Into the blue once more

So we are heading back to Greece in order to avoid the predicted bad weather.  It is basically a similar leg to the outbound route but this time we will make landfall on the southern part of the Greek mainland - the Peloponnese.  Crete turned out to be a bad option again due to potential weather problems.

The trip was uneventful and the weather gods were even smiling upon us.  We had one eleven hour tack on the second day - sailing as it is meant to be!

Pylos is an attractive little town with a French influence and flair.  The small square does indeed (as the pilot book says) feel like a square in a provincial French town - plane trees shading the cafe tables and ice-cream vendors.  There even is a patisserie.  We met up with people from the only other yacht in the harbor and had an interesting dinner.  It is always fascinating when different nationalities get together.  This time the two crews came from the IUS , Ireland, Australia and Israel - not bad for only six people.

It turns out it is Easter in Greece - the Greek Orthodox calendar is different than that in the Western European tradition.  Tomorrow will be Good Friday.  The major consequence of this is that Greece will be closed until next Wednesday.  Greeks take Easter very seriously and we are looking forward to the traditional lamb dishes on Sunday.

Some thoughts from Lori

     We are on day two of a three day passage... N 37. 23.372'. E 17. 28.101'. It's a hazy afternoon, and the air is fresh with a definite chill in it.  We spent the morning cleaning up after the tribe of sparrows that sought refuge in our cockpit last night, and everything is ship shape.  Colin and Ruairi are taking some needed downtime.  I had a huge nap this morning.  This is giving me some great space to just sit and think, and look and listen.  I see nothing and everything... No land in sight, no boats in sight, just me and a ton of sea.  I hear the wonderful sound of the water that we leave behind us, a soft intermittent moan from the mainsail as she moves slightly from starboard to port as we crest and fall over the swells.   I also hear what sounds like distant fireworks, which I presume to be associated with the NATO ship that I see on our AIS.  About an hour ago, I could almost see its presence, but it was 20 nautical miles off, so I couldn't make it out clearly.  I hesitate to bring this up, as I know that my mother is reading this.  Now that I'vedone it, let me tell you that the VHF mentioned something about a firing range test, so there are no worries momma!  

I feel very fortunate. The state of affairs in the world is very distressing, and to be able to trade that for what is right here, right now - to enjoy, respect and manage to the best of our skills feels like a true privilege.

Valetta, Malta

It is Sunday in Valetta and we were going to take a hop-on hop-off bus ride through old city and countryside but apparently they stop these tours early in the afternoon, so Plan B is necessary.  It turns out that there is a little ferry that runs  from close by our marina (Manoel Island) over to the old town - Euro 1.50 well spent!

The old town retains much of its original character and what look to be many of the original buildings, The oldest church here dates from 1566 and the narrow streets and alleyways remind me a little of the Old Town in Edinburgh.  The sunshine is a bit different of course but on this day the cold wind off the sea made it feel just like the east coast of Scotland, 

Speaking about the weather, there is a gale forecast for Monday and while things will improve by Tuesday, we will not gave a good enough weather-window to visit Gozo and get back to the mainland before the next bad weather arrives.  As usual, prudence is the watchword and we will head back to the Peloponnese on Tuesday.

Malta is the third most densely populated country in the world with some 400,000 people on the island. Throughout history Mal;at has maintained a rich seafaring and trading tradition.  Despite being invaded many times, it maintains an independent character and seems to have assimilated traits from invaders into their own culture.  One of the most interesting of these is the Maltese language itself,  This has many similarities to Arabic but uses the Roman alphabet. The most closely-related language is apparently Lebanese.

The military associations are everywhere - there are bastions on the high ground overlooking the harbor and the waters around the island.  The harbor itself is almost perfect - beautifully sheltered and snuggled below the old town.

Monday brought the gale as predicted but we had to spend the middle of the day replacing the anemometer (irony?).  This is the third one of these we've had in the two and a half years we've owned True Colors  Simrad did not do a good job on this one.  Ruairi went to the top of the mast (brave man) to do the work.

Topped up the provisions and had a last meal ashore before we head out on Tuesday morning.  Talking about the last meal, Ruairi has been intimidated by the quality of the restaurant at the marina - it has been really good.  But tonight they let him down with a burger that was less than average (though why he chose a burger in Malta I am not sure).  Vliho Yacht Club can rest easy again!

It's a long way to Malta

A midday start after provisioning the boat and a plan to head to Assos on Cephalonia. Assos is very susceptible to swell from the prevailing winds. So the twenty-knot (un-forecasted, of course) winds came as a bit of a surprise.  The accompanying swell made Assos impossible.

True Colors sailed well and did a great job beating into the wind at just under eight knots. It was surprisingly cold and we all added more layers as the day progressed.

We changed our plans and headed for Fiskardo which is usually REALLY busy in the season. But two weeks before the season begins, Fiskardo is quiet - I might even say "closed". 

Lori parked the boat with Ruairi's supervision. We will eat at the one open restaurant tonight which will be, by default, the best restaurant in town.

Tomorrow we head for Malta.

No internet connection so this is going to be a longer entry covering the trip to Malta

We left at about noon and headed out into the Ionian.  The route is pretty straightforward' largely one long  (320 nm) leg in a southwesterly direction.  It turned out to be a play in three acts - a few hours of good sailing with favorable winds, then we motored; the second day saw us motoring again but with a good bit of afternoon sailing before the winds died early in the evening' the last day we were lucky in that the winds forecast to be on our nose did not turn up until early afternoon but thereafter it was a Force 6 bumpy ride into Valetta.

The overnights worked well and with Ruari's guidance we developed a routine that worked well for the three of us. Lori's confidence is growing and she is looking very comfortable in all sorts of weather and other situations.

Valetta looks to be quite remarkable and we plan to explore here for the next couple of days before heading over to Gozo.

A not so smooth start

We arrived in Preveza yesterday after a more hectic than usual trip.  

It all started three days before we were due to set off. We got t-boned by another car in Phoenix. The car looks in a bad way and Lori got a concussion - I guess she won't be playing football again any time soon. So that messed up an already aggressive schedule but we pulled it all together and got to the airport pretty much on schedule.

Our normal approach of booking a single itinerary with a single airline (and their partners) failed miserably.  We started off in Phoenix on American.  The "automatic" check-in system couldn't read our passports and after typing in all the details(!) it then told us we couldn't check baggage because it was less than forty-five minutes before take off.  When we pointed out to the human sentry-bot that it was actually MORE than forty-five minutes to our take-off time, you could see the wheels turning but no words came out. I have rarely seen anyone look so perplexed - "this does not compute". But thank heavens for elite status - not usually much of a benefit but at least it got us to a real human who processed our booking quite easily.

The flight to Chicago was uneventful. But what British Airways had neglected to mention was that we needed to change terminals, go back out of security , get on a train, and get back through security again. All in just over an hour!

Heathrow wasn't too bad. We had just enough time to grab breakfast in Gordon Ramsey's restaurant.  Enjoyable as always. A night at the airport Sofitel and the long taxi ride across to Preveza.

True Colors looks great (thanks Ruairi, Vicky and team).  Paperwork and provisioning to do before we set off on Wednesday

2016: The planning begins ...

This year we are starting off quite early.  We head out to Preveza in the middle of April.  It is going to be a little colder than we are used to but we have a big season in front of us.

Our first trip will be south from Vliho to Malta. The details remain to be worked out but we expect to be back around the first week in May.  We always like to have Ruairi Bradley from Vliho Yacht Club along on our first trip of the season to help us blow away the cobwebs from the winter and pick his brains on all the things we still don't know about sailing in general and our boat in particular.

The latter part of the season will see Lori and I heading north via Corfu, Italy, Montenegro and Croatia where we will pick up her sister and brother-in-law for an unforgettable (hopefully in a good way) sail to Venice.  The prospect of sailing True Colors in the lagoon of Venice is really quite exciting,

In the middle of the season Lori and I have a number of options that we haven't finalized yet.  But that's the advantage of a boat; we can be flexible and see where the winds take us.