraces for a drink or a meal.

We've scored two firsts while we've been here. Yesterday we saw several rabbits when we walked across the hills. This wouldn't normally be remarkable except they are the first rabbits we've ever seen anywhere in Greece - the Greeks tend to shoot all edible wildlife for the pot. And much to Leighton's excitement he discovered some clay amphorae embedded into a rocky ledge underwater when he was snorkelling. It's not too difficult to imagine that they are all that's left of the cargo of an ancient ship which was wrecked on these shores in the meltemi thousands of years ago.

This little cormorant fishes regularly around the boat

Reaching our limit

2011-06-25T15:46:00.000+01:00

Pythagorean Harbour, Samos - 23rd June

Reaching our limit – or to put it more positively – our first milestone

We've reached the top of the hill which we began climbing when we left Crete. From now on it'll be downhill back through the Dodecanese islands to Turkey – in the sailing sense, at least. The island of Samos is as far north as we will go this season. We arrived just in time as the very next day the meltemi – the summer north wind - arrived with a vengeance, which would make it a huge effort to go any further north. As it is, we've found it hard work going to windward all this way.

It was a wrench leaving Partheni on Leros but we wanted to make the most of a fair wind to head north. We hoped to get to Agathonisi, but the morning wind was contrary to the forecast so we aimed for Lipsoi instead. Fierce gusts spoiled our lunchtime anchorage there, so we opted to go back to Partheni instead. But once we'd got the sails up again it was clear the wind was now good for Agathonisi after all. Time for yet another change of plan. With the big swell and a gusty F5 we put two reefs in the main and closehauled 17 miles in just under three hours, to arrive salt-encrusted in Agathonisi harbour in time for supper.

We anchored beyond the ferry quay just off the beach with a view of this taverna. Apart from a gusty first night, we enjoyed our stay. It's a quiet, slow-paced sort of place with few visitors. There are a handful of rooms for rent and three harbour-front tavernas. Not much else. We had a hot walk one afternoon to the hilltop chora for a fantastic view of the islands and the Turkish coast. One evening, Anne and Tony on Argosea arrived from Samos and invited us over for a succulent roast lamb dinner. With a faulty solenoid on their autopilot, they face the unenviable task of hand steering all the way back down to Crete.

Pythagoras the mathematician was a native of Samos. There's a fine statue of him overlooking the harbour.
As well as coming up with his theorem about right-angle triangles he also invented a wine-cup which empties out if you overfill it. In classical times the attitude was moderation in all things. It's a good metaphor today for respecting our limits – not just with a drink but with all resources. Ever inventive, Leighton thought he could adapt the cup idea for a flushing toilet!

Another prominent denizen of Samos was the tyrant Polycrates, who wouldn't let limits stop him. He was responsible for constructing three of the wonders of the ancient world here in Samos – the harbour breakwater at Pythagorean, a 1,042 metre long tunnel through the mountain to bring water from the other side of the island, and the Temple to Hera, a monumental building four times the size of the Parthenon.

The last remaining column at Temple of Hera - there were 188 of them!

Polycrates's Efpalinion tunnel and water conduit

The entrance to the tunnel

Polycrates may have enclosed the harbour at Pythagorean, but he couldn't do anything about the fierce gusts that barrel down into the anchorage here. The wind turbines on the hill give us a clue about how strong the wind is here. Our anchor is well hooked but it doesn't make for a relaxing stay. With a meltemi gale forecast for the weekend, we've resupplied with food and water and we're off to find a more sheltered bolthole to sit it out.

The Perfect Anchorage

2011-06-14T12:59:00.000+01:00

Ormos Partheni, Leros - 14th June

If I was making a list of our top ten anchorages, where we are now at Ormos Partheni would be on it.

Partheni is a smallish dog-leg bay on the north end of Leros. It isn't exactly pretty or convenient but we don't mind that. There's a small village ashore with no shops. There's a boatyard beside a small airport that offers a daily flight to Athens, a freighter has sunk against a concrete quay and a military base is tucked out of sight behind the hill.

The key thing for us is that it meets all our criteria for a perfect anchorage. These are simple. We don't want to see the open sea; it should give us good all-round shelter if the wind direction changes; and no swell should get in to make us roll. Oh, and it has to be good solid holding so we won't drag our anchor. I can't think of a better place to be when it's blowing hard outside as it is today.

And other anchorages that would make my list? I'd have to include Vliho Bay, Lefkada; Valtou Bay just north of Igoumenitsa; Ftelia on the Greece/Albania border; Porto Heli on the Peloponnese; Vathi on Astipalaia; Spinalonga lagoon, Crete.

Honor's Visit

2011-06-13T09:31:00.000+01:00

Lakki, Leros - 11th June

There's an Hons-shaped hole on the boat now that she's gone back to Leeds, taking with her a bit of a tan and a rash of prickly heat. Cathy's daughter has left us with some wonderful memories and an emergency supply of teabags and j-cloths. It seems very empty without her.

Considering Honor doesn't much like roughing it, she coped remarkably well last week. We were amazed she came out at all given that on her last visit (it was to Dartmouth six years ago!) it hosed with rain the whole time; her sleeping bag got soaked as the forepeak hatch leaked and - the greatest indignity - a seagull shat on her head.

We were hoping it would go better this time to show her you can actually enjoy yourself on a boat even if sailing on Makarma doesn't quite have the glamour that 'yachting in the Med' conjures up. We decided on a soft start in Kos marina with a day strolling round the old town and sunbathing beside the pool of a local hotel. Then we made our way in short hops up to Leros taking in a few island anchorages on the way. We managed to sail most of the way despite unfavourable winds, although we spent quite a bit of time tacking backwards and forwards making slow progress to windward.

Honor made gentle fun of our constant monitoring of the batteries and the temperature in the fridge, then caught herself doing it too. She got quite handy pulling on ropes and we got to rely on her acting as relay between the bow and the stern when anchoring.

We swam every day, showered in strange places, ate chewy octopus in a taverna on the beach and saw a couple of dolphins. The sun shone every day. Generally we had a great time and enjoyed her company.

We saw her off on the fast catamaran to Kos from Aghia Marina on Leros yesterday. We'll miss her.

Basil on board

2011-06-13T07:35:00.001+01:00

Kos, 4th June
Over the winter we looked after our neighbour's herb planter while they were away, and as a thank-you gift they gave us a young basil plant. As it happened I had already bought a pot of the small leafed variety of basil from the market. So Leighton has built me a small basil garden on the stern rail to house them both.

Basil grows in pots everywhere in Greece. The common variety here has a small leaf and is very fragrant.
The Greeks don't tend to use it in cooking, but to bring good luck and to ward off insects. It is associated with St Vasily, who is the Greek Santa Claus, so you always see large clumps of the stuff growing outside churches.

Basil isn't terribly happy in salty conditions, so my little plants aren't growing as quickly as they should, but I've realised they say something about us as liveaboards. Most cruising boats have a basil plant or two on board. It goes with a settled, permanent presence onboard, and a certain outlook on life. We find we get on with people who sail in boats that grow things.

The watchword for BOBs, or 'basil on boards' is 'seega', the Greek word for 'slowly'. We think slowing down has much to recommend it and we are lucky to be able to do it. We have no deadlines, no schedule. We don't have to rush about from here to there to cram in as much as we can in a fortnight's holiday. We linger and explore our surroundings. If we like somewhere, we stay a while. If not, we move on.

We seek out boats that have basil plants growing on them and enjoy their company for a while. Every morning when I water the basil I run my hand over the leaves and breathe in that wonderful aroma and remind myself - seega, seega!

Our first summer visitors

2011-06-01T12:01:00.001+01:00

We love having people to stay onboard, even if it means a mad scramble to clear all our junk out of the forepeak to make room for them. We love catching up with news from home and giving people a taste of the idyllic (mostly - see below!) way we live. Over the last week we have been joined by our first visitors of the year, Cathy's sister Marion and her husband John from Cumbria.

The family arrives on the ferry from Kos to Pothia

Waiting for our visitors on the new yacht quay in Pothia harbour

With very little wind about, we haven't gone far. We started in Pothia, Kalymnos. On the first day we found enough wind to sail closehauled up to Telendhos island where we anchored for the night.

A view of Telendhos Island and west coast of Kalymnos

The next day saw us go all of 3 miles to Emborios, where we picked up one of the mooring buoys in the bay. We ate ashore that night in the loveliest garden we've seen in Greece belonging to Harry's restaurant. A glorious meal in a stunning setting.

The next couple of days were showery - humid with no wind. We spent one night at the new Leros marina, another anchored off the tiny harbour at Pandeli underneath the old fort and a row of disused windmills on the hill.

Pandeli on Leros

John is an accomplished woodworker and brought out with him a sapele 'eyebrow' which he'd made to cover the throttle lever in the cockpit. Countless times people have knocked into it, making the engine rev up or down. No longer. It is a beautiful piece of work and a generous present.

On the last full day of their visit, we had a fair wind for the first time in the week. Instead of sailing the short hop back to Pothia, we decided to make the most of it and keep going to Kos marina. As our delightful beam reach brought us closer to Kos island, the horizon ahead darkened. Just as we were approaching the shallows off Ammoglossa point, the wind changed direction to come at us bang on the nose. We got the sails down just as the storm broke over us. Our progress slowed to half a knot in the 35 knot headwind and it took a long while for us to clear the shallows far enough to bear away towards Kos town. Then the heavens opened and visibility reduced down to less than a mile. Poor Leighton and John got soaked in the cockpit. Marion retired to her bunk and Cathy navigated the way in from down below.

We had phoned ahead for a berth at Kos marina (thanks for the tip, Lindsay!) so the marinero came out to lead us in ahead of two other boats milling about outside the breakwater. It'll certainly give our visitors something to talk about when they get home!


We'll miss the extra help on the helm!

Troubled waters - Cruising partnerships

2011-06-01T11:44:00.000+01:00

Recently I came across a post by an English guy on one of the sailing forums asking if any sailors would trade in their present partner if they found one who was a better sailor.

What a cheek! Once I got over the urge to find this male chauvinist and scuttle his boat, I felt I ought to stand up for women cruisers everywhere. Most of us have left a comfortable home, family and friends to travel the world with our partner in - let's face it - not the quickest and most comfortable way there is.

We may not all be like Ellen Macarthur, but we don't cower in the corner when the boat heels, we don't moan when the weather stops us going where we want to go, we cook hearty meals in rough seas without throwing up, we wear the same clothes for days on end and skimp on showers to save water. Generally we cope pretty well, I think.

The trouble is, sailing is inherently hierarchical. There's a skipper who takes charge and a mate who takes orders. That wasn't a problem in the old days - the skipper would always be the bloke. In this post-feminist age, nine times out of ten, it is still the bloke. What's going on?

Even if we've had successful careers ashore, we women are happy to stick with the domestic stuff and leave anything stressful like berthing or reefing to our partner. Partly out of lack of confidence and physical strength, partly to avoid getting shouted at. One of the most common off-putting experiences for women is seeing one's partner/husband turn into a red-faced, bullying Captain Bligh figure. There are still plenty of them about.

I asked some cruising friends for their thoughts. 'I have become a domestic goddess,' observes Anne, who used to hold a high-powered job in education. Round the world cruiser Julia plays down her role by saying, 'I am not a sailor. I love a sailor.' A number of women told me, 'I'm in charge ashore, but I defer to my husband while we're at sea.'

A woman's work is never done.......

How does it work for us? We have no secret formula. We joke that Leighton's the skipper, but I'm the admiral. To be honest, we muddle along trusting in each other's ability, although we've been known to lose it and shout at each other from time to time. Leighton keeps the engine running and fixes things that break. He climbs to the top of the mast. He pulls up the anchor and hoists the sails. If it gets rough or windy, he takes over so I can go below. I do the navigation, canvas work, washing, cleaning, painting, varnishing. We both do the shopping and take it in turns to cook. We both do our fair share of sailing the boat with the rule that whoever's hand is on the tiller is the skipper.

Leighton will give his take on how we work together in another blogpost!!

Cruising Essentials Old & New

2011-05-22T08:23:00.000+01:00

Pothia, Kalimnos - 20th May

Leaving aside the boat's electronic gizmos, each of us has favourite bits of kit onboard that we use day in day out. Leighton has two - an orange handled screwdriver with interchangeable heads and his Feinmaster multitool.

My latest cruising essential is a predictable old favourite, and the other is fast becoming the must-have for all cruising folk who enjoy a bit of reading. Both are so useful that I would go so far to say that if the boat were sinking I'd rush back and rescue them.

First up, that old cruising stalwart, the pressure cooker. I was always put off by those terrifying stories of pressure cookers exploding and refused to have one until now. Since many cruisers swear by them I changed my mind and bought a six litre stainless steel one the other day. I reckon it'll be perfect for quick, comforting meals on long passages. It conjures up in my mind the era of good old-fashioned home cooking, of making do and mending. The first all-in-one stew we cooked in it took me back to the plain, nourishing fare we used to get for lunch at school.

Since then I've been gathering some more inspiring recipes from our neighbours. Dishes like chicken korma, cassoulet and risotto. Did you know you can bung in a whole octopus and it'll come out really tender after 10 minutes? I'm going to love it.

The second was an instant hit when Leighton gave it to me last Christmas. My Kindle.

What a wonderful piece of technology. I'm over the moon with it. I will never have to worry about running short of something to read ever again. No more reading mindless rubbish from book swaps out of sheer desperation because there's nothing else available. No more asking family to lug out loads of new books for me when they visit. I have everything I need right here on my Kindle. It is scarily easy to order another e-book online from Amazon's Kindle store, and there are loads of free reads about. Best of all - they take up no room at all on the bookshelf. Leighton's a fan now too - he's got one as well.

Farewell to Crete - from Astypalaia 12th May

2011-05-13T18:51:00.000+01:00

Sailing away from Crete is a losing game, but we have to do it. It's almost always upwind and the best you can hope for is not too much wind and swell and that the forecast turns out to be right.

We've just spent a gusty three days anchored in Spinalonga lagoon off the tourist town of Elounda. It's been fun to have Meanderer and Pacific Star close by and we made the most of the lulls in the wind to visit each other's boats. On Sunday we hotfooted it back to Aghios Nikolaos in time for one last BBQ, ready to collect our new liferaft off the Athens ferry early Monday morning (thanks Vernon!).

Leighton unpacking our new liferaft

There's a 24 hour weather window on Tuesday evening and we’re going for it to make passage to Astypalaia, some 95 miles NNE. At 1800 on Tuesday we get a noisy send off from the remaining live-aboards blaring hooters and foghorns to wish us on our way. We're going in company with Tony and Anne on Argosea (in a 47' Moody, they'll go much faster than us). At first we sail closehauled in a light breeze until around midnight the wind goes ahead and we motorsail on into the northerly swell, which slows our progress down.

It is sobering to think that 70 years ago this month Cathy's father was out in this bit of sea serving as a 17 year old midshipman on HMS Kingston, taking part in the naval battle for Crete. Without air cover the warships were constantly at the mercy of Luftwaffe divebombers and many were sunk with considerable loss of young lives. The Kingston was hit but came out of it safely. Cathy's father was one of the lucky ones.

Next morning finds us still 40 miles away from landfall and the pressure's dropping. The fine sunrise shows bad weather's on the way.

As we approach the island the wind freshens from the north. This puts Vathi our intended destination bang on the nose. So we tell Argosea we won't be joining them and check away to Maltezana on the south of the island. We anchor in the bay in a rainstorm.

Today we realise we've snagged our anchor in a mooring chain on the seabed. On the plus side, for the next three days of 30+ knot winds we're not likely to drag, but Leighton's not excited about having to dive down and extricate it before we can leave. Ah well, we won't have to do anchor watch in the meantime.

Crete in Spring

2011-05-07T07:29:00.000+01:00

When you think of Crete in the spring, you think of wild flowers. They have been especially good this year because of the wetter than usual winter. The bees have been out in force making the most of it.

These are some of the flowers that we've seen on our walks.

We've roamed widely with Anne Bouras's indispensable 'Circular walks in East Crete' as our guide. We've gone on the regular marina group Thursday walks too - sometimes the demanding ones led by Robin and sometimes the gentle ones with Hilary and Ann.

We've walked along Minoan trails that are several thousand years old; we've followed donkey paths and irrigation leats through the aromatic scrub; walked up the riverbed of gorges that cut deep clefts in the landscape - all the time keeping an eye open for killer goats that might dislodge rocks far above our heads.

Taking the aquaduct across a gulley

The riverbed in the Kritsa gorge

Chain Reaction

2011-04-29T09:25:00.000+01:00

Aghios Nikolaos 29th April

There's an old saying in the Royal Navy, 'if it moves salute it; if it doesn't paint it.' It's a constant battle onboard to stop things from corroding. Painting is one way. Prevention with a regular spray of WD40 is another. But what do you do when your anchor chain gets rusty and starts messing up your deck like this?

The answer has been a bit of a running saga this winter. Leighton spent some time browsing metalshop chat rooms on the Internet, populated as far as I could see by good ole boys and characters that looked like Z.Z. Top. He found out how to get rid of rust by soaking the offending bits in molasses. 'Oh yeah?' I hear you say. 'How's that ever going to work?' It was the same reaction from cruisers here too. Leighton insisted the molasses chelates the rust out of the chain and leaves it clean, so he wanted to try it out.

As it happened we'd also got hold of some free samples of a non-toxic liquid called Metal Rescue that apparently does the same trick, but quicker. So we decided to do a bit of an experiment and compare the two.

To a great deal of scepticism on the pontoon, we filled an olive pickling barrel with 10:1 water and molasses and put all the chain we could fit into it - about 45 metres. Chelating isn't an overnight process, so we sat back and left it to brew for one month. The smell of fermenting sugar which filtered out through the lid led us to believe that maybe something was happening inside.

We treated the rest of the chain in a bucket of Metal Rescue. This only takes 24 hours to work, so we left it to soak in the brew a short length at a time.

And the result? To no-one's great surprise the opening of the olive barrel was a bit of an anticlimax. We still have a rusty anchor chain. Not as bad as before, but it still has quite a bit of rust on it in places. The Metal Rescue did a better job. It cleaned up small items really well, but the 5 litres we had couldn't cope with the amount of chain we had. It would probably work if you used enough of it, but it isn't cheap and the cost would go quite a long way to paying for a new chain.

We've not given up on it yet - other cruisers have told us their tricks for dealing with the problem that we can try, like dragging the chain along behind us over a sandy sea bed; turning it end to end; re-galvanising it. And if all else fails we can buy a new one!

A Shot across the Bows - Aghios Nikolaos 23rd April

2011-04-23T08:42:00.001+01:00

If you're looking for a gentle cruising ground, you don't come to Crete. It is pretty windy here much of the time and there are not many secure harbours and anchorages along the north coast, and almost none on the south coast. But the marina here in Aghios is a good place to overwinter - the price is reasonable; showers and laundry facilities are excellent; the town is on the doorstep; and there's a good liveaboard community. But book ahead - don't turn up on spec and expect to get a winter berth.

View from the marina of snow on the mountains

This winter we've had two big storms bringing gales and icy rain, and snow fell on the tops of the mountains. In the marina here at Aghios some boats broke mooring lines, others sustained minor damage, and the sea-scout hut got blown down.

The damaged scout hut

Hail lying on our decks

When we drove up to Kritsa to see the snow for ourselves, we copied Greek drivers and made a snowman against the windscreen of our car - it seemed to be common practice but made seeing out tricky!

Sheep looking for shelter from the snow in December

We've stayed safe in our berth, but the pontoons are laid out so that the prevailing winds (NW or S) blow beam on either one side of the boat or the other. It makes for exciting berthing. When we get strong southerlies the wind howls in everyone's rigging making sleep elusive. In northwesterlies a tiresome surge gets up in the marina, making the pontoons and boats lurch uncomfortably backwards and forwards. Apart from being annoying, it makes getting on and off the boat a bit of a balancing act - and try woodworking when what you're cutting is moving about!

Sailors say that Crete is easy to get to but very hard to leave. You might think it has something to do with the island's undoubted attractions, but what they actually mean is the prevailing NNW wind, the dreaded meltemi, makes it an easy downwind sail to get here but a bash upwind to sail off again - especially when it blows strongly in the summer. So yachts tend to leave here by May or they run the risk of getting stuck. At the other end of the scale there are some sailors who decide to stay here for good because they fall in love with the place. They buy a house or an olive grove and put their boat up for sale. After enjoying a day's hospitality from Roger and Birgitta sitting beside their infinity pool, we can understand why they've settled here, but it isn't for us, however tempting.

The view from Roger & Birgitta's house

We planned to leave Aghios before Easter. But we've just had the sort of wake-up call that everyone with elderly parents will understand. We learned Cathy's mother has suffered a minor stroke. She is now back from hospital and is undergoing physiotherapy at home. She is making good progress towards recovery. We think it's better to stay where we are for a while because we can leave the boat safely here in case Cathy has to fly home to help look after for her. We'll take each day as it comes in the meantime. Let's hope we can get going before the meltemi makes getting to the Dodecanese a long slog to windward.

Winter in Crete

2011-04-17T11:28:00.000+01:00

Aghios Nikolaos 14th April

Hello again everyone! Yes, I know it's nearly Easter and this is the first time we've added to our blog in 2011. We have some catching up to do, so I will try to summarise what we've been up to while we've been here in Crete.

If last season's cruising was all about places, this winter has been all about people - making new friends, joining in social events and being a part of the small liveaboard community here in the marina which is predominantly made up of English with a few Swiss and German sailors. We've also made friends with a few of the expat locals.

There's a communal BBQ every Sunday; a boules tournament on the beach every Wednesday; and walks often followed by raki and mezedes at the Two Brothers taverna on Thursdays. Somehow we've fitted in twice weekly Greek conversation lessons with Stratos and all the usual boat maintenance as well. Oh, and Cathy has published her book Paulina Annenkova on Amazon!

Making friends on the pontoon

A taverna stop on one of our walks

Greek conversation lessons with Stratos

The Rainbow Choir concert

Leighton, Clare and Alois on Schironn B for the New Year's Eve party

Molly helps celebrate Leighton's 65th Birthday - New Year's Eve

We've not missed out on exploring the island either as we've had a third share in a hire car for most of the time we've been here. Crete is a beautiful island with magnificent scenery. It is mostly mountainous but lots of different wild flowers (anemones; orchids; ox-eye daisies; vetch; daphne; asphodel; sage and thyme to name a few) bloom all through the winter and into spring and bring colour to the landscape. Winter in Crete is like early summer at home - lush green everywhere - with abundant harvests of olives; oranges; spinach-like horta; avocados; artichokes, etc. etc.

We are big fans of the legend of the Minotaur. This is from our visit to Knossos.

Bull jumper fresco from Knossos

Bull Jumper fresco from Knossos

Palace at Knossos

We've seen the olive pickers harvest their crop, walked up dramatic rocky gorges; followed Minoan trails several thousand years old across the hills; and hunted for fossils and shards of Minoan pottery (is that inscription Linear B, or does it say 'made in Taiwan'?). A highlight of the winter was a visit to Chania and learning about the Battle for Crete (which took place 70 years ago this May) in which Cathy's father played a significant part as a midshipman in HMS Kingston. Here are some of the sights:

Indiana Jones tracks down that elusive Minoan clay tablet

Looking down towards the Libyan Sea

Do we have to climb up there?

The oldest olive tree in Crete - 3,000 years old


On top of the world - beat that!

28th October - Agios Nikolaos, Crete

2010-10-28T12:11:00.000+01:00

At last we’re safely settled in our winter berth in Agios Nikolaos marina on the northeast coast of Crete.

Judging by the warm welcome we got from the other over-wintering folk when we met them at the regular Sunday BBQ yesterday, we think we’re going to like it here.

In Vlikhada marina on Santorini we soon got fed up with the suspense of not knowing when a weather window would open to get us the last 75 miles to Crete. Our mood wasn’t helped by the fact that the marina entrance there is open to the southeast, the direction of the wind and swell. Finally, the wind went round westerly one night. All night the swell was crashing over the seawall onto us, drenching the deck with seawater, but the wind direction was good to sail south to Crete.

We set off mid-morning into a swell big enough that we had to put our harnesses on for safety. Everything that wasn’t well stowed down below went flying about as we lurched and rolled all over the place. The wind let us sail for 10 miles or so, but then it fell too light to fill the sails in the rough sea. So the engine went on and stayed on until we reached Crete. At least the swell eased until we were purring along in almost calm water by the end of it.

We made landfall at Ag Ioannis Point at midnight and decided to anchor for the night in Spinalonga lagoon just around the corner. We inched in on the chartplotter in the dark and dropped the hook in a small inlet half way down the lagoon. A blessed silence fell when we stopped the engine.

When we woke next morning we found ourselves in an idyllic bay under a rocky hill with the town of Elounda on the far shore. At the entrance to the lagoon stands a rocky island enclosed by massive Venetian fortress walls. If you’ve read Victoria Hislop’s novel ‘The Island’ you’ll know all about Spinalonga island and its poignant history as a leper colony until 1957 when a cure for the disease was found. Its sick inhabitants were sent here and forced to stay until they died or recovered. The little landing stage and the arched gateway into the fort are a grim reminder that for most of those who arrived here, there was no way out. Nowadays the island is deserted and visited only by tourists but it still has a desolate air, even on a sunny day.

This is our last blog entry for 2010. We are looking forward to being shore-based for a while, to making new friends, to exploring the island’s ancient sites and beautiful countryside……and to going home to Devon to visit friends and family. Goodbye for now, and see you in the spring!

14 October - Naxos to Santorini

2010-10-20T15:04:00.010+01:00

NAXOS – OUR VISITORS DEPART

After Brian and Marion's departure (2nd of October) on the Blue Star ferry to Athens to catch their flight to the UK - the Aegean weather decided to get rough. It started with a distinct change in the wind from "breezy" to "blustery". The temperature dropped and winds were either too strong or from the wrong direction to continue our journey towards Crete.

With only a tantalising 116 nm to go, we were starting to wonder if the Aegean weather was going to cooperate. In the end it would be a total of ten days before Makarma could finally leave Naxos.

“THE MOST DANGEROUS EQUIPMENT ON A SAILBOAT IS A CALENDAR”

One morning at 06.30 we were brought out on deck by a loud thump and our Swiss neighbour swearing in German! A 54 foot charter boat trying to leave the harbour had lost control in the wind and was blown sideways on to our quay and across four boats. Luckily we were spared damage by being a few inches shorter than our neighbours on either side.

The Aegean weather conditions can prove dangerous for inexperienced crews trying to get their charter boats back to base to avoid payment of additional “late return” fees.

The strong winds also wreaked a bit of havoc on land as well, cutting off the Naxos electricity supply - the marina was without electricity for a while but we were able to keep Makarma’s lights on using our solar panels and batteries.

A LUCKY BREAK?

Our fresh water pump sprung a leak while we were waiting out the weather. We carry 750 litres of fresh water onboard. It is a pressurized system so if the cracked plastic coupling had completely ruptured it would have pumped all our fresh water into the bilge!

Water in the islands is very precious. We replaced the faulty coupling with a metal one and grafted on an external one-way valve that will get us to Crete. Ho hum, I was looking forward to having to ‘survive’ by drinking beer from the stores cupboard…

THE RUN FOR MIRSINI (SKHINOUSA ISLAND)

After ten frustrating days in Naxos the wind eased and went westerly enough to allow us to make a move at last. Our objective was a small anchorage in the harbour at Mirsini on the island of Skhinousa, south east of Naxos.

As the only boat at anchor in Mirsini we had a wonderfully peaceful night although we were somewhat surprised when this very large Blue Star ferry arrived at the harbour’s tiny quay to drop off passengers early in the following morning!

PASSAGE TO SANTORINI

The strategy of moving to an island southeast of Naxos paid off as the next day’s easterly wind allowed us to sail close hauled for Santorini.

[Approaching the volcanic island of Santorini]

Santorini (or Nisos Thira as it is called by the locals) is unique. The “island” is actually the rim of an active volcano. The caldera is some 10 km in diameter! The caldera is too deep to anchor in (unless you have a thousand feet of chain on board) – so we headed for the south tip of the island and Vlikhada Marina. The winds favoured sailing down the east side of Santorini and under the site of the ancient city of Thira.

[Vlikhada Marina on the south end of Santorini]

Aside from the approach to the harbour being complicated and poorly marked, the entrance to Vlikhada marina silts up and it was uncertain that Makarma with her 2m draft would be able to get in. With Cathy conning on the bow, we managed to negotiate the sandbar with less than 2 inches of water under the keel! Great fun after a long journey.

The weather window for sailing onwards to Crete closed shortly after we arrived. It again looked as if it would be several days before we could sail again, so we decided to hire a car and explore the island.

The edge of the Santorini caldera rises almost vertically 1000 feet out of the sea and is just as deep under the water. The view over the edge from another ten feet forward…

The landscape of Santorini is a very stark – scorched earth, black sand beaches, and vertical drops down into the caldera. Horizontal bands of black volcanic rock mark the past history of violent eruptions.

This is looking out toward the centre of the caldera. The closest island is Palea Kameni (Old Kameni) and in the distance is Nea Kameni (New Kameni). As the names suggest, Nea Kameni is the latest island to appear from volcanic eruptions. These “islands” are actually cooled lava plugs that are capping the core of the volcano.

Very large cruise ships hold on-station (too deep to anchor) while tenders shuttle the tourists ashore at the base of the main town of Thira (or Fira if you are Greek), where they ascend the last 1000 feet to the top by riding on a mule or taking the cable car.

Thira is a real jewel box of a town to look at - but it is a tourist hell! The small pedestrian walkways are filled with hundreds (maybe thousands) of people shuffling along taking photos of the view and buying postcards in the tourist shops.

Thira is also noted for its very over-priced tourist cafes (e.g., 14 euros for two small bottled beers and a toasted sandwich) that no self-respecting Greek would ever frequent in a lifetime. Not our scene at all.

IA - THE REAL JEWEL OF SANTORINI

At the very northern tip of Santorini is the town of Ia. It is a good 10 km from Thira, so not many trippers make the time to go there. This is good news as the alleyways are far less crowded with tourists and the place is delightful.

Ia is the posh end of Santorini and boasts very expensive private villas with lots of infinity swimming pools overlooking the caldera.

The town is very pretty and clings to the top of the hill like snow. There are several old windmills and the ruins of a Venetian fort on the far point overlooking the sea.

[A gulet under sail in the caldera glides past Ia]

The views are spectacular - but having seen the pictures of Mount St Helen when it blew - I think you have to be a bit crazy to live on the edge of an active volcano!

THE IA MARITIME MUSEUM

Ia has a small but excellent Maritime Museum, which contains many interesting artefacts. Its collection of odd bits and bobs seem to cover anything nautical from Columbus to Cook.

Leighton thought this ship’s figurehead bore a striking resemblance to Margaret Thatcher(!).

There was an amazing collection of old photographs of Santorini and the maritime activities that went on there.

There was also a very interesting collection of ship building tools. This bellows was used to get the coal fires burning on one of the early steam-powered vessels that took over from sail.

THE BIG BANG

The Santorini eruption is credited with wiping out the Minoan civilization in Crete (1647 – 1628 BC). When the volcano erupted, cold seawater rushed into the superheated crater and the explosion that followed was estimated to be some five times that of Krakatoa. Crete is only 60 miles further south and it is believed a 300 foot tsunami resulting from the eruption wiped out all the coastal towns on the northern side of Crete.

AKROTIRI AND “ATLANTIS” ?

There is Neolithic evidence of human occupation on Santorini that predates 3000 BC.
The Minoans had also settled here. Akrotiri is a complete Minoan city with three storey buildings that were buried under volcanic ash. The site is currently closed to the public while excavation work is underway but we were able to have a brief look at what was going on.

This is the site of the Akrotiri excavations. Glass roofs cover whole Minoan streets. It has been called the “Pompeii of the Aegean” and is classified as one of the world’s most important archaeological sites.

The city was abandoned long before the massive eruption took place – as unlike Pompeii, no bodies were found in the ash and very little jewellery or small personal belongings. This would indicate that the people of Akrotiri had adequate warning (perhaps from earthquakes) and might have left Santorini, either for Crete or further north into the other Aegean islands before the big eruption took place.

Many of the site’s discoveries are on display in the Thira Archaeological Museum and others are in Athens.

The “Blue Monkey Room” is an example of one of the recovered murals at the Akrotiri site. Complete rooms have been discovered brightly decorated with painted wall murals. These are giving archaeologists and scholars new insights into the sophistication of the Minoan civilization, culture and daily life.

The Minoans were creative potters and many examples are still being recovered from the site at Akrotiri.

Some of our favourites were the elegant bird-shaped pitchers like this one, decorated with bright colours and images of flowers, birds and dolphins.

It has been possible to make plaster casts of wooden objects such as this elegantly carved three-legged table that would have been burned up in the volcanic ash.

The Minoans were also very skilled in the art of metal craft as illustrated by this gold ibex used as a votive offering.

There is also the mystery of Minoan writing. Here are samples of “Linear A” an un-deciphered Minoan script on clay tablets.

ANCIENT THIRA

This was the highlight of our trip to Santorini.

On the southeast side of Santorini lie the extensive ruins of the ancient city of Thira. On foot it takes well over an hour to climb the twisting path the 1000 feet to the top. We drove up a precipitous road almost to the top, and then walked out to the point.

The site overlooks Santorini’s airport – and it was a bit surreal to look down on the top of 737s coming in for a landing!

The hilltop site of ancient Thira was occupied by Minoans, Greeks, Romans, and Venetians. There are layer upon layer of thousands of years of occupation.

The site occupies a fantastic vantage point overlooking the sea in both directions. We sailed along this coast and could see the ruins on top of the ridge from the boat.

It was a real treat to come across an object like this one below. A bronze dish at the entrance of a temple fixed into a stone with lead - perhaps used like a vessel for holy water(?). It is fascinating to think this object was in common use in some ritual over 3000 years ago. It is almost magical to be able to touch it as many might have also done before me.

AND FINALLY…

THE BOUTARI WINE TASTING

We visited the Boutari winery for a taste of some of the some of the unique Santorini wines. Cathy was able to reminisce about an earlier boat trip to Santorini to collect Vinsanto dessert wine for friends on Naxos.

The traditional Santorini grape vines are pruned and trained into a circular “basket”. This provides the vine with its own support, allows air to circulate around the grapes, and captures moisture. Some of these baskets are several hundred years old. The vineyard’s biggest problem has been people cutting off the baskets in the winter (thinking the hibernating vine was dead) and using it as a decoration!

AND OUR TOP AWARD GOES TO…

Santorini’s only “Slow Food Restaurant” and their hand carved wooden sign! 10/10.

THE FINAL LEG OF THE JOURNEY

We are keen to complete our journey for this season. Winds willing, we will soon set sail on the final leg - the 70 miles from Santorini to our winter quarters in Agios Nikolaos, Crete. Although it is less than the distance of an overnight English channel crossing, we have learned to treat the Aegean Sea with great respect.

3rd October-Naxos, Cyclades

2010-10-09T19:21:00.006+01:00

Marion and Brian Edwards from Bovey join us in Porto Heli for 10 days on board.

Here they are, arriving on the fast catamaran from Athens. After a short shake-down sail to remind them which ropes to pull on, we set off just before first light to Serifos, our first island stop in the windy Aegean 70 miles away. The wind was quite light, but a big leftover swell made those that hadn't quite got their sealegs feel queasy, and Brian to his dismay was actually sick. His pride was injured more than anything!

We anchored in Serifos harbour just after nightfall. The next day revealed a cluster of white Cycladic houses perched on top of the hill, shrouded in early morning mist.

Brian and Marion energetically walked all the way to the top – we caught the bus halfway up.

At the top, we saw many of the cliché’d ingredients of these islands – winding alleyways; blue-domed churches; donkeys;

and an ancient windfarm.......

More local colour was provided by a splendidly moustachio’d knife salesman who was proud to pose for the camera.

A fresh southerly breeze gave us a brilliant beam reach for 30 miles across to Paros the next day. Passing the jagged Portes rocks at the entrance to Paroikia bay on Paros, we were shocked to realise that we were passing the scene of Greece’s worst ferry disaster exactly ten years to the day after it happened.

On 26th September 2000 the ferry Samina Express struck these rocks in a gale and sank, and over 80 people drowned. It was nothing short of miraculous that 400 of the 500 on board were rescued.

Paroikia, the capital of Poros has a beautiful church which is reputed to be the finest in the Cyclades. You don’t see many baptismal fonts shaped like this one which would give you a good underwater ducking!

With continuing southerlies, we spend a couple of nights in the delightful surroundings of Ormos Naoussa, a bay on the north side of Paros. Then a short hop across to Naxos town marina.

Because we hadn’t managed to get Marion and Brian to Santorini in the boat because of the wind direction, they caught the ferry for a daytrip there.

We know Naxos well, having spent some time staying at David Chater’s house here. It’s the largest and most fertile of the Cyclades islands. We hadn’t unexpected to be back, but we enjoyed exploring the island again – this time by car with the Edwards.

It was a whistle-stop tour that took in a byzantine chapel, the temple to Apollo, good views and a half-carved marble kouros still lying in its quarry bed.

The highlight was lunch in a shady taverna hidden away in Koronas in the hills – no menu, we ate what they’d cooked that day – a plate of tender pork in tomato sauce.

Brian gets our lunchtime drinks from the spring nearby.

The Edwards left us yesterday to catch the ferry back to Athens. They are perfect boat guests and we much enjoyed having them to stay. It gave us an excuse for some good meals ashore and a reason to do some of the touristy things we normally shun – like an entertaining bouzouki concert in the kastro at Naxos.

We are now a tantalising 120 miles from our winter quarters in Crete but the meltemi has decided to delay the home stretch. The meltemi is the prevailing northerly wind in the Aegean that blows up to gale force in the summer, and it should have eased a little by now. No chance. Strong winds are forecast for the next week so it looks like we’ll be here for a while. Thinking the kedge won’t be up to keeping us off the pier in a strong wind from astern, Leighton dives down to secure two stern lines to a substantial mooring chain on the seabed. We watch the last calm sunset over the harbour before the wind arrives - reasonably confident that the lines will allow us to sleep easy.

20th September - Porto Heli

2010-10-04T12:27:00.003+01:00

The sulphurous water at Methana has turned our antifouling and bronze portholes a dull black and we need a good dose of clean seawater to get them back to normal so it's time to get on the move again.

First stop is the popular island of Poros, a few miles south of Methana. We anchor alongside the Greek navy’s cadet academy. The raw recruits spend a lot of time standing on the parade ground in the hot sun dressed in an unsuitably dark uniform. From time to time they shout ‘ena; deo; tria!’. We wonder if the heat’s got to them, or maybe they’re showing they can count. One afternoon they donned lifejackets and took their place at the oars of a whaler to learn how to row. Watching them try to pull together was very entertaining - it was never like that at HMS Raleigh!

Poros is a sophisticated sort of place where Athenians come for the weekend and holidays. A bit like Salcombe where almost every house is a second home or holiday let. Loads of charter boats come here too.

While we were out enjoying an ice-cream one evening, we noticed a couple of beefy men walking up and down the quay openly carrying automatic weapons. What on earth was going on? Minutes later a monster superyacht, the O’Mega (which we find on Google is for charter at a cool half a million euros a week!) drew up alongside.

No-one could tell us for sure who was onboard, but the word on the street was it was the president of some Middle East country. Whoever it was, it seemed an excessive way for someone to visit Poros for a meal.

There was a northerly F4 to get us down to Ermioni at the top end of the gulf of Hydra. We’re wise enough now to know that what would be a nice fresh breeze in the English Channel can be a bit of an ogre here as it kicks up big waves. So it was a good move to keep the mainsail under wraps and fly the yankee on its own. The narrow channel between the islands at the entrance to the gulf of Hydra gave us a bit of an adrenalin rush. As we were rolling down the swell with the wind behind us we hit the wash of two gin palaces going the other way, which made us lurch all over the place. As we wrestled with the helm to stay on course, a fast hydrofoil suddenly appeared around the corner, gunning towards us at 40 knots. Who says sailing is relaxing? Once we’d turned into the gulf the swell eased and our heart rate returned to normal.

To start with we berthed bows-to on the quay in the small harbour at Ermioni. Bad move. The strong gusts off the hills dislodged our kedge and we had to re-berth stern-to using our bow anchor. The eight people who helped us didn’t know they were witnessing a miracle - Makarma going astern in a cross wind into the narrow space between two boats. It was a messy manoeuvre going backwards and forwards until we were straight but we managed it in the end.

Two traditional windmills and a sewage farm dominate the approach to Ermioni harbour. The town is touristy but not unattractive and is serviced by a regular fast ferry from Athens.

The weekly produce market happened to be taking place on the day we were there. We bought fat bunches of green and purple grapes and a 5 litre container of local rose wine. Cathy stocked up on some cheap knickers.

With no wind anywhere for a while, we’re forced to motor the 14 miles on to Porto Heli, where the Edwards, our friends from Bovey, are due to join us next week.

We had thought about exploring some of the little coves up the Argolic gulf, but two things have made us change our mind. Most critically, Leighton’s sinus has been troubling him and the rest will do him good. But also the bay here scores top marks as our ideal anchorage. It has excellent shelter from all directions, no swell, loads of space and sticky mud holding.

THE SARONIC GULF AND VISIT TO MYCENAE

2010-09-17T07:35:00.017+01:00

11 September 2010

(You can click on the photo to enlarge the picture)

THE SARONIC GULF AND METHANON PENSULA

ARRIVAL IN METHANA

As Cathy has described, after the terrible night on the quay at Palaia Epidavros we sailed on to the town of Methana on the Methanon peninsula.

The town of Methana takes its name from the fact that it sits just below the site of an extinct volcano. Aside from the smell of sulphur in the air - A unique feature of the harbour is its milky-yellow water, coloured by the hydrogen sulphide gas that bubbles to surface.

There is a health spa just beyond the harbour gates. The sulphur rich water is supposed to be good for a variety of ailments – and somewhere nearby is a pool of radioactive water! Needless to say we have been swimming in the sea outside the harbour and hope the hydrogen sulphide is keeping the barnacles at bay on the bottom of the boat. Judging by the absence of jellyfish here, they don’t like sulphur either.

NAFPLIO AND MYCENAE - TWO DAYS ASHORE!

Since the boat is in a safe billet we decide to give ourselves two days of shore leave and set out to visit the ancient site of Mycenae. Checking the local bus schedules we quickly learn that it might be easier getting to the moon – but undaunted, we head off to Galatas (completely in the opposite direction of where we are trying to go) to connect with the cross country bus to Nafplio, where we will spend the night on land!

The attractive town of Nafplio which lies at the head of the Argolic gulf was originally intended to be the capital of Greece. The Greek Parliament was held in the mosque in the picture above.

The town has several fine parks and is dominated by a Venetian fortress-castle overlooking the town. We stayed in a comfortable hotel near the park and had a view of the castle from our balcony. This is the first time we have slept in a non-moving, land-based bed since February in Venice!

NAFPLIO ARCHEOLOGICAL MUSEUM

The recently renovated archeological museum contains items excavated at Mycenae and from the surrounding area. Beautifully laid out, we thought it was one of the best museums we have visited anywhere.

There was even a display of a complete set of Mycenaean armour. The helmet is reinforced with wild boars’ tusks.

The Mycenaean civilization which dates back to the 13th century BC was an amazingly advanced society. One of the items that caught our eye was a three thousand year old fishhook. [Photo taken for Mike Skidmore!] It was identical to a modern fishhook – complete with barb. (Also note the tongs and spoon.)

The small coloured glass jug below is described as “Phoenician” and dates from around 475 – 425 BC. This particular example was found in a grave at Epidavrus. It is unusual as virtually all the glass manufactured during this period was “clear”.

This is the fourth (almost identical) example of this jug we have seen in museums as far north as Syracuse in Sicily, indicating there must have been active trade links right across the Mediterranean during this period.

THE FOLKLORE MUSEUM

We also visited Nafplio’s small Folklore Museum.

When it opened in 1981, this museum was voted the “Best Museum in Europe”. It houses a delightful collection of costumes, toys and household implements and is an insight into Greece’s recent past.

AN EVENING ON THE TOWN

We topped off the evening with dinner in a Greek alleyway restaurant; a stroll around the sea front and the back streets of the old town. An ice cream from “Antica Gelateria di Roma” – described as having the “Best ice cream in Greece”- completed the evening.

THE ANCIENT SITE OF MYCENAE

Early the following morning we took a bus from Nafplio, 12 km north up into the hills past Argos and Mykines to the site of Mycenae, the seat of Agamemnon who according to Homer led the Greek army to beseige Troy.

Situated on the top of a hill between two larger summits the site looks insignificant when seen from below. Pictures cannot do justice to the scale and beauty of this place.

When viewed from the top - from the ruins of Agamemnon’s palace – you immediately understand why they built here. The site commands a view of all the valleys below - 15 km in all directions. The views are breathtaking!

The sea is clearly visible some 12km away and according to Homer, Agamemnon would have launched his fleet against Troy from here.

THE LION GATE

All my life I have read about and seen pictures of the “Lion Gate” at Mycenae. It is wonderful to see it in its setting in the palace wall. Again photography can not capture this amazing site - you have to be here.

The tombs uncovered at the site attributed to Agamemnon and Clytemnestra are massive in scale and built to a unique design with a long shaft approach, a tall entrance leading to a beehive shaped chamber inside.

Agamemnon’s Tomb. A key feature to identify Mycenaean architecture is the “relieving triangle” above the doorway, which took weight away from the lintel.

Cathy in the doorway of Clytemnestra’s Tomb. The lintel stone over the doorway of Agamemnon’s tomb is estimated to weigh some twenty times the weight of the stones used to construct the pyramids.

Inside Clytemnestra’s Tomb there are finely finished stones rising in a huge “igloo” shaped vault

This is looking up some 70 feet at the ceiling from where Cathy is standing. It is sobering to think this building was constructed (1500 BC) about the same period the inhabitants of Salisbury Plain were laying out the crude inner “bluestone circle” at Stonehenge.

MASTER MASONS AND ENGINEERS

To really appreciate the Mycenaeans’ engineering abilities you have to take a torch and go underground to visit the palace cistern.

Mycenae’s water supply came from an underground spring. To protect it they extended the eastern palace walls - then dug a 45 degree tunnel shaft down through the rock some 100 feet down to meet the spring underground.

More "Indiana Jones" ? Here Cathy is at the doorway to the entrance to the cistern, wondering, “do I really want to do this?…”. There is no light and it is a long way down the stepped tunnel shaft to reach the bottom!

Here we are deep underground about half way – it is pitch dark, the light is from the camera flash. Cathy looks as if she is really enjoying herself! (By the light of our small wind-up torch and carefully taking one step at a time, we did manage to find our way all the way to the bottom.)

THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM

The museum on site was full of artifacts found during previous excavations. All very well displayed. The site and its environs are still being actively excavated today. This is a replica of the gold death mask of “Agamemnon” found in one of the grave circles at Mycenae [The real one is in Athens and we are looking forward to seeing it in November.]

THE RETURN JOURNEY

Travelling by bus worked out pretty well, except when it came to the last leg from Galatas back to Methana. When we arrived back in Galatas at 4.30pm, the last bus had long gone, so we made the five minute hop by ferry across to Poros, thinking we might catch the Athens ferry back from there as it makes a brief stop at Methana. We found we’d missed that too, so there was nothing for it but to catch the water taxi back to Galatas and take a taxi. We liked the look of Poros and the new north quay, which is why we’ll be going there next – this time in Makarma!

6th September - Corinth Canal & Epidavros

2010-09-12T09:52:00.006+01:00

On 3rd September, exactly a year to the day since we arrived in the Ionian at Lakka, we transited the Corinth Canal and crossed over in the Aegean. We are now in the Saronic gulf!

It was awesome to motor through the narrow cutting with the limestone walls towering a hundred metres above us. Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Our passage went very smoothly – we had only a 15 minute wait to be allowed in (you can wait up to 3 hours); a freighter and a superyacht went ahead of us and two yachts went behind – one of them Cleophea. The best bit was we could record the moment as we took pictures of each other as we went through. Three miles and 185 euros later, we emerge into the Saronic- and it’s not even lunch-time!

We motor into a light headwind down the coast to berth bows-to at George’s taverna in Korfos, an almost landlocked bay 16 miles to the south of the canal. We celebrate the day’s big milestone over dinner with Mike and Corinne that evening.

Korfos turned out to be very sheltered but we’ve twice regretted our choice of harbour in the last week and have some damage to show for it. If we’re going to be berthed on a quay in future, we’ll be picking the harbour very carefully. The pilot says that Kiato harbour (our last port of call before the Corinth canal) is dangerous in an easterly, and guess what we got? A 15 knot breeze blowing from the east for less than two hours on the evening we were there kicked up a churning maelstrom in the harbour that was truly frightening. Standing beside the boat – it was too uncomfortable to stay onboard - we prayed our fenders would take the strain as Makarma pitched and bucked alongside the concrete quay.

Our next harbour on from Korfos was also open to the east. You’d think we’d have learned from our Kiato experience. But the pilot is reassuring about the good shelter at Palaia Epidavros, and it’s the closest harbour to the ancient Greek theatre at Epidavros which we were keen to see. Guess what? The late afternoon SE sea breeze kicked up a vicious little swell which rolled into the harbour and piled against all of us moored on the quay. Because we go bows-to, we were pitching worse than the other boats. For most of the evening our bow was hurtling up and down by more than two metres – with the concrete quay alarmingly close just in front of us. At 10pm it started to hose with rain. Our Danforth anchor and chum combination held well, but our friends in Cleophea were not so lucky. They abandoned the quay to anchor in the bay - something we now regret not doing ourselves, as sometime during the ghastly episode a section of our teak toe-rail got smashed – we’re not sure how.

It was calm the next morning when we made an early start to catch the bus to Ancient Epidavros. We were the first visitors into the site and for a magical twenty minutes or so we had the magnificent theatre to ourselves.

Epidavros was a centre for healing, a religious sanctuary and it hosted athletic and musical/theatrical festivals. The classical theatre is the best preserved building on the site. Indeed it’s one of the best preserved Classical buildings in Greece, and is still in use today for performances of plays and concerts. Its almost perfect acoustics allow all 14,000 spectators to hear the slightest whisper from the stage.

The sanctuary temples, the stadium and the sanatorium have not fared so well over the years.

There’s little to see apart from ruins, although extensive restoration work is going on. It is hard to imagine now that the site was the Lourdes of its day with people coming from miles around to be cured of their ailments.

Anxious to avoid a repetition of the previous evening, the minute we got back to the harbour, we left to follow Mike and Corinne to Methana. The wind was kind and gave us a fast passage for the 20 miles to get there. Methana harbour is in a completely enclosed basin that is sheltered from all directions. The only drawback gets up your nose the moment you negotiate your way through the narrow entrance. Methana sits on an extinct volcano. Sulphur springs still bubble to the surface here, turning the water a milky green colour and giving off an all-pervasive smell of rotten eggs.

We don’t mind the smell or the water colour - it’s just a great relief to feel completely secure. Beside the harbour is a spa where elderly arthritic Greek ladies take the waters for relief from their aches and pains. Corinne and Cathy join them to bob up and down in the smelly water.

DELPHI 4 September 2010

2010-09-08T12:21:00.008+01:00

One of the highlights of our journey so far was our visit to Delphi.

We left Makarma moored in Galaxidi harbour and in company with our new Swiss friends, Mike and Corrine Bruhwiler, we took an early morning bus from Galaxidi to the coastal town of Itea. From here we took another bus up into the mountains to Delphi.

The KTEL bus terminal in Itea boasted a very fine clock and welcome sign – and it would be very helpful for people to catch their bus on time - if it only worked!

The Greek buses tend to run on time, are air conditioned and on the whole very pleasant. The driver seems to line up on the dotted line down the middle of the road and puts his foot down. Blind hairpin bends going up the mountain are dealt with by simply blowing the horn!

The scenery ascending the road to Delphi is spectacular. Delphi is clings to the side of Mount Parnassus, which is 2457m high. The ‘green’ in the photo above is the “plain of olives” and is the largest concentration of olive trees in Greece.

It must be said that the site and views at Delphi are spectacular! It is easy to understand why Delphi was considered so special by the ancient Greeks and many other civilizations that followed.

This model in the Delphi Archaeological Museum shows just the site of the Sanctuary of Apollo.

It was inside the Temple of Apollo (the large building surrounded by columns) where the Delphic Oracle foretold the future.

There are many famous inscriptions on the stones around the site of the Oracle such as, “know thy self”.

According to some of the surviving text that tells us what went on at Delphi – the ancients believed that the god Apollo spoke through a “Pythia” - This was the priestess who sat inside the temple on her tripod, chewed laurel leaves, went into hallucinogenic trances and incoherent frenzies – [some believe inhaled methane and ethylene vapours escaping from a seismic fissure under the temple] - she then deliver a garbled, incoherent message to the temple priests – who then passed on the message to the paying client. - A bit like the “phone-a-psychic” service works today.

This is what the Temple of Apollo looks like today. The black stones in the middle conceal the cellar where the Pythia would have sat. According to ancient texts the Pythia, or priestess, was usually a local woman, often a middle-aged matron, who would have worn the robes of an unmarried virgin to emphasize her chastity. When the Oracle was at its most popular there may have been as many as three priestesses, working in shifts.

Just below the Temple of Apollo and the Oracle I noticed there was a hole in the wall that was not on the tourist map. I spotted this fellow having a look inside. After he backed out I thought I would also have a look inside.

The passage looked like it might go in under the Temple, so I decided to do the “Indiana Jones” bit to see where it went. It was a very narrow shaft with several right angle bends! After the first corner there was complete darkness - but I could make progress by feeling along the wall and occasionally lighting the passage with the flash from my mobile phone’s camera. After some distance I managed to reach a point under the Temple where the tunnel had been blocked.

As the tunnel led directly under the Temple of Apollo, it was exciting to think the Oracle’s priestesses may have used this same tunnel when they changed shifts! I am sure if I could have gone further I might have been able to whiff the vapours from the seismic fissure.

Aside from being in inky darkness, the other problem was that there was no room to turn around ! – not wishing to become part of the Temple complex - I had to retrace my steps backwards!

DELPHI’S THEATRE

The Delphi site has a beautifully preserved theatre with amazing views down the valley. It was built in the 4th century BC. The seats were made of white marble from Mount Parnassus. In AD 67, the Emperor Nero stood in the center of this stage and addressed an audience of several thousand people.

THE PYTHIAN GAMES

Delphi is most commonly associated as the site of the Oracle but further up the mountain from the Temple of Apollo is Delphi’s Stadium complex. In 586 BC, the Pythian Games were founded here and were second only to the games at Olympia in importance.

Like Olympia, the games were in honour of the gods and athletes came from all parts of the known world to compete. This amazing mountain-side arena could easily accommodate thousands of spectators.

THE CLOSURE OF DELPHI

Aside from being sacked and restored several times in numerous “Sacred Wars” - Delphi was officially closed down in AD 385 by Theodosius (during the Roman Christian Era) as it was a “pagan shrine” and only Christianity was allowed as the official state religion. [Olympia suffered the same fate.]

Delphi is in a seismically active area and it was gradually reduced to ruins by numerous earthquakes and landslides from Mount Parnassus above. Ironically these landslides covered the site and protected it from further looting. It was only recently in the 1850’s that Delphi was “rediscovered” and excavations were begun by the French School of Archaeology beginning in 1892. Much of the site is still unexcavated and what lies beneath is unknown.

The construction of the buildings at Dephi is remarkable. The stones are finely dressed and many still have sharp edges today. Considering the location of the site – on the side of a mountain(!) – the effort would have defeated modern engineers and earth moving equipment. Truly amazing.

The construction techniques are also of interest. You can see the links carved into the blocks in the photo above. The stones were held together by iron “butterfly” straps and then lead was poured into seal the join.

This is one of the links with a bit of lead still lodged in its securing hole. Most of the lead was looted so this is a rare find.

THE DELPHI ARCHEOLOGICAL MUSEUM

There were a number of Sacred Wars and much of Delphi was sacked by various hoards at many times in past history.

During Delphi’s Roman period - Nero seized over 500 bronze statues in a fit of rage after the Oracle condemned him for killing his mother. Constantine packed off many of Delphi’s treasures to his new capital at Constantinople.

Despite the looting and destruction many spectacular items were unearthed and are now housed in the Archeological museum on the site.

These are just some of the things that have been excavated from under the landslides. According to the inscriptions on the stones, the “Winged Sphinx” above was originally sent to Delphi as a tribute to Apollo and came from the Island of Naxos in 400 BC!

This feat starts to take on a different significance when you consider that the Island of Naxos is almost 100 miles from Delphi and at the time, the Corinth Canal did not exist.

The Sphinx would have been transported from Naxos by sea, then overland where the Corinth Canal is today, then back into a ship, across the Gulf of Corinth, back on to land – then hauled some 20 miles inland and up a mountain! Clearly, Delphi was a very important site! Tributes like this came from all over the ancient known world.

There were once many finely detailed carving decorating the temples and all over the site.

Cathy is standing in front of the fragments of a statue of a life-size bull that was covered in gold and silver sheets!

These are some of the many examples of gold jewelry found on the Delphi site.

Perhaps this is the sort of jewelry that would have been worn by the priestess when they were talking to the gods?

This was a beautiful plate recovered virtually intact. Note the harp and sandals – keep in mind you are looking at the craft and skills that were practiced in the 4th century BC.

Visitors to Delphi brought many gold, silver and bronze votive offerings to have the Oracle tell their future. It is astonishing the detail and craftsmanship that has gone into these works.

Many of the statues were painted in bright colours – here are fragments that have survived showing what one looked like over two thousand years ago.

There were amazing marble statues carved in superb human form and beautifully carved drapes – again in context, this was almost two thousand years before the style we associate with Michelangelo and others.

The bronze of the “Charioteer” is considered the finest piece in the museum. In the background you can see the complete reconstruction of the original bronze – complete with bronze chariot and horses!

During excavation only the charioteer and a few remains of the horses were ever found. It has been suggested that the famous horses on the roof balcony of Saint Marks cathedral in Venice may belong to the charioteer of Delphi.

And finally, for the children – The Delphi museum houses what is no doubt the great ancient ancestor of “Gonzo” – this is surely conclusive proof that the “Muppets” were just as popular with Greek kids back in the 4th century BC as they are today!

Legend has it that Zeus released two eagles to circle the globe in opposite directions. They met at Delphi. In antiquity Delphi was regarded as the centre of the world.

So here we are - we have reached the “the centre of the world” and one of our journey’s goals. Cathy and I are truly sharing the adventure of a lifetime. It is great that we can share it with you.

Needless to say there will be more to come. We have travelled to Olympia and Delphi, we next plan to visit the third most important site in Greece – the great theatre at Epidavros.

1st September 2010 - Antikira

2010-09-04T12:22:00.019+01:00

Latest news....
Leighton's eBay purchase arrives in time to prepare Makarma to deal with Italian Super-yachts and Jet Skiers …

NISIS TRIZONIA (Island Trizonia)

We really enjoyed our stay in Trizonia, a small island off the Greek mainland on the North side of the Gulf of Corinth. It is about a mile long and half a mile wide. There were the beginnings of a harbour development with new quays, water and lighting but like so many other Greek projects funded by EU money, it was never completed.

Although Trizonia is an excellent place for yachts to shelter, it has no water or electricity on the pontoons and missing manhole covers for the service ducts (some three feet deep!) provide an obstacle course at night for the unwary.

Here Cathy is trying to get the rubber tyre marks off the hull after a windy day on the pontoon. You can see one of the manholes with a missing cover in the background. The lamp post was part of the lighting scheme – and we discovered the wires in the bottom of the lamp post were live when the harbour lights came on at night.

There were very strong easterly winds in the Gulf of Corinth for five days and although Trizonia is well protected, it isn't so sheltered in easterlies. We were all buffeted about in the harbour. We put all our fenders out to keep the boat off the rough concrete – and a few improvised ones as well.

No, this was not a victim of the wind. Some boats seem to have been abandoned – like this 65 foot wooden ketch, “Wild Bumble Bee” from Hamburg. She is now lying in 30 feet of water on the bottom! Her stern rope is still rather ironically attached to a bollard on the quay.

No one seems concerned and you just navigate around her. It was very interesting to snorkel around her hull.

While we were held up by the easterlies, we did several good walks around the circumference of the island.

We were told to be careful as there are very poisonous snakes that live here. We heard two people had been bitten – and Lizzie who ran the island’s yacht club had died of snakebite. (This is why we are staying on the road rather than exploring the hillside!)

When we walked around the island (about three miles) we came across a smallholding with a rather fine turkey! (He was very protective of his harem of nine hens.)

On the third day of the winds we decided to take the little ferry across to Glifadha to see if we might be able to catch a bus to Delphi from here. (It turned out to be a task for Mission Impossible).

This is the little ferry back to the island. There are two things you can not see from this picture: 1) The whitecaps and 25-30 kts winds blowing just outside the harbour and 2) the thirty or so people sitting on the seawall waiting to get aboard – I would think in good weather the little boat could safely carry twenty people – then to our total amazement these guys show up and load a cooker on the bow!

The winds were so strong the little boat had to do the mile crossing down wind and then creep back along close to the northern shore of the Island to get back to Trizonia harbour. Lots of wind and waves - all very exciting stuff for the price of a Euro! The cooker made it and so did we.

While waiting for the wind to blow through we met our Swiss neighbors (Mike and Corinne) on their boat “Cleophea”. Here we have introduced them to RummiKub [hoping after the thrashing we received from Frank and Anneke that we can find someone we can beat!]. Mike is a spitting image of “Jon Snow” the TV presenter.

Mike’s main hobbies are sailing and flying Concorde on Microsoft Flight Simulator (I’m serious!). He took me on a laptop flight from Geneva around the Matterhorn and back – and he really can fly the damn thing! It must have taken Mike months to learn how to manage all the flight systems - truly amazing! [Before sailing, Mike’s day-job was managing the landing slots at Zurich Airport].

The Meltemi driven wind finally died down enough that we can head further down the Gulf. Staying on the mainland side of the Gulf of Corinth we next stop at Galaxidi.

GALAXIDI

Galaxidi is a delightfully picturesque little town with a very old harbour that was an important centre for building square-rigger ships in the 18th and 19th century. This came to an end with the advent of steam and ironclad ships.

The small Maritime Museum was full of interesting artifacts, logs, and pictures of Galaxidi in its ship-building heyday.The round clay container was recovered from one of the oldest shipwrecks ever found and dates some 2000 BC.
It is amazing that ships were actively plying these waters and trading with distant lands. The container demonstrates there were skilled craftsmen during this time.

Cathy in her element! The farmer’s market!

Sweet peppers and fresh vegetables from local farmers.

Galaxidi has many fine “Captain’s Houses” along the hillside overlooking the harbour, where the merchant mariners used to live in its heyday. It is one of the prettiest towns we have visited.

There is even a place for the ducks at the end of the harbour!

Food is pushed out to their island on a little “Duck Feeder” boat.

On the far side of the harbour a walk led up to a church on the top of the hill which had an excellent view of the town. We went for our walk before breakfast to avoid the midday heat which is well into 30 degrees. There was a wake going on in the church at the top of the hill.

From Galaxidi we travel further east along the northern coast of the Corinth Gulf to Andikiron.

ANDIKIRON

Andikiron is normally a well sheltered harbour on the north side of the gulf of Corinth – the two white dots are Cathy and Corinne swimming in the bay.

Our friends Mike and Corinne on “Cleophea” tied up to the quay next to the Andikiron lighthouse. Makarma is moored stern-to to the quay and facing the same way.

Here we tried out our “rear” passerelle design and despite being a bit of a pig to set up, it worked really well. We now have the means to go either bows-to or stern-to and drop our main anchor off the front as most of the other boats in the Med do.

The Greek flag next to the lighthouse should have given us a clue to local wind conditions!
The first night was delightfully calm – too calm. For the next three days we had 20-25 knot winds in harbour gusting to 40 knots blowing directly on to the quay. Not very pleasant!
‘Spending three days in a washing machine’ come to mind.

Our German neighbours left to try and find a safe anchorage but returned later in the evening wearing life jackets! They were unable to make any headway under engine to windward and had to return.

This is taken from Makarma during one of the calmer moments. Our chief concern was getting our stern smashed against the quay.

We were attached to the seabed by two lazy lines and our trusty Bugle anchor on the end of 45 meters of chain! Uncomfortable but we held.

Who said sailing isn’t fun?

Next blog we go inland to see the ancient Oracle at Delphi – to ask if there will be more windy weather…!

20th August - Trizonia, gulf of Corinth

2010-08-24T10:26:00.006+01:00

It feels good to be on the move again at last. We hope to escape the high season crowds by heading south from Nidri, and indeed once past the island of Kastos, we left all but a few boats behind us, so we're in high spirits. There's hardly a sail to be seen. In a brisk westerly F4, we romped towards the Dragonera and Echinades islands, bound for Port Panteleimon on the mainland. We pick our way past the fish farms into a sheltered inlet to anchor. Although it’s a bit gusty, the whitecaps stop at the entrance.

We are the only boat in the anchorage at Port Panteleimon – that makes a change!
There’s a price to be paid for the seclusion though. The water’s too murky to swim in because of the fish farms nearby, and there’s a distinct whiff of fish in the air. We’re not complaining - it’s a beautiful and peaceful spot and we have it to ourselves. Come evening, the breeze drops and a flock of shaggy goats wander in single file along the shore, grazing on the dry scrub as they go.

We spend the next night anchored in the large shallow bay to leeward of Nisos Petalas in the Echinades islands. It’s a convenient stopping off place en route to the gulf of Patras which makes it a bit like a motorway services without the services. Our pilot mentions a cave in the cliffs here, so we go ashore to scramble the 300 feet or so up the rocks to explore inside. We’re sorry to disturb a roosting hawk that flies out of the cave as we reach it.
Once inside, we realise it’s huge and extends a long way in, but we haven’t brought a torch so can’t see much. Judging by the smell, it’s a popular sheltering place for the local goats. The view from the entrance out over the wetlands and mountains beyond is spectacular.

Rounding the south of Oxia island it feels good to turn east again for the first time since we arrived in Greece last year. A brisk breeze pushes us into the gulf of Patras towards Messalonghi. The harbour lies 2 miles up a dredged canal with salt flats on either side. At the entrance there’s a cluster of wooden houses on stilts that used to be fisherman’s huts and are now holiday homes.
The heads of swimmers bob about in the narrow channel and they appear unconcerned as we have to motor close by them. There’s a new marina in Missalonghi, but we opt to anchor outside in the large harbour with a handful of other boats.

Ashore we go in search of traces of Lord Byron. The famous romantic poet was helping the Greeks fight for independence from the Turks, but died of fever here in April 1824. We found out all about it during a visit to the town’s museum.
We reflect on the power of celebrity and good PR. Byron obviously attracted attention by dressing up in some outlandish outfits he’d had specially tailored in Albanian or Greek style.

Leighton is intrigued to find a collection of redundant military planes parked in a dusty corner. Missalonghi harbour is home to two loggerhead turtles and a dolphin, and which were a delight to see. Imagine our horror when on passage to Patras we passed a dead turtle in the water with what had killed it hanging out of its mouth – a plastic bag.
It’s one thing reading about what plastic bags do to marine wildlife, but to see what one did for this poor turtle really upset us.

The westerly wind had got up by the time we arrived in Patras, and our berth in the small marina gave no shelter from the swell. We rolled horribly all evening (we had to gimble the stove to cook supper) and all night. So it was a big relief to spend the next day ashore, when we took a trip to the Sanctuary at Olympia, the site of the first Olympic games. It was blisteringly hot but the many trees there gave welcome shade, allowing us to take our time to explore the whole site – a feast of ruined classical temples and secular buildings, as well as an athletics stadium that you could run races on today.
We cooled off later in the museum. The classical ruins of Olympia would definitely have appealed to Byron, and it’s surprising to think that excavations didn’t start here until fifty years after his death. Here are a few pictures to give you a flavour of the place.

Ferries come and go all day and night in Patra harbour, and we’re not used to the bright street lights and traffic noise of the city. Once we’ve stocked up on food and water, we’re happy to leave.

We tend to set off at midday at the earliest to make the best use of the afternoon sea breeze. Leaving Patra was no exception, but there was not a breath of wind the whole way. We motor under the spans of the Rio bridge, the longest cable stayed bridge in the world which marks the boundary between the gulf of Patras and the gulf of Corinth.
The bridge also lies on the site of the battle of Lepanto, the last sea battle fought with oared galleys, when Venice’s galleons powered by sails proved themselves clearly superior to the Turkish galleys.

We needn’t have worried that Trizonia wouldn’t come up to expectations. It’s an absolute gem. Popular with liveaboards and cruisers, the half finished marina occupies a natural harbour in a rural setting. We tie up alongside the concrete hammerhead of one of the pontoons. It’s good for swimming, walking, there’s no traffic, and while provisioning is limited, you can order fresh bread every day, and there are a couple of fish tavernas on the quay facing the mainland. What more could you possibly want?

11th August - Nidri, Lefkada

2010-08-20T11:56:00.009+01:00

DOG ON THE LINE:

No, it was not a real dog! I did a double take too when I saw it hanging there. It was just a very realistic child’s stuffed toy that had got wet and was being dried on a clothesline.

WINDLASS UPDATE:
The parts finally arrived! Two weeks and two days from Australia. We had been told that the backlog from the trucker’s strike might mean it would be six weeks or more before we could even think about getting our parts. [I suppose sacrificing that goat to the ‘delivery gods’ must have really helped.]

Here is the problem. This is looking inside the windlass “gearbox” and you can see the worm gear has lost its middle teeth! This would not have been too bad except the teeth distributed themselves into to the cog of the main gear and one through the side of the gearbox case (This was where the oil was leaking from.).

We managed to put Humpty-Dumpy back together again but only after having to get a local engineer to cut the old gear off in a lathe(!). Reassembled and back in action, the anchor windlass is spookily as quiet as a sewing machine.

THE INTERIOR – EXPLORING LEFKADA ISLAND (BY SCOOTER)

Lefkada is technically an island, although it is connected to the Greek mainland by a swinging road bridge. The swinging bridge opens once an hour and there is always a mad rush as boats make their way through the canal before the bridge closes again.

Lefkada island is mountainous but the inland, away from the coast, conceals a surprising terrain of hills and fertile valleys.

Lefkada’s highest point is Mount Elati (1182m). As it is located roughly in the middle of the island creates as a natural barrier between north and south, as well as east and west parts of the island. The main roads tend to follow the coast “around” the mountains. To avoid the traffic, we choose to take the small roads “up and over” the mountains.

Some of the roads were little more than tracks. Others were reasonable but little used and had the roadside vegetation often growing out into the road.

As this is an earthquake zone you also have to keep your eyes open for the odd rock that may have rolled down the hill and onto the road…!

And of course, the goats! Luckily on a scooter you could usually ‘hear’ the goatherds and their clanking bells before rounding the bend. (Often you could smell them as well !) – If there were a shady spot they might all be standing under the tree in the middle of the road.

Feral goats were worst, as they had impressively sharp horns, no warning bells and were a bit unpredictable when grazing along side the road. I am pretty sure the scooter insurance did not cover goat attack! (PS – Before you email, No, I am not wearing a Bowie knife, that is the design on my swimming trunks.)

Then there might be the odd road block – where some poor lost person in a camper van is backing up a single lane road as there were few signs preventing them from taking the wrong road, and no place to turn around.

Once we reached the top of the mountains the views were spectacular! This is the view from Mnimati (1157m) – just below the highest point and the centre of the Island.

The trip back (3000 ft) down the mountain on switchback roads was pretty exciting. The scooter did not have a clutch and gears, rather it had some kind of weird and wonderful automatic transmission – while I am certain is great on a flat surface around town – was not really designed to go down vertical mountain roads. At least we had good brakes.

We trekked up dusty tracks to find ancient monasteries and stopped at Kerasias Springs, just outside of the village of Sivros.

Cold clear water has flowed out of the mountain here for centuries supplying the villages of Sivros and Vournikas with their only source of fresh water.

Twice we have hired scooters to explore the interior of Lefkada Island.
On our first trip was to the north part of the island inland where we went up Mount Stavrotas and visited the scenic mountain village of Karya. Where we joined the locals to have lunch in the main square under the shade of two huge plane trees. At Karya we also visited a unique embroidery folklore museum.

The Museum is the home of a local family (five generations!) of lace makers. The house is still lived in but part of the house has been preserved as a museum/memorial to one of Karya’s greatest lace makers who developed the technique for “blind stitch” embroidery – he design looks exactly the same on both sides of the cloth.

Our guide is the last surviving member of this family of lace makers. It was his grand mother who developed and taught the blind stitch technique to women in the village. The remarkable thing is that she only had one hand and in her later years was almost blind! Here Cathy is being shown the technique in the place where she used to do her work. (The old woman’s picture can be seen in the background.)

Not bad for Cathy’s first attempt! (Actually this is one he had prepared earlier.) The house (the museum) was a fascinating time capsule of Greek life over the last hundred years and showed how a whole family worked, ate, and slept all in the same room – complete with an inside well for water.

Everywhere you look you can see very old buildings that were destroyed in the 1953 earthquake. Quite often, rather than rebuilding the same site, the ruins were left standing and new buildings, sometimes the whole village, simply moved up the hill and started again.

Lefkada’s island history dates back to the Neolithic period (8000 BC).

One of Lefkada’s most famous residents was the German archaeologist, Wilhelm Dorpfeld, who spent much of his life trying to identify Lefkada as the home of Odysseus. Many of his excavations (like the bronze age one above) can be seen today. Dorpfeld was buried at his home overlooking one of our favourite anchorages - Tranquil Bay in Nidri.

We are moving on tomorrow – heading south toward Crete and exploring more of Greece as we go. We will remember our time spent in Lefkada – with friends and family, as one of the highlights of our journey so far.

8th August Vlicho Bay - Waiting....Waiting.....

2010-08-09T09:57:00.007+01:00

First a loving tribute to my wife – On the 30th of June we celebrated being together for 15 years. It has to be the greatest test of any relationship to live together in a 40 foot floating box! We are now into our second year of living aboard Makarma and it would be untruthful to say that there are not the few “odd moments” (anchoring and docking?) when frustrations can bubble to the surface – but for the most part we have a very happy ship. I am a very lucky fellow to be sharing the adventure of a lifetime with such a lovely person.

WAITING ON PARTS, BEFORE WE HEAD SOUTH:

The picture below in NOT the inside of CERN’s Large Scale Hadron Collider… it is Makarma’s alternator in bits on my workbench. The idiot light that comes on when the alternator isn’t working had been glowing dimly for sometime. The alternator finally died but had the decency to do so after our visitors had departed.

We had a spare nineteen year old alternator onboard, but upon inspection I found its ceramic brush holder had fallen to bits and its carbon brushes were trashed. After several hours work, I managed to “make” two new brushes out of the old ones and had carefully super-glued the brush holder pieces back together; and reassembled the spare alternator – and did it work? YES! – for all of three minutes!

Luckily we knew of “George” the only alternator repair man in Nidri, so we packed both alternators into the dinghy and motored ashore to Nidri. George managed to fit us in to his busy schedule, parted us from 130 Euros, but was able to rebuild our main and spare alternator - so we are back in action.

THE ANCHOR WINDLASS:

We have a brilliant Maxwell electric anchor windlass on Makarma’s foredeck. It lowers and pulls up the anchor (plus several hundred pounds of chain!) every time we “sling the hook”.

The week before the family arrived, I was investigating oil leak from a small hole in the windlass gearbox. When we took the windlass apart, we discovered that the spiral worm gear (under the deck with the electric motor) had lost its middle “teeth” inside the gearbox and bits of metal had made a mess of the main gear. Cathy did a great job of cleaning out all the spare metal bits.

Maxwell windlasses were made in New Zealand. We discovered that Maxwell were no longer in business, but using the Internet we managed to locate all the parts we needed to repair the windlass – in Australia!

Two weeks ago, all the parts were dispatched “priority post” (six day delivery) from Australia.
One week ago, Greek truckers went on strike, so - no parcels are being delivered and “six day delivery” just became, “anyone’s guess.” No one knows anything and we are told, “We must just wait.”

If there is anything that causes my wife more stress than anchoring and a Force 8 gale – it has to be WAITING!

ANCHORED IN PARADISE:

We are not really marooned. We have a manual windlass – but we are pretty certain we will need someone with a ‘bench press’ to remove the old bearings (George the alternator man!) So we are hanging around for the parts to arrive and when they do, we will tie up on a pontoon in Nidri, near to George’s workshop, but also so we don’t need to use the anchor while we are repairing the windlass. That’s the plan.

There could be worst places to be stuck waiting! Most people would relish the thought of two weeks enforced idleness here. At the moment we are anchored in the shelter of Vlicho Bay about a mile from Nidri. A lovely swimming pool is just a short dinghy ride ashore and a quarter mile walk up a track through an olive grove. We have spent last week doing jobs on the boat, reading, writing, and exploring inland. Cathy bought a couple of small deck chairs that have greatly added to comfort on deck.

LEFKADA TOWN

We found that we could catch the local bus from Vlicho Bay the twelve kilometers up to Lefkada town for 1.50 Euros each way. Lefkada town is a manic place full of traffic (Cars, scooters, bicycles, buses!) and tourists.

We almost never eat junk food – but we have to make an exception for a lunchtime “Chicken Pita Gyro” at Dalton’s Grill House! You don’t want to know what all is in it – but with a cold beer, it's delicious! If the family run Dalton’s ever went international – McDonalds empire would be destroyed overnight.

ANYONE FOR SEA FOOD?

At the other end of town the local fishmonger has just taken deliver of a swordfish – it was too large to fit on his cutting table – so what does he do? He chops it up on the sidewalk! I am sure there would have been trouble if the Greek Food Health Inspector had seen him smoking that cigarette while he was cutting it up! Yuk!

NEXT INSTALMENT…
TIME TO GET OUT OF TOWN AND INTO THE COUNTRY

Lefkada town is…well, a town. Lots of shops, people, and bustle but we prefer the countryside. So we take to the hills on our hired motor scooter to explore the interior of the island – where the locals really know how to deal with cruelty to animals much better than in the city!

25th July, Nidri - Flying the flag

2010-07-29T09:31:00.005+01:00

The family have come onboard for a holiday, so it seems a good idea to hoist the Devon flag.

One day a woman from a passing boat called across to us, “Great to see the flag – we’re from South Molton!” This made a nice change from the usual puzzled, “What’s that green flag then?”

We asked Fiona, Tommy and Rosie what was the best bit of their holiday on Makarma. Rosie said it was snorkelling without seeing black blobby bits – aka sea squirts. The waffles and ice-cream were a highlight too. For Fiona and Tommy it was the sailing – on the few times when we had a good wind. Here they are in Levkas:
All of us found it was hard to get a good night’s sleep when it was 30+ degrees down below, but otherwise it worked out fine and they got very good at putting up and taking down the awning/windscoop/passerelle/boarding ladder. Not to mention pulling on ropes and doing knots. We loved having them onboard.

The plan was to spend the first week sailing before Louise, Simon and the girls arrived in the second week to take up residence in their luxury villa in the hills above Nidri. That first week we spent the first night in Kapali bay on the north coast of Meganisi which got a bit rolly when the sea breeze kicked in towards the end of the afternoon. Next day we motored down the Meganisi channel to Sivota. From Sivota we’d planned to sail to Fiskardho on Kefalonia, but with a F4 on the nose, we opted instead for a fast beam reach to Kastos. Three flotillas were converging on the tiny harbour as we came in. What a circus! The holding there is very poor, so like everyone else it took us a while to get ourselves sorted with lines to the lamp-post on the shore and the flook well hooked. With so little room we were all rafted up alongside each other.

The next day we snorkelled in the clear water of Port Leone followed by an evening in Port Kalamos with a hearty meal at George’s taverna. Then a very slow sail took us back to Meganisi, this time to Port Athene. We made the most of the wind the next day to go for a sail up towards Palairos then back around Skorpios, finally ending the day in a rolly berth in Vathi harbour, because we wanted to see the underwater wartime plane wreck. It was underwhelming – Rosie said “it was brown”, and Leighton thought it wasn’t a WWII relic but a modern Cessna.

With Louise’s arrival we divided our time between days by the pool at the villa and day sails out to the beach to swim and snorkel. We made good use of the villa’s washing machine, showers and air-conditioning. On the days we went out, having nine people onboard was a bit of a stretch, but with light winds we didn’t have to disturb the sunbathers on deck too much.

If it was a disappointment to Louise who was keen to sail, it was a relief to Simon who goes green at the sight of waves.

Leaving dinner at Dimitri's overlooking Tranquil Bay

We were sorry to say goodbye to them all when they went, but we’re glad to be back to just the two of us again.

We’re left with the Devon flag (as well as a pile of goodies from home) as a reminder of their visit. Now all we have to do is remember where we put all the stuff we stowed away to make room for them. At least the forepeak doesn’t look like this any more!

10th July, Levkas Life’s a bitch – can we bring ourselves to move on?

2010-07-28T09:44:00.001+01:00

For the last three weeks we have based ourselves in and around Nidri. Apart from a couple of days out to Meganisi, we’ve been at anchor firstly in Tranquil bay. When we got an unseasonal four consecutive days of wind and rain, we moved to Vliho. Leighton has been doing some electrical work which has given a helpful boost to the cruising kitty, and Cathy has been working with Barbara on the Ionian Magazine. Apart from that, we’ve been hanging out doing not very much. Well, someone’s got to do it!

We start to think about overwintering here, as we’ve got quite attached to the place – no great surprise there. We know a lot of people here now and we know where we can get help if we need it. Leighton would have no trouble getting a steady stream of work if he wanted it. Then it dawned on us that if we did that, we’d be in danger of never moving on. We’ve met people who’ve washed up here and taken root. Do we really want it to happen to us too? That’s not what we came here for, is it? It didn’t take us long to realise that if we wanted to settle down we’d want it to be in Devon, and we’re out here to travel and explore new places. So we’ll be saying our goodbyes and moving on once the family visits are over at the end of July.

Yesterday we sailed out to Varko bay on the mainland and invited Tom and Liz on Misty III (Leighton’s most recent customers) for a drink on board before heading up the canal to park on the quay at Levkas town. Cathy’s sister Fiona and her two teenage children are coming onboard for the next two weeks, and they’re arriving tomorrow! There’s a last minute scramble to get everything stowed away to make room for them, and a run to Lidl to stock up on basics. Getting our priorities right, we check out where we can all watch the World Cup final between Holland and Spain on Sunday night.

14-17 June Kefalonia - Welcome to Captain Corelli's Greece!

2010-06-30T10:32:00.013+01:00

Kefalonia is the setting for Louis de Bernieres World War II novel, "Captain Corelli's Mandolin".
One of the first things you see if you get off the ferry here is a signpost to the monument to the Italians killed here. It is the largest of the Greek Ionian Islands and home to Mount Enos - at 1628m - it is one of the highest mountains in Greece.

In common with the other Ionian islands Kefalonia straddles a major fault line and is subject to earthquakes. The last big one in 1953 levelled 80% of the buildings on the island, but as it occurred on a summer afternoon most people were outdoors, thus the death toll was mercifully lower than it might otherwise have been.

We sailed from Ithaca and arrived at Kefalonia's east coast port of Sami. Kefalonia is a very green island, but sailing down the coast we noticed (in amongst healthy trees) large swathes of forest had simply died. Later we learned that earthquakes often change the course of the underground water table and where there was once water, it suddenly no longer exists. We saw the ruins of ancient villages that had to move for this same reason.

Our destination on Kefalonia was the ancient port of Sami - It is now the main gateway from the Greek mainland and other islands to Kefalonia and thus is a port busy with ferry traffic.

As we arrived midday we were able to find a berth on the concrete hammerhead pontoon in the small harbour. The following day Cathy and I hired a motor scooter and headed off to see the sights.

Our first stop was the Melissani Underground Lake with its crystal clear water - several hundred feet deep.

Thousands of years ago this used to be an underground cavern. The roof collapsed and now allows the sun in to illuminate the crystal clear water inside the cavern. It is possible to take a boat ride into the lake. The water is brackish but using chemical dyes they have determined that the water travels from the far side of Kefalonia and across the island through a network of caves like this one and out to the sea.

In the evening we went ashore to a taverna and watched the World Cup, "England vs. USA" match on TV. We are not terribly into football - but what an awful match! Bad show England! The best part of the evening was the cold beer and snacks.

The following day we hit the road and headed for Argostoli, about 24km on the other side of the island - not very far, but there is a mountain range in between! There are two things Cathy doesn't like: Strong wind and heights. Kefalonia has both!

We set out in the morning and as we started up the mountain side through the valley we had what could only be described as a "bug storm" - it seemed every living insect on the island was in the air and smacked into us as we ascended the mountain bends.

Q: How can you tell a happy motor cyclist?
A: By the bugs on his teeth!

[Cathy did not think this was funny either!]

As we ascended we had to avoid falling rocks and goats on the road. When we negotiated the switchback hairpin curves - I thought it sounded as something was wrong with the brakes until I realised it was Cathy gasping when we went around the corners! (Hey, she is the bravest woman I know - and I can't think of anyone I would rather be with - in a storm, 300 miles off shore!). Anyway, we made it over the top, down the other side and into Argostoli.

We took the shortcut into town via the Drepano Causeway (below) - originally built of wood and stone. We stopped to say hello to the swans, who no doubt thought they were going to get fed.

There was a very interesting Archeological Museum of finds showing Mycenean and Stone Age remains. There were some amazing detailed Roman busts like the one below that indicated there were important people and skilled artists living in Kefalonia under the Romans occupation.

On the way back across the central mountain range we stopped off at the Robola Winery that is near Ayios Yerasimos under the shadow of Mount Enos.

We were treated to a tour by the manager of the Robola Winery followed by a tasting of all the wines! Robola grapes produce only white wine, which has a delicious lemony taste. Needless to say the scooter trip back was less frightening.

We learned that the grape plants were grown close to the ground rather than vines on wires - so the grapes provided their own shade and the roots went deep into the soil. (Laura Barclay would have found it very interesting!) - also that earth tremors could alter the water table and kill off an entire field of vines.

Next our whistlestop tour took in what is described as "The Ancient Acropolis of Sami" perched on top of a small mountain to the east of Sami. After negotiating some serious hairpin bends we ended up on a goat track and hiked the rest of the way up the hill. We discovered the ruins of the Ancient Acropolis were truly amazing and well worth risking life and limb on the scooter to get there. There is very little known about the ruins and an archeological excavation is in progress to find out more. The scale of the stones and height of the walls is awesome.
The views span to both sides of the island. It must have been a very impressive from the sea. Time, battles and earthquakes have now taken their toll.

I am certain this old olive tree growing on the hillside that we saw on the way back down from the Acropolis could tell many stories. We felt a certain rapport to see how old and gnarled it has grown!

From Sami we sailed (motored!) up the Kefalonia Channel to the northen end of the Island to Fiskardo. We moored "bows to" on the new floating pontoon. There was a slight problem in there was an eight foot drop from the front of the boat to get on the pontoon - (solution at the end!).

In Fiskardo we made some interesting discoveries that were not on the tourist map. Behind a building site there was clearly a Roman Forum that had been uncovered during the construction of a block of flats. We happened to spot the dig through a gap in the fence.

Fiskardo has a charming local history museum - most of the displays appeared to have been done by students from the local school. A skeleton of a small whale caught our eye and so did the fact that it was killed by a plastic bag! Whales like turtles eat jellyfish and mistake a floating plastic bag as their favourite food.

Despite temperatures in the mid-30s, we had a hike around the point near Fiskardo and discovered the Venetian light house below. We went inside and climbed the stairs to the top. On the way down we discovered the whole staircase was supported by a bit of stone about 1" wide - So much for Health & Safety in Greece!

On the same walk we found what appeared to be a Norman Church in the scrubland. This is believed to be associated with Robert Guiscard the Norman ruler of Sicily, who also invaded Kefalonia. He’s said to have died of the plague shortly after he arrived!

On the outskirts of Fiskardo we went snorkeling off a small pebble beach. Behind the beach on the hillside was an interesting site of a Roman graveyard and just at the beach they had uncovered a Roman bath house (below).

Note the remains of the hypocaust [under floor heating] - it was fun to think that Romans were using this same beach several thousand years ago - just as we were today.

Finally we cannot leave Kefalonia without showing you my clever wife's solution of how to get off the front of the boat when it is almost eight feet down to the pontoon! 10/10.

Seriously good engineering!

15 June 2010 "Hello World !"

2010-06-23T08:54:00.002+01:00

Communication with friends and loved ones from a boat on the move can be quite a challenge!

When we started out last year we were kitted out by our friend Matt, MD of WiFi Spark to allow us to zoom in on and access unprotected WiFi networks ashore. [When kids do this by going around in a car - its called "War Driving".] We have two professional antennas and the equipment onboard to enable us to pick up a gnat broadcasting on WiFi at a range of 1 mile!

The only problem is that most of the WiFi systems we have experienced have been in the "Chocolate Teapot" category of usefulness. Bandwidths of less than 1 Mbps are quite common. And as you can see from the picture above, some WiFi systems...well, they are just not plugged in.

We have an HF Ham radio on-board which lets us send and receive email via the WinLink network. It is really great when you are a couple of hundred miles out at sea to be able to stay in touch - but we’re lucky if we can get data rates as high a 600bps which means a short email might take as much as five minutes to transmit or receive. We are limited to the time we can use the WinLink Network (Typically 60 - 90 minutes a day) so we tend to use this only when we’re at sea and can’t get anything else.

We also have a couple of VHF radios (range about 40 miles) and an Inmarsat C satellite transceiver - but these also tend to be useless (or too expensive) for anything other than emergencies. We could do "ship-to-shore" telephone calls, but the costs are measured in £/sec!

So up until this year our main means of communication has been to go ashore and track down a local Internet Cafe. Simple you might think, but if you think it is a nightmare trying to get Microsoft Windows software to do what you want - you should try it when everything is in Greek! And how do you respond when you get one of those little pop up windows that say things like, " Windows has discovered an error and will have to reboot - press "yes" to lose all your work, or "no" to be asked this same question again."

You can take your own laptop – at least the screen now speaks a language you can understand! But the last time we did this, all our PCs got infected with a noxious virus that took ten days and lots of effort to get rid of.

Things looked up when a good friend from Bovey found us two second-hand Nokia N-95 mobile phones as they do WiFi and Internet as well. So we would walk around towns with our phones held up in the air scanning for WiFi signals - a bit like StarTrek scanning for life on an uninhabited planet. The N-95's have been pretty useful, and it works especially well as a camera! Sadly, I managed to crack my screen.

A replacement arrived from e-Bay and I carried out replacement surgery (above) on the boat. Believe it or not it was successful and my phone is back in action.

The real breakthrough came when we got a "Cosmote Dongle." This is not some weird kind of piercing – it’s a plug in USB stick that enables our new netbook PC to go online using the Greek 3G network. Not everywhere mind you, but when we get a good 3G connection we can email, blog and we have even managed a couple of Skype video calls to the UK and America! Wow, that was better than pictures from the moon!

So now we can make contact with friends and family from the boat without even going ashore. This is a wonderful thing. As the song goes, " ...we may not always know where we are going, but we know where we come from." It is great to call home.

Owl Update 21 June 2010

2010-06-21T12:10:00.002+01:00

Score: Owl(s) - 0, Leighton - 2.

A recent photo for those who still think it is impossible to catch a 'submarine hunting' (Scops) owl with a cardboard box and secret owl food.

WARNING: If you try this at home, be careful. These little fellows are tiny, but have attitude and can bite like a loggerhead turtle!

[Before you email - All animals were released unharmed and enjoyed a good meal of "owl delight" before their departure back to Hogwarts.]

Leighton

8th June 2010 Vathi, Ithaca

2010-06-19T19:08:00.002+01:00

By now space is getting to be at a premium in these waters, and we dread what it will be like when the Italians arrive en masse in July. No wonder many cruisers go home in July and August. Sailing Holidays have 15 flotillas operating in this area – having withdrawn from Croatia because of spiralling costs there. Charter and flotilla boats vastly outnumber privately owned boats. Skippers and crew haven’t had a lot of practice anchoring or berthing. Every time we come into a harbour these days, we can count on a bit of drama, much of it highly entertaining if you’re not on the receiving end of it. Boats bumping into each other; windlass remotes chewed up in the winch; anchors dropped in the dinghy by mistake; crossed anchors and indignant shouting – we’ve seen it all.

On 30th May we headed south from Levkas after a great reunion with Frank and Anneke who are returning to Holland to do some contract work for a few months. It is slow going with nose to tail boats along the Levkas canal. After a couple of hours of slow tacking in a light southwesterly, we anchor in Abelike bay, one of the deeply indented coves on the north coast of Meganisi. We take our place in the long row of boats tied up here and take a line ashore. The crystal clear water is just warm enough to swim.

With NW6 forecast next day, we decide we need a more sheltered spot and move to Port Leone on Kalamos island. Mistake! The wind gusted down the lee side of the island, and dumped straight on to the anchorage. We had to re-lay our anchor several times that afternoon and did anchor watch until 4am when the gusts finally eased. Very tiresome.

We are feeling weary we ease ourselves into Port Kalamos harbour next morning. With local taverna owner George’s help with the lines, we moor alongside a boat we recognise from Aktio boatyard, home to John, Vera and Tanner, a six year old blind black cat. There should be a George in every harbour. He’s the unofficial harbour master, squeezing boats in tight to make the most of the space so no-one gets turned away, and minimising crossed anchors by supervising where boats drop their hook. All done with the aim of packing more punters into his taverna – the first night we were there, he fed 200 diners. Every morning we woke to the sound of a fisherman thwacking octopus with a flat paddle to tenderise them – for serving in George’s taverna.

We left Port Kalamos on 6th June, having delayed one day because of thunderstorms and reports of waterspouts on our route. We had a wonderful walk through the pine woods to Episkopi instead.

So finally we arrive Ithaca, home of Odysseus! We’re excited to reach one of the goals of our voyage and I dig out Cavafy’s poem to remind ourselves that we are indeed enriched by the experiences we have gained along the way.

Vathi, the capital of the island, has a magnificent harbour at the head of the gulf of Molo, which is reputed to be the windiest place in the Ionian.

The wind was just picking up as we snapped up the last place to park on the sheltered NE quay. Every afternoon a stiff breeze funnelled into the harbour kicking up quite a chop for boats at anchor and tied up to the town quay, but we avoided the worst of it.
Leighton (who hasn't taken 10 years to get here) with Odysseus

Our tour of the island by hire car did not start well. The road south from Vathi emerges from fields and olive groves on to an open cliff top with a sheer drop to the sea on one side with no parapet and a sheer rock wall on the other. It narrowed to a car’s width and there was nowhere to turn. The views were spectacular but Cathy’s nerves failed and she got out of the car, leaving Leighton to reverse hundreds of yards back onto safer ground!

Yesterday’s tour of the north of the island went better. Armed with our battered copy of the Odyssey, our circuit took in Stavros; a visit to the ruins of Homer’s School; a museum containing 8th century BC bronze and clay artefacts dug out of a cave in Polis bay; a swim near Frikes and a beer in picturesque Kioni harbour.

5th June - Tribute to a real mariner

2010-06-05T07:27:00.004+01:00

We were very saddened to hear that Makarma's previous owner - Gordon Young - has recently lost his battle with prostate cancer. The truth is that none of us get out of here alive - All of us could dream, but few of us could claim to have crossed oceans and lived the life and experiences that he shared with Tessa for eight years onboard this boat.

Because of Gordon's love of colour - when we first met him he was wearing a vividly patterned Guatemalan hat - we decided we would honour his passing by putting out the dress flags. Here is Leighton putting up flags that spell out "GORDON21/5" (the date of his death).

Gordon may physically be gone, but his spirit is very much alive on this boat. We respect that spirit. Everyday we are reminded of it. We will miss the banter with him and trying to work out the purpose of funny pieces of rope or the odd bit of metal from the bottom of the spares locker - never thrown away - as Gordon would always take great pleasure in explaining what it was, and how it should be used! We loved trading ideas to make Makarma better.

Continuing his tradition of exploring and adventure has become a major part of our lives.

1st June - How To Catch A Submarine Hunting Owl

2010-06-02T16:01:00.005+01:00

Greece is full of wildlife. There is one little fellow called a Skops owl that is quite amazing – not for its looks (you never see the things!) but for its sound. “Ping!……(Pause)…………..Ping!…(Pause)…………..Ping!” Just like the sound you have heard in the movies when they are hunting U-Boats under water! Here is a picture of the beast.

The noise would be OK, except this little guy goes on right through the night and sometimes the day as well. You find yourself wishing for a return echo “Ping….Pang….”, followed by a loud explosion – as a well aimed torpedo blows the little blighter out of his tree.

“Ping!……(Pause)…………..Ping!……(Pause)…………..Ping!”, every night we would listen to the owl. I have no idea when this bird eats? It never seems to draw breath.

Thankfully the little fellows are very territorial so you only get one in your nearby woods. I decide to devise a plan to capture the owl and relocate him to a different set of woods – perhaps take him with us when we planned to visit Albania. (Owl-bania – get it?) Luckily our Dutch friends from Pantalemon were there to witness the event, otherwise no one would believe this story for a second!

I had just finished the last Harry Potter book so I felt pretty up to speed on owls – but to be completely safe I visited the local pet shop to learn more about my prey – Its habits, diet and other useful information. I then set out under the skeptical view of our neighbours to construct my trap.

I found a cardboard box in a skip and reduced it down to the right size and put it together with duct tape. The idea was to put the “secret blend” of owl food suggested by the pet shop in the bottom of the box and hoist it up into a tree near where the nightly sounds were coming from.

Owls are nocturnal, but also very curious animals. The owl would wake up hearing the box being hoisted into a nearby tree and would not only see, but get a whiff of his favourite food going into the box. When we left the scene I was sure the owl couldn’t resist flying down and as owls like holes…climbing into the box. After a good feed he would probably want to get some sleep before “Ping-ing…” all night – and would feel comfortable in the box.

Sure enough the following day the food was gone and it those weren’t owl droppings in the bottom of the box, I would eat my hat! He had taken the bait. All I had to do now was to reset the trap with food and wait to the following night to capture him in the box!

And would you believe it? Despite the polite but skeptical looks from our Dutch neighbors (Frank and Anneke) I set off into the dark with a lantern to collect my owl.

Boy were they ever surprised when I returned with a boxed owl “pinging” angrily at being trapped. Everyone came off their boats on to the dock to see what I had caught. I shouted for Cathy to “get the camera” …it was all exciting stuff!

If I had not been bitten and dropped the box, the owl would not have escaped into the darkness! I am really glad there were witnesses that heard the owl before he escaped – otherwise no one would believe you could catch an owl with a cardboard box!

22 May - Waiter Could You Pass Me The Soap?

2010-05-30T07:18:00.004+01:00

Vonitsa is one of our favourite places. There is a small breakwater that forms a "harbour" for about 20 boats and under the lee of a very impressive Venetian fort/castle (I was proudly informed by a young greek schoolboy that, "Vonitsa once had a King!").

Vonitsa is a typical working agricultural village/town unspoiled by tourists. On Tuesday there is a market in a field at the edge of town. Here you can jostle with the locals buying fruit and veg, honey, fish, and household goods. This is the real Greece.

Overlooking the harbour breakwater is the small, family run Remezzo Restaurant, with tables outside and a hand painted sign on the front that says, "Vonitsa Yacht Club - Breakfast - Shower". The Remezzo is not really a Yacht Club - its a restaurant. The idea of calling the restaurant a "yacht club" is the Remezzo owner's way of making his restaurant frendlly and attractive to the few boats that call into Vonitsa's little harbour.

The most attractive bit of the yacht club's sign is the word, "SHOWER"!

Having been on the move at sea for days and eking the water rations by bathing with a cup full of water, who could resist the appeal of standing under a hot shower!

Buy a glass of wine, or a cup of coffee and a shower is yours for free. Great! Next question, "Where is your shower?"
"Ah, just there next to the kitchen!"

"and hey, it's nice inside...swinging doors...just like the Last Chance Saloon...and no lock!"

Ok, so you go in, strip off and enjoy your shower. You hear people talking and eating very close by... it is not until you come out of the shower that you get the full impact. You are buck naked having a shower right in the middle of the restaurant!

Great shower, just make sure you don't slip on a bar of soap, back out through the swing doors and spoil someone's meal by landing on their table!

19th May - Albania without the paperwork

2010-05-21T12:14:00.003+01:00

Ftelias, Greece/Albania border

Ftelias is all of 5 miles from Corfu town but it may as well be on a different planet. The border between Albania and Greece bisects the entrance of the bay, so for a short while we are in Albanian waters without having to do all the tedious formalities to check the boat into the country. There are no border posts or military presence here. As we go past a fish farm a man working there calls out ‘bravo!’, and waves encouragingly towards the narrow dogleg inlet ahead of us to indicate there’s plenty of water. We suppose they don’t get many yotties in here as this is border territory offlimits to yachts. We take the gamble that since there's a general strike on in Greece, the coastguard won't come and move us on.

We find ourselves in a wonderfully sheltered creek with trees growing down to the water’s edge, to be greeted by the sound of birdsong, the inevitable goat bells and the disgruntled barking of a smallholder’s guard dogs.

It is a peaceful rural place and it’s warm and sunny today - a perfect antidote to the last five days of unseasonally strong winds and torrential rain. Last night was our first unbroken night’s sleep since last Thursday.

Here we are anchored below the Venetian old fortress in Corfu town with yet another rainstorm approaching. A 145 foot superyacht ‘Larisa’ is moored at the NAOK sailing club next to us. The yacht club marinero proudly boasted that Roman Abramovich is a member of the club, and it was here the meeting took place between the Russian aluminium oligarch and Peter Mandelson that caused such a stink a year or so ago.

We sat out the worst of the weather at anchor in protected Valtou bay on the mainland which is a real wildlife haven. Our sightings included a small flock of glossy ibis; a Hermann’s tortoise which hissed at Leighton when he picked it up; some European pond terrapins; one Montpelier snake, one unidentified brown snake and a skink. We also saw two large ladder snakes squashed on the road, so now we’re a bit cautious when going for walks along goat paths in the scrub.

13th May - Bugs on Board (by Leighton)

2010-05-21T12:04:00.003+01:00

Cathy hates spiders on the boat. These are a few very small spiders and I don't mind them. After all they do catch mosquitos and I enjoy sitting in the cockpit while reading a book, pausing occasionally to watch them (a bit like fishermen mending their nets) cleaning and repairing their webs in amongst the various bits of rope and safety gear on the back of the boat. Any bug that can produce a material stronger than steel at room temperature and do so out of its backside on a diet of bugs, has got to demand some admiration. After I complained about the indiscrimate destruction of webs and flicking of the residents into the sea to become fish food - Cathy did conceed a bit of ground, "...they can all be put in a box and taken ashore if you want to save them!". Its not like we live in a haunted house. My crew of tiny spiders produce delicate small cobwebs that are full of diamonds in the morning dew and occasionally a dead mosquito. I like that.

Since I mention mosquitos - Unfortunately Mozzies like the same type of climate as us humans so when the weather is at its best the they are about. I am certain these little beasts are the source of many vampire tales: They come out at night, fly through the sky, suck your blood while you sleep and return to their hiding places before sunrise. We have recently had to deploy additional defenses (see picture below) and although it is a bit like something out of "Sleeping Beauty", but we haven't had a bite in the last two nights.

Mini-Ants - we both draw the line at ants. We are not sure where they have come from or where they might live on the boat. Like the spiders they are tiny - (unfortunately the spiders don't seem to do ants) and even though we bump them off when we see them, the odd ant keeps reappearing so we think there might be a small colony somewhere on board. We keep looking out for an anthill to appear on deck - nothing so far.

Dragon Flies - While we are doing bugs we might as well cover the 'mystery of the dragon flies'. Several times we have been visited by colourful dragon Flies - the same kind you can see buzzing around the water plants along any river bank in the UK. The mystery is that each time we were visited by dragon flies we were far out at sea - some 80-100 miles from land! After a rest an hour or so, they would take off and continue their journey - from and to where a mystery.

Now for our "Bug of the Month" competition:

Answers on a postcard please. Not sure where it is now (might still be on the boat somewhere? In a spiders stomach? - we can be hopeful ) but it is certainly not in our book, "The Natural History of The Mediterranean". A complete mystery - and I have never seen a bug like it. New species perhaps? However we did see this thing in the water earlier in the day, there might be a connection...?

10th May, Sivota Mourtos

2010-05-11T12:51:00.003+01:00

Heading north from Preveza, we stopped at Parga on the mainland after a delightful close reach in light winds for 30 miles.

Here we are parked next door to a semi-submerged ferryboat. The quay is a dumping ground for old nets, an underwater wreck and assorted debris. The wrecks have been there for years apparently.

It’s a real shame the harbour is such a dumping ground as the town itself is a jewel. It sits in a beautiful double horseshoe bay which is guarded by a fine Venetian fort on the promontory above.

We took advantage of a rare cloudy day to go for a long walk in the hills above Lakka on Paxos where we spent a few days at anchor last week. Ancient olive trees grow on stone terraces which were built to stop the soil from erosion. They date from the Middle Ages when the Venetians planted the trees so that the Paxiotes could pay their taxes in olive oil.

We came across a secluded church with this ornate bronze bell hung in an olive tree.

The next day was warm enough for our first swim. Leighton collects stones from the beach. Lakka's water is a glorious turquoise.

Plataria on the mainland opposite Corfu felt very exposed when we arrived in a strong sea breeze one afternoon, as the seawall and quay are barely two feet high. Our kedge dragged in the night to put us alongside. We’ve abandoned our plans to leave the boat here and explore Albania by car as 1) the berth isn’t secure – contrary to the pilot and 2) there have been reports of rioting in Tirana.

Leighton takes a break from fixing a leak in the toilet pump with Harry Potter here in Sivota Mourtos.

We did our first stern-to on the quay here with the help of 15 knots of wind blowing us on. It worked scarily well although we ran out of chain – and we have 60 metres of the stuff – some ten feet from the quay. Never mind -we’ve been using the dinghy to ferry us across the gap ever since.

29th April 2010 - Preveza

2010-05-01T18:05:00.008+01:00

Many people have asked us if we’re affected by the Greek economic situation since the bailout is much in the news. Here’s the answer.

People are still out spending and the tavernas are full. Because many people are paid at least part of their salary in cash, they don’t seem to pay much tax. And public sector services like the port police appear to be heavily overstaffed. Small wonder the Greek government has run out of money. The big issue for us continues to be the exchange rate – and that’s the result of a weak pound and the state of the UK economy.

St George’s day is big around here with the farming community. They celebrate by racing stallions around the church outside Vonitsa to win a loaf of bread specially blessed by the priest. It has the mayhem of a drag race with little regard for safety.

The riders wear ordinary jeans and trainers, without a helmet. They talk on their mobile and smoke as they gallop. Afterwards on the quayside the sweating horses are tied to lampposts, benches or any other convenient hitching post to kick their heels while the riders drink a glass or two of ouzo. The horses lash out at anything that gets too close – a scooter, a baby buggy, a passerby.

The deck caulking is done – two weeks of strenuous work, aching muscles and filthy fingernails is finally over!

Here's Cathy hard at work.

We’re pleased with the result and glad to get it over before it gets too hot. Now we can leave Vonitsa and go sailing. We spend the first few days exploring the anchorages in the gulf of Amvrakia with some pleasant sailing. We have to move on twice when the wind shifts to put us on a lee shore. We fetch up in the tiny hamlet of Loutraki tucked in close to the shore beside some small traditional fishing boats. We’ve seen dolphins, turtles, pelicans and seabirds here.

17th April - Vonitsa Score: Virus 10 – Leighton 11 (after a week-long struggle)

2010-04-19T14:40:00.004+01:00

First picnic on the beach - the view towards Kalamos

We are horrified to discover the reason why our PCs have been behaving mysteriously for a while – we’d put it down to just another annoying Microsoft glitch - is because they have both been infected with a thoroughly insidious virus. Because we haven’t manage to connect either PC to the internet yet (another long saga I won’t bore you with) Leighton is forced to spend several hours in a noisy internet cafe over the course of a week trying to work out how to zap the virus. At last, he’s beaten it. Because our memory sticks were infected as well, we haven’t been able to post anything up on the blog until now – hence the complete silence.

Serious Rummikub concentration - Frank is the champion!

Meantime, Cathy has been soldiering on with the deck. First we have to chisel out all the old caulking which has perished in the sun, clean out the seams and stick down any loose boards before applying new black caulking (the consistency of marmite) into the seams. The caulking sticks to absolutely everything apart from baby wipes, so as you can imagine it’s a messy business. Anyone who has been onboard will know there’s an awful lot of deck to do! We want to crack on with it while the conditions are right for the job. At the moment it’s not too hot, and apart from a light sprinkling of rain one evening, completely dry. Our hands and feet look like they’ve emerged from a tar pit, and our work clothes will have to be thrown away, but we are now almost finished. Another three days should do it, then we can start sailing – yippee!

It was very sad to say goodbye to our Dutch friends when they left this week to sail south to Patras. We have so enjoyed spending the last two months with them, and they have greatly enriched our stay here in Vonitsa. There’s now a huge space beside Makarma where their boat used to be - we will miss them a lot.

I’ve left the most important piece of news until last – Edd and Nat have got engaged! The date of the wedding is set for June 2011. Our heartfelt congratulations go to them both.

4th April – Easter Sunday, Vonitsa. Easter celebrations

2010-04-19T14:34:00.007+01:00

Last night found us standing outside the Greek Orthodox church in Vonitsa carrying candles which we lit inside the church a moment before. The black robed priest has come outside to address the crowd through loudspeakers. Everyone is dressed in their finest clothes for the occasion. When the clock chimes midnight, the priest cries ‘Christos Anesti!’ and a roar goes up as everyone replies, ‘Christ is risen indeed!’ The bells ring out and fireworks explode into the sky. Thunderflashes go off under our feet. It is absolutely deafening. Later our candle makes it safely back to the boat still lit to bring us good luck for the coming year. Lighted candles can be seen flickering inside cars as people drive home.

Orthodox Easter is Greece’s big holiday. In the run-up to today, rows of lamb carcases have been hanging in the butcher’s, and the candles that bring good luck are for sale everywhere – many of them elaborately decorated with Barbie dolls, footballers and coloured charms. Vonitsa has filled up with local holidaymakers. Today family and friends get together to eat roast lamb and kokoretsi, a long sausage made of the animal’s entrails and innards, which is cooked over a charcoal brazier in the garden or out on the street. Everyone exchanges ‘Kalo Paskha!’ greetings and red eggs. We enjoy a huge lamb lunch in a taverna overlooking the bay before staggering back home to sleep it off.

After our launch, we sailed the 7 miles to Vonitsa from Aktio on a gloriously sunny day. Mo Fay-Jenkins, who’s sailed single handed across the Atlantic came along for the ride.

We are tied up on the quay alongside Frank and Anneke’s Victory 40, Panteleimon. Vonitsa harbour is sheltered and the little agricultural town is delightful. We are getting to know our way around well. One day we joined Mo and her husband Paul on their junk rigged Fay40, Ti-Gitu for a sail around the gulf.

On another day a brisk afternoon breeze gave us a fantastic sail in Pantaleimon.

Spring is truly here in the Ionian. The fields are a vibrant green and dotted with colourful wildflowers. The almond, cherry and apple trees are in blossom, the trees are now in leaf and the house martins are nesting under the eaves in town. The orange and lemon trees are laden with fruit. Fresh local strawberries are starting to appear in the shops. The bad news is the weather has warmed up enough now for us to tackle the daunting job of recaulking the deck.

Anneke valiantly trying the kokoretsi (lamb's entrail sausage) grilling on Easter Sunday - verdict - thumbs down!

Thursday 18th March – Aktio. To Hell and back – we’re working on the boat!

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We aren’t sorry to leave the coldest winter in UK for many years for spring in Greece. However it’s always hard to say goodbye to the family and to our many friends who’ve given us hospitality and support (especially Laura) while we’ve been back home. We enjoyed our three month stay in Devon, but we’re keen to get back to living on the boat.

Towards the end of February we flew from Bristol to Bergamo, then took the train to Venice, where we met up with our Dutch friends Frank and Anneke, who drove down from Holland in a 30 year old Volvo. Their boat is also at Aktio in the next door boatyard.

Although Venice is in the grip of freezing fog, we spend a magical two days taking in the sights and smells of the city, muffled up against the cold. The sun comes out as the Anek ferry bound for Igoumenitsa sails out of the Venice lagoon, and we have a last glimpse of St Mark’s from the deck before the ship sets out down the Adriatic. It’s a comfortable overnight passage and in the morning we can observe close up some of the coastline of Albania that we may explore later in Makarma.

The usual round of boatwork in the yard begins. We start to put some of the Greek we’ve learned over the winter to good use getting around and sourcing materials. We’ve installed our new DSC VHF radio and Nutlink fanbelt; insulated the fridge with aerogel; the kitchen’s had a makeover; the hatches have new mozzie boards, and the usual servicing, painting, antifouling etc. gets done. Sometimes it seems like we’re pushing a river uphill because anything new invariably has teething problems. But overall we’re pleased with progress.

Cathy has joined a group of writers contributing to a new English language magazine, The Ionian – www.theionian.com. Her first article is an interview with Tiger, a 9 year girl who has only ever lived afloat.
Here's editor Babara Molin with the first issue!

Every Sunday we down tools to have a day off with Frank and Anneke and we drive somewhere inland in their elderly car. Highlights are a visit to the hilltop town of Kassiopi (abandoned when its inhabitants were forcibly relocated to Nicopolis by the emperor Octavian) and the gorge in the Acheron river (reputed to be where Charon ferried souls to the underworld) that is known as the Gates of Hell!

Dressed overall to celebrate Greek Independence Day on March 25th

Independence Day parade in Vonitsa

Wishing you a very merry Christmas 2009!

2009-12-19T13:22:00.002Z

Don't expect a Christmas card from us this year! Instead may we wish you all a very happy Christmas and best wishes for 2010. We'll be in Devon catching up with family and friends until February, then it's back to Greece to prepare for next year's cruising. See you then!