Loose Blues

Imagine … A cavernous market hall, home to numerous stalls and noisy traders selling all manner of Greek foods and fancies plus assorted scarves and trinkets from the Far East. Around the market are streets full of shops, kiosks, banks, frozen yoghurt stalls and numerous vehicles ranging from 2 plus…

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Sideways South

An early start from beautiful turtle inhabited Monamvasia saw us joyfully bursting out of the harbour into a wide open bay with full main and jib. The spring sunshine hovered around us and we spent a few glorious hours romping down the Peloponnese coastline; reading, singing and quietly finding peace…

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May Day

May First is a special day here in Greece….a national holiday. On Poros the streets were filled with promenading families and the Tavernas bulged and overflowed happily onto the pavements. We were inadvertently drawn into the gaiety from out position on the quay and Simon’s job list was made less…

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High Five!!

A long sail down to Monamvasia was great fun, especially as Joel was full  of energy and longing to try out every winch, block, cleat, line and wotnot that Simon had fitted for the voyage down. The spinnaker was hoisted with much cheering and laughter and we romped between the…

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Gibralter to Formentera

At 18.00 ish Charlie and Simon casually chatted over the sighting of spouting whales, this suddenly became rather alarming as they appeared alongside the boat, Simon instantly ( well that was the plan) stopped the boat to lessen any impact. What a tease, the whales mischievously dived beneath the keel,…

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Suprised Wallet

A longish sail of about 8 hours took us to Kythnos. I took my usual pills but have been having increasingly awful side affects…like being sedated…so arrived in a bit of a daze. Maybe this is why an enthusiastic French mooring angel who couldn’t have tried harder to help us,…

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Malta to Poros

May 15 was a happy day. Margaret and her house guest drove me to meet Rope Sole and a salt encrusted, continental looking chap strode up the pontoon as I raced down to greet her. ‘ Is that your husband?’ Margaret enquired nervously! Crumbs it was Simon….he had changed colour…

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Formentura to Malta

May 10 06.56 after spending a peaceful night Rope Sole bade farewell to Formentera as the sun rose and the wind considered her tactics, 18 knts to be precise, after keeping the guys waiting a mere hour.By 20.00 the log shows ‘ bumpy in the extreeme’. At this point up…

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Caiscais to Gibraltar

April 30 09.00 Happy to be underway again after a busy weekend locating a replacement battery, stocking up with fresh foods, enjoying Charlie and Ayessa’s welcome hospitality and fixing a few niggles on the boat. The log records a steady 5 knts of NE wind rising to 6 when the…

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Still crazy wind here

Still crazy wind here..F7 and collected so much salt off everything we could go Into business…as usual though it is making us ‘quay squatters’ get friendly and we just organised to all go out together sat night. Is really funny ..every time a boat comes in we all gather to…

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