If you would like to know any techy info about Carina - just click on "building the adventure " and there is more information on the gallant ship !

26.08.09 JUST WHEN YOU THINK IT’S ALL OVER....

We had a rather dramatic return to Agios Nikolas as no sooner had we climbed back onboard Carina, than I noticed a man climbing off his catamaran with his hand bleeding badly, his wife was extremely upset. We ran over to help and find someone to take him to hospital, he’d had an accident with his windlass winch moments before. George remained incredibly calm as he climbed into the car, Nadia had a paper cup with part of his thumb in ice! A few hours later they were back from emergency surgery at the hospital so we went over to see how he was doing – amazing, considering!! They kindly invited us onboard the next evening. Alize, George’s daughter is a very talented singer/ song writer. She and her boyfriend and guitarist, Xavier sang us two lovely French songs, we bought a copy of her new CD! With Nadia, who is Haitian, and their other Swiss friend Jeremy, we had a really lovely evening with so much to talk about – sailing, business, the state of the world etc...

It was still very windy so we decided to start closing down Carina ready to leave her. So much to do after 16 months!! Rich and I went on another bizarre trail to various offices to check back into Greece (a week after we had actually arrived, all rather confusing!) Between a few last swims at the beach, we moved to a permanent berth where Carina will stay until we come back at half term for a bit more sailing in the late sunshine and a chance to learn a bit more about Crete – definitely something to look forward to when it’s cold and drizzling in England!! We are happy leaving her here at the marina, the staff are really nice and seem very conscientious, it does feel really sad and strange leaving her though, she has been our much loved home and seen us

through a lot.

Nigel ,who also keeps his boat in the marina, kindly dropped us at the bus station in his car with our ton of luggage! By courtesy of Hellenic Airways, we have added another country to our route as they cancelled our flight and have diverted us from Athens via Frankfurt to Birmingham! We quite enjoyed leaving Crete slowly on the overnight ferry, someone else to do the navigating this time and we didn’t feel quite so whisked away as you do on a plane. So now we are waiting in Athens airport – must go and change out of my shorts into something warmer... oh no!!

21.08.09 AYIOS NIKOLAS AT LAST (OUR FINAL GOAL!)

After clearing up all the leaks we set off again on, what I realised, might be the last passage of our trip! Our mileage had just hit 5000 miles - a long way when we only travel at about 5 miles an hour! It felt quite significant and we were very sad it was nearly over. The good part was that we would see Nick and Annmarie that evening. The marina is (as that is where we are now) absolutely lovely with a little beach right next to it and the town itself is very nice. We had a great reunion with lots of Pimms and delicious supper out by the harbour. As one of Rich’s oldest (not literally!) friends, it was also strange that Nick had been the first person to sail with us in the UK (before they moved to live in Crete last year) and now he and Annmarie would be the last – spooky!! We had a really lovely weekend with them on board. We had a great sail round to the most beautiful cove which we had to ourselves where we anchored for the night, swimming and snorkelling in the turquoise sea. After a walk up the hill in the morning we sailed back in to Ayios. Too far to sail now, we squeezed into their car and drove down the coast to their village of Kalami near Hania at the other end of the island for a couple of days. Their house is delightful, with the most beautiful views across the bay at Soudha. We walked down and swam on the little beach and saw their newly adopted kitten, Jacko, hiding in the bushes! A lovely supper in Kalives, the village nearby, then Annmarie had to fly to Scandinavia early the next day on business. Nick kindly lent us his car to look around while he was working. We visited Rithymno and Soudha with a view to leaving Carina there, but they are quite undeveloped for yachts to stay long term. Crete is a beautiful island, with huge mountains and very varied landscape, we have hardly scratched the surface in the time we have had. Within 3 miles of home, their car broke down with a burst radiator – HOW EMBARRASSING!!!! Nick had to tow us back! Next day we did some internet in his smart new office, we are so impressed how professionally he has set up his property maintenance business. He and Annmarie have given us a few ideas...!!!.Next day Nick dropped us in Hania for a few hours, what a pretty town with its old Venetian harbour! We have enjoyed living on dry land for a couple of days and seeing Nick and Annmarie, thank you so much, guys.( Good BBQ’s Nick!!) We then caught the 2 buses to get back down to Ayios Nikolas.

With only 3 days left until we fly back from Crete, we are struggling to come to terms with returning to the UK – not easy the thought of having to shut a door on the fresh air and missing the freedom of living on the boat. We are looking forward to seeing you all, but wish we could come straight back again!! It’s been THE most INCREDIBLE, AMAZING year of all our lives!! ALL the tough bits have been worth putting up with (and there’ve been a few!) We have all learnt and experienced so much, life will never be the same for any of us again.

The toughest part of all ?? – Going back to the UK to we know not what yet.....

20.08.09 TOUGH TRIP TO CRETE!

We knew it would be – it’s a notoriously difficult stretch of water to cross, especially when the meltemi is in full swing. Pretty much along the same lines as the previous trip, but worse! (We were just more used to it by now)Not another boat in sight as usual. Carina had leaks where she never had before and hopefully won’t again! Not going as far as we had hoped, we made it as far as Sitia on the NE coast and rested for the night in the harbour. Tom nearly caught an octopus, but it wouldn’t let go of the harbour wall with its suckers!

We had realised by then that for several reasons it was going to be difficult for me to return to the UK for a short visit, so sadly, I had to miss Ve’s funeral. Tania, we will be back with you very soon now.

17.08.09 SURPRISING KASOS!

Very windy, but beautiful weather as ever, the sea got rougher and rougher as we struggled to keep a good course to reach the north coast of Kasos, the last tiny island to the west of Crete. In the large channel between Karpathos and Kasos the sea was very confused with water crashing over the boat off every wave, it was hard work! Again the harbour looked tiny, then we realised we couldn’t even get in as there was a huge working barge taking up the whole of the harbour wall. A fisherman suggested we went back to the small old harbour half a mile away which didn’t sound very sheltered but we had no choice! We were the only boat there, it was quite roly but as we were mooring to the wall a very helpful Greek man called Alexandros gave us the benefit of his experience in this harbour and helped us turn the boat the other way round for the waves. His wife and daughter, Marilena and Sofia came down to tell us that we had arrived just in time for the concert that evening! After dark we walked over to the village of Fri. The tiny walled harbour was lit up and I would guess the whole population of Kasos (700 in all!) were sitting in some of the little fishing boats and on every chair gathered from the whole island, all waiting for Mario Frangoulis to sing! Gaining his fame from performing in Les Miserables, Mario originated from Kasos and returns every year to give a free concert for his fellow islanders and visitors. He and other well known singers and musicians he had brought along, gave a magical performance of all different styles of music from traditional Greek songs to opera, lasting from 10.0 till the early hours in the most enchanting concert setting we have ever seen!! Were we lucky or what?! Next morning we had a swim at the lovely little beach in the harbour, Marilena and Eleni (their other daughter) came down to invite us to lunch. She suggested they took us on a whistle stop tour of the island. Her family was from Kasos although they now live in the UK, returning every year to their beautiful old family house which she has lovingly restored over the years. We were fascinated to hear all the history and how the island once had a population of 18,000 (until the Turks came along, that was.) We had a delicious Greek lunch with them at the taverna by the beach and the children had a lot of fun together. We met quite a few of their friends and children who, like them, do not live on Kasos, but return to their family houses each year from mainland Greece and other places around the world. It is not an easy island to reach – you have to take several flights or ferries even from Athens to get to this remote island at the far end of the Aegean. Quite unique! Our luck wasn’t over – that night a Cuban band was coming to play by the harbour – again someone with links to the island had paid for them to play. It was brilliant, we danced for ages, they played from 10 -2 am then left on the 4am ferry apparently! Consequently we didn’t leave early the next morning! It was still very windy in any case. The entertainment wasn’t over yet! That evening there was some music, singing and Greek dancing at the little school near the boat. Amber and Tom then disappeared to play with some of the children they had met. After we’d found them we went to bed rather later than planned, ready to sail early the next morning.... We had had such a wonderful time on this friendly little island, also due to the kindness and hospitality of Alex, Marilena and their lovely girls, thank you so much!

12.08.09 THE DODECANESE – RHODES + KARPATHOS

We left in the dark after supper, sad to go. Motoring out of the huge harbour in the dark, Tom on deck with a torch spotting fishing buoys, we set off to Lindos in Rhodes. In the night the wind got up and we had a fantastic sail, arriving just after dawn, 2 hours early! We spent a restful day swimming, Amber and Tom played in the dinghy for hours. In the evening we went ashnarrow streets with patterned cobbles of tiny pebbles and beautiful little white houses. The imposing castle towered above the little bay, in the day there were lots of donkeys taking all the visitors up the hill. Very touristy but very pretty to watch from the boat. Feeling we needed to press on to get to Crete as soon as possible, we set sail early the next day towards Karpathos. As forecast, the meltemi (from the NW) was blowing well. With only the staysail and trysail (our 2 smallest sails) we hit 9 knots at one point! There were only 3 other visiting yachts in the harbour at Pighadi, one of which was teh most beautiful schooner. It didn’t look a very inspiring place, but on closer inspection later we decided it was quite nice with tavernas all along the front. It was obviously the Italian’s holiday time, in fact it felt more like Italy than Greece in the town! Urgent sail repairs were needed on a big tear on the mainsail, Rich and I spent the best part of 2 days hand stitching a big patch on. A 2 man job- one on each side of the sail – very frustrating in the hot sun and a gale blowing the thread everywhere! Our language was appalling - Rich stabbed me 3 times with the big needle (mine got even worse then!!)

9.08.09 FETHIYE TOWN

After a quiet reflective couple of days we finally headed to the busy town of Fethiye in the late afternoon, a short but rough trip into the strong wind. We found a lovely quiet anchorage away from the town. With the big outboard we could zip over there 5 minutes. We had Turkish fish and chips at the funniest boat restaurant I’ve ever seen (I’m glad it wasn’t too rough!) We visited the huge, bustling weekly market which we always enjoy. We discovered the old amphitheatre and Paspatur, the old Greek part of the town with its overhanging balconies, really pretty.

Tom and I went for a brilliant ride. We were taken to the Turkish stables, so many horses there! A totally mixed bunch of people, we all set off together. We had chosen the 3 hour ride to Kaya Koy, the deserted town (occupied by the Greeks until 1923 when the whole population was moved on foot to Greece, never to return – an eerie place (read ‘Birds Without Wings’ by Louis de Berniere for the full story.) Anyway we slowly made our way there through the forest. After a rest and a beer (for me!) Tom, myself and 2 other experienced riders were told we could go back at our own pace (yippee we thought!) We asked how we could find the way and were told the horses knew it!!!! So off we went – it was great! They flew round all the right corners, we all loved it! We discovered afterwards why Tom’s horse cantered from halt – she was an ex-racehorse and lovely too!!

Rich patiently managed to do all the transit paperwork to leave Turkish waters, visiting 4 different offices with great stamping of forms and a wait of over an hour at the bank to pay the grand sum of £3 admin fee!! The whole procedure took most of the day as the offices all closed for 3 hours over lunchtime!

6.08.09 BACK TO KALKAN

Very sad and subdued we headed back to Kalkan the next day, unsure what to do next. We anchored off the beach and swam, we went back to our favourite Fener Cafe by the harbour. By 1.0am the wind had got up and Carina was really close to the rocks so we went back into the harbour again. We went to say goodbye to our friend Erjan (who is a professional fisherman) Asu and their son Ulas, they came down to the boat and gave Tom some more fishing tips and a special line. A big surprise to us, some English friends we had made in Kalkan 3 years ago, Andrew, Helen, their daughter Bridget and friend Caroline spotted Tom on the beach! It cheered us up a lot to see some more familiar faces and they came down to visit us on Carina in the evening, the children really enjoyed some young company again. We set off to Olu Deniz very early the next morning and anchored nearby. The most famous beach in Turkey – beautiful but incredibly busy! Some lovely big gulets (the Turkish wooden ships) moored near us and we snorkelled in the crystal clear water. Tom and Rich tried in vain to hook more octopus (all they got was a load of mossie bites!) Very popular for paragliding, we spotted 26 on one count in the air above us. After a peaceful night we motored on towards Fethiye, stopping off in a tiny bay called Bestas Limini. We climbed the hill to the taverna, the only building in sight. Not accessible by road, their deliveries arrive by boat and are taken up the track by 2 donkeys that live by the beach below! It was so lovely there that we stayed the night. Amber and Tom played in the dinghy with the wakeboard and snorkel boards. Little boats came by selling bread, fruit, vegetables and turkey eggs! On one boat the lady madeTurkish pancakes for you whilst tied alongside (our favourite is spinach cheese and onion) - a delicious breakfast!

2.08.09 KAS

We have always enjoyed visiting Kas, again so different to arrive by sea. Ishmali, the owner of our favourite restaurant was on the quay and kindly took Rich on his scooter to do the longwinded paperwork necessary to enter Turkey (nobody had noticed we had already been in the country a week, all a bit of a farce really!) He even delivered fresh bread to us every day we were there! We spent a couple of days catching up on boat jobs, internet, swimming from the harbour wall to cool off and eating doner kebabs! We watched Gail and Barry (an Australian couple we had met on their boat in Kalkan) land from a paragliding flight off the mountain above. Needing some breeze after the airless heat of Kas we tried to leave – not so easy! Our anchor had caught on a huge chain down the middle of the harbour. Diver to the rescue -namely Tom!! He was so brave and tried so hard, but it was very deep and very heavy so 2 Turks kindly came and gave us a hand. It took nearly an hour to untangle it then we found a gorgeous bay at Bayinder Point with an idyllic old house on the end with its own jetty, we anchored and watched the sun go down.

Next day we were planning our route when we had the terrible news that a wonderful friend, Ve had died very suddenly the night before. We were shocked and devastated, she was one of our favourite people – so kind and always such fun to be with, we couldn’t believe it. Many of you will have met Ve and her daughter Tania. Tania has been organising all our UK business and personal stuff, without her and Ve’s help from the UK we could not have come on our trip. I decided I would like to go back to help Tania out.

27.07.09 KALKAN, HERE WE ARE AT LAST!!

We never knew if we would get this far, it was almost unreal as we approached our much loved Kalkan by sea for the first time (2nd for me, as I sailed here 25 years ago.) It was a very emotional moment for us all – it was here, almost 2 years ago whilst on holiday in our apartment that I first thought of buying a boat and going on big a family adventure, not waiting until the children had left home (which is what most people do - then regret not doing it sooner!) So we had done full circle and arrived at last! The other reason we were in such a rush to get here was that we knew our friends who share our apartment, Tony, Isi , Oonagh, Nattie and Freddie also Rosie and her boys, Jack and Henry were all still here on holiday!! As things rarely go to plan for us, we did not want to tempt fate and hadn’t told them we were even coming to Kalkan!! We sent a text message to say we had arrived. Last minute panic - as we approached the harbour we realised in our excitement that we did not have a Turkish courtesy flag – OOPS! ( VERY big oops as the Turkish are extremely nationalistic, there are flags everywhere!) Amber and I quickly got to work and found a piece of red canvas and cut out 2 paper moons and stars, we stapled it together and tied it up with a piece of string!!! (Lucky it wasn’t windy!)

It was just fantastic when they all arrived onboard, the last time we had seen them all was on Carina at our Bon Voyage party back in Hayling Island in April 08! The next 4 days were a whirlwind, the children all had a ball! We spent a day at the apartments by the beautiful pool, we even joined them on a gulet boat trip round the bay bringing Carina along. There were some other lovely English families there too, it was one big party!! We saw lots of our Turkish friends who live here and visited some of our favourite haunts. We went back to the Mahal Beach Club where I had persuaded Rich that we should really do this and where we had worked out the whole plan. On previous holidays here we had visited Saklikent Gorge, the rock tombs at Myra, Ucaciz and the sunken city at Kekova, Kacakoy and the ancient ruins at Xanthos which is one of the most amazing archaeological sites in Turkey. Stonking hot like we love it, we swam in the crystal clear sea and just enjoyed staying local, soaking up the atmosphere and having fun! We were very sad when they went home, it was suddenly so quiet. We still have a month to go so still time for some more adventures..... on to Kas!

23.07.09 NEARLY THERE NOW....

After bashing north into the wind for 2 hours to go round the tip of Paros, we realised how glad we are to be sailing south again! We then went like a train down between Paros and Naxos with hardly time to admire the view! We gave Naxos a miss as we were making such good progress and made for Koufanisi in the force 8 now blowing. The meltemi is such a strange wind – it blows even harder off the south of some of the islands where you would think you would be quite sheltered by the mountainous islands, but the sea is flat. One of the cars on the mainsail broke as we lowered it to anchor in the bay. (We now celebrate if we ever arrive anywhere without something breaking or going wrong!!) We went for a swim off the beautiful white sandy beach and a wander round the little village –obviously a holiday spot for the Greeks and a few foreigners looking for some peace and quiet. We towed Amber and Tom in the water back to the boat from the dinghy in the dark - their choice - it wasn’t a punishment for not doing the washing up, honest!( Though it is an idea....) Outside the bay it was still blowing a Hooley – long may it last, we were nearly there!

After fixing the mainsail, we set sail the next morning and zoomed on past Karos to Astypalaia at 7 + knots. Coming south of Amorgos we realised what the pilot book means when it describes the meltemi as ferocious!! We hit 9 knots, a record for us, still in control (just!) hardly any sail up and the wind at 40 -50 knots ....Whoah!!! Carina was faultless - this was what she was built for, that’s for sure!! Oh, I forgot to mention that by this time we hadn’t seen a yacht out sailing for about 4 days (maybe we are missing something??)

As we approached Astypalaia the wind dropped and we had to motor into Vathi, a totally enclosed bay hidden between the cliffs of this rather barren island. Mid July in the Aegean, we could not believe that we were the only boat in this idyllic hideaway! A little Greek man came out and beckoned us to tie on the small quay by the one and only taverna – handy! Apart from that, there were a couple of fishermen’s houses and 2 or 3 smallholdings around the huge bay, 2 fishing boats and a few goats and sheep with their bells tinkling, lovely! Tom and Richard tried (and failed unfortunately) to catch another octopus. Tom and I walked up the hill to look out to sea, Tom got cornered by a huge ram with massive curly horns and had to leg it over a fence! Inevitably we went to the taverna - we were the only people there except 3 or 4 fishermen (who had given Tom and Amber some lovely shells earlier on.) There was no menu so we were shown the contents of the fridge and duly said ‘yes’! The daughter spoke a little English, the Granny (who was in charge) definitely didn’t!! We had delicious fish and pork with Greek salad and beer. Though we couldn’t understand a word they were all saying, we enjoyed being there.

After the calmest night we’d had for a while, we set off at sun rise and motored towards Tilos. The wind came and went all day (the forecast had been NW 6-7) The sails were up and down like yoyos, but we made good progress. We realised we were approaching the Dodecanese. There are so many islands it would be very confusing without the chartplotter (a magic bit of electronic kit involving GPS which even I have mastered!) We still have to carefully study the chartplotter very carefully at times as it is difficult to tell which island is which. We passed Kos and Simi and could see Turkey in the distance too. Approaching Tilos from the south, the meltemi came up and did its stuff worse than ever. Luckily we only had the trysail up (the smallest sail we have!) It was like standing in front of a giant hairdryer, you couldn’t walk along the deck without hanging on, your eyes and mouth dried out in a second!! It was a weird sensation. The sea was flat with the wind coming off the land, all very strange! Amber and Tom did some snorkel boarding and Rich and I swam in the incredibly clear turquoise water, you could see every ripple in the sand 10 meters below. Early next morning Rich and I walked to explore the pretty white painted chora on the hill above, hot or what! It was worth the effort - we heard the singing of the Sunday service from the beautiful little Greek Orthodox Church whilst having a coffee next door with the local non churchgoers who were obviously putting the world to rights over their ouzo – a wonderful moment! We have been trying to master a few basic words of Greek, it is the most challenging language for us yet –the new words to learn on our stickers in the galley are taking a long time to sink in and the alphabet is something else! We miss being able to pick up the gist of a conversation in France, Spain, Portugal and Italy. We learnt that they have found the bones of a now extinct herd of minature European elephants (4ft high!) at the time when Tilos was joined to mainland Greece!

Too hot to walk to Venetian castle on the top, we walked back to the dinghy on the beach and the children (reading again!)Unanimous decision -we leave after lunch and go straight to Kalkan from Tilos overnight. Very excited, Amber and Tom stood several watches. Amber did a 3 hour night watch with me which meant I could snatch a bit of sleep in the cockpit with her looking out(a first!) With not much wind we had to motor sail down past Rhodes. So many big ships in the night, lots of course changing and navigation to be done as they always have right of way over small vessels.

19.07.09 WE MIGHT MAKE IT TO TURKEY YET....!

Eventually disentangling our anchor from our neighbours’, we had a lovely sail between the Greek Islands to beautiful, remote Kithnos. After a peaceful moonlit swim, the notorious meltemi wind got up and we were too close to the rocks for comfort, re - anchoring was the only answer (never easy at night!) (This wind blows from the north /northwest regularly between July and September) As the sun rose the next morning, we watched a herd of goats cross the spit of sand joining another small island to Kithnos. Before leaving, we walked up to the tiny old church on the hill, all painted and beautifully cared for (with not a house in sight!) What a contrast to the bustle of Athens the day before! Hoisting the cruising chute, we almost flew towards Paros. Luckily we had taken down the cruising chute and reduced our sails just before the meltemi hit 40+ knots! It was very rough and windy. Too tired to carry on to Paros, we nipped in round the corner out of the worst of the wind to anchor off Livhadi on Serifos for the night. The view of all the little white houses of the ‘chora’ (ancient citadel town) perched up high between the two hills above the harbour was stunning.

With the meltemi still blowing well (luckily this was the wind we needed to blow us to Turkey) we stormed on to Paros. It didn’t matter that our staysail drum jammed (closed luckily) as there was so much wind! (Just something else to fix.) The tiny harbour of Paroikia was so full, we had to moor on the wrong side of the wall along with a few other yachts - very choppy and sea spray blowing all the time, quite tricky and not very restful! We spent a day waiting for the wind to drop (which it didn’t!) We sorted the staysail drum (it turned that a good enema of washing up liquid was all that was needed!) We walked around the old town, visiting the most famous church in the Aegean, Ekantontepiliani. It is known as ‘the church of 100 doors’ (because guess what – it has a hundred doors!!) very unusual and beautiful. We saw the ancient sarcophagi right in the town, complete with human bones. Tom had a haircut!!! The first since February!!! We celebrated by having doner kebabs and very bad Greek wine (most of it is!)

18.07.09 TO THE ACROPOLIS!!!!

Like much of trip, we had not planned to do this! Having realised that Rich’s cousin Caddy was not at her home in Athens this time, we had decided to come back next year. But then, realising we were only 30 minutes away from Piraeus (the port by Athens) we decided to whizz over for the day, if only to visit the Acropolis. So by 8.30 next morning we were looking up at the Parthenon! MAGNIFICENT, AWE INSPIRING.... I could go on and on! (Even more impressive than the last time I was here when I was 15) We had a wonderful taste of Athens and loved it... Caddy we will be back soon!!!

14.07.09 WHERE TO GO NEXT? (AND 350 MILES TO TURKEY)

So many islands of the Cyclades to choose from! Suddenly our options narrowed dramatically as the seacock on the generator sheared closed – very bad news for us (especially for the Engineer with 45 oC in the engine room!) This meant limited power for the fridge and freezer (now working overtime in the heat) and no watermaker, just when we were really going to need it (water is scarce or expensive in the Aegean.) A few phone calls later we diverted to the Island of Aigina nearby to have Carina lifted out of the water for quick repairs (we hoped!) Luckily for us we found Loukas, a fantastic Greek South African engineer (but I will keep the old one on - just in case...!) He directed us to a tiny slipway on the north of the Island where it was so shallow we went aground! It was very hairy, but they hauled us out quick as flash! The guys were amazing, new parts were found and Loukas (with the help of my present Engineer!) rescued our old bowthruster, working on it till midnight! (We had been told we might have to buy a new motor at nearly £3000, so that was a lucky escape!) A new seacock was fitted AND we managed to do a lot of other jobs only possible out of the water, all done in 36 hours!! It was a whirlwind, (a very hot one too!) The Greeks certainly know how to get things done fast, we were very impressed, they were delightful too. Amber and Tom were great help too (in between swims!)

The next day we enjoyed the atmosphere in the sweet little town by the harbour. We loved shopping from the fruit and veg boats which come across every day from Athens and moor on the quayside. We walked up to the ruins of the Temple of Apollo. Meanwhile the Flying Dolphin, the high speed hydrofoil sped back and forth to Athens and we had an idea....

13.07.09 THE CORINTH CANAL & INTO THE AEGEAN!

With a windless start at dawn the next day (just the weather we needed to go through the narrow canal, especially with no bowthruster!) We motored on down the Gulf with spectacular mountains on both sides. Some dolphins - the first we’d seen for ages - came and took a look at us but didn’t stay long. Tom and I also saw some large swordfish, but couldn’t tempt them to bite! We had booked to go through the Canal at 15.00 and arrived on time (not easy for us!) There were 3 or 4 yachts waiting for instructions from Canal Control - we were to follow a cargo ship through, traffic is only one way so we were lucky we didn’t have to wait long. It was incredible to think that in 76AD the Emperor Nero tried and failed to build this canal to link the Ionian Sea to the Aegean. Instead the Ancients used to literally drag their ships across this 4 mile isthmus, which joins mainland Greece and the Peloponnese, on a paved road to avoid having to make the long and treacherous journey around the outside of the Peloponnese. Nearly 2000 years later, between 1882 -1893 the French and then the Greeks finally completed Nero’s dream, (shame he never lived to see it!) Even then it was an incredible feat of engineering - the limestone was cut away to a channel 7 meters deep,25m wide, 76m high for 4 miles - an awesome challenge! It was airless and stiflingly hot inside. At the highest point a railway and two road bridges pass overhead. From one, a crowd of Japanese (armed with cameras and the obligatory white hats and gloves) peered down at us! Sections of the old wall are still visible, the limestone is crumbling badly in parts and maintenance is continual. It was a fascinating trip (though very expensive at 200 Euros!) It took us about an hour and a half as the cargo ship moved through very slowly with only inches to spare each side, it was amazing to see! Excited to have arrived in the Aegean at last, we paid and went to find a bay to anchor for a much needed swim.

10.07.09 GALAXAHEDI & DELPHI

A small town on the mainland, Galaxahedi is a pretty little place with lots of ducks around the quayside where we moored. There are beautiful old houses, dating from 18th century wealth from the ship building industry here (this also caused total deforestation in the area for miles around - a big replanting scheme is now in progress.) It is now a quiet, upmarket holiday spot for the Greeks and a few passing yachts. We had a lovely walk through the new forest on the hill. We discovered that we could visit Delphi from here so the next day we were off! Getting there was a doddle (even though the bus was half an hour late and very chaotic!) changing once in Itea. We visited the museum first which was fascinating (and not too large!) with many beautiful sculptures in marble and bronze, jewellery from as early as 1000BC. After our picnic, we braved the afternoon heat to walk to the top. The views were breathtaking with deep ravines and rocky bluffs and views over the Gulf of Corinth, we could see why the Greeks chose this as their sacred place, it felt like you were half way to heaven. Legend has it that Zeus sent 2 eagles to fly from opposite sides of the world and where they crossed in the sky above Mount Parnassus( at 2457m) was deemed to be the centre of the world. The temple of Apollo and the Sanctuary of Athena were built here and it was named Delphi. Famous throughout the Greek world, the Oracle and prophetess, Sybil, lived here. Dionysus and Zeus were also associated with this place. The Sacred Way, which used to be lined with over 3000 statues, winds its way up the hill past a huge theatre, a stadium (which hosted the Pythian Games celebrated here every 4 years) a gymnasium and many other buildings. There was a huge earthquake 2000 years ago and the site was buried until French archaeologists discovered it in the 1890s. We found a fantastic mulberry tree which Rich raided! We then rushed back to catch the only return bus (not easy in 38 oC!) We waited an hour, along with some Americans, Norwegians and French who had all been told the same, only to find out, after walking back to the town, that the return bus NEVER stops where we’d been waiting! (We all had expensive taxi rides back – tourists 0 points, taxi drivers 10!!) A memorable day in an amazing place.

9.07.09 THE GULFS OF PATRAS AND CORINTH

Suddenly there are so few boats around again as we head in to the Gulf of Patras. We had a good sail away from the playground of the Ionian with its easy sailing ground, down towards the Rion – Andirion Bridge, the largest cable stayed bridge in the world at 2.52km.It links the Peloponnese to mainland Greece and was a very spectacular sight to sail beneath at sunset. A lot of traffic passes under this bridge, it has traffic control to avoid collisions of ships - interesting. We arrived at the tiny medieval walled harbour of Navpaktos after sunset. It said in the Pilot book that we were too big to moor inside, but it looked like there was a space and nobody told us to go away so we Med moored to the tiny quay! What a beautiful little place with a ruined Venetian Castle built above the miniature harbour, quite chic but not spoilt, it is obviously a holiday destination for the young Gr

ore to wander round the picturesque town with its winding eeks. I walked up the hill in the shade of the early morning with the view of the bridge in the distance- what a contrast to the medieval walls! We decided to visit the tiny island of Trizonia so, after a very windy sail (common for the Gulf) we anchored off this small village. We then discovered our bowthruster has died a death. Not good news for Med mooring (or the Engineer!)We went for a walk across the island next day only to find a note in our dinghy from a lovely English couple, Steph and Andy from Norna Biron, who we had met nearly a year ago in la Coruna. They had spotted Amber and Tom in the binoculars and recognised them! So we went for a drink onboard to swap news. Trizonia was really sweet, little tavernas ,a few houses, the beautifully painted fishing boats and a tiny ferry to the mainland and that was it.While we were ashore the wind got up and Carina’s anchor was dragging towards the shore so we rushed back and made a hasty exit and stormed on to Galaxahedi. Stunning scenery on both sides down the Gulf at sunset. it is a small town on the mainland, lovely little place with tavernas along the quay and lots of ducks!

23.06.09 THE IONIAN SEA

After dragging our anchor off Corfu town and being woken by a Frenchman knocking on our hull at 6.30am, he warned us that we were about to crash into his boat! 10 minutes earlier I had checked and we were fine.Rather embarrassed, we rapidly upped anchor to sail to Petriti, a little village on south Corfu, very quiet except for a huge thunderstorm which passed over! Onto beautiful Paxos. Legend has it that this island was created when Poseidon, the god of the sea, hit the island of Corfu with his trident, breaking off the southern tip in order to form Paxos where he could keep his mistress, Amphititri. However he lost his trident, which was found by the islanders who made it their emblem along with 2 dolphins! We anchored in Lakka bay for a couple of days, the water was bright turquoise, true Greece, with tavernas on the water’s edge, absolutely gorgeous! Tom speared 15 small plaice with his latest weapon, delicious! Between more thunderstorms we sailed to visit Gaios, a pretty little town, then onto Mongonisi where we anchored with ropes to a couple of trees - an interesting first experience for us in the cross wind! In the evening we saw some very unorthodox Greek dancing in the local taverna! Next day we sailed to Levkas and motored through the hair raising, narrow lifting bridge and manmade canal which cuts through the salt marshes and the causeway from Levkas to the mainland and takes you to the Inner Sea of the Ionian. En route we saw a huge pelican fishing for his dinner! Late evening we anchored off Skorpios, the Onnasis’ private island - you can't go ashore there, only look and swim! Then on to Spartakhori on Meganisi to meet up with Paul, Di and the girls on Prospero - 3 months and 2000 miles later!! So many stories to swap since March when we went our separate ways. Brilliant to see them again. Apart from returning to Nidri (Levkas) for a sail repair and for Tom to go riding, we spent the next week with them. The children had a ball - no school, lots of swimming, staying up too late and drinking far too much wine!!(or maybe that was us?!) They took us to visit their favourite spots in Sivota (Levkas) The scenery around these coasts is spectacular, vast and utterly unspoilt, the towns, picturesque and relaxed to visit. We are here at the right time of year, hot and not yet too busy! We followed Prospero on to Fiskardo, the only town on Kefalonia not to be flattened by the earthquake in 1953. Such a gorgeous place - very popular but still unspoilt.We anchored out to the rocks again Med style – we are getting the hang of this now! While Rich and I had a lovely walk around the headland, Tom and Clemmy caught 2 octopi (with another of Tom’s latest weapons – a 4 pronged crab like hook, then the final blow with his spear!) Delicious starter for all 8 of us that night! Then onto Vathi on the island of Ithaka, allegedly the home of Odysseus. We had a very windy approach in the kebatic wind which zooms down from the steep mountains at high speed, it made life very tricky for Prospero just as we were coming in. We moored in a very peaceful spot opposite the town out of the wind and spent 2 very relaxed days swimming and looking around the pretty town. The children all had a spin on the wakeboard and ringo. Forgot to say that back in Corfu Rich had slipped in the shower and cut his elbow. It seemed ok, but 10 days later it flared up till it looked like a golf ball! The pharmacist looked a little alarmed and has put him on antibiotics and I have become chief dressing changer (now I know why I never wanted to be a nurse -yuk!) On July 1st we all celebrated the anniversary of when we sailed away from England, 4,000 miles ago! So much has happened since then! We want to go on to the Aegean and the Prospero crew are staying in their home waters of the Ionian. So very sadly, it was time to say goodbye for now. They have been such good company.We will really miss you guys and all the fun we’ve had together, but we can delay no longer......

11.06.09 CORFU IN GREECE!

It had taken us a long time to travel 218 miles – nearly 3 days to be precise! By the time we came into the pretty bay of Gouvia and the marina it was a beautiful calm evening. By chance our friends Joyce and Peter (who we had met in Sicilia) were berthed nearby and we were invited onboard for a drink (or 10!)The marina is big but excellent, it even has its own swimming pool, what luxury! But what we really needed was an electrical engineer to help us sort out a battery problem. By the pool we also met a lovely couple, Chris and Wendy. Chris was a very experienced marine engineer and kindly gave us loads of useful tips about our Perkins engine, he only charged a few ice creams and a beer! (thanks, Chris!) Whilst consulting the electrician and catching up on washing etc, we were kindly treated to a delicious supper of roast beef by Joyce and Peter on Spicey Maiden – what an evening, again! Tom met a great family (who are from France and the Philippines) walking their dog near the marina. When their son, Kris, heard about our trip, he asked if he could make a documentary about us as his first assignment since leaving university. (Watch this space!!) So we have spent the last few days being interviewed and filmed (it’s been a bit like Big Brother on Carina!)We’ve also really enjoyed their company, particularly a trip into Corfu town to the market and a wonderful BBQ cooked by Louis and Maria which turned musical when Louis got out his mandolin! Between times the Ship’s Engineer has been slaving away changing our batteries. Tom and I sneaked off for a fantastic horse ride through the beautiful olive groves and hillsides covered in ferns yesterday, what a treat!

To complete his filming and get more of a feel of life onboard a boat, Kris stayed on Carina for a night at anchor with us. There was a good breeze for a sail around Gouvia Bay the next day. Later we put the big outboard engine down on the RIB so Tom and Amber could do some wakeboarding and ringo-ing, first time this year, they were very happy! Louis and Maria joined us and we sailed across to anchor off the tiny Island of Vido. We went ashore for a walk and were amazed to see hundreds of tame rabbits and pheasants wandering around, we watched them being fed by the owner at the little taverna. During our time in Gouvia Louis, Maria and Kris helped us so much with all our IT stuff, downloading photos , video etc. Thanks so much guys, we will miss you in more ways than one!

8.06.09 GOODBYE SICILIA

After a day of maintenance jobs, diaries, school and swims we reluctantly set off in the evening towards mainland Italy, very sad to leave Sicilia – what a great island! We have really enjoyed speaking a little Italian and we will miss the lovely people we met there. Quite soon the wind dropped completely so we motored all night to arrive in Rocello next morning only to be told the entrance was too shallow for us to go in! So we floated, windless, outside the marina for a while deciding what to do next. The Engineer tightened the alternator belt (they had both been slacking a bit lately!) We had a quick swim and decided to keep going straight to Corfu. After about 100 miles of motoring we got a bit fed up so we switched off the engine to wait for some wind and conserve our rapidly depleting fuel supply. Too deep to anchor at 3000m, we bobbed about in the middle of the Ionian Sea and had a swim, the water is now 24o C, Lovely! Amber and Tom were a bit concerned it was so deep (I said, if you can’t touch the bottom anyway, why does it matter what the depth is?!)The Engineer decided to change the impellor, usually a quick job – NOT this time! He was also extremely happy as, in the process, he finally solved the progressively worsening mystery of our engine making white smoke (despite suggestions from numerous fellow yachtsmen and even some engineers onboard, everyone had failed to find the problem) – it was a faulty seacock not letting enough water through to the engine, making it overheat slightly. Coupled with a dodgy temperature gauge, everyone had missed this! (Boats!!!! Who’d have them?!) So Amber made a lovely buffet lunch and we did some school, then it got dark (still no wind).The Engineer finally finished 7 hours later (when does his contract end?!) We had some supper and lay on deck to watch the stars for a while. Eventually the wind got up and we set off once more. The wind slowly came up more and more until we were flying along at 7 knots with the sails well reefed and Corfu in sight. With many dangerous rocks just underwater we rounded the north of the island. The contrast of the barren, mountainous Albanian coast on one side and the green of Corfu on the other was amazing in the narrow straits between the two countries. We were very tempted to visit Albania, but have read the entry procedure is time consuming and costly – another time maybe.

7.06.09 VOLCANO ADVENTURE – PART 3!

The bus collected us early and took us through the hilly countryside to the beautiful gorge at Alcantarra where we stopped to look around and buy a huge bag of oranges! Our Italian guide, Alberto was very informative and funny! As we reached the base of Etna, we began to see the devastation left behind by various eruptions over the years – flattened and deserted houses, dead trees, and solid rivers of lava across old roads and the railway line, stopping for nothing. Very lush between though, with many vineyards on the mountain side. The bus climbed on up through pine forests with an occasional lava flow that had crashed through everything in its path. We passed a small village that has been rebuilt numerous times. Why, you might ask, do they keep going back? The answer is - it’s fertile land and where there are tourists there’s money! Eventually we came to a row of tin and wooden shacks selling Etna lava tat and we had a quick picnic before climbing into the 4 wheel drive truck to take us and a few other people who had decided to go as high as we could from 1800m to around 2800m. We had to have an alpine guide for safety with us. The landscape quickly became very eerie. Fewer live trees still standing and massive mountains of magma and lava. We got out and walked across to look into 2 smaller craters before carrying on up through the snow line. They had only just cleared the snow from this level, we saw the snow plough and piste basher at the side of the black sandy track. It was like a black moonscape with snow! You could see where the big eruption in 2001 had crashed through with a hotel roof still just in sight. When we reached the highest point the truck could go we all got out to admire the incredible view of the snow covered, smouldering summit towering above us. AWESOME!! We could see the craters which erupted just last year still smoking about 500m away. The air was very sulphurous and quite thin so we were all coughing quite a bit. After we had gazed in wonder at the magnitude of this amazing place for a while we all climbed back in the truck for the winding descent through the snow back to the bus and Naxos and a cool swim.

5.06.09 BOUND FOR SICILIA ONCE MORE

In the flat calm we set off at 1.0 am to catch the tide through the notorious Messina straits at dawn. We saw lots of the strange looking sword fishing boats, the captain steers from the top of the mast towards the fish then the harpoon man goes to the end of the very long bow sprit to do his bit. The fish can be huge so it must be rather gory. We were glad the Straits were not living up to their reputation of eddies and whirlpools that Odysseus and other ancient mariners speak of, instead we glided through with 4 knots of tide help towards Taormina, our next port. It was only meant to be a lunch stop, but on arrival we met a lovely chap called George, who has very enterprisingly set up a ‘Yacht Hotel’ with buoys and taxi service etc to the shore, hotel and town so we decided to stay a bit longer. He dropped us at the Hotel beach restaurant where we had a delicious, extravagantly naughty buffet lunch with views to Mount Etna. Included were sun beds by the infinity pool for the afternoon, how could we resist?! After a night of hideously rolling around with the swell, we climbed the steep old path from the beach up to Taormina itself and had a wander around this pretty little town. Though full of tourists, it has great charm and the stunning back drop of snow capped Etna. We arranged a trip to the notorious volcano for the next day and George could keep an eye on Carina at anchor for us as we had moved Carina over to the more sheltered bay at Naxos.

31.06.09 VOLCANO ADVENTURE – PART 2!

We set sail early evening with the forecast and cloud formation at odds. After motoring and rolling about with no wind for 4 hours we diverted and anchored off Porticello for the rest of the night( we should have gone by the clouds!) Next morning the wind picked up a little as we headed for Isola Vulcano. It came up and up, until it was blowing a Hooley and very rough as we approached the Island! Carina rode it out superbly as ever. We could see the volcano slowly smoking and we could smell it (very sulphurous!) from our anchorage. In the morning we put on our boots for the next volcano trek – it was a hot dusty climb to the crater at 450m on this tiny island, no guide needed this time. The rock formations were beautiful, almost unnatural. Around the rim of the crater there were many fissures in the yellow sulphurous rock with smoke and noxious gases spewing out – very unpleasant as we walked through the smoke, it really caught your throat. It was an extraordinary, strange place. We had a superb view of the other Aeolian Islands from the top while we ate our picnic. We ‘moon walked’ on the soft black sand down to the bottom! Later on Rich, Tom and Amber swam in the natural sulphur bath by the beach (they were smelly for days!)Next morning we hired a quad bike and a scooter to explore the rest of the island – what fun!! I loved the quad bike, there’s no stopping me now (who needs a car!) The island was pretty, very fertile of course, as all volcanic areas are. We had a picnic and swam from an amazing black beach, too hot to walk on without shoes of course! Then Amber and Tom took over and rode the quad bike up and down some tracks on our way back.

29.05.09 PALERMO

We left before dawn the next day and motor sailed to Palermo. Having heard such opposing views of the city we were unsure what to expect! EVERYTHING was true!! We found a mooring at a lovely little yacht club right in the city centre. The city is .....filthy, busy, noisy, chaotic, fascinating, loads of fast traffic, every traffic light it’s a racing start or stop , flashing light police cars fly around, rubbish piled up on every street corner, wonderful old buildings (a few immaculate and stunning, many derelict) SUCH friendly people, suddenly you find a peaceful piazza and round the next corner destitution. It’s crazy and amazing! We love it - from the haven of our boat!! Last night we were invited to a Fishing Competition Cup Presentation party next to Carina so we’ve stayed another day! (Oh, and it’s raining and the wind is the wrong way! We have a good internet signal at last so we can tell you all our news.(Thanks for all the e-cards which I can open at last!!)

28.05.09 ONTO SCOPELLO

After a final coffee with Bruno from the hotel, with whom we had become good friends by now, we said goodbye, had a last swim, fuelled up and went to anchor out for the night ready to drag ourselves away from San Vito early the next day. We only got 10 miles down the coast and couldn’t resist anchoring in the most beautiful little cove off an old tuna fishing harbour!

We walked along the coast into the Riservo Naturale della Zingaro and had a picnic and a swim on a beautiful beach. We got a bit lost on our very hot walk back (what’s new?!) and found the lovely village of Scopello with its beautiful, unspoilt C13 Piazza (we truly love Sicilia!) We had an ice cream/beer then found the hill footpath through masses of wild flowers back to the old harbour and Carina !

25.05.09 ANOTHER RIDING ADVENTURE!

After a day of kite flying for Tom and Amber and electrical repairs by the Engineer (he’d been slacking lately!), Bianca and Mario came down the boat for a coffee and invited us to go riding again the next evening with her own horses at her house ! Tom couldn’t believe his luck!! So we stayed another day (what’s new?!) She kindly collected us and had arranged for us to ride ‘Western Style’ up another mountain, this time in the dark! I’ll leave the rest to Tom to tell you in his blog.... Needless to say, it was an absolutely fantastic evening ending with all their friends arriving for a wonderful impromptu ‘grille’, with Gaspare cooking the meat on an open fire outside their house which was about 20 k out of San Vito in wild and beautiful Sicilian countryside. We sat around chatting in broken Italian until 2.0am!! They were so kind and hospitable. Thank you Bianca!

22.05.09 FESTIVAL INTERNAZIONALE DEGLI AQUILONE ( we do love Italian!)

The International Kite Festival in San Vito – by chance our timing was perfect! 12 times world champion, Ray Bethell and his lovely friend, Dolores, were staying in Mum and Dad’s hotel, what luck!! Ray (an amazing British Canadian aged 83 and now completely deaf) with his spectacular displays flying 3 stunt kites simultaneously – his Red Arrows like formations are incredible to watch. When we met him he gave Tom a few really helpful tips as to fly his new stunt kite out on the beach. The sight of hundreds of beautiful kites being flown on the beach was totally breathtaking, the colours quite spectacular against the blue sea and sky. Wow! And it went on for days, how lucky were we?!We had such a wonderful time in San Vito with Mum and Dad, they came on board for supper a few times and relaxed in their hotel and we were even invited there for breakfast by the manager, the Italians are really so friendly and kind. We were really sad when Mum and Dad left, it had been a very special time. San Vito didn’t feel the same without you. I hope we didn’t wear you out and that you enjoyed it all as much as we did!

21.05.09 ON TOUR BY HORSE!

Next day Tom and I had arranged to go riding. He had been SO excited!! Bianca, a lovely German girl who has moved to live in Sicilia with her horses, collected us and we drove miles out of the town to a ranch in the beautiful countryside, the horses were beautiful. She, Paulo, and Mario took us on a fabulous 3 hour ride. They were great company. Rich walked with us for a little while but we were moving a bit fast for him to keep up! Tom rode Western and fulfilled one of his dreams as we rode up the mountainside through all the wild flowers, galloping a bit here and there. We stopped in the shade for a rest under some trees as it was VERY hot!! Kenzi was the loveliest horse I have ever ridden (it was the best ride I’ve ever been on too) I would take her home if I could, she was a darling! What a birthday treat!! On the way down Mario picked up a tiny abandoned puppy from the side of the road that would otherwise have died in the heat. We collapsed into the cool sea afterwards! In the evening we all drove out to watch the sunset over the next bay with a glass of wine down on the rocks! A lovely sundowner !!

21.05.09 ON TOUR TO ERICE

After a wonderful, relaxing day wandering around the town and enjoying the beautiful white sandy beach and azure sea, we arranged to hire a car the next day to visit Erice, a beautiful medieval citadel town perched on a steep mountain. The last part of the journey was by cable car from Trapani overlooking the salt plains. We had a walk around the cobbled streets and another lovely lunch, the views from the Norman Castle were amazing. Erice is sometimes described as ‘like being in heaven’ – I can see why! We saw a sweet little pony and cart with its owner who kindly played his accordion for us, all the old people sitting on the benches clapped in time with the music, it was lovely! We went to find Dad sitting in the cool in the Cathedral. Rich and I then had an interesting but fruitless tour around Trapani trying to buy a particular engine oil for the boat!

19.05.09 4 SWORDFISH OFF SAN VITO LO CAPO!

Day2! Just before we arrived in San Vito, Tom and I spotted some fins in a millpond blue sea and steered Carina over to have a closer look. There were 4 swordfish circling, we watched them for half an hour, an amazing sight! Tom was all for trying to catch one by whacking them over the head with the boat hook (yeah, sure!)We anchored out for lunch and had a swim. Later we tied up in the lovely little marina next to the beautiful white sandy beach. Mum and Dad’s hotel was just a short walk along this beach. Another good choice! A sweet little holiday town with a small Piazza di Duomo, a few shops, little cafes by the beach and people riding bikes. Another lovely supper in a family restaurant in San Vito, we are all getting spoilt! The longest birthday I’ve ever had !!

18.05.09 MY BIRTHDAY BEGINS!!

We decide to celebrate my birthday over 2 days as we all need to travel to San Vito early on the 19th which would take us 12 hours in Carina.

Day 1! In true tradition, Tom made pancakes for breakfast – delicious! We went over to Mum and Dad’s hotel in the dinghy and spent a very relaxing day in the sunshine by the pool, swimming and opening all my presents and cards (fantastic handmade ones from Amber and Tom.) In the evening we walked over to the town for a delicious supper in Ristorante il Saracene which Dad had found earlier, with a balcony over the rocks looking out at the sunset over the sea - a really lovely evening.

When we got back to the boat, Rich decided to do an overnight sail to San Vito while I got some beauty sleep!(No comments please!!)So we left at 1.0am on a flat calm trip. Amber chose the car route [ again]with Granny and Grandpa and stayed at the hotel with them!

17.05.09 PRETTY CEFALU

A picturesque little harbour surrounded by huge rocks,tucked under the mountain - Cefalu was delightful. After a big mix up over their booking, Mum and Dad ended up in a beautiful hotel overlooking the bay - they could wave to us from their balcony! They came onboard for a coffee and we walked round into the old town for lunch by the little beach. More celebrations !!

Dear reader, are you getting the theme ?? John and Diana + Rats = Celebrations !!

The town had a lovely atmosphere, it was bustling with Italians on holiday. Later Mum walked with us through the tiny streets and on up to the Greek Temple of Diana (very apt!) It was very steep and hot! Rich and I carried on to the castle at the very top, the climb was worth the effort - the views were spectacular. Back down in the town the Piazza di Duoma with its huge Norman church was lovely. In the evening Joyce and Peter, an English couple on a boat next to us, came onboard with us all. It turned into a very jolly impromptu party!! Dad was now becoming a dab hand at negotiating our passarelle to get on and off Carina even after a few glasses of wine, so we stopped holding our breath every time!!

14.05.09 MILAZZO and CEFALU HERE WE COME!

An early start the next day we set off to Milazzo, arriving just an hour or two before Mum and Dad who had flown to Sicily for my 50th!!! (Oh yes – oh no!) It was a wonderful reunion – we were so excited to see them!! Our timing was perfect, which was nothing short of a miracle - that hasn’t happened for months!!

It has taken us 10 months to get here !!!

It took John & Diana a day !!!

It was lovely to have them onboard with us. We spent a great evening celebrating at Ristorante Pirata. We also celebrated with a lovely lunch the next day, then Rich,Tom and I walked up to the Cathedral, Castle and its massive battlements – which sadly was closed for a refurb of 8 million EU Euros! The Cathedral was looking good.

While we were at Mum and Dad’s lovely hotel in the evening (the Garibaldi, right in front of the marina) the weather had deteriorated and become a bad storm with waves crashing over the pontoon – memories of Gibraltar returned as we played dodge the wave roulette to get back on Carina for a rough night!! The wind was screaming at around 6.0am and we broke 2 of the harbour mooring chains so we had to set more lines to stop us breaking away from the pontoon. A couple of waves even broke over Carina – nice weather for the time of year!!

By midday the weather had calmed down enough so we set off to Cefalu. Amber went with John and Diana in their wizzy sports Fiat 500 and they set off for Cefalu via Messina, Taormina, Mount Etna and across the mountains. Unfortunately the weather was horrible so they didn’t get to see the great views because of the clouds. Meanwhile on Carina we tootled along at our usual 5 knots and reached Cefalu at 4.30am.We anchored outside the harbour for what was left of the night.

12.05.09 LIPARI

Lipari town was a delightful place. Busy with a happy atmosphere, we enjoyed our day wandering around and visiting the archaeological museum which had roomfuls of information about volcanoes, unfortunately all in Italian! If you were a volcanologist, it was heaven!! (The pictures were good though!)

There was an enormous collection of Roman and Greek artefacts that had been found under the town.

12.05.09 STROMBOLI to LIPARI

So we can catch our last views of the volcano as we leave our anchorage at 4 am and right on cue she erupts a couple of times lighting up the night sky . Once again after a few minutes the rocks thunder down the lava fields and crash into the sea! We are not so close this time!!

We pass between several of the other smaller Aeolian Islands to arrive in Lipari and anchor in beautiful crystal clear blue water over sand and rocks. Time for a swim!

9.05.09 THE AEOLIAN ISLANDS

Stromboli is our next destination about 24 hours sailing away. Leaving Amalfi at 1800 hrs we sailed and motored through the night and following day. Our first glimpse of Stromboli from about 25 miles away, and we could clearly see the Volcano smouldering. Awesome! At night it is known as the oldest lighthouse in the world and has guided sailors since ancient times, featuring in Greek mythology (the Odyssey contains a record of early Mediterranean navigation, Odysseus and Aeolus – the God of winds) And here we are thousands of years later seeing the same sight they saw!

We had Dolphins come to play and then 2 massive tuna who swam alongside us for over 3 hours – we tried every bit of our fishing kit to catch one. They swam across to every lure we put out, had a look and then came back alongside as if to say ‘sorry mate – you will have to do better than that to catch us out!!’ It has been a long while since we have caught any fish – the last being a tuna off the coast of Spain in November! Incredible, as we fish nearly every time we sail.

Anyway, on to Stromboli! We sailed in really close to the huge lava flow that drops from the tip of the Volcano at 1000 meters down to the sea – black and satanic – then there is a small eruption way above us that sends masses of fiery rocks skywards and we watch as these fall thundering and crashing down the lava field at an incredible speed into the sea . Wow and wow!! We feel we are a bit too close for comfort!! So we move on to a safe anchorage nearer the town of San Bartolomeo.

The following day we dinghy to the black sand and rock beach , collect some pumice and walk into the lovely quaint village to book a guided walk to the volcano crater . For safety reasons you are not allowed above 400 metres because the landscape is constantly changing and can be dangerous because this is a fully active volcano. The last major eruption in 2002 destroyed the village – of the 3000 people living on Stromboli then, only 500 returned to live here. The village has been entirely rebuilt so looks really smart. Quite why anyone wants to live here permanently is bewildering, but it is a very beautiful island so maybe they feel it’s worth the risk.

Later in the afternoon we join our guide, Sergio (who in winter is a ski and mountain guide in Alanya, Monta Rosa)We collect our helmets and climbing sticks and set off ever upwards, first through lush mountain vegetation of wild flowers and trees, then bamboo and small shrubs and above the tree line onto very narrow volcanic ash and rock paths. Slowly,slowly we climb as it’s steep,very hot and dusty and after about 2 ½ hours we are nearly at the summit. The village and the yachts anchored off are just specks so far below us. From here we can see all the Calabrian coast of Italy, the Aeolian Islands and Sicilia. The last 200 metres are really steep so we snake traverse to the summit ridge just as the sun is nearly setting and there below us is the incredible crater just 200 meters away. An enormous cauldron of smoke and fire all coming from the Earth’s core – there are 5 volcanic eruptors – all entirely different in character – one large round one that only explodes every 10 minutes or so, sending a massive plume of black smoke, ash and fiery rocks skywards, 2 perpetual fiery caulderous bubblers - one round, the other like a large knife wound. Both have red hot molten lava and rock spewing out continuously, then another 2 off to our right, which explode thunderously sending huge fiery, wrathful showers of rocks and lava way up into the night sky. WOW!! Awesome and scary!! After an hour or so we reluctantly have to leave. This has been the best firework display ever – never seen any Roman candles like this before!!

We then begin night a descent, we all have flashlights. About 80 people had come in groups with guides so it was a torch light descent, first down the very steep ash field which is almost like skiing in black snow as we slide downwards – the ash swirls all around us like a thick fog – the masks Sergio gave us are essential .It seems to go on forever but it’s really fun walking in thick fluffy ash (a bit like moon walking) Eventually we reach the tree line rocky path again and wind our way back down to the village to hand in our kit. We say our enormous thanks to Sergio, what a lovely guy.

For all of us it has been a fabulous, inspiring and emotional experience. Amber and Tom were absolutely brilliant – so utterly determined to carry their own back packs all the way up and back down – it was a hard 6 hours, for me (Rich) the experience was one of the most wonderful and unique – strange then that another was skiing off piste in the most beautiful and remote mountain valley of Alanya, which is where Sergio our guide comes from .

7.05.09 POMPEII + HERCULANEUM

We spent two days visiting these amazing places. Amber and Tom were absolutely fascinated and have both written quite a lot about it all, so we won’t go on about the amazing time we had there as well!

6.05.09 THE AMALFI COAST

We had been told what a beautiful place this was, and it certainly is and we were bowled over. Before dawn we sailed across the Golfo di Napoli to Capri to arrive at sunrise. We could smell the island’s wild flowers from miles away. Before we went into Capri harbour we headed to the famous Grotta de Azzura where a man in the tiniest dinghy took Rich, Amber and Tom through a very small gap in the rocks to see the amazing colours in the caves. They had to lie down to get through! I hung around in Carina with other boats doing the same thing as it is too deep to anchor under the vertical cliffs. We then motored into the harbour to have a look but as Capri is so very commercial and with the clock ticking to get to Sicily, we decided to give Capri town a miss and sailed on to the Amalfi coast close in past Positano, a very picturesque village that somehow clings to the near vertical cliffs ! We were only intending to call in to see Amalfi, then base ourselves in the more industrial port closest to Pompeii and Herculaneum, but we couldn’t tear ourselves away and stayed 3 nights in Amalfi instead! What a gorgeous place, we all fell in love with it. The whole coast is quite breathtakingly beautiful. The journeys to Pompeii and Herculaneum were longer from there, but that was compensated by the views en route along the coast and through the mountains which were spectacular. How they ever built houses and churches on the near vertical cliffs defies belief! They only built the coast road in the 1930’s, before that it was rough paths with steps with donkeys. In the town there are tunnels and steps through the rock linking the levels of the houses, shops, the church and down to the beach - we’d never seen anything like it. Delightful little piazzas with cafes and lots of small shops, people and scooters going in all directions! It had a great atmosphere. In contrast we next visited Ravello in the mountains behind Amalfi .It was so peaceful and serene. We walked around here a while then back down the mountain through a ravine by the river with all the lemon groves on terraces each side. Amalfi lemons are huge!!! (see pic.) Julio, the ormeggio (who runs the marina)was so helpful and welcoming, they tie your lines for you and even have flowers along the pontoon! The harbour was so clear Amber and Tom swam to the little beach from the boat....SUMMER IS HERE AT LAST!!!

3.05.09 ISOLAS PONZA + ISCHIA

After another varied sail we arrived in the dark into Ponza, very pretty by night and the same in the morning. Ponza is the main island of the Isole Pontines. We had a quiet day (we needed one!) and a walk around in the sunshine at last. It was too expensive to stay another night so, as it was a lovely calm evening with a full moon, we set sail to the mainland again with the cruising chute, genoa out on the pole AND the trysail! (first time we have done that.)It went well till the wind disappeared so we changed our plan AGAIN and headed for Isola Ischia in the Flegree Islands. If the weather forecasts weren’t so inaccurate and the wind so changeable, we would never have visited all these lovely islands!

Arriving in Ischia at dawn, we saw the highest citadel yet, towering over the little town below. We anchored close in under it, the only boat as usual. A busy island, another festival – the anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s visit on 5th May 2002, the town was full of priests, monks and cardinals wandering around eating ice creams! Later the churches were overflowing with people.

1.05.09 16 YEARS and still going strong!

Our wedding anniversary – Amber and Tom woke us with beautiful handmade cards . Then it was up and out to catch an early train to Rome! Joe ( Giuseppe ,who we had met in Sardinia) met us at the station and took us on a fabulous whistle stop tour in his open top BMW in the sunshine, it was the business! A National holiday day- the atmosphere was lovely.

(Joe’s a personal friend of the Pope, so we got to ride in the Popemobile and had tea with a few cardinals. Then in the evening we went to the Vatican club where the Pope DJs for an hour or so! It was quite a sight seeing him on the dance floor with his group ‘Sister Act’ Ha ha !)

Joe really gave us a great tour to the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain the Coloseum, Castel Sant Angelo, some his favourite fabulous Piazzas, several beautiful bridges over the Tiber, stopping for us to have a walk around some of these wonderful places. Back at their home near the Vatican, Mirella had cooked a delicious meal and Joe played his lovely Steinway piano for us. Later they took us to Joe’s father’s empty apartment so we could stay the night. We found a great pizzeria in uptown Rome. Next morning we called on Joe and Mirella for coffee and Joe played us some fantastic music ,this time on his accordion. He is very musical, composing, specialising in historical music of the masters on piano , he also conducts . He and Mirella are great company and such lovely people, they made our trip to Rome so special. I know we will meet again. We had a great pasta lunch in a street restaurant. It was so busy in Rome, we decided to give the 8 hour queue for the Vatican Museum and the Cistine Chapel a miss! The rest of the day we visited St Peter’s Cathedral, in it, around it, and up it in the company of some lovely Americans we met while waiting. After a late night walk around and a quick beer we caught the bus to the station only to find we had missed the last train to Anzio! After much confusion we realised there was one more via another town that we could take an hour later with a connecting bus at 1.0am! (Italian public transport is fantastic and cheap, just very confusing!) What a great couple of days!!

29.04.09 A VERY LONG NIGHT!

Sad to leave, at 4.0am we set sail for Ostia from where we planned to visit Rome. The weather forecast was wrong (again!) but we made the best of the wind. We passed the ugly port of Cittavecchia, glad we did not need to visit. Luckily the Engineer spotted the engine had sprung an oil leak, a messy hour later he had fixed it. (I obviously made a good choice when I employed him!) In the late afternoon the wind got up. Then it got REALLY windy, within an hour we would be safe in Ostia so we enjoyed the fast sail. I called the Marina on the radio who told us that the conditions were now too dangerous with 2-3m waves coming in through the shallow entrance.They said to try Fiumare Grande along the coast, but I was told the same. Anzio and Nettuno, 35 miles down the coast would be the same, both with shallow entrances directly facing the now force 8-9 wind and huge waves. (This was forecast for 2 days earlier and didn’t arrive, but NOT being forecast for today!) Now dark, we had a tricky decision – sail down the coast 50 miles to Isola de Ponza for shelter by morning and miss seeing Rome or stay around all night and wait for the wind to drop. It’s safer out at sea in a storm and we wanted to go to Rome so we decided to wait. It was very rough and wet by now with waves breaking over the boat in the dark, HORRID!! We had biscuits for supper and hove to (slowing the boat down.) Rich and I took it turns to stay on watch while the other slept on the galley floor fully clothed in wet weather gear in case we were needed in a hurry. Amber and Tom stayed in bed, things fell over and moved around in the boat that never had before. We drifted parallel to the coast for the night. It was hard to stay awake. Carina was fantastic. By 6.0am the wind had weakened so we decided to head for Anzio, very shallow, but the easier entrance, where we thankfully moored on the old quay. NOT a night we want to repeat!

27.04.09 ISOLA GIGLIO

After a calm but very gusty night at anchor and freeing ourselves from a mooring chain we got caught up on, we set sail for mainland Italy again. We spent a wet and windy night at the nondescript Marina de Punta Ala and headed south at first light. After rolling around with hardly any wind, we cut our journey short and diverted to Isola Giglio (Isle of Lilies) another delightful island - we had no idea Italy had so many dotted along this coast, each with its own character. We love them all. Walking up towards the fantastic old Citadel, hundreds of feet above, we found the ancient stone steps the inhabitants used to run and hide when the pirates raided (which was fairly frequent.) One of the most enchanting walks we’ve found yet - it wound up the steep hill with stunning views and wild flowers along the way, the prize at the top (and it was a long climb!) was an ice cream and finding the totally unspoilt 10th century town.

25.04.09 ONWARD TO SICILIA

We sailed overnight to Portoferraio on Isola Elba,the little island looked beautiful in the distance at dawn. While we were tying up the Engineer unfortunately caught a line round our prop (A beating wouldn’t solve the problem this time!) His penance was to go diving... it was cold, windy and raining .... the air was blue! We walked up to the 3 forts above the harbour and visited the Villa de Mulini where Napoleon was exiled for a year. (He wasn’t in, so we left our card!) 26th April was Liberation Day, a crowd gathered in the Piazza in the evening and the military brass band struck up. Picture an Italian Dad’s Army in large eccentric feather hats and you have it! They were brilliant, the music got faster and faster until they nearly lost it, everyone was laughing and loving it! Our visit to Elba was brief but lovely.

25.04.09 ITALIA HERE WE COME!

After a rather frustrating sail where the wind kept changing direction and strength all night, we saw Livorno. The huge commercial port was a bit of a shock after the beautiful islands we have just visited, but it would be a good base from which to visit Pisa and Florence. Pisa was wonderful .We visited the Piazza del Duomo with its magnificent marble Cathedral, the incredible Baptistery and of course the Leaning Tower. The sun shone all day AND we found the best pizza yet! Hot on the tourist trail next day we caught the bus and a train to Florence! We could still see the snow on the mountains. The open top bus tour was great (despite having the top on and the rain blowing in through the sides!) We saw all the beautiful piazzas, buildings and the views (through the rain with our umbrellas blown inside out!) from the top of the hill across the River Arno. The Da Vinci Museum was amazing, displaying working models of his numerous inventions. We stared in wonder at Michelangelo’s David and his other beautiful sculptures. We crossed the Ponte Vecchio and walked through Piazza de Medici beneath the sculptures of all the famous artists in line along the way, too numerous to list. We had supper in a delightful Trattoria before catching the train back to the boat.

(Amber and Tom are standing up well to the serious stamina training, as you can see!) Livorno itself was nicer than we expected. The annual Festival of the Sea had some of the best model ships we’ve ever seen.

18.04.09 St FLORENT for the Big Boy’s Birthday!

We reluctantly dragged ourselves away from Calvi to quaint little St Florent . We had a rather frustrating sail with the wind all over the place then we arrived in the most enormous thunder storm with torrential rain and lightning crashing right over us as we came through the harbour entrance!

Next morning luckily the sun shone for the Engineer’s special day so we went on a dinghy trip up the river. We had a picnic in a field with birthday cake complete with candles and some cider we still had from Brittany (we really know how to live!) Then we went out for ‘le diner magnifique’ in the old town. (Rich’s quote for the day – you are as old as the woman you feel!!) Next day we walk inland to see a lone Cathedral and some Roman ruins, not a house in sight, very bizarre - the countryside is hilly, green and pretty at this end of Corsica. We fail to get internet and fuel so leave at 10.30pm for Italy!

16.04.09 CALVI

At dawn in the rain we sailed out through the eerie Passe des Sanguineres (a narrow and very shallow gap through rocks that looks like a row of sharp teeth!) We went faster and faster up the coast as the wind got up and fairly flew around the headland into the bay of Calvi. These Citadel harbours just get better and better, it was a magnificent sight - the flat calm bay with the layers of snowy mountains behind. Calvi itself is a pretty town with a friendly atmosphere despite being the headquarters for the Foreign Legion and its past reputation of violence. Napoleon hid here for a while after his escape from Ajjacio. The locals claim that Columbus was born here (as they have done in quite a few other places we have visited on our journey!)The Citadel is now a very quiet place, we only saw a few soldiers around.

Tom wanted to try some kite flying on the beautiful beach, there wasn’t really enough wind so it was more a case of kite crashing! We anchored out to enjoy the magical view at sunset.

13.04.09 AJACCIO

We tacked along the coast past miles of amazing cliffs and moored in the Vieux Port. It had a very Colonial Italian feel with many palm trees and superb sea views, we could see the snow capped mountains in the distance. Capital of Corsica and birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte (though the Corsicans drove his family out when he was very young and he never returned or claimed it as his homeland.) Ironically there are statues of him around the city, streets and buildings named after him and his house is the city’s most popular tourist attraction! Though not a large place, it is the busiest area of the island. Still very few tourists around apart from the invasion of two huge cruise ships which lasted 3-4- hours.

10.04.09 BONIFACIO - CORSICA (can we remember how to speak French?!)

We sail across the Bonifacio Straits the next day, a notoriously treacherous stretch of water – it is hard to find the harbour entrance hidden in the craggy cliffs with many huge caves, these are the most spectacular rock formations we’ve seen yet. Apparently Odysseus /Ullyses (of Greek mythology and Homer’s Odyssey) lived here for a while. Strangely you can feel the history – it’s quite spooky - you can but only imagine it! Walking around the old Citadel is like stepping back in time and yet it is still an inhabited working town. The Citadel walls literally overhang the sea hundreds of feet below. Put this place on your ‘must visit’ list!

5.04.09 SANTA TERESA DE GALLURA

What a lovely harbour! Marco and Tina drove along the coast to meet us again ( we are obviously very popular with the locals!) Marco gave Tom and Rich some fishing tips (and we need some - we haven’t caught anything for ages!) later while walking into town we met a delightful Italian couple called Mirella and Joe (Giuseppe) who were staying at their holiday home in Santa Teresa. That evening they came onboard for a drink and have invited us to meet them in Rome where they live, they want to tour guide us to some special places which will be brilliant. Yet again we tried again in vain to visit a Nuraghi (an ancient ruin) by bus, but ended up going along the coast to a town called Arzachena (you may well say where?!) a very uninspiring place except for an amazing rock that looked like a massive mushroom! So we had our picnic under it. Next day Tom and I went riding in the hills amongst the wonderful smelling maqui (the wild flowering shrubs) with a crowd of Italian children and Anna who owned the stables. It was such fun, Tom rode a very naughty pony called Oribundo (he had been warned!) but despite falling off 3 times, Tom just kept on at him till Orib realised Tom was the boss!

We had our first attempt at cooking octopus! A rather smelly affair – Amber nearly moved off the boat in disgust! ( I think we need to work on the technique a bit!) Meanwhile Tom is perfecting the art of making ice cream, sorbets and concocting new desserts! Amber does her bit too of course – birthday cakes extraordinaire!

Sad to leave Sardinia, we set sail to La Maddelena, one of the islands off North Sardinia.

A picturesque harbour with a real holiday atmosphere for Easter weekend. Navigationally these are hazardous waters, but as we have sailed in the Channel Islands where there are enormous tides as well, they are a doddle – for the Italians though, they are really tricky!!

2.04.09 CASTELSARDO IN THE RAIN

As luck would have it, walking around in the atmospheric old Citadel we saw Marco again, a great Italian guy we had met back in Stintino. He was out cruising on his huge Honda Easy Rider with his lovely German girlfriend, Tina. We had a fantastic impromptu fish lunch with them. Marco took Amber and Tom for rides on the bike around the town - big thrill! Rich would have liked to have gone too but would have probably slid off the back thanks to the Rioja!! Despite all the rain and getting ripped off by what must be the most expensive laundry in Italy, we enjoyed our visit!

We motored and fished our way to Isla Rossa, a tiny fishing village with incredible red rocky islands, hence the’ Rossa’ name.

1.04.09 (We all forgot it was April Fool’s Day!)

It was only today that we also realised the clocks had gone forward in Italy too! We then understood why everyone had been up at day break to go to work and the shops were shutting early !! Our not so ‘early morning sail’ brought us to Castelsardo, what a pretty place to approach (despite more rain.) The multi coloured pastel shades of the painted houses on the steep hillside overlooking the harbour are ‘ molto bellisimo ‘ . We think we are going to like it here !

31.03.09

The sea was so rough and the wind in the wrong direction that we have postponed our next leg until tomorrow.

30.03.09 11 Today! (Birthdays coming thick and fast!)

Stintino Luckily the sun shone for Tom. He was so excited! Carina was dressed overall again of course. He opened his cards and presents. Amber made him (and the rest of us) pancakes for breakfast. A and T spent most of the morning making jumps from bits of wood and bricks around the marina yard to launch themselves off on the poor old bike (it’s not going to get a chance to go rusty at this rate!)As we set off to find an idyllic beach for our picnic, Amber fell off the bike into a gorse bush! It took her half an hour to get out all the thorns, ouch! We eventually had the picnic then went for a long walk along the coast (and got lost trying to find a shortcut back!) We did some timed laps round a track on the bike, my turn to fall off in a bush!! Later we watched a couple of DVDs on the boat and ate homemade chocolate cake and proper Italian ravioli! Thanks for all the phone calls and texts, Tom loved having them and said he’d had a great day!The weather the next day was awful. Heavy rain and wind so Rich decided to tighten Carina’s mooring lines but let a vital one go allowing the passarelle to fall in the marina taking our bike with it - an excellent piece of seamanship !! He eventually managed to rescue it with our very strong deep sea magnet !! What a great bit of kit (it’s a bloomin big magnet on a piece of rope that’s used to retrieve metal things that fall in the water and don’t float – such as bikes !!)

28.03.09 Fornelli Passage

We went in very close under the cliffs of Capo Caccia ( around 300 metres high) wanting to see into Neptune’s Grotto ( massive Stalectite / Stalecmite caves] – but we couldn’t as the light was too poor ! So we carried on and sailed up to the north point of Sardinia hoping we could go through the Fornelli Passage, a very shallow shortcut between the mainland and the Isla de Asinara, cutting 25 miles off the trip to Stintino on the east of Sardinia. It was very windy, raining and quite rough outside, but luckily the Passage itself was calm so we went for it . We lined up the marks to go through and watched the depth drop to 3.8m for about 1 mile with the wind blowing at 30 knots –it was not the most relaxing half hour of our trip!! No sooner had the depth risen and we were feeling quite relieved, it got really rough again but Carina zoomed on a close reach down to Stintino.It was a Lucky passage !! Stintino is a tiny place, but very ok at only 6 euros a night! Next day we walked into the village which was almost deserted. One cafe/ restaurant was open so that was fine for us.

22.03.09 Sardinia – (is it where sardines come from?)

As we sail away from Menorca I realise we can speak and understand more Spanish than we’d expected but that we now need to learn a few Italian words fast. So we have lots of ‘ post- it notes ‘ with Italian words, stuck up around the galley! (Subliminal learning hopefully!) Our 194 mile trip is the longest we have done for a while – we leave at 3 am and have a very good sail most of the way with only a little motoring. On one of my night watches Tom joined me and we hit our record speed of 8.9 knots! We watched shooting stars and phosphorescence for ages. GREAT! The rocks on the headland were spectacular as we approached Alghero harbour late morning. We raised the Italian flag and a local fisherman helped us tie up on the old harbour wall. Buon giorno, Italia! – We had made good time. A really lovely old town, the Italian style buildings struck us. We were instantly befriended by Christopher who was waiting on the quay to practise his English and give us the local lowdown! (I don’t think they have many visitors here out of season) Tom played loads of football with him, so he was happy too!The compact old town was delightful with its narrow cobbled streets and we felt at home very quickly as we wandered around. We visited the small city museum to learn a little history and had a great evening eating pizza in a little cafe, much to Amber’s delight! The owner’s father spoke good English and chatted away to us, they were very friendly. We took a bus intending to visit a Nuraghie (ancient settlement) but there was no signpost and the bus driver didn’t stop, so we missed it! So we decided to stay on the bus enjoying the views and visit the spectacular caves at Capo Caccia instead. But when we arrived, the caves were closed for renovation (the tourist office hadn’t told us THAT bit!) I was not too sorry - the hundreds of steps down were literally crumbling and the railings all rusty! So we sat on the terrace of the Capo Caccia cafe, had a cafe latte, then went on a gorgeous walk along the clifftops instead. So many wild flowers and the view was stunning. Tom and Amber even picked some wild asparagus (eaten later in an omelette, just like the locals cook it.) We visited the local market and bought far too much pecorino, parmiggiano, salami, ham and nuts, but you’ve got to do it! A lovely Scottish couple, David and Fiona on Ceilidh, tied up on the quay next to us and we enjoyed their company over the next few days.Tom and I found some horse riding. An Italian called Cosimo kindly collected us and took us out to his farm. Richard and Amber played with the goats, cats and dogs while we rode up a mountain! It was really fabulous. We loved every minute of it, it was very steep, the view across the bay and the hills was great, it was so unspoilt out there. We learnt a lot about Sardinia from Cosimo. Tom and I have ridden in every country that we have visited so far... We saw a lot of Christopher, a great character, who obviously enjoyed our company and followed us everywhere! He very kindly gave Tom and Amber his old bike as his parents were buying him a new one. It will rust fast on deck but it’s fun till it falls apart!

17.03.09

Next stop was Mahon, at the eastern end of the island. We had a fantastic sail with Prospero, AND the right amount of wind for once! The coastline was lovely, more gentle than Majorca and no high rise developments along the way either – much more tasteful building. The entrance to Mahon is stunning with lots of fortifications with miles of beautiful old walls and cliffs on the other side, no wonder the British, French and Spanish fought over it so many times! The British influence remains – a thriving gin distillery, Xorigues of Mahon (which we visited and sampled of course!) also in some of the architecture and street names. Once inside the narrow entrance, the harbour is huge - about 4 miles long with several islands within it, in the past one had even been home to a leper colony (called Cuarentena!) Lord Nelson visited Mahon and chose it for his Mediterranean Fleet base. Today there is still a large Spanish Naval presence here. We explored several of the creeks in the harbour by dinghy. Again the old town was rather nice and totally uncommercial with old covered markets and lots of steps with the buildings set into the cliffs, charming and even quieter than Cuitadela . Did you know that Mahon is where mahonnaise originated – created by a visiting French chef when the French ruled here in 1750’s!We are excited about going on to Italian Sardinia, but will really miss the wonderful tapas and the lovely relaxed ‘cafe lifestyle’ of Spain which we have so enjoyed. We will also really miss our good friends Paul, Di, India and Clemmy on Prospero, who are heading back to the mainland. Carina (the party boat!) will be so quiet without you! We have had SUCH good fun with you guys, no one to drink Vino Pescadoro with any more! Thanks for your great company and see you in Greece in June....?

12.03.09 Menorca, here we come!

We planned to sail to Cuitadela but it was a lot rougher than forecast and with 35 knots of wind from the wrong direction we changed our minds and tacked on towards Puerto de Cala Ratjada, Mallorca instead - a nice little harbour with the bluest water yet. We walked out along the cliffs and saw Prospero had braved it after all having made a second attempt after turning back earlier because of the heavy weather– we were very impressed as their boat is a lot smaller than Carina – this called for another celebration supper! Second time lucky we set sail the next day with our cruising chute (first time this year!) and had a fantastic trip to Cuitadela. It’s a picturesque harbour with steep cliffs and the town up above. We watched the sun go down tied up on the old town quay next to Prospero.There were many beautiful old buildings in the centre and the town had a lovely atmosphere even though it was very quiet, being only March. The old market was great and the fish delicious (though not cheap) With the good weather we enjoyed our few days there a lot.In all the Balearics , we have seen lots of Audouin’s gulls which are a rare breed of seagull peculiar to the small islands of the Med , see pic! The great thing about cruising at this time of year is that you can nearly always tie up on the old quays which are usually right in the centre of the historic old old part of town which is where we like to be. In summer there wouldn’t be any space because all the locals sail in to use them. There are usually no facilities but we don’t mind as we have the generator (usually!) which means we can use the diesel heating (which we still need at night even though the days can be very warm) and the watermaker so we are independant and we can travel on and visit new places. Although we can’t enjoy the warm water to swim I do think many of the places take on a different charm out of season AND there are no other tourists!!

9.3.09To La Rapita and on...

With the generator repaired once again (well done, the Engineer) we were ready to leave Palma. We have enjoyed it here much more than we expected but it was time go. We motor sailed along the coast and anchored in the bay next to La Rapita for the night. Next day we motor sailed along the beautiful coastline with Prospero to Cala d’Or and Cala Llonga where we anchored out again. We went ashore to have a walk around and met up with Paul, Di and Co. Hooray! The Engineer finally fixed our basin taps (it has taken a few floggings to get him started!) Meanwhile we caught up on a bit of school. We then sailed in to Cala Fereira, a gorgeous small cove with a lovely little sandy beach but somewhat more developed than when Rich used to go on holiday many years ago, then on to Porto Cristo where we anchored really close in under the stunning steep cliffs and joined the Prospero crew for drinks onboard (this is becoming a habit!)

8.3.09. 14 Today!

Due to the good company and unsettled weather we decided to celebrate Amber’s birthday in Palma. It was a beautiful day and we dressed Carina overall (with flags) We went for a coffee in the sunshine with Paul and Diane, India and Clemmy. After birthday cake (complete with candles), silly games and a big water fight on the pontoon we all went to a great Indian restaurant for a curry then a sleepover on Carina. We were all exhausted, lots of fun!

5.3.09 An English Visitor

Leigh Chance, a great friend of the Marquands was staying near Palma so we met at her hotel and were spoilt with a lovely lunch and a swim in the pool. We swapped news and really enjoyed the day together. (Thanks for the English teabags!)

We really enjoyed a visit to J. Torrents Llado’s house and museum ( such beautiful paintings) and, in complete contrast, the Contemporary Art museum with a chromatography room which the children found a lot of fun.

We had another party onboard to say goodbye to our friends, Eran, Sigal and Raz – we will certainly miss you all. Thank you for all your kindness, especially to Tom.

22.02.09 Palma, what a contrast!

Sail, motor, sail, motor, sail,motor and so on overnight -we eventually reach Palma and choose the marina closest to the old city centre from where we have a spectacular view of the Cathedral and the Palace de l’Almudaina, even better at night when floodlit.

Luckily we tie up next to a yacht owned by a lovely family. Tom instantly makes friends with their younger son, Raz. His parents Eran and Sigal give us lots of local info and even invite us to their home. Though they have only been living in Palma for 18 months, since leaving Israel (their homeland) they have set up home and established their design business www.ein-hod.info/artists/yamdesign/ making wonderful lamps amongst other things.

We visit the Cathedral, the Palace and the Arab Baths dating from 1000AD, all are very impressive . We walk around the old city with its maze of fascinating streets where it’s all too easy to get lost. There are endless cafes, restaurants and shops . Unfortunately Abaco (the famous Majorcan cult bar) is closed for the winter.

In our Fiat Panda, hired for 3 days, we explore more of the island and visit Port Andraitx , then the next day picturesque Valledemosa ,home to Chopin. We discover a gallery full of paintings by Coll Bardollet , a very talented Spanish Impressionist artist. Then on to Deia and Port Soller.

Making the most of being mobile, we visit a traditional market inland and Castello d’Arelia which is a very spectacular ruined castle on the top of a sheer faced cliff, we walk the last part as the road is so bumpy and the exhaust is about to fall off the car! The scenery is beautiful with the steep mountains and pretty old towns, feeling very distant from sophisticated Palma so close by.

The weather is changing for the worse, but just in time our good friends, Di, Paul and the girls on Prospero surprise us by arriving on the next pontoon! Amber is especially pleased! Tom and Raz play together every moment they can squeeze out of the day, in fact Tom has more or less moved to live at Raz’s house! We have a great party with our 3 families onboard Carina one evening with more delicious food cooked by Eran. Amber and Tom are delighted the weather is keeping us in Palma – more playtime! The wind is howling and it’s raining. Amber and I visit the Joan Miro exhibition with his house and workshop. His paintings are as wacky as I expected, you have to admire how enthusiastic and prolific he was - he even drew all over the walls in his house! We like some of the sculptures.

18.02.09 Any nudists?

We leave Ibiza for Formentera. We anchor in a beautiful calm bay off Punta del Cabrito (as long as it’s calm enough, we can do this even though it is quite cool at night as we have diesel heating which means we don’t need electricity from the shore to heat the boat.)

During the night we catch an octopus in our crab pot - we are so surprised, it escapes before we can land it! We move into the marina for a couple of nights, we explore the island on hired bikes for the day. As it is mostly flat with lots of rough tracks its perfect for this, especially when we discover the very rustic Chirinquito beach bar that does great food. We cycle about 40 km, Amber and Tom really enjoy it and don’t want to stop despite us all having saddle rash! Though Formentera is known for its nudist beaches, we see none as it’s far too cold for them to be out and about now! It is such a peaceful and unspoilt island and such a contrast to vibrant Ibiza) we really enjoy it.

We sail to Espalmador, one of the islands off Formentera, anchoring in another deserted, turquoise paradise bay we dinghy to the beach for the afternoon. Very Caribbean like, with windswept sand dunes and not a footprint to be seen, we enjoy this unspoilt place.

We raise our anchor but the Spanish Aduana (Customs) launch approach and flag us down. They want to come onboard - as they can do 50 knots and we can only do 7, we decide to comply! After half an hour of lengthy form filling and a lot of polite smiling, they send us on our way with a blue certificate which we can wave at the next Customs boat to avoid being boarded again.(lucky they didn’t find our stash of Moroccan hashish and machine guns!)

12.02.09 The Islands call!

Though Amber would have liked to stay in Javea with Amy, we set off on a very brisk sail to Ibiza with much more wind than predicted. Then, as usual, it changes direction as we get closer. So, instead of bashing on in the dark, we anchor in a peaceful little bay until the morning to wait for the wind to change. We pass the first yacht we have seen out sailing for over 450 miles since we left Gibraltar in October!! – we have only seen fishing boats and cargo ships. In fact we have only seen about 20 yachts out sailing since we left the UK last July....compared to the 1000’s we have seen moored in marinas along our route, it really is quite bizarre! (Do they know something we don’t?!)

Eivissa, Ibiza Town is spectacular to approach from the sea with its Moorish castle towering above us. We spend 5 days moored on the quay in the old town - for free - no one asks us to pay, and we can’t find an office (and we tried ever so hard, honest we did!!)

The old walled town is fascinating with its huge castle battlements, tiny winding streets and Italian style houses around the cathedral. We hardly see a soul, though a few people do live there. Nearby we find a couple of lovely quiet placas with little cafes in the sunshine. The new town is built up and busy despite there being very few tourists at this time of year.

A couple of bus trips across the island, taking us to Santa Eularia which has a beautiful old church on top of the hill with a very unusual cemetery. Some Spanish ones are different to those in the UK as the glass framed headstones are stacked on top of each other and this one was on a steep hill. This one has large library steps attached to a winch so you can reach the graves at the top! Photos of the deceased when they were young and old adorn their plaques with loads of colourful plastic flowers. (see photo)

Then on through the pretty countryside with wild flowers and blossom to amazing Cala Portinax . The bay is stunning and the water turquoise, if only it was warm enough to swim! We have the beach to ourselves for our picnic (from the number of hotels there – all closed at the moment - we know that would not happen in the summer!) We do some rock climbing down to some fantastic volcanic rock pools.

Amber and Tom become really interested in taking close ups of all the lovely flowers we are seeing at the moment.

On one of our evenings out at a restaurant we meet a lovely young English couple who are keen to go sailing. So over a coffee the next day a trip is planned. Andy and Sophie are great company, and despite a lack of wind, we manage to sail to Santa Eularia and back which we all enjoy.

We are now seeing one or two other yachts out sailing. We still cannot believe that in all the miles we have sailed since Gibraltar to Ibiza we have not seen a single boat other than fishing boats and cargo ships!!

4.02.09 Lovely Javea!

A really pretty harbour to enter as the sun was going down with the huge MontGo mountain behind the town. We had been so looking forward to arriving here and seeing our friends the Hobleys, Chris and Sarah with their 3 lovely children ( Sam 16, Amy 13, and Alice 8) and 2 gorgeous dogs ! Amber and Tom jumped ship and moved ashore to spend every possible minute in some young company! It was as though they had known each other for years, especially Amber and Amy who were like 2 peas in a pod! (or was it an i-pod?!) In fact they have only met once years ago.

It was 4 nights until they reluctantly moved back on board (mainly so the others would go back to school!) ’Skiverlitis’ was setting in badly!! (2 days off school, we are obviously a bad influence!!) While we were child-free Rich and I went on a long walk out past Cala Tango to San Antonio light house and got really lost!

We took the Hobleys out for an afternoon of windy sailing for a blast round Javea Bay .

We had SUCH a great time in Javea - it had been too long since we’d seen you, Chris and Sarah! Thanks so much for all your great hospitality and driving us around for walks, a picnic and the trip through the mountains to Castello de Guadalest which was really an amazing place. Not to mention the mega BBQ, cheers Chris! ‘The Van’, well what can we say? It was brill ! ( We must get one!) You have certainly found a lovely place to live! SEE YOU AGAIN SOOOOOOON!!!!

1.02.09

Costa Blanca – no thanks!

As we were leaving Gill gave us and our boat a blessing - we were very touched - thank you, Gill. We will miss you both (and your great dog!)

We had to motor out of the harbour hard against the wind and sea, but then had a great sail in the pouring rain and flew up the coast past the Mar Menor on to Torrevieja. One night at anchor with not even a visit ashore was enough to know we wouldn’t be staying – not a pretty sight! Not much wind the next day so we motored on past Alicante and Benidorm – what can we say?!!!!! It’s scary, ghastly miles of ‘package holiday paradise’ high rise buildings all along the coast, I’m glad we are not here in summer or we might be caught in the oil slick of sun cream!! Even the Spanish are embarrassed about it! We passed close to the Ilsa Tabarca, a tiny island inhabited in the past by pirates. When the Spanish finally arrested them, they left behind exchanged prisoners of war in a garrison to stop the pirates returning. The soldiers then married all the pirates’ wives a few generations ago, apparently they are still a rather unusual bunch!

We arrived in the rain at a really lovely little port called Villajoyosa where we spent the night before sailing on to Javea. Typical sailing for the Med in winter, speeding along at 8.4 knots with 30 knots of wind for an hour then no wind for a while, then up again and so on. (Kept us busy with the sails though!) Beautiful coast line with quite a lot of building here and there, some houses look as if they are literally clinging to the cliffs they are so near the edge! People obviously like living dangerously around here!

31.01.09

The wind got up stronger than the forecast so we postponed leaving – Gill and Martin spontaneously whisked us off us on another adventure walk up in the hills. We even found a climbing wall!

All the almond blossom and wild flowers in a totally unspoilt valley near Mazarron made the countryside even more beautiful. The walk took us along coast tracks that led down to an isolated house by a cove that Gill dreams of buying one day. We had a smashing picnic there (complete with bubbly!) in an old stone animal pen – the only spot out of the wild wind!

10.01.09

Cartagena - a fascinating city with a stunning backdrop of mountains. We love it here and could quite easily stay! The Phoenicians, Romans, Greeks, Goths, Carthaginians, Vikings, and Moors were all here. Ancient remains are continually being found – recently it was a Roman theatre right in the city centre (how could they have missed it?!) On top of it over the following centuries were built a cathedral, markets, a medina and fishermen’s houses. The Museo Teat Romano about it all is inspiring and beautifully displayed. There is some fabulous architecture here (old and new) and some great sculptures, definitely an up-and-coming place and (thank goodness!) still totally Spanish.

The Museum of Marine Archaeology, built in 2008, was brilliant with lots of interactive techy bits. The Spanish navy is based here - we have seen some interesting naval vessels come and go. The city centre is very smart with some great shops (which Amber and I enjoyed!)

We arrived in time for the Festival of the Three Kings which the Spanish celebrate far more than Christmas, it was a huge Carnival. 1000’s of sweets were thrown to the children from the floats, our two caught enough to last them a year! Day 2 Tom got himself invited along to the sailing school and has lived for the weekends when he can go out dinghy sailing Optimists in the harbour with the Spanish children!

Having seen me gaze longingly at the snow on the Sierra Nevada, Richard weakened and hired a car so we could go skiing for 3 days. The snow was perfect, the weather mixed. We had SUCH a great time and all skied our smelly socks off! Though we weren’t the most chic looking group on the piste, our wet weather gear held up well – AND we found the best tapas bar in Pradollano on the first day, lucky or what?!

We have met some lovely people here – the crew from Prospero, Di, Paul, India and Clemmy, the children have had a lot of fun together. Gill, Martin and Leros(their dog!) who have shown us some great walks in the countryside and the mountains (which are beautiful and covered in wild flowers) They have even taken Amber and Tom on some climbing adventures. Yesterday Gill and the children, having picked bundles of wild lavender, set up an experiment to make lavender oil on the dockside! They got ice from the fishing harbour, collected wood and cooking tins from the local tip, lit a BBQ with a magnifying glass and began their distillery much to the amusement of passersby. The experiment didn’t quite work – they got pints of lavender tea but not a drop of oil!! It was good fun trying though!

Meanwhile we fit in a bit of school and, thanks to no TV (how nice that is!) Amber and Tom have now read over 100 books between them since we left - their book reviews are becoming quite professional!

02.01.09

On to Cartagena!

After great indecision due to the weather conditions we set sail in a brisk breeze (with no motor for once!) and had a great sail to Cabo de Gata making 7-8 knots. Just after midnight the wind dropped (contrary to the weather forecast) and we motored on to Cartagena, the huge cliffs as massive shadows beside us – quite eerie. In the early morning mist, the sea like glass, Tom and I watched dolphins play around our bow for ages. The steady drone of the engine was suddenly not so steady! With 3 hours still to go and not a breath of wind it was not looking good - the Engineer fiddled around a bit to no avail, the engine kept cutting out (at least it was restarting at this stage!) We finally spluttered into the harbour and the engine cut out for the last time as we came into our berth – phew!! The Engineer went into action! After much deliberation with some other boat owners it was decided that the problem was dirty diesel – a lot of it – 400 litres!!! Short of dumping the lot, the only solution was to siphon it out (for which we needed a lot of empty cans which were kindly lent by all the other marina occupants who we met at a BBQ!) clean out the 5 sections of the fuel tanks which were full of thick gooey brown gunk known in the trade as Diesel Bug (a bacteria that unbelievably survives and breeds in marine diesel) filter it all and pour it all back in.

Easy really !!

All we saw of Richard for the best part of 10 days was his bottom sticking out of the fuel tanks!! (not a pretty sight, despite his overalls) or walking round with a diesel can in each hand !

Our pontoon looked like an Oil Refinery!! Everyone gave us lots of encouragement, especially Danny and Gavin who also had their heads in our bilges, thanks guys.

Richard is about to write his first article for Yachting Monthly complete with photos on how to clean out your fuel tanks on a shoestring. Amber and Tom had hands on science lessons on the subjects of siphons, pumps and gravity AND we now have spotlessly clean fuel tanks!

Cartagena or Bust

Afraid to say we are getting far too confortable in Almerimar -

maybe something to do with Christmas , some nice people what we have met , the Tapas , the Tinto Veranooooo, the warmest weather in Europe and still messing around with all the computers -- the ship's engineer has lost yet more hair [ if that were possible ] trying to sort it all out with the help of a fanatastic guy [ Spencer ] who owns Alamar Nautico Chandlers in Almerimar www.alamar-marine.com

Never , never , never ever ever buy Dell computers !!! Too boring to go into detail here so watch this space for more 2009 details soon ..................................

24.11.08 A Bit of Culture - Spanish Style

Back to Spain and a Boat! (not ours this time!) We were the guests of Mike on Carelia (-this is his boat, NOT his Swedish girlfriend as rumour has it!) We had planned to visit Barcelona on Carina but, with bad weather, fully booked marinas and an over optimistic time scale this did not work out. So when Mike invited us to stay it was such a kind offer we could not refuse - we did not want to miss this wonderful city. We LOVED Barcelona, all the architecture, especially Gaudi’s. The Sagrada Familia, Casa Battlo, Parc Guell and more. Absolutely stunning. Gaudi was so inspired and his ideas so different from anything we have seen before. We were bowled over, fascinated by the idea that all his designs were sourced from nature. We learnt such a lot.

We enjoyed the atmosphere of the city too, great bars and restaurants! We saw the Picasso Museum, the Maritime Museum ( it must be one of the best in the world I should think ) We saw some Flamenco which was very passionate and unusual, went to a concert by a Spanish guitar Maestro in a lovely church and saw the old Olympic Stadium. Good job I have no money and no space in my wardrobe, I could do some serious shopping there too! [ Next time ] Not much sitting in cafes watching the world go by as it was very chilly while we were there. Meanwhile Mike was working so hard, though we did persuade him out a couple of times to visit two of his favourite haunts! We can quite see why you still live there 5 years later,Mike, what a wonderful place! Thank you so much – please come sailing with us so we can reciprocate...

With 2 tons of luggage (mostly books for Amber and Tom!) AND two children in tow, we decided the easiest / cheapest option to travel the 1000km back to Carina would be by rail. There was only one direct train a week so that was easily decided! The scenery was stunning along the coast and through the mountains and plains - 12 hours went fast. (It would have taken us 4 or 5 days on Carina!)

So now we are back onboard again, planning our next hop to Cartagena in the next few days when the weather is right and we have sorted our IT out. Lots of school to catch up on and one last ride on the beach tomorrow...

10.11.08

After a few more days in Almerimar, a few more rides on the beach past the flamingos, it was time to brave the November weather in the UK!

It was a whirlwind of a visit – so much admin to do and so many people we wanted to see. It was really lovely to see those of you we did - so sorry to those of you we didn’t. Tania, thank you for putting up with us and opening the doors of the Selkirk Hotel for the week! Thank you to everyone else for all your hospitality, parties and help, ferrying us around, having us to stay & generally spoiling us !! Amber and Tom really enjoyed seeing all their friends and visiting their respective schools. We are so proud of Tom – he won a bronze medal at the UK Jujutsu Nationals!!! (And that was with hardly any practise for the last 8 months!)

2.11.08 Driving over Lemons Country

The mountain tour was next, we drove to Puerto de la Ragua at 2609m in the Gador mountains where it had already snowed so we had a huge snowball fight and a picnic! We had a hot chocolate at a mountain lodge, it was just as if we had come in off the ski slopes. We stopped at Trevelez, the highest town in Spain, where they prepare and sell Serrano ham. Every shop was festooned with them! The ham seems to be like wine – the older it is, the more expensive it gets. It’s delicious! Since we’ve been in Spain there’s not been a pig in sight though, it’s a mystery where they keep them all - there must be thousands of them somewhere! The road wound on through the Sierra Nevada, the scenery was beautiful. We ate in a local tapas bar and stayed the night at Orgiva en route to Granada and the Alhambra the next day. Luckily the weather forecast for heavy rain was wrong, though it was surprisingly cold. As we entered the Palacios Nazaries built by the Arabs in 1300s, Rich, Amber and Tom realised why I had been so insistent we must go out of our way to visit this place. It is quite exquisite, everything is perfect – even the reflections on the pools seem to have been planned. The beauty just goes on and on. The Alcazaba, the military fortress, rebuilt in 889AD has a very different atmosphere with its huge red towers. The Palacio Carlos V built in 1500s in the renaissance style, is totally different again. We spent most of the day there ending with a walk through the General Life gardens in awe of the whole place. You must visit to understand what an extraordinary place this is.

30.10.08

Rich found us a lovely puke green hire car to go and explore! We drove to Almeria and got lost, then on to Tabernas ; the only desert in Europe we are told. The scenery was spectacular, its where they filmed the Spaghetti Westerns so you can imagine it... We visited a Wild West Town film set where they have horses, bison, the jail, the bank, wigwams, cowboys etc. Amber and Tom had a ride around town. Walking in through the swing doors of the saloon I had déjà vu – ordering a drink at the bar it really did feel as if you were in the film The Good, The Bad and The Ugly! The staged shootout at the end was hilarious, especially as it was all in Spanish. The best bit for me was a cowboy riding a mule around called Bicicleta!! It all sounds really corny but was actually very good and not overly commercial!

28.10.08

Almerimar - Tom is going to love being here....riding on the beach! Even better - GALLOPING on the beach in the SEA!! It’s what he’s been waiting for. Even Rich had a ride, we couldn’t believe our eyes when he came cantering towards us – everything flapping!! He hadn’t even sat on a horse since he was a teenager, (a very long time ago) let alone canter! We rode in a nature reserve just near the marina, it was really lovely, we’ll be going again for sure. The view of the snow capped mountains of the Sierra Nevada in the distance made it even better.

24.10.08 Back to Espagne

Finally a weather window to sail back to Spain! This time to Almerimar some 24 hrs away. I don’t think they dredge their harbour entrances as we went aground briefly leaving Smir, but no damage to Carina. Even though there was very little wind by then, it was still quite rough after the storm the day before. We saw a huge pod of dolphins which is always a bonus. In the night we caught a 10lb tuna!!!! We were so excited – how Richard landed it we are still not quite sure, we only had a bucket to bring it onboard while Amber and Tom shone torches for us, good job the fish was already tired! (-need to buy a landing net!) It was delicious and we still have three meals in the freezer.

I take it back Boys – it WAS worth spending all that money on fishing kit after all!!

18.10.08 Back to Afrique

A lot had happened in Gibraltar – One storm, one hurricane, completion of our famous passarelle by the Engineer (the plank we use to walk to the quayside!) Not to mention several multi-national get togethers and meals on various boats including Carina! Len and Avril (my friend Fran’s parents) had driven from Sottogrande to see us for the day – our first visitors from England onboard since we left - a celebration was called for!

We found the Gibraltar Jujutsu Club where Tom was able to put in some practise for his forthcoming National Trials in UK where he would be representing the South West. Amber and Tom had even set up a small enterprise cleaning people’s boats after The Storm to earn some pocket money. And finally some of our IT problems had been solved at last! (note ‘some’!)

As we sailed out past Europa Point, it was a sad sight seeing the large tanker ship Fedra wrecked on the rocks, broken in two by the hurricane. It was sad too - leaving some of the lovely people we had met during the last few weeks. (Mel, thank you for all your advice, it was invaluable.) There’s nothing like a bit of adversity to bond friendships!

But Morocco called

Wonderful sail to Smir, Morocco, arriving in the calm evening to tie up in the large, near deserted marina which is part of a luxurious holiday complex, a bit soul-less but safe to leave the boat to travel inland . Hearing that there would be a large market in the mountain town of Chefchaouen the next day, we set off. We got as far as Rincon and, whilst having a coffee, started talking with a very friendly Moroccan called Yazid. He took us on a tour of Rincon and invited us to his house to meet Hayat, his wife and Adam, his 10 month old son. We talked for hours in French and English and put our respective worlds to rights. Hayat prepared delicious couscous in a huge dish and we sat around a low table on cushions enjoying their wonderful hospitality . On our way back Yazid took us to the beautiful new Mosque in Rincon paid for by the King, such a peaceful place.

Next day we made our second attempt to go to Chefchaouen - an interesting experience in itself! The first bus ride (at 4p each, children free) took us 45 mins to Tetouan. It was already full to bursting point before we got on! At every stop more people boarded and nobody got off.... Tom was sitting on a Moroccan lady’s lap so he didn’t get squashed underfoot! (She invited us to her house too, the Moroccans are so hospitable and want all visitors to enjoy their country.) I was standing between two other ladies who started to have a huge argument, one of them was trying to grab the other (with me in the middle) and whack her over the head with a large bundle in a blanket! Arabic must be the perfect language with which to hurl insults, it was scary!! I was very relieved when someone else pushed the troublemaker off the bus at the next stop! The scenery on the way to Chefchaouen through the Rif Mountains was stunning. When we arrived at the Medina, the market area found in the heart of all old Moroccan towns, the scene was breathtaking. Many of the buildings were painted an amazing cobalt blue which had faded in the sun to varying degrees. Even some of the steps in the steep winding alleys were blue, it felt as though you shouldn’t be walking there in case you spoilt it .We found a little hotel as we couldn’t bear to leave that day, it was out of an Arabian Night’s fairytale (and all for 5 Euros each for the night!) The town had a much slower pace of life than the cities we had visited so far. We walked up the hill to an old mosque, watching two donkeys ploughing a field and the women doing their washing in the river; Amber and Tom were intrigued. The local food was delicious, not a drop of alcohol in sight of course! We had to wait another couple of days to leave Smir as the weather had been very bad. Yazid and his family came and spent an evening on Carina with us which was fun, what a contrast our lives are.

Gibraltar - Oh what a night !

Why have we been stuck in Gib far too long ??Maybe it’s got something to do Duty Free shopping , climbing the rock to , see the Apes , Rich being attacked by an Ape called Churchill, our Generator not working , the outboard not working , our IT systems not working , a rope wrapped around the prop and a hurricane – yes a Hurricane !!

Last Friday night and Saturday was an exciting time for all !! The wind and rain started to hammer Gibraltar and our Marina early Friday evening . The wind , waves and swell just got worse and worse -- ‘ Bring it on Lord ’

The sickening horrendous noise of all the yachts and motor cruisers crashing into each other , smashing into the pontoons ; the awful noise of rigging , mooring lines and fixings ripping out of boat decks and the marina pontoons, fenders exploding , and all the time the screaming wind was just a tiny bit scary !

The owners and crews that stayed with their boats [Shelley & I included ] spent the night tightening or changing lines as they shredded , moving fenders and generally helping each other etc etc etc all night long , managing to get away with little or no damage. All the pontoons were snaking around violently and in the middle of the night all the pontoon slipways got ripped off so no one could get on or off the pontoon which left some owners stranded on the dock unable to get to their boats so they just had to watch the carnage as their boats got smashed up - It was far too dangerous to get in a dinghy to get out to their boats. Some owners lost their sense of humour and even abandoned their boats early on as they were too scared to stay as the weather got worse.

The wind was only over 80 mph !! What wimps !!

When things finally calmed down on Saturday afternoon we began to hear that we had experienced a Hurricane [ Storm Force 12 ] that two large ships had been smashed onto the rocks of Gib , and that breakwaters had been washed away in the storm and that there was a lot of damage in the town . It was so sad to see the extent of the damage to some of the lovely yachts in the marina. Miraculously no one had been hurt ! The locals say this had been the worst weather since records began.

Since this there has been a lot of clearing up and repairing of boats , the marina have been repairing the pontoons and getting water and electricity back on. We even have a makeshift slipway so we can get on & off the pontoon . Luxury !! Life is returning to normal but it’s definitely time to move on !!!

24.9.08 GIB

A trip to Gibraltar was called for...sad to say good bye to Ceuta (and Hercules !) The tide in the Straits was phenominal,we arrrived sideways in the dark !
All the lights of the many ships anchored and the towns were an amazing sight.
We anchored in Gibraltar water near the runway as described in the pilot book,(we thought it ws a bit strange we were the only boat) only to be woken by a great big black Police RIB who wanted to know what we were doing there !!
They weren't having it that we had 'done what the book said' as 'it has all changed now.' So at 2.0 am we had to up anchor and move into Spanish water !! They are obviously very touchy about territory, security and the border here !
The next day we walked across the border over Gibralter runway which IS acceptable ! Its a funny world!!
We are now in the marina - a good job too as the Levanter has decided to arrive (basically horizontal rain and strong winds for 5 days !!)
We haven't seen the top of the Rock yet as it's permanenently in cloud .When we do - we will walk up to see the apes! Meanwhile we have been catching up on a bit of school work and the engineer (keel hauling called for this time! ) seems to have fixed the generator, again ! .
There are a lot of interesting historic places here, the museum was fascinating - (I'm not one for museums normally !)Though the dress sense and tattoos of most of the British in Gibraltar leave a lot to be desired, we are quite enjoying it here in a funny kind of way.

23.9.08 The Border

We took a bus to the Spanish border to visit Tetouan in Morocco. Crossing the border which was several hundred yards of 'no man's land' with hundreds of other people was like rush hour ! Quite bizarre and intimidating with loads of police and security.Forms had to be completed etc. Then all the taxis were hassling for your business to take you to the city.
As it was Ramadan, we had been warned not to let anyone see us eat or drink between dawn and dusk as we would offend them. Also there would be no cafes or restaurants open - they were right! So first things first,we set about finding somewhere to eat our sandwiches - the back of the market carpark between two vans seemed a good bet ! ( We really know how to live it up !!)
In the Medina (market) all the Berber people (whole families) had come down from the mountains that day to sell their produce and stock up for the end of Ramadan feast,the fish stalls ( whole sharks and swordfish among them), fruit and vegetables,the farmers with their chickens (sold dead or alive !) rug merchants,cobblers,pots pans you name it,in the little cobbled alleyways- it was quite a sight.There was not another European to be seen.I forgot to mention that it was now pouring with rain so it was like walking through a very fishy muddy stream (the Moroccans obviously don't 'do' drainage !) The whole experience was an assault on all senses !!
(Wish I hadn't worn my best sandals !)
With our newly purchased umbrellas we stood and waited with the crowds,having heard that King Mohammed VI of Morocco was visiting Tetouan that day !! What timing ! He must have heard we were coming !
It wasn't your normal sedate stately Drive By that we are used to in the UK, not a bit of it - the big old black Mercedes sped round the corner with the King standing half out of the roof ,laughing and madly waving at everyone, followed by his cavalcade of security men hanging out of their car doors(guns at the ready) soldiers,police bikes and plain clothes officers everywhere They are security mad.We were told to put our camera away - 'no photos or video allowed.' From all the cheering you can tell he is much loved by his people, poor as they are.
We then accidentally 'got picked up' by a guide called Hassan who took us around the Kasbah,the King's Palace etc.Then,over a mint tea,we 'accidentally' bought a lovely Berber throw for the boat and headed back, armed with Moroccan snacks to eat as soon as the sun had set or we had crossed the border !
Who needs school after a day like that!!

16.9.08 A Spanish Enclave

The engineer has been hard at work (following a good thrashing - its been a while !) changing filters,oil and suchlike. In the evening we went to an equestrian centre that was more like a zoo ! There were goats,ferrets,dogs,ducks AND horses ! Amber,Tom and I went for a hack up the side of the mountain,overlooking Morocco and Gibraltar, accompanied by a mad hat-less Spaniard hairdresser (complete with punk hairdo,earrings and tatoos) on a beautiful stallion!! He didn't speak a word of English! He was actually a very good rider and his horse responded to whistle commands (ours didn't !) The ride was steep and the view of the 2 continents of Africa and Europe at sunset was stunning. Tom then did some jumping in the ring which he LOVED !! Happy he hadn't forgotten how !
We enjoyed being in Ceuta over the next few days. Amber and Tom did some wakeboarding and ringo-ing off the beach.It is an unusual town, Spanish with a very Moroccan feel about it,tapas bars, mosques and an amazing old moated Portuguese Castle all in this tiny enclave. There are some interesting sculptures, including two of Hercules, (who was rather gorgeous!) one each side of the harbour entrance, depicting the myth that he split open the two pillars(mountains) of Ceuta and Gibraltar (which marked the end of the world - only dispelled later by Columbus) and let the water pour into the Mediterranean.
We did a bit of provisioning in a whistle stop taxi tour and even came back with a freebee builder's plank and a pair of castors with which the 'engineer' constructed a very passable(!) passarelle so we can now climb ashore in a slightly more dignified fashion !

12.9.08 Time to move on

Said our goodbyes to Tangier with a short sail to Ceuta. Only 3 miles from the Moroccan border and 25 miles from Tangier, this Spanish enclave on the North African coast is so amazingly different. Clean, wealthy, modern ! We have decided to sail the Moroccan coast fora while and explore, visiting some Berber villages inland . They tell us we can get a good price for the children though quite where we will put the camels I am not sure !!

8.9.08 Lets sail to Africa .

Had a hard sail to Tangier , Morocco which took all day .
Arrived late and rafted up to another yacht in the so called Marina of Tangier. Actually it's a fishing harbour with hundreds of fishing boats and thousands of Moroccans all shouting as they try to get work on the boats for the night's fishing , we are all fascinated by the goings on just yards from our boat, another world .This is the kind of experiece we had hoped for on our trip .
The cultural change from Spain , just a few miles away, is unbelievable !
The next morning we were summoned by the police to clear customs - a bizarre and somewhat threatening, disorganised and bureaucratic experience -- have they never done it before ?! The usual bakshish is mandatory - cigarettes are welcomed and the atmosphere improves. We are next to Dream Catcher owned by Jimmy and Caroline who are very experienced sailors with loads of tips for us . Apparently every sailor that arrives has a different experience with the authorities .
Tangier is a 3 religion city , Moslems , Jews and Christians and it's hot, smelly and dirty.
But it's great and absolutely fascinating - despite the mixed cultures, we feel safer here than we do in Cheltenham. The penalties for crime are very severe - not many people want to end up in a Moroccan jail !!
On our second day we hired Mustafa, a lovely guide who speaks 7 languages perfectly - expensive but worth every Dirhum as he gives us a wonderful tour of Tangier starting with a camel ride for Amber and Tom, then past the Royal Palace and Mansions of the wealthy Arabs and afterwards the Kasbah and Medina in the heart of the old city . The buildings are so close together that the sun never gets through . The colours , the smells the wealth and the poverty all reverberate.We are all captivated by the experience .

Trying to send you emails ... ! Walking into the internet cafe was like stepping into a cupboard kept at 40oC. It was packed with manic Moroccon teenagers playing American computer games on broken old Arabic keyboards, all the letters and number were in different places, and half of them didn't work anyway! Nobody spoke any English and only a boy from across the alleyway spoke a tiny bit of French - writing one sentence was a challenge ! We kept it brief ...

6.9.08 Next, Puerto de Cadiz

Good sail to Bay of Cadiz where we anchored for the night off the town of Santa Maria - we are getting ever closer to the Med.
Had a wonderful day in Cadiz visiting the sights, there are so many lovely buildings, museums , churches and squares. Had tapas fish & chip lunch, Cadiz style, which was chips with
bits of octopus, squid and other fishy bits wrapped in a paper cone.

The following day we went into Santa Maria town and found there was a Plaza de Toros and that it was fight night ! None of us really wanted to go but felt we had to for the experience - and what an experience !! It was all quite gruesome but an education all the same. Amber and Shelley dipped out first , then Tom and I after a couple more rounds [ having seen the Brave Matador return for more, wrapped round his torn outfit with cling film !!] They put on a fanatastic display all around us - the horses were wonderful too.

31.8.08 Adeus Lagos.

Sailed out of Lagos to Feragudo - a small village where we anchored and went ashore for sardinas bbq'd on the quayside. On the way we fished and caught 20 mackerel which beat our previous record of 14 in the Solent on our maiden sail back in April when Nick Malandrinos was with us. Next morning we sailed on to Vilamoura which has a fabulous looking marina, but we only short stayed for 4 hours as a ghastly officious woman in the marina office put us off staying any longer [ especially as it's 70 € a night] We have heard from others who have stayed there recently that Vilamoura is horrible at night as it gets packed with loads of loutish loud mouthed tattooed terry tourists who do nothing for British goodwill [ What a shame we left !]. Still we made the most of our 4 hours by going to the fab beach next to the marina.

Sailed onto Faro passing some of Shelley's fav beaches of 20 years ago when she worked in Portugal - they do not appear to have changed much - thank heavens they haven't continued to build along this beautiful part of the coast like some areas of the Algarve.

We arrived late and anchored in the Ihla de Farol - a beautiful area of lagoons and fabulous beaches.[ We were here 8 years ago - that time we met up with the Moody's and had some lovely times with them ]
The next morning we motored Carina up river to old Faro and spent several hours in the old city which is still gorgeous and unspoilt.

29.8.08 Lagos

Had to sort out several electrical faults with the help of a sparky [ John Holloway - brilliant and a very nice chap too] Part of the problem turned out to be the marina wiring was wrong in our control box on the pontoon ! We liked Lagos [ though a few too many Brits for our liking, very smart in places but also quite hippyish in others. Time to move on though sorry to miss June & Jeremy Ryan Bell who arrived in Lagos the day after we left .

27.8.08 Lets go to the Algarve

Set sail again - down the Tejo river and onwards to Lagos.

The 24 hour sail was fabulous - contstantly did over 7 knots and quite often did well over 8. Not Formula 1 speeds I know but another faster yacht doing the same run only got 9 knots so we did well !Both Tom and Amber did night watches with us and loved it . We rounded Cabo St Vincente at dawn - a major sailors landmark that over the centuries has confirmed one is entering the approach to the Med as the large Atlantic rollers dissipear and calmer warmer waters really begin . We fell we are really getting somewhere now !

It's almost a different world. Anchored in Lagos bay and then moved into Lagos Marina to meet up with some new friends we have met along the way . Australians Steph, Chris and their two sons Amos and Silas and their gorgeous new yacht [ an Ovni 44] who are sailing back to Aussie , hopefully via

the med .

Lagos is lovely but very busy - too many brits for our liking !

Extract from local brochure - 'knowing the lodging that adjusts to your necessities and tastes , knowing the places where to savour the tradition kitchen will make you confortable and never forget '

26.8.08

Sailed up the River Tejo to see Lisbon by sea which was even more spectacular than by land - from this we saw loads that we couldn't see on shore[ see photos]- several Liners had come in overnight - even they looked small against the backdrop of Lisbon. Went under the Ponta de Abril 25 bridge [ absolutely massive way above us- eerie sensation as it's an iron bridge,the noise from which is very very loud as the cars , trucks and trains cross metal gridding so you can see the underneath of everything - weird !!

Anchored over night in Seixal across the bay from Lisbon.

24.8.08

Another day another town.

Very short sail to Oeiras to get away from the strong winds in Cascais bay - also the noise of of the endless bands playing at the harbour - hey we parents are not so old - Amber and Tom also think the noise is bad !!! How many good Portuguese singers do you know ? [Julio Inglesias and son are Spanish !!]

Oerias is a great little town that has fast metro access to Lisbon . So on 25th we wizzed into Lisbon on the metro - puts our UK train system to shame - it's absolutely superb.

So Lisbon - Usual tourist stuff again - packed in the Catedral, Castle , Tram rides, Various beautiful and huge Pracas [ Squares] and monuments. The views from the Castle above Lisbon are just wonderful . Shelley says it hasn't changed in 20 years apart from a few new monuments. Porto was much the same as well.

18.8.08

Longer sail to Cascais which we broke with a brunch stop at Peniche . The sailing was great - fast and we sailed through the night - we had two Terns fly onto our stern and they stayed with us throughout the night - a free ride to Cascais and warmer weather ! As we closed on Cascais the wind really whipped up and we finally anchored in the bay off the town in 45 knots - our anchor chain was horizontal and the waves were unbelievable considering it's a very protected harbour. Cascais is a really pretty town . We suffered a bit of sail damage on this passage so we have to get it fixed before we can move on to Lagos.

We were going to go to the CascaisFestival of the Tomato and Onion and Olive Oil - Very exciting stuff - we could barely contain ourselves but ran out of time to go !!

Have had a day in Cascais and a day in Sintra - more touristy stuff - Sintra is an extraordinary place - full of Palaces and surprises - really worth the visit inland.

15.8.08

Short sail to Povoa De Varzim, yet again not much wind so motor sailed. We are using rather too much diesel !! Berthed next to 'Coconut' owned by John, Lesley, Sophie and Lucy, with whome we went to the Povoa De Varzim religious festival to lost fishermen. (This Atlantic coast is a major fishing area.) The procession / floats were spectacular. At 2 in the morning they held a fanatastic firework display .

The following day we did yacht jobs and more school. Next day we had a loveley trip to Porto - did all the historical building stuff, open top bus tour and the Calem port cellars. (Tested a few brews after which Porto looked a little different !!]

Apologies to Francesco for not having time to contact him as we had promised .

12.8.08 - Portugal here we come !

Set sail for Portugal but motor sailing again as little wind and very roly poly Atlantic seas. But saw loads of dolphins which we tried to train to jump over the boom - but they didn't seem to get the hang of it ! Entered Portuguese waters and hoisted their courtesy flag. Went into Viana Do Castelo marina, and whilst there we climbed the hill (620 big steps !) to Santa Luzia temple, with lovely views over the town and coast.

03.8.08

Cracking sail to La Bayona . The NW 4-5 gave us an avg speed of 7.7knots - we were surfing quite a few large waves.

We passed Cape Finisterre and also Cabo Torinana Lighthouse,which is the most westerly point of mainland Europe --- wow !!

Tried the Cruising Chute [ this is a smaller version of a spinnaker - which is a large sail you hoist at the front of the yacht to get extra speed when the wind's coming from behind.] It looked lovely glistening in the sun - it did not look so lovely when it wrapped itself around the forestay several times !! On closing Bayona the winds died so we motored some - but we didn't motor too long as it packed up on us !!

Our engineer tried bleeding and pumping diesel but nothing worked so had another couple of beers and the whisper of wind ghosted us towards the Bay of Bayona where we eventually dropped anchor. The lights of Bayona are lovely.

Our 'engineer' got the motor up and running the next day but then it packed up again ! The Perkins 120hp engine is a bloomin big engine when you don't know what's wrong !! [ or what your doing !]

Had another couple of beers and got help as I towed us into the marina with our dinghy aided by Manuel or Juan - the marina berthing man. Time to call in the experts - Alfredo Lagos and his engineer Vicente came to our rescue the next day -- As the hours rolled by and with half the engine in bits I felt that I was not such a plonker of an engineer after all - In the end they find a fracture in the body of the fuel filter housing. We repair it and once again we have our engine running sweetly. Hey , I knew that was the problem all along !!

Bayona is a very historic town and has a stunning Castle with huge fortifications which is now a Parador .

Columbus in 1493 made landfall in Bayona having returned from discovering the New World [ Americas]. It was he who in subsequent voyages proved that the world was round and not flat and you could not fall off the edge !! A replica of the Pinta [ one of his fleet ] is in the harbour - incredible how they survived in those days.

The Bayona Yacht Club and Marina which is on the beach is gorgeous. Alfredo Lagos took us as his guest to the club to meet his family and friends - very nice of him.

Taking a series of bus rides we visited Santiago De Compostello. This is the capital of Galicia and is a breathtaking city begun in the 1st century. From the 9th Century it's importance as a centre of Christianity ,to which pilgrims come from all over the world , grew and grew into an utterly beautiful and outstanding place. It is second only to Rome in it's ecclesiastical importance - the architecture and atmosphere is just stunning !!

Also met a lovely Canadian couple, Philip and Francis on their yacht Tulameen.

Had a day sail out to the Islas Cies, beautiful scenery and beaches. A Portuguese motor boat ( Unic ) berthed alongside us. Francesco, Belen + Ariana invited us aboard for drinks, drinks and more drinks ! Great fun.

2.8.08

We are finally on our way again - the weather was pretty bad whilst we were in Coruna with very strong SW 'erlies but now they are light so we are trying for Bayona .

The Atlantic is a very roly poly sea so we headed into Ria De Camarinas to break the journey as NW'erlies are forecast tomorrow.

27.7.08 La Coruna

We have run out of water so have moved into Darsena De La Marina as we cannot make fresh water safely out to sea along this part of the coast. When sailing we had seen a phenominan called 'Red Sea' which we were told by a Spanish man is a 'special' red plankton.[We were suspicious] NOT TRUE Juan ! Red sea is infact Cruise liner and big ship effluent to which they add a red chemical dye which they then pump out to sea just a few miles from the coast in the hope that it will all break down. NOT SO !! As lumps of !!!! and paper are clear to see !! Unbelievable that the authorities let this happen.

Coruna is a large sprawling high rise city which at first deceives you - but at the heart is a beautiful old walled city which is stunning.Did a few touristy and educational bits.

The Romans built a massive lighthouse [ Hercules Tower]

here , the oldest and still working lighthouse in the world !! It's perpendicular granite construction defies belief .

It was from Coruna that the Spanish Armada set sail in 1588 to it's destruction and where Sir Francis Drake attacked Spain. No less notable in Sailing history this is where Tom and Amber perfected the art of Synchronised Halyard Swinging on Carina - this involves swinging in a huge arc from port side to starboard and vice verca suspended from the Main and Spinnaker halyards in bosun's chairs which reproduces a kind of weightlessness as you swing a long way outside the yacht -- the crashing noise as they collide with the mast , boom or stays is horrendous !! Children please do not try this at home !! The awful bruises do not deter them from continuing this spectacular circus trick for hours !!

Our engineer also replaced our main bilge pump switch [ this was faulty and was the cause of all the water of a few days previously when we thought we were sinking, because the pump failed !! This pump is in the most inaccesible part 6 feet down in the keel and wallows in lovely smelly diesely oily bilge water [ And this is why we go sailing ??!!]

25.7.08 Carina - South / Iceni - North

Short sail to La Coruna , another day another bay.

St James' Day - the Spanish love their festivals and fireworks, at midnight it was spectacular ! Anchored for 2 days in Ensenada De Mera in the bay of Coruna.

21.7.08 You couldn't plan this if you tried .......

As we relaxed at anchor in Cedeira bay we watched another yacht arriving. As she came closer we couldn't believe it - it was Iceni Warrior and the Dallas Family from Bishops Cleeve who, 4 years ago left the UK to go blue water sailing,and gave us extra inspiration to do something similar. Of all the bays in all the world.... !! Once again the weather closed in.

We spent 3 fun days with them , the 4 children ringo- ing and wakeboarding behind our RIB . Hannah taught Amber to play the harmonica .Then they left to sail back to the UK and we to sail south. They helped us so much with all their tips - thanks a lot guys !

20.7.08 Biscay - here we come !

A brisk sail down the Chanel Du Four - a treacherous rock infested short cut between Ushant and France which shoots you out into the Bay of Biscay, in our case at 11 knots.

The weather was perfect just as forecasted - little did we know !! Amber and Tom's first night at sea . Day 2 - good speed / progress towards Spain ..... The winds getting up a bit , actually a lot !! They didn't forecast THIS !! We wondered how Carina would fare in Gale Force 8 and 9 - we wondered how we would as well ?? It was a rough night and following morning [ Amber and Tom were brilliant and stayed in their bunks - we wish we could have ] Carina was superb - this is what she was built for as she never faultered once despite some considerable effort from our dear Lord !!

The Spanish coast was a very welcome sight as we made for Ria De Cedeira. We were all tired as we anchored in the very

beautiful bay with lovely sandy beaches and pine clad hills.

Oh for a ice cold cerveza , tapas and rioja !

19.07.08 L'Aber Benoit

A short sail to this beautiful estuary . The only visiting yacht

there.

16.7.08 La France encore

L'Aber Wrac'h - A gorgeous sail to North Brittany apart from a near call for abandon ship when we found the engine room and bilges full to the brim with water and diesel - After a lot of pumping and bailing realized it wasn't sea water - twas our main fresh water pipe that had fractured. The ship's engineer has now been flogged !! Took him 3 days to clear it all up !!

L'Aber W is a lovely French town - but not so in the wind and rain which arrived yet again !

08.7.08 Destination - St Peter Port, Guernsey

Yet another windy and rough sail ! Passed close by to Herm, Sark, Jethou and Brecqhou. Our bow was below the water more than it was above - big green ones ! All very wet ! Still grotty weather, despite sailing South. Did an Island tour, Valette war museum, Beach Boys Copy band - two nights running as they were so good - the whole island was swinging - 65000 alcoholics clinging to a rock ! Amber had her hair bobbed! (looks lovely) Carina was lifted for us to do some rather essential hull works - the other option was to sink !!

04.7.08 Onward to Alderney

Another windy and rough sail. From our mooring we watched 40 ft waves breaking over the harbour wall for 4 days. Aaaaahhhh ! Glad we were the right side of the wall ! We walked and waited and waited and walked (in the rain !).

Fixed loads more yacht things ! Not to be missed - Braye Chippy, booking essential, great atmosphere, great wines, Egon Ronay rated ***** !

Alderney - beautiful, unspoilt island - Population 2500. (sometimes described as 2500 Alcoholics clinging to a rock! )

03.7.08 D-Day

We have been enjoying croissants, fromages et du vin bien sur !! So now its time to explore in our 'citron' coloured Citroen. (tres francais). Drove to the Normandy WW2 beaches via Barfleur and St Vaast. 3rd stop - Crisbecq Battery - a fascinating sinister place. Huge guns and bunkers, which they camouflaged to look like farmhouses from where they blew the s**t out of the Allied Forces. Clever!

Next stops - Omaha , Juno, Utah, Sword and Gold (where there were still remains of Mulberry Harbour in the sea!) . All had monuments, memorials and tanks galore. Frightening how many people died here.

30.6.08 Cherbourg !

Crossed the channel and officially abroad! Great stuff. Execpt me and Tom were feeling sick. Very roly but great to finally be off. The first few hours it was quite windy but nearer the end we had to motor. It took about 14 hours in total and it was worth it. We were motoring into the harbour when Tom spotted a very 'big fish' ! It turned out to actually be a very big dolphin!! It swam beside , under and in front of our boat and it was wonderful to see!! When we reached the marina we radio'd the harbour master and he sad to go to pontoon 'P' , so we asked him which berth and he said, " I don't know the place!" So we spent the next 20 minutes trying to find a berth that was big enough for us! But infact we ended up on pontoon Q! not very organised! Amberx

26.6.08 Sea Trials !

Although we haven't managed to travel very far afield yet due to visiting engineers and collecting parts , we have put in quite a few sea miles.

Carina is proving to be a great choice for our trip and the crew are coming along nicely with fending off and handling lines and even doing some washing up !

Some highlights of the last couple of weeks -

A visit to the Submarine Museum in Portsmouth, absolutely fascinating - we went twice ! (thanks for the idea Roger, sorry we couldn't meet you there)

Tom's best excuse yet to get out of school - he had left his crab line over the side and sneaked off to check it .

" Help, I've caught an eel !!" It took about 10 minutes to get it off the hook it was so slippery (and smelly !)

We went on a dinghy trip up the Medina River to Newport and the Classic Boat Museum , really interesting too.

08.6.08 WE HAVE OFFICIALLY LEFT THE MARINA!!!

We are now on our way!!!

31.5.08 - 1.6.08

We actually got further than the end of the pontoon!!!

Over the weekend we went for our first sail on Carina and it was very interesting to feel how she sailed. I loved going to Itchenor as it was so different to being in a marina as it was so peaceful. I had a great weekend - especially catching and eating the mackerel! - AMBER X

It was a really exciting weekend - especially when we kept on catching more and more fish!! - TOM

We're off and away! - Well nearly!! - watch this space for more news hopefully coming soon. RICHARD AND SHELLEY

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01.05.08 Hello Again

If you haven't already heard, our R.I.B came a while ago but had to be sent back becasue the steering didn't work!!! We were having great fun in it! Now it is taking ages to mend and we are running out of things to do in the marina. All we have is a little tiny orange dinghy. It is about 1/2 a metre across by 1 metre lengthways.!!! We had two new portholes put in the saloon and they look great with two pink NEXT bags selotaped on to stop the rain coming in over night!! Tom's and my school work is going great, we are getting on very well with it. It is quite hard to get started due to all of the exciting stuff going on around us! Not a lot to write home about at the moment!

Byeeeeeeee

From the RATS x

P.S click on building the adventure, Mum has written a really great update about the last 6 months up till now. You might be there a while!!! (If you didn't understand that joke, i meant that so much has happened since then!)

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30.04.08 Hi everybody.

Sorry we haven't been contributing to the website much, but we have been very busy lately, what with all of the jobs to do around here. It feels strange living on a boat without all of you but we are very glad that we got ourselves together to go on this fab trip.(even though we haven't even left the marina yet!!) We are already really enjoying ourselves living on our dream home!!(If only it was our dream home in our dream weather!!) So. The other week(13th of April) we had our Bon Voyage party which was fantastic. We had loads of friends and family down to our boat in Hayling Island. I hope everybody enjoyed it too. You will be glad to know that we have been doing lots of school and work!!

Unless you haven't seen it on my page, we have been on a sea survival course at Southampton Watersports centre. It was great fun and we learnt loads. For more details on it, go tomy page and then my blog. You will find out about it there. Amberx

look in our gallery for more photies.

If you would like to know any techy info about Carina - just click on "building the adventure " and there is more information on the gallant ship !

1.04.09 (We all forgot it was April Fool’s Day!)

31.03.09

30.03.09

11 Today! (Birthdays coming thick and fast!)

28.03.09 Fornelli Passage

22.03.09 Sardinia – (is it where sardines come from?)

17.03.09

12.03.09 Menorca, here we come!

9.3.09To La Rapita and on...

8.3.09. 14 Today!

5.3.09 An English Visitor

22.02.09

Palma, what a contrast!

18.02.09

Any nudists?

12.02.09

The Islands call!

4.02.09

Lovely Javea!

1.02.09

31.01.09

10.01.09

02.01.09

Cartagena or Bust

Gibraltar - Oh what a night !

24.9.08

GIB

23.9.08

The Border

16.9.08

A Spanish Enclave

12.9.08

Time to move on

8.9.08

Lets sail to Africa .

6.9.08

Next, Puerto de Cadiz

31.8.08

Adeus Lagos.

29.8.08

Lagos

27.8.08

Lets go to the Algarve

26.8.08

24.8.08

15.8.08

12.8.08 - Portugal here we come !

03.8.08

2.8.08

27.7.08

La Coruna

25.7.08

Carina - South / Iceni - North

21.7.08

You couldn't plan this if you tried .......

20.7.08

Biscay - here we come !

19.07.08

L'Aber Benoit

16.7.08

La France encore

08.7.08

Destination - St Peter Port, Guernsey

04.7.08

Onward to Alderney

03.7.08

D-Day

30.6.08

Cherbourg !

26.6.08

Sea Trials !

08.6.08

WE HAVE OFFICIALLY LEFT THE MARINA!!!

31.5.08 - 1.6.08

We actually got further than the end of the pontoon!!!

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01.05.08

Hello Again