Well,
we’ve settled in here in Finike with 290 other boats – the marina
is pretty full for sure. Lots of people we know from other
places in the Med – some Australians we met back in Monastir last
year, some French guys we met there also and some people we knew from
Greece. Our friends from North Carolina who crossed the Atlantic
with us are 3 boats away, and the other Catalina 42 Mk II who was
with us is 30 miles away in Kas.
Finike Marina, Antalya, Turkey
For the moment, we are focused on
settling in and getting BOAT jobs done. For those fortunate enough
to NOT own a yacht, BOAT is “Break Out Another Thousand”. So
far, so good. The Bow Thruster is finally fixed! Backing in
anywhere was always a mystery – will it work or won’t it? Trying
to tie up stern-to in Agios Nikolaos on Crete in 40 knot winds was a
nightmare and it didn’t work. Now I know it will. The Hydrovane
got itself bent in Kythnos when we were banging onto the dock wall.
Straightened now. Works again. New anchor chain is in the locker,
all 300ft of it. No more jiggling a shackle around the windlass when
you get to 90’, then jiggling from chain to rode at 140’. If we
want 300’ out, it’s going to be all chain. Auto bilge pump
switch (somewhat important!) replaced and working. VHF still away
with the repairer.
Just
sourced a spinnaker pole that I’ve been chasing for a year.
Now we just have to match it to a mast track so it’s got somewhere
to live and stay out of the way. Lots of canvas work done to
repair things that were worn through or ripped off in the winds.
Also getting a big “tent” made to go over the boom and out to the
lifelines so we can spend more time out in the cockpit. At the
moment, we have a connecting piece between the Dodger and the Bimini
but it slopes down and I have to bend to get under it so a tent that
is boom-high will be good.
Common Sense's spinnaker
We
have a full social calendar here – Monday evenings are Turkish
classes and Monday afternoons are computer classes. Yoga in the mornings. Monday night is
Film Night, Tuesday afternoon is Tech Talk where you get lectures and
Q&A on Diesel Motors, electrics etc, Tuesday is Games Night
(darts, cards etc) Wednesday night is free, Thursday night is
Quiz Night, Friday morning is walkies (we walked to a town called
Turuncova a couple of weeks back, 8kms there and 8 back but some
people cheated and caught the bus home), Friday night is Happy
Hour over in the closest bar, Saturday night is Pub Night and Sunday
is the weekly BBQ. There are so many people at the Sunday BBQ that
there is now also a 3pm Saturday one. Sunday morning is a bike
ride to somewhere. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings are
Yoga mornings. Friday once a month is a bus to Antalya, 100km
away for the Symphony Orchestra concert.
2013 in summary
We
started our year out of Tunisia headed for Lampedusa. Where we were
last winter in Monastir is in a bit of an uproar at the moment.
12kms nth of there, in Sousse, some dude did the suicide bomb trick
last week and the same day the coppers caught two more with
explosives in the Bourghiba Mausoleum complex, which we walked past
every day to go to town. It’s about 500 metres from the
marina.
Our
friends Olivier and Lauren were outside of us, as was another
French guy, Eric, with our Belgian friend Laurent a couple of miles
behind. We regularly catch up with Olivier and Lauren in all sorts
of places. Laurent got himself dismasted off Malta, politely
declined “extraction” by the Maltese Armed Forces, who, to their
credit, let him continue. Anywhere else the jackboots would have
come out and his forcible removal would have ensued. Laurent sailed
his little “Caracal” back to the south of France with half a mast
sticking up and a genoa poled out to replace his mast. He’s now
headed across the Atlantic.
From Lampedusa, we headed for Malta and
a rendezvous with our very old friend Avertano Role. Tano is one of
life’s great characters, thoroughly committed to whatever he does.
He is a lecturer at the University in Malta. It was great to catch
up with him and spend a lot of time with him and his wife Sharon, who
combines her job as a Chemistry teacher in high school with being a
fantastic cook and generous hostess. It was one of our highlights of
the year.
On to Sicily and the historic city of
Syracuse. I could live there, easy. It is where our friend Guy on
Skaf IV explained to me his theory that there exists a “Mediterranean
Man”. He insists there is more to link a man from Syracuse to a
man from Marseilles to a man from Tunisia than there is to link a
Sicilian to a Venetian. There is a North/South divide Guy says that
is not economic, it is a way of thinking about what you want out of
life and I’m beginning to think he’s right.
Syracuse Harbour - anchored where boats have anchored for 3,000 years.
We spent some time in Calabria, in La
Castella to be precise. This had some intrigue for me as my
schooldays were spent in the company of people named Calabrese,
Saraceni etc. Here, in Calabria, the first street up from the marina
is Saraceni street! These are guys I spent 8 years of my young life
with and I was excited to see where their roots are. After a week or
so in La Castella, we were part of the furniture. We would take up
position outside the Camel Bar on the main drag each night with a
beer and a wine and watch the Passegiata. By the end of the week, we
were being acknowledged. We sat across the road (all of 30’) from
the old people’s flats, and everyone who passed stopped to pay
their respects to them. On the other side of the road, we got a nod,
which I felt was a damn good start.
Birreria di Camello
I have never been what you would call
“emotional” in my whole life. Definitely “reserved” or maybe
even a little stand-offish at times. Doesn’t wash here in the
Mediterranean. The barman/owner of a pub is just as likely to hug
you as is the local priest. I was in a post office in the town of
Kefalos, on Kos. They had an old postal franking machine that
businesses used probably 40 years ago when I worked for the State
Electricity Commission (bet none of you remember that!) I went to
look at it and the Post Master was excited that someone bothered to
even acknowledge it was there. So I got a hug. Unheard of in
Australia but I must admit that this idea of not being shy about
being demonstrative is changing me. I think the Italians call it
“Paesano”, but that’s limited to really close friends. I
think the Greek equivalent is “patrioti”, as in “Yasu file,
Patrioti”. I felt comfortable in Greece with my Greek
Great-great-grandfather, and the Greeks I mentioned it to seemed to
take just that little more interest in me when they knew that I was
at least a little bit Greek.
This guy is a music producer on Crete - bought one of his CDs
Greece for us was a mixed bag. I was
at ease in Piraeus with its dirt, graffiti and bustle. I just love
places where people are working and making a living, like Cadiz etc.
Life is tough enough in the Med at the moment, so a bit of grime is
passable for mine. At night, Piraeus comes alive and you can’t see
the dirt. I loved it. I also loved the Tour de Pelopponese that we
did with our friends Kathy, Leonie and Steve. Nothing amazing
happened – it was just a wonderful 10 days of cruising and
friendship and I could do that again any time, same cast, maybe
different location. New casts are welcome in the future if you can
make the time. We were sad when it was over.
Piraeus and the Bay
For the rest of the Aegean, you can
have it. You want to get a four-letter word out of me (and those I
worked with know that’s easy) just say Kythnos to Santorini and
you’ll get a firm “F… that” from me. Wind? I think that’s
where they test 747’s to see if they can take it! After barreling
down the entire chain, all we could do was hit Crete and that was
mostly because it was in the way and it was too late to go around it.
Our Bermuda Triangle storm was bad but seeing 55 knots over the deck
three miles off Agios Nikolaos had me wondering if we were ever going
to make land safely again. Tying up there was probably the greatest
relief of the year. I didn’t know where I was until the next
morning, and we ended up spending about 3 weeks on Crete. Of
anywhere in Greece, this would suit me best of all. It is a rich,
diverse island with enough going on to keep you interested in life.
Rhodes is similar but has far more tourists.
"Prana" - flew past us doing 14.3 knots
From there, it was a little easier,
though we were stuck by weather in a few places. It was no big deal,
though, as they were nice enough to just hang out in anyways. A
friend of ours in Bunbury has family roots in Astipalia and we went
up there on an overnighter and ended up staying more than a week in a
nice bay one east of the old pirate hangout of Maltezana (yep, they
were Maltese pirates). From there, it was Kos, Rhodes and finally
Kastellorizo, where so many Australian Greeks come from. Lots of
them were back there, too, and Australian accents dominated the
seafront.
The harbour in Kastellorizo
Turkey is wonderful – we were told by
many that we would be amazed at how good it is and they were right.
It is modern, civilised, hard-working and friendly. Where we are is
a great location and the bigger cities are superb places to visit.
Istanbul itself is amazing – our time was mostly on the European
side and we enjoyed it immensely. It was about to snow as we flew
out so we don't actually miss that bit. The walk down Istiklal
street with a million others is a wonder of a weekend. It certainly
is Istanbul's busiest street.
Istiklal Street, Istanbul
What did we learn? This is a lifestyle
that has amazing rewards in the sights you see, the nights at sea,
the people you meet and the time spent together. There is always the
great sadness of cruisers when you have to say goodbye to those who
are special, but you hope to see them again in ports or anchorages
down the track.
Artur, Benoit, Florence, Charlotte and Thibault - on their way to Brazil
So far, we have been to very few places
we thought we would definitely go to, and we have been to dozens of
places we have never heard of before in our lives. We have sailed
into harbours with tricky moorings, then anchored in wide open bays
where the anchor bit first time and we didn’t move for days no
matter what blew.
Common Sense - Astipalia
The boat is holding up well (marvelous
what the application of $$$ can do! – they say there isn’t a
cruising problem that can’t be fixed by throwing money at it). We
are still comfortable in each other’s company, and rely on each
other to do different things around the boat well.
We do miss our home turf but we’ll
keep doing this until our health forces us to slow down. After this,
perhaps a Canal Boat in France, then an RV in the USA. Then we’ll
do the caravan around Australia. Life is too short to sit in front
of the TV. (we gave ours away in Portugal last year).
When we get back from Oz, we think we
can squeeze in a trip to Las Vegas again to see Carol’s mum in Arizona.
Then Carol is off to Africa to visit her sponsored school girl, who
is now almost ready to finish school. I have no interest in that
entire blighted continent, apart from the Mediterranean bit in the
West, so I’m not going. I’ll just hang around Istanbul perhaps
or go over up into Romania for a little look.
Common Sense-wise, next year we will be
headed up the coast of Turkey to the Dardanelles
From there, we haven’t decided.
Probably the northern Aegean, then down past Athens again and around
the Peloponnese, and up to Italy where we are hoping to spend some
time if we can organise student visas and enroll in a language
school.
I can’t see us getting out of the Med
for a couple of years yet. It just grabs you and doesn’t let go.
Arriving in the Med - Padraig, Terry and Carol
