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It is now the 2nd of December. The last few days have been 23C (73F) and gorgeous. It gets dark around 5pm and the nights demand a light jacket, but at noon every day you would think it is summer. We have had a few windy/rainy days….but the weather generally has been glorious. Fall asContinue reading “Summer in December plus more Maintenance”

We came back to our home marina, Agios Nikolaos in Crete in late September. About a week later Victoria left for a major hike in Spain (the Camino) with her daughter so I was going to be by myself on the boat for awhile. Time to do a bunch of boat maintenance! The first thingContinue reading “Return to Crete: Boat maintenance time”

Our last long voyage of the summer is to go from Astypalaia to Crete: 82nm. If we do an average of 5 knots this means over 16 hours of travel, if we do 6 knots it means 14 hours. This year our sailing speed has been around 5 knots. We only have 12 hours ofContinue reading “Astypalaia to Crete”

It was windy in Astypalea. We put out our second CQR anchor with 2 long lines to the right of our main anchor because the winds were so strong from that side and we wanted to better secure the boat. We had already put out a spring line, and had doubled the stern line onContinue reading “Astypalea: Boat TV”

We sailed from Kalymnos to Astypalea which is our last island stop before heading home to our marina spot in Crete. Our friends and neighbours from Crete were there and we were looking forward to seeing them again. Astypalae port is quite popular, so we were not guaranteed to get a spot and wanted toContinue reading “Prepare to be Boarded!”

The main image shows the predicted wind in our area. The Red and Orange areas you want to avoid or be snugged up in a protected harbour waiting for them to go away. *We were to the east of this in Lesvos, but the system was not moving because of an ‘Omega Block’. I don’tContinue reading “Scary Weather: Chios to Samos to Arki”

Lesvos is the 3rd largest Greek island, and is very close to the Turkish coast. There were a lot of Greek military boats around, and there was one in our marina, a smallish maybe 35m boat carrying 2 small deck-mounted guns that would do daily patrols. Greece has a mandatory military service for young menContinue reading “Lesvos: A different kind of Greek Island”

If you are not interested in technical stuff you probably should skip this post. I promise you won’t hurt my feelings….only because I won’t know 😉 When sailing here in the Med, I often think about people hundreds of years ago navigating between the islands. No radios, no maps, no GPS, no weather information. ThisContinue reading “Spruzzo Technology”

Our eventual destination is Lesvos, and Lemnos is on the way. We left Chalkidiki on the mainland at first light again for a long day on the water, and we had almost perfect wind so we sailed for much of the way. We only saw one boat the entire day, and it was an 80mContinue reading “Lemnos: Beloved but remote”

«Λήμνος γαιάων απασέων φιλτάτη…»  Homer Homer praised the island of Lemnos as the most beloved of lands that provided grain and wine to the entire ancient world. It’s amazing to think that this volcanic island on the northeastern Aegean has been inhabited since 4,000 BCE. Archeologists have discovered at least 14 neolithic settlements with theContinue reading “Lemnos the most beloved of lands”