We’re now in our winter home and settling in to winter chores and exploring the area. Our time in the Ionian took us from Messolonghi for an overnight stop on Ithaka then on to Vlicho. We decided to make a single passage across to our winter home in Italy rather […]

Our third canal with Emerald (we’ve also been through the Kiel and the Caledonian) took us from the Aegean into western Greece and the Gulf of Corinth where we paid visits to Galaxidi, the island of Trizonia, Patra marina and Messolonghi. We took advantage of east winds and added Delphi […]

The Saronic gulf forms the western edge of the Aegean, nestled inbetween the Athens coast and the north Peloponnese and nudging up to the Corinth Canal. Our travels took us from Porto Rafti to the Corinth Canal via Temple Bay, Poros and Epidavros where we got to soak up even more […]

Volos to Porto Rafti via the Chalkis Bridge and Athens Our travels took us from Volos and down the Evia Channel with stops at Likhadon, Ormo Amirou/Atalantis, Politika/Mnima and through the Chalkis Bridge. A few days in the marina at Chalkis gave us an opportunity to fix our broken throttle […]

Two weeks in Volos – a trip in the hills on a little train, a drive to Meteora, industrial history, tsipouro and views from Makrinitsa. We ended up staying 16 days on the breakwater wall in Volos, much longer than originally intended. Some days were taken up with rainy weather, […]

Emerald has inward opening ports, held open by a hook hanging down from the ceiling. There are 14 of them in all, which with most of them open in the summer provide plenty of entry points for small, evil buzzy, biting mosquitoes. I made the first version of the boat […]

We had a great few weeks sailing the North Sporades, visiting the islands of Skyros, Skopalos, Alonnisos, Peristera and Skiathos. We filled our time with swimming in the beautifully clear water, exploring ashore, catch ups with friends and some much needed relaxation with no need to be rushing on anywhere. […]

Turkey to Skyros via Agathonisi and Samos As the days passed by and the forecasts firmed out it looked like we really were going to get a couple of days of light, southerly winds to allow us to sail north through the Aegean. Operation Aegean North West Passage was on! […]

Little Boxes on the Hillside A song kept popping into my head as we headed north from Bodrum. ‘Little Boxes’. The coast is dotted with thousands of white cubes tumbling down the hillsides. They’re summer homes and holiday villas, but we wondered how many of them will actually have people […]

Pamukkale and Heirapolis June: Our second inland trip took us first to Pamukkale to visit the travertines and Roman ruins of Heirapolis. The drive from Marmaris to Pamukkale took about 3 hours, passing through some lovely countryside. Most of the roads were quiet and well made, although there were sections […]

We didn’t fully intend to go into the Gokova Gulf when we did. Ours summer plans were all over the place and changed daily, but on leaving Knidos we’d intended to head over to Bodrum and decide from there whether to head inwards or not. The wind had other ideas. […]

We’d lingered a little longer than expected at Orhaniye. It wasn’t any problems with the boat that was keeping us there, it was just so difficult to leave – good holding, good shelter and plenty to keep us having fun ashore. But eventually came the day we upped anchor (and […]

The Land of the Beautiful Horse Turkey is such a vast country with some amazing inland sights and we were really keen to see the other-worldly landscape of Cappadocia. During our summer cruising, we don’t get to do much inland travel. This is usually because finding somewhere reasonably priced to […]

Orhaniye From Bozburun to Orhaniye it was a 20nm hop around the end of the Bozburun peninsular. A light winds start, we’d hoped the wind would pick up enough for us to sail down the Hisaronu Gulf. A few yachts out for a bimble from Marti Marina were managing to […]

Off to Turkey It was a flat calm morning as we set off for Turkey and it stayed that way all the way across. We saw only one other ship leaving us wondering where everyone else was. As we approached Bozburun the silver domed roof of the mosque was unmistakable. […]