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Monday, 18 December 2017

The Caribbean 

We arrived in Martinique early in the morning.  Our first stop was the fuel dock as by the time we arrived, we were down to 1/8 of a tank.  Check-in was a breeze, done on the computer at the fuel dock for just €5.  We had repairs to do after crossing the ocean.  Our sails needed repair and the furler for our main sail needed bearings replaced. Our electronics were also giving trouble but after both the mother board and power board were replaced, it was discovered that there was just a little software glitch on our card for our American charts!
Refreshing waterhole
We rented a car and travelled around the island.  John and Mary wanted to visit a waterfall that they had noted on Tripadvisor.  We thought this would be an easy  15 min. walk. When we arrived at the start, there was a chain across the path with a “No Entry” sign.  This we duly ignored.  We hiked along a steep and muddy path, had to climb over/under a fallen tree and walked along the top of  a slippery water pipe through a long and very dark tunnel (thank goodness for iPhone torches) in which there were bats.  There was much grumbling from Dimitri, who refused to take off his sunglasses in the dark tunnel, about the things we got him into! In the end we arrived at a lovely river in a gorge and Mary and John found their waterfall.  We had a swim at a second, more accessible waterfall  on our way back to Marin.
The next day, Mary and John went for a swim at a beautiful beach which was fringed by shady trees. When they came out of the water, they found that the crabs living amongst the roots of the trees had attacked Mary’s dress and had eaten large holes in it.

Crabs feasting on Mary's dress
The next day we headed for Dominica.  This is one of the poorer islands in the Caribbean.  We arrived to total devastation.  From out at sea it looked as if the forests had all burnt down as we could not see foliage.   As we got closer we saw that the trees were actually denuded of their leaves and some had even lost their bark.  Hurricane Maria went through here, taking almost all the poorly built homes, there was no electricity and the people had resorted to doing their washing in the rivers, as in old times. We took a tour of the island.  Many of the roads were closed, some of the bridges were down and we were told that it would be 18 months before all the electricity on the island was restored. It is sad that the poorest island was hardest hit. 

Washing day
Both Martinique and Guadeloupe on either side of Dominica and only about 20 nm. on each side across the strait were relatively spared.  We did find an interesting man whose grandparents had moved to Dominica and built the home he was living in. He makes boutique chocolate from locally-grown Cocoa   beans. He showed us the whole chocolate making process and it was interesting to see how much work goes into one chocolate bar. We especially enjoyed his “Spice Chocolate”.

We had an overnight stop in both Guadeloupe and  Nevis, anchoring off the beach. Our next stop, Saba was very interesting.  Saba, belonging to the Netherlands, is a small volcanic cone that rises sheer out of the ocean with very deep water all around.  Most of it is marine park and they have installed buoys for boats to tie up to. In days of old, goods were offloaded in waist deep water and then carried up 800 steps to the settlement above.  Nowadays, there is a little port.  We motored the 1.5nm. to the port via dinghy to check in and then took a taxi to the town above.  There are two villages on the island, “Bottom” and “Windwardside” and two roads on the island – “The road that couldn’t be built” and “The road that shouldn’t have been built”.   Up until the 1950’s the only way to get between the two villages was to walk.  Dutch engineers from Holland said that it was impossible to build a road there so one of the residents took a correspondence course in road building and over several years the Sabans hand- built the road. Today there is a very short airstrip, enabling tourists to fly in by short-haul plane.  Saba has one of the best dive sites in the Caribbean. On our way back to the boat after dinner, we were surrounded by large garfish.  They were thrashing along the surface of the water as we startled them with our torchlight but some went the wrong way.  One jumped up and hit Dimitri on the arm and another went into the side of the dinghy with such force that I thought it was going to puncture it with its sharp jaw.  We also saw a large shark in the little port where we had left our dinghy and some turtles.
Our next stop was a lovely bay in the BVI, on Norman Island.  Here we enjoyed snorkeling. A lot of the reef had been destroyed by the hurricane but there were pockets of intact areas, mostly under rock overhangs where beautiful tropical fish were congregating to feed.
We decided to give Puerto Rico a miss because it too had been damaged by the hurricane.  We sailed for the Dominican Republic instead,  to Luperon, a bay on the  northern coast.  We arrived just at sunset, a bad time as the bay is fringed by mangroves and we were attacked by thousands of mosquitoes.  Luckily we have insect netting to enclose our cockpit.  The bay supposedly has three marinas.  Two of these are no longer operating and the third has a single dock, holding a maximum of 6 boats, taken up by local boats. There are mooring buoys in the bay though ($2/day) and plenty of space to anchor.
Check-in here was quite a saga We went from one office to the next, to the next and then back to the first to start all over again.  Over and above that, the commandant visited the boat as did Drug and Security inspectors - twice. They were happy to depart with a bottle of wine for their dinner.
Luperon is very poor and run down. However the people are very friendly and we enjoyed the food.  There is a small community of sailors living here on a semi-permanent basis as this is a good hurricane hole and living expenses are minimal.   Some of them had been there for over four years.  They were pleased to see us and gave us good advice for our next leg, through the Bahamas.

Much of the Bahamas is shallow and more suited to motor boats.  We stopped on the western shore of  Mayaguana Island, outside the tiny settlement of  Betsy Bay. Most of the houses were still boarded up as hurricane season only ended on 1st December and we were there on 30 November!  John and Mary decided to camp the night on the enticing, deserted beach.  Early next morning, John arrived at the boat, having swum out to our anchorage, desperate for them to get off the island as they had been attacked by thousands of sandflies.  They were covered in hundreds of bites and spent two very uncomfortable itchy nights.   We moved on to Cat Island.  This is a very long, thin island with the highest mountain in the Bahamas, Mount Alverna at a height of just  220 ft.  Atop it sits “The Hermitage”, a miniature,  one-man replica of a Franciscan  monastery built by   hand by Father Jerome in his retirement. He lived here as a hermit until his death and is buried under it.  From this vantage point, one can see right across the breadth of the island, from the reef-strewn Atlantic shore to the leeward shore.
We stopped overnight at Great Abacos









and then moved on to Bimini.  Here we only just managed to negotiate the shallow canal into our marina.  We enjoyed swimming with feeding bottle-nose dolphins and watched the bull sharks circling for food below one of the restaurants.

We have arrived in Fort Lauderdale and are now snuggly tied up  alongside a  dock in one of the canals which belongs to a family member.  We plan to be here for several months before going on to Cuba, Panama, the Galapagos, Pacific Islands and then home.

Crossing the Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Once again.


On our way from Gibraltar to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, we managed to catch two lovely dorados (Mahi Mahi). They were each large enough to make several meals for the four of us. Our first  was sashimi, complete with soy sauce, wasabi and pickled ginger.  We had two great meals of grilled fish and the heads and tails went into the pot to make a delicious fish soup so every scrap of the fish was used. 
We were accompanied on this leg of the journey by a little canary.  It would fly off for a while and then return and rest on the top of our mast or on the boom.  It would not eat or drink anything  and disappeared on the second last day.  We were hoping that it had  arrived in Lanzarote a day earlier than us.
The Canary Islands are volcanic and evidence of earlier eruptions are everywhere.  Lanzarote, our first stop in the Canary Islands turned out to be a disappointment in that it is extremely dry.  The island south of Lanzarote, Fuerteventura is even more barren so we decided to give the rest of the eastern islands a miss and head for the western ones.  We visited Tenerife and La Palma
Tenerife  is home to Spain’s highest mountain, El Tiede. We took a drive around the northern, greener half of the island, to the base of the cable car which takes one up to the top of the mountain. There was a four hour wait to go up and cloud at the top so we gave that a miss  and  drove instead through  large valleys filled with larva fields. The quaint old capital of the island, La Laguna, was built in the 16th century and  has  cobbled streets, churches and monasteries.
Our next island, La Palma, a World Heritage Biosphere, has wonderful forests and plenty of water. It is a popular spot for hiking, although few tourists stop here. We chose to stop in  Tazacorte, a small town on the western side of the island.   The marina is situated at the very edge of the walls of the towering caldera, the world’s largest, La Caldera de Taburiente.  Pressure is building in the volcano and it is predicted that the whole western half of the island is going to break away and slide into the sea sometime before 2515.  We drove through banana plantations and  cloud covered forest, along a multitude of  dizzy switchbacks to get to the mountain ridge. We were well above the tree line and the clouds when we reached the edge of the  caldera.

 The International Astronomical Observatory is situated here.  Many nations have partaken and there are large telescopes dotted around the ridge. One of them. the British Sir Isaac Newton reflector is controlled via satellite from Edinburgh.  It was cold and windy at the top but the view  is breathtaking.
Although it was raining lower down in the cloud layer, we had a lovely walk through the forest to a waterfall.  Later we sat in a little tavern and dried off in front of  the  fire in their fireplace.
One cannot get a correct impression of the size of the caldera from close up.  It was only once we were many miles out to sea that we could see the whole mountain with its huge top blown off.

Departing the Canary Islands
Caldera de Taburiente
Halloween at sea
We returned to the Atlantic Ocean once again and around midnight on the first night, we crossed our path that we had made from the Cape Verdes to Madeira, back in 2012. Once again we were seeing the long ocean swells that  the Atlantic is known for.  Although they are large, they were mostly behind us, with a fairly comfortable motion. We were  dogged by  long patches of no wind. When the wind did come up, it was always a gentle breeze, under 10 knots and directly behind us, not ideal for sailing.  As a result, we resorted to doing a lot of motoring.  Our tanks have a range of approximately 2,000nm. if the engine is run at low revs., so we kept the boat moving at  only 5-6 knots.
By the time we arrived in Martinique, we had settled into a daily routine. John caught more fish, a barracuda and  more dorado, we did a lot of reading and Mary and Dimitri had a daily backgammon competition.  We had a roster of 3 hour night watches which worked very well.  The crossing from the Canaries to Martinique took us 21 days and we were happy to make landfall at dawn in Marin, on the southern end of Martinique.








Sunday, 1 October 2017

Malta to Gibraltar

We left Malta very early in the morning to cross the Malta Strait to Sicily.

The Mediterranean is divided into a Western and Eastern basin, with a narrow hour-glass constriction in the middle. Malta lies  at the centre of this constriction,  between Africa and Sicily.  The water is very shallow in the strait, shelving from a depth of 4000m to just 70m. and as a result, there is a fairly strong current running here, from West to East along the northern shore.  In fact, the current has been against us all the way to Gibraltar.
We reached Sicily after nightfall and anchored in the bay at Porto Empedocle, under the ancient temple of Agrigento. We had quite a big swell as we entered the bay and were expecting a disturbed night of rolling but as we ducked under the headland, the swell was broken and we ended up having a wonderfully quiet night. This town is named after the ancient Greek philosopher, Empedocles who believed he was one with the gods.  To prove this,  he jumped into the live volcano, thus making a spectacular exit.

We left again at dawn and watched as the sun rose out of the ocean.  Again we had no wind and a current against us so we motored the 80nm to our next anchorage, at Isola Favignana.  This is a little island off the western coast of Sicily. There we swam in crystal clear water and had a romantic dinner anchored under the Venetian fort of Santa Caterina, perched precariously on the top of a very steep hill. The water was absolutely flat with the lights of the village and the full moon reflecting into the water.
Santa Caterina fort, Ils. Favignana, Sardinia


On to Sardinia we went and here we crossed paths with our inward track into the Mediterranean. Again, we had no wind and did quite a bit of motoring.  We spent the night  outside the port of Carloforte, on the island of St. Pietro, which is just across a narrow channel from the western coast of Sardinia
 
Dawn at sea


The trip across from Sardinia to Menorca was very different from the previous days of motoring.  We had a brisk wind of around 25-30kn. and a sharp, choppy sea and to our disappointment, we were taking quite a bit of water into the boat from our stanchions and around the mast.  As a result, we had a delay of  week  in Menorca while the repairs were done.  The upside of this is that it has all been sorted before we leave for the Canary Islands. We would have been forced to turn back to have this sorted out if it had occurred in the Atlantic.  We took the opportunity to see some of the island on the weekend, while no work was being done.  We caught a bus to Ciutadella on the western coast and explored the delightful little town of Mahon where we were moored.   This is the town where Mahonaise (Mayonnaise) was invented by a French nobleman’s chef.  Today, Aioli is served as a dip in all the restaurants and tapas bars. The locals also pride themselves on their local cheese and leatherwork.
 
Mahon, Menorca

Repairs, repairs, repairs
Mahon, Menorca

We reached  Mallorca late in the evening on leaving Menorca.  We did not land but anchored for the night in a quiet cove.  On leaving our anchorage, the beautiful cruise ship, “Freedom of the Seas” crossed close to our bow, on its way into Palma de Mallorca.  A thunderstorm was brewing and there was lightening, lighting up the land.  Fortunately it seemed to be stationary over the land and left us be.  Again in  Formentera, just south of Ibiza, we anchored.  This night we were early enough to have a quiet “sit-down” dinner overlooking the numerous boats anchored around us, unusual for us as until we reached the Balearic Islands, we had seen very few boats.

We left Formentera in the very early morning and made for Alicante, our first stop on the Spanish mainland.  We pulled into the marina but as nobody was around we tied up on the fuel dock for the night.  We took the opportunity to get off the boat and eat a restaurant meal – what a treat!  We left very early once again and made for Cartagena. This is a delightful  town, developed around 243BC by Hasdrubal, the Carthaginian.  This town became the centre of Carthaginian influence in Europe and was used by his brother Hannibal, as a base for his sortie across the Alps. The town has a very Spanish feel to it, with black wrought iron balconies and roads paved with marble.  We were tied up along the waterfront where the locals (and cruise ship passengers) took their evening promenade and it was fun to watch the passing parade.  We had to fix our windlass as, yet again, we had found a leak.  We used a tube of Sikka which I threw away upon completion of the job.  That evening Dimitri noticed one small area that had not been sealed.  In his torn work shorts, shirtless and barefoot, he ran off to the nearby garbage bin where I had deposited the bag and started rummaging through the garbage. People must have thought he was a tramp.  I wish I had had my camera ready!  Anyway he found the tube of Sikka and completed our job.  The next night we again  anchored after a long day of motoring. We  had a disturbed night as we had a swell rolling in around the headland. When the wind dies, the boat turns sideways to the swell and we rock and roll  much more. We decided to go into a marina for a rest the next night.  We seemed set for a good catch-up sleep.  Unfortunately we had a group of party people opposite us who sang and made a nuisance of themselves till 2am., then the wind came up and the rings on the docks holding the mooring lines of the boats squeaked for the rest of the night!  Oh the joys of marina living!
Our last leg was a shorter one (50nm.) so we arrived in Gibraltar with plenty of daylight to spare.  There were more than 60 ships in Gibraltar bay and just outside, all waiting to refuel as Gibraltar is a duty free zone.  Several tankers in the bay were being refueled by large fuel ships tied alongside them. We are in a marina on the Spanish side, in La Linea.  The two sides of Gibraltar have stark differences, the English side with English pubs, fried fish and chips, English breakfast, the Spanish side with numerous street restaurants, tapas bars, flamenco music… We walked across the runway into Gibraltar and on our way back stopped to watch a plane land, just after the pedestrian boomgate had been lowered.   
Ships await entry to Gibraltar Bay

Gibraltar airport runway

Gibraltar airport runway

The Rock of Gibraltar is an amazing place.  During the Napoleonic era, tunnels were dug into the rock, with openings through which cannons could be aimed and up to 17,000 troops could be stationed in the rock, complete with a command centre, hospital and  ammunition storage.  There are  also some pretty caves to see and the biggest treat of all, the Barbary Apes.  They are looked after extremely well, all being inoculated, as legend has it that when the last Barbary ape dies, England will lose the rock.

Mary and John, our “surrogate children” who have sailed with us before, met up with us. This is Mary’s first ocean trip but John has sailed with us from Darwin to Lisbon. We are all working on the boat, polishing steel and repainting wood in preparation of our trip. We leave Gibraltar in about ten days, bound for the Canary Islands.  From there, we will travel south, down to around 20 degrees N latitude to catch the trade winds, before turning west. This is the route that most sailing vessels take across the Atlantic and was first worked out by Christopher Columbus around 500 years ago. 

Monday, 4 September 2017

Goodbye Greece, Hello Malta.


For the first time, we left Artemis V on the hard for a whole year, before returning to her.  This was because we had to change the season we sail in, to avoid hurricanes, as this year we are going to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Fortuntely we found her in great shape.  There followed a week of hectic work, preparing her for sea.  We polished the hull and deck, serviced all the winches, replaced the anchor wash pump, repaired the anchor chain counter, set up the bimini etc.etc.etc.

Servicing winches
Jobs, jobs and more jobs for Dimitri and Cheeky Tan.

About to enter the water.
We throught she was ready, but on launching, we discovered that our batteries had died so they had to be replaced too.  This meant a two day delay while we waited for the batteries to be delivered from Athens, so we had two more unexpected, very pleasant taverna meals.  We sailed down the Peloponnisos and as we had left fairly late in the afternoon, we anchored in a beautiful bay, just off the village of Kiparissi.  

Kiparissi village, Peloponnisos
We exited Greece from our next stop, the island of Kythira.  We anchored in the little port of Kapsali.  Unlike last time we were here, the bay was alive with holiday makers, swimming, eating, chatting. We discovered that we could not clear customs here, so a very friendly taxi driver drove us half way across the island to the main ferry port of Dhiakofti.  This gave us an unexpected tour of the island! We were sad to see the devastation that the recent forest fires had caused to the pine forests of the island. 

We said “Goodbye” to Greece at first light the next morning, departing on the three day trip to Malta.  We managed a lovely sail for around 8 hours, but mostly we motored for lack of wind.  We slowed the boat on the last day to arrive in daylight.  We arrived very early the next morning,  winding our way between around 50 anchored ships,  entering  Marsamxett Harbour at dawn.  
Valletta at dawn from Marsamxett Harbour.


Malta has an amazing history. It was, at one stage or another, settled by Neolithic peoples, the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, Byzantines, the Knights of St. Johns, the French and the English.  It has the oldest temples known, which are aligned for the equinox and the winter and summer solstices.     These were  built in 3,600 B.C. Within them they found stone and clay statues of  deities and many other artifacts.
 
Neolithic temple entrance.
Statues from Neolithic temple



Malta has undergone two great sieges in it’s history.  The Knights of St. John withstood a Turkish siege in 1562 and the second was in WWII, whereafter the bravery of the Maltese people was rewarded with a George cross to the whole island.  This now flies proudly on their flag. We will just be missing the celebration of the defeat of the Turks on 8th September and the entire island is festooned with flags, in anticipation of this.  

Flags above a village in central Malta.


Lunch stop in Marsaxlokk fishing village.
The headquarters of the Knights was Fort St. Angelo, which was also heavily bombed in WWII and still stands proud.
 
Fort St. Angelo,  Valletta Harbour.
The whole island is built from limestone blocks. There are some magnificent structures in many of the towns.  We visited the Grand Masters Palace and Armory (used now by the President of Malta), 

The Armory museum

St John’s Cathedral in which many knights are buried under the floor,
Knight's grave
Knight's 
 the Inquisitor’s Palace (the only one opened by the Catholic Church to the public) complete with torture chamber and prison cells.

Grand Master's Palace
Kitchen in Inquisitor's palace


We leave on Tuesday 5th September for Sicily, bound for Porto Empedocle.

Sunday, 19 February 2017

Greece August 2016

We were pleased to leave Turkey without any mishaps after the failed coup. We took a bus back to Thessaloniki from Istanbul, both to see the countryside of Northern Greece and also to avoid Istanbul airport during these troubled times.
Young lad selling bagels on the freeway


 We were happy to find  Artemis V as we had left her a month earlier. We had left our bimini with a sailmaker for repair and when we arrived, he was there to return it to us and refused payment! We insisted he left us with a handful of toy koalas for his kids.  It didn't take us long to set off once again, now, for the first time going south.
Sunset northern Greece


 This effectively marked the start of our journey down the east coast of Greece, back out of the Aegean and the Mediterranean. We again saw few other boats,
Gulf of Volos

Chalkida


except when we stopped on the island of Skiathos which is the home port for a charter fleet.  Most of these boats head for the beautiful northern Sporades islands which, sadly, we had no time to visit.
Skiathos Island


We visited the Volos Gulf, stopping at delightful little fishing villages and taking advantage of their sweet tavernas lining the waterfront.


There was a very strong Meltemi blowing down the central Aegean at this time and we were pleased for the shelter the gulf afforded us. In fact, this year there was one strong Meltemi after another. Friends of ours who planned to meet us in the Gulf of Evvia had to turn back to the harbour in Paros when they found themselves sailing into the jaws of a Force 8 blow!
We sailed between the Island of Skiathos and the mainland, into the Trikeris Strait.  In the middle of the narrow mouth of the strait, is the Lefteris reef. Here, in ancient times, two of the ships of the Persian attacking fleet were sunk. Thereafter, the Persian king, Xerxes ordered his ships to carry one ton blocks of stone to the site and he built on top of the reef  a column as a navigation warning.  This was the world's first navigational marker, build 250 years before the first lighthouse, at Alexandria in Egypt.
We travelled down the Gulf of Evvia, and had a pleasant stop-off at Chalkida where we caught up with friends. The Gulf narrows dramatically at Chalkida. There is a very strange phenomenon here, where the current changes direction every six hours, running at up to 8.5 knots at peak flow. At the change of direction, the water is still for only 2 mins.  The width of the gulf is only 40m at this point with an opening bridge. The bridge is opened only at night, during slack tide.  Our turn to cross was at 3a.m.  Fortunately there is a lovely, shallow and sheltered bay just south of the bridge where we could grab a few hours sleep until daylight. We picked up friends just south of the bridge and went to the little island of Kea where there is an ancient carving of a lion, perched high above the mountainous village, in a field all alone. On our walk up we met a local

and found some sustenance.
Picking figs

 The lion is carved out of a huge 6m. rock and has an enigmatic grin which faces the village. The artist is unknown and it is unclear when he was carved. Dating puts him anywhere between 6th and 12th century B.C.   
Lion of Kea


Appeasing Poseidon
As we travelled south, we passed Cape Sounion.  It was quite a thrill to be sailing just under the temple of Poseidon. We offered him a sacrifice, pouring some of our precious alcohol into the sea for him. Hopefully that will portend calm seas for our next year at sea.



We stopped off at Athens, where once again Artemis V was left in a marina while we travelled overland to Peloponnesus with Aussie friends. After visiting the beautiful ancient sites of Epidauvros, Nafpleon and Monemvasia,
Theatre at Epidauvros

Ancient town of Monemvasia


it was back to the boat for the last leg of our summer trip, to the Bay of Kilada, where there is an excellent shipyard. On our way into the bay, we sailed past  beautiful little Kilada Island, owned by the shipping magnate Lavranos.

Kilada Island

Well earned rest

Kilada  is now home for Artemis V for the next year..While there, we met an Australian/Greek kayaker,  pulling her kayak up onto the beach.  She runs kayaking tours in the Ionian Sea but she was in the process of completing a 1,200km. trip from Corfu, through the Corinth Canal (special dispensation to do so since she was herself a Spartan by birth) finishing her trip in Nafplion.  When we met her, she had just completed a long day of paddling, against a strong headwind. We salute her.
After a busy two weeks of maintenance, we bade "goodbye" to Artemis V, to drive through the Greek countryside, full of beautiful old olive trees with their gnarled old trunks, oleander and fig trees, across the Corinth Canal, to Athens and to our plane to take us home to Australia. En route we stopped for a night in Doha, an interesting juxtaposition of new and old..

Market in Doha

Outdoor airconditioners at a restaurant

Modern Doha