Beautiful turtle sighting!!!!

Well last time we updated the blog we had been on a bit of a trek from Greece to Croatia and back via Montenegro.  We had next planned to go through the Corinth canal into the Aegean and then to race down to the Canaries in Autumn ready to cross the Atlantic to the Caribbean. We also had several trips back to the UK to sort out including Greg’s duties as best man for Phil Kay and Phil and Jules’ wedding itself.

Greg and Phil before the ceremony

So,....we gave ourselves a good talking to and both agreed that it was time to calm down, slow down and take a reality check. In the meantime, Miranda came to visit and we met up with the lovely Quist family in Corfu.

   

So, for those of you who are still thinking you might like to come sailing with us in the Med, we are going to be in the Aegean next summer and then going across to the Caribbean. 

For any of you who might like to cross the Atlantic with us in December 2019, we will be looking for crew well in advance.  So, please do get in touch now to discuss what would be involved.

If you are thinking a Caribbean cruise might be nice – 2020 will be when we are there, following the race calendar to visit the islands and join in the fun when they are having their regattas.  

Caribbean Race Schedule 

As we are travelling we always have half an eye on the property market in the places we really love, with a view to thinking once we are sailed out or too decrepit …..where would we most like to live? So far, our top three places are Valencia, Elvissa and Corfu in that order – always assuming the UK isn’t likely to have hot summers for ever more.

We have loved Greece and the Ionian islands so far.  They are very beautiful and for sailing there are a lot of islands with easy hop journeys from one anchorage to another.  Most of all it has given us a chance to draw breath from our excessive spending of the previous twelve months because its virtually free to moor up alongside on the quay and absolutely free and easy to anchor.  

Kioni

Vathi

We are however tiring of the cuisine – its fine if you are here for two weeks but beyond that there are only so many Greek salads and souvlaki that you can eat and most of the fish is frozen and imported – these are not rich fishing grounds.  It was great to celebrate our 30^th wedding anniversary in Kionio and we have also been seeking out the very occasional restaurant that dares to be different. Salto in Corfu, Thymari in Lefkas and then with Mags and Steve Dewsnap in restaurant No Menu in Nydri where there is no menu, but you say how much you want to spend and they bring what they think you will like.  

Not souvlaki!.....

Not Greek salad!......

Steve and Mags at NoMenu

Having said there is a lack of fish, we have seen an endangered Monk seal off Ithika and our son Ed arrived today and within half an hour we were visited by an amazing sea turtle whilst on anchorage in Argostoli on Kefalonia.  Check out this video of the beautiful turtle.

Over the past few weeks we have continued to have endless minor maintenance issues, the details of which we won’t bore you with and Greg has been getting down and dirty trying to fix things with some coaching from Steve Dewsnap who is sailing with his wife Mags on their Moody 42 -  Silver Fox, and Kevin Armstrong who was very patient and helpful on the last day of his sailing holiday. I am pleased to report that after this tuition Greg has cracked fixing the water pump!!!!  😊 

Greg trying to mend the pump.......

Other important news is that Greg has very reluctantly sold his paramotor. Sadly, its just too difficult to find safe and suitable places to take off and land so I tried to sympathise whilst secretly feeling pleased that we were releasing a bit of storage space. 

People ask us if we have arguments given that we are together 24/7/365. The answer is of course we do but I have to say that the most arguments we have are about what we are storing on the boat and what is taking up too much space. So, I have moaned endlessly about the paramotor and Greg moans endlessly about the bags of bedding that I keep just in case it gets cold and for when we have visitors.  My recent solution has been to buy bags that you can vacuum suction to remove the air and reduce their size by 80% -  Ed has just brought them with him so I will let you know if I am out of the dog house in the next blog.  Greg definitely isn’t……...he’s bought an inflatable paddle board which I naively assumed would be deflated when not in use.  Annoyingly, even deflated it’s still about the size of the paramotor and quite often it gets put down below and isn’t deflated…its bloody enormous.  

Generous Greece, Costly Croatia and Magnificent Montenegro.....

It’s been a few weeks since we last updated the blog and the main reasons for our lack of activity have been that we have been very engaged in our travels, meeting up with friends and hosting visitors; as a result we now have a lot of news and have had to edit hard to prevent it becoming tedious.

When we last posted we were feeling a bit disillusioned with attitudes in southern Italy whilst recognising its beauty in terms of interesting places to visit…. but when we arrived in Greece it was hard to know why we had lingered in Italy at all!

Restaurants in many little bays are very welcoming with their own dinghy docks for  boats on anchor

Early morning walk round the bay in Port Kioni

Greece was a revelation.  The Ionian islands are beautiful and even more delightful for their plentiful and free crystal-clear anchorages and generous rates to moor on the town quay.  How does 50 cents a metre including water and electricity sound to you?  It’s a no brainer.  We even moored up in one harbour and plugged into electricity and water for free!  Maybe Greece does need to catch on a tad to offset its debt!

Our biggest concern was that we would find the food a bit dull because last time we were here, which was about 20 years ago, we did find the food very mediocre.  So, we were delighted to discover things have improved substantially.

We spent some time in Corfu, Paxos and Ithaca. Meeting up with our friends Simon and Liz in Kefalonia and Ithica,  Graham and Anne Marie in Preveza, hosting our daughter Miranda in Corfu; meeting up and spending time with Maggie and Richard from Hejira in Paxos and again in Corfu. 

Liz and Simon in Fiskardo

Dinner in Mljet with Lesley and Ian

Dinner with Richard and Maggie in Lake

Greg and Miranda in Corfu 

All in all the start of June was very sociable, with beautiful weather and great sailing.  The watermaker was fixed and it was looking like a month to claw back on some of our previous repair bills. Greg bought himself a fishing rod and was trying to supplement our budget by catching supper when we were on anchor - he was singing a happy little song.  

Sunset over Gouvia Marina

Greg's first fish - but a bit too small for supper.......

We then went north to a place called Obrevic in Croatia, north of Dubrovnik to meet our friends Lesley and Ian who were joining us to cruise around for a week. 

We cut an amazing swathe up the middle of the Adriatic on an overnight sail whilst electrifying storms raged on either side of us. Strangely we had clear sky above us all the way whilst Italy to our west and Albania to our East were covered in thunderheads and received the wrath of God! So, we were extremely pleased to arrive safely in Dubrovnik.  

Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik was lovely

but Dubrovnik is a victim of its own success - too many tourists.....

Lots of people have warned us of the hiked costs in Croatia but having been there several times before we couldn’t quite believe it could be as bad as all that.

It was.  

It was worse!  

Charges have been increased by 400% in the past 12 months.  The average marina charge we paid was equivalent of 175 Euro.  Anchoring is half of the mooring charge in many areas.  There is a sojourn tax to even enter and sail in Croatia; for 14 days ours was equivalent of 240 Euros.  Reserving a place in a marina incurs an additional 20% charge.  If you don’t reserve a place they are full, but if you book and pay the extra 20% amazingly they aren’t!  

Some restaurants have their own free pontoons if you eat with them.  Apparently, the law will change to prevent that option shortly, which is such a pity as we had an amazing dock and dine experience on Mljet, berthed at Konoba Ankora.

The view from the castle in Hvar

Jan chilling out in Carpe Diem, Hvar

A quiet anchorage in Brna, Croatia

The reason for this massive hike is apparently because charter companies such as Sunsail have abandoned Turkey and moved to Croatia and they are worried that there are too many charter boats there now.  That may be the case, but the charter business will probably survive, whereas liveaboards and people keeping their own yachts in Croatia are now voting with their feet.  The restaurants may find that problematic particularly in the shoulder season when many of us continue to sail and visit these lovely places. 

Luckily, we were sailing with very generous friends who paid more than their share of the charges and helped us through the pain and we really enjoyed the beauty of many of the places we visited, from Hvar and its chi-chi shops and restaurants to cycling round the lakes in the national park on Mljet. 

Moored at Konoba Ankora in Mjlet National Park

Exploring the National Park with Lesley and Ian

Croatia remains beautiful.  We had a fabulous time but sadly checked out after only 8 days to the lack of surprise of the port authority, who seemed very resigned and unhappy when we said we were going to Montenegro   

To our delight, Montenegro is a magnificent country and offers such a welcoming and much more affordable experience.  The scenery is breath-taking, people are friendly, towns are interesting, and the waters are so clear.  Checking in was pretty painless and similar to checking into Greece or Croatia. 

We arrived in darkness in strong winds at Porto Montenegro and woke to stunningly huge mountains and equally stunningly huge yachts moored alongside us! Porto Montenegro is a superyacht port and has all the facilities.

Every super yacht should have one!

We are having problems with our generator so having been stood up by an engineer in both Croatia and again in Porto Montenegro (probably more gainfully employed on a superyacht) we moved round to Kotor.  What a beautiful trip that was and how fabulous the city.  

Bay of Kotor Montenegro

It was destroyed in an earthquake in 1979 and has been rebuilt.  Kevin McCloud must have been advising on maintaining the integrity of the original buildings as it is clear what is new and what was salvaged. Nevertheless, the result is amazing and really worth a visit.

From our mooring we could see the precipitous wall to the mountain fortress and so we decided to climb it, pretending to be part of the cast of Game of Thrones.

The start of the climb

Halfway up......

The view from the top!

We can highly recommend Montenegro and we may well revisit. Now we have just arrived back in Greece in preparation for some pre-booked flights back for Phil and Jules's wedding.

Sardinia and Sicily

As you will have seen from our last blog, we are reeling from repair bills, so we made a decision to avoid the millionaires playground of northern Sardinia and try to make our way east as fast as possible where we believe it is easier to anchor and costs are more affordable.  

We were excited about arriving in a new country, trying different foods and getting to know it better, and Carloforte proved to be a pleasant, interesting introduction to Italy just as the weather was getting noticeably warmer. I took a few days to adjust to ordering beer in Italian instead of Spanish but no-one seemed to misunderstand me!

We have realised that although technically we are in the high season when it comes to marina rate cards, it is still very quiet both at sea and in the tourist areas, so the buzz that you often get in the peak times is missing.  That's great if you are looking to get away from it all.... but when we are sailing, we seek that solitude on anchor and then prefer to find places with more energy when stopping in marinas. So, we are realising that our view of places is affected by the timing.  What we might think is a sleepy, dull place in May might well be either great fun or a nightmare in August!

Carloforte is famous for tuna.  We decided to try the local tuna specialities but were surprised that it all seemed to be canned, smoked or stewed.....Jan's favourite, tuna tartare, apparently is not 'typical' and therefore not available! You can buy tuna galore in posh tins (like the sardines on the Atlantic coast) at exotic prices to take home to your friends.  We didn't buy any.....

After a couple of days we moved round to Cagliari, which is one of the biggest cities in Sardinia. It's an old city and has lots of beautiful historic buildings including a Roman amphitheatre. The marina is a bit out of town so our bikes were once again invaluable. We enjoyed browsing in the market and spent a very enjoyable evening at a wine tasting event where you paid for a glass in a pouch then wondered around different stands choosing wines. This proved to be a good introduction to different Sicilian wines.....if only we could find them again!

The Roman Ampitheatre

One of the city gates

Cagliari also has some good marine services so we took advantage of these to have a diver go down and do some maintenance on the boat and clean the hull for us. 

From Cagliari we did the overnight crossing to Sicily. We were fortunate because  we had favourable winds so sailed almost all the way. Although it can be quite stressful to sail at night the fact that we are saving huge amounts of fuel always cheers us up! We are definitely getting better at the long two or three day sails now; planning food prep in advance in case we are healed over and organising a watch system that works with just the two of us.

Our arrival in Trapani was a huge disappointment, it is a very scruffy dirty city. I don't know whether the waste collection and street cleaners are on strike at the moment but there were skips piled high with rubbish and it looked like the streets hadn't been swept for months. 

Are they on strike or is it always like this?

Added to this the marina was expensive and there was no drinking water available so we left there after a brief one night stay and went round to Castellamare which was a much nicer town and where we anchored for two nights. Other people have told us they loved Trapani so we may just have visited on a bad day.

Castellamare from the sea

Our next stop was Palermo which is a big, busy city with a beautiful cathedral and more than its fair share of ancient buildings so again we spent several happy days exploring on our bikes...although the Italian car drivers are very impatient, inconsiderate to cyclists and the use of horns is deafening. The open air food markets were amazing and very inexpensive, with lots of exotic produce which we have been trying.

Palermo Cathedral

One of the city gates

Some amazing things in the Cathedral - including a saint's arm!

Our next stop, Cefalu was well worth visiting. Its another pretty town with a very nice hill-top castle, so we spent a couple of nights on anchor there.

Cefalu Cathedral

Cefalu Castle

The view from the top....

There are  spectacular views over to the Aeolian Islands from the castle and once we realised how close the Aeolian Islands were, we decided that they were worth a detour from our original plan.  

The nearest island was Vulcano which as the name implies is an active volcano! As we anchored we noticed that the seawater in the bay near the beach was bubbling as if it was alive. When we went to investigate in our dinghy we discovered that this was caused by the release of gas from underwater fissures - there was a constant rotten egg smell which was quite oppressive depending on wind direction.

You can climb the path to the top of the crater on Vulcano where we discovered that if a little bit of gas was being released underwater at sea level..... a huge amount of gas was being released at the top of the mountain. There were warnings at the bottom about not going near or breathing the gas.  As you can see we were very obedient.....

Inspired by our experiences of Vulcano we were excited as we sailed across to Stromboli which is a much more active and bigger volcano. On the way across there was very little wind and as a result the sea was like glass for the first part of our passage, so we were delighted to be entertained by a small pod of dolphins.  Don't think we have ever has such an amazingly clear view of them before...we could see every mark on their skins.  

The peak of Stromboli seems to be frequently shrouded in cloud and ash as its several craters periodically display pressure reducing mini-eruptions. We upped anchor at night and went round to the north west face of the island for an hour to watch the eruptions from the boat and they were spectacular, taking place approximately every 15 minutes. You could hear the explosion, see the shooting lava and then see the lava flowing over the brim and down the cone at the top. Sadly the iPhone 6 camera, good as it is, was not up to that level of night photography but we are including a photo found on the internet which shows exactly what we saw, so that those of you interested in visiting will know it was definitely worth doing.

Whilst we were there we looked into opportunities to climb to the peak of the volcano and watch the activity from the eastern edge of the crater.  The information was clear that only people in peak fitness should attempt it, so I did it but Jan wisely declined. The 950 metre climb up was very tough and sadly the visibility at the top was disappointingly poor on that night due to the cloud and the ash.  

Coming down is also very hard on your knees as it involved wading through steeply sloping ash fields.   It was a very interesting climb and adventure, but very weather dependent.

We have really enjoyed the Aeolian islands. We have found it easy to anchor for free and  dock the dinghy ashore on Vulcano,  Stromboli and Paneria, but it is May and not August; in the height of summer it may well be a scramble.  The towns are small with tiny streets and tiny vehicles to match, nestling at the foot of a natural landscape that is absolutely awesome.  Well worth a visit.