We emailed our Christmas greetings mid December and received many in reply - good news from all around the world! Another year over and an exciting 2025 ahead of us! This year we plan to visit the USA and Cuba in July and August. At the end of the year we plan to sail...

Before we set sail back to the Ionian islands on the Monday, Sunday the 28th October turned out to be a most interesting day. Galaxidi was festooned with Greek flags, school children were marching in their school uniforms and families were filling all the eateries in...

After collecting my passport with a new 90 day Greek visa from Spyros at Police headquarters, we cast off from Zakynthos harbour with a good following wind to sail to Cephalonia, the biggest of the Ionian islands. The plan was to stop in Poros in the south east of the...

We couldn’t really motor from Navplion after the cyclone, due to a stern line caught in the propeller, but fortunately there was a good wind to sail the short 10 mile hop to Astrous on the eastern Peloponnese coast. We arrived to tie up next to about 12 other yachts...

After six days in Milos, the wind relented and we were able to set sail to Hydra. The extra days were useful to clean and fix things on Esprit and explore Milos by car. We drove up to Plaka and climbed up to the highest point on the island to visit the Venetian castle...

Naxos is the largest and most fertile island of the Cyclades and has an interesting history. It was sacked by the Persians in 490 BC, became a Venetian duchy for more than 300 years in 1207, fell to the Turks in 1566 and became Greek in 1832. On the approach to Naxos...

On Wednesday 22nd August, Annie’s brother, Joe Schady and his partner Mary Griffiths arrived in Rhodes. After two nights next to Mandraki harbour and exploring Rhodes old town, we sailed to Simi where we anchored at Panormitis on the south of the island. This quiet...

A perfect downwind sail from Anafi island, took us to Gouves Marina, about 8 miles east of Iraklion in Crete. Back in 1980, I spent three months in Greece, including a month in Crete. The objective was to have a holiday and walk a bit, to get my legs in shape again. I...

While checking our current latitude and longitude, I realised that we were further north of the equator than Sydney is to the south of it. Also, we have covered 120 degrees of the 360 degrees of longitude, so were now about a third of the way around the world – and...

After leaving Port Alacati in Turkey on Monday 16th July 2018, we passed the Greek island of Khios to port, and then saw a NATO warship patrolling the strait between Greece and Turkey. We were now entering the Aeolian coast as we sailed past Cesme. The wind was in our...

First up, apologies for our website going down about three weeks ago. Our hosting company in the USA told me, that some plug-in used on the site, malfunctioned. This could only be fixed by paying a developer on their side AUD 112 to trouble shoot and sort it....

Having dropped Karen off in Sarsala Bay to catch a taxi to Dalaman airport for her flight to Istanbul, we set sail for Marmaris. Or so we thought – the westerlies had started kicking in, resulting in the wind on the nose, a confused sea and much motoring to make...

Our stop in Kemer was very brief, as this was holiday central for Russians. Friendly, robust and loud people enjoying their new found freedom on jet skis and pirate boats with very loud doof music. We anchored a few miles further west at Phaselis, a picturesque site...

Note: The Turkish Waters Pilot uses the ancient titles for the Turkish Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, rather than the modern ones such as the Blue, Turquoise, Emerald coasts etc. We will use the ancient. After checking out at Latchi harbour in Cyprus, we did a short...

Before we realised it, twelve days had passed in Larnaca marina - at the very reasonable cost of 13m x E0.60 = Euro 7.80/day, which equates to AUD 12.48/day. Having done all the sightseeing inland, jobs on the boat and cleaning, we set off again on Monday the 7th May,...

After our second Suez Canal pilot Alec, was picked up by a pilot boat at 6pm on Monday the 23rd April, we set sail from Port Said for Cyprus, 225 nm to the north-east. The conditions were as good as was predicted, with a light 10-15knot wind allowing us to close reach...

We departed Port Ghalib after checking out at 4:30 pm, on Thursday 5th April, in the company of Darryl Laurin from Canada, on “Vimy”, a Beneteau First 47.7 which he has sailed around the world singlehandedly. As you sail north in the Red sea to Suez, particularly in...

Midnight Wednesday 28th March and we tied up at the Port Control and Customs jetty in Port Ghalib, Egypt. We had sent emails advising the authorities of our ETA and tried to call by sat phone to find out if a night entry into port would be in order. No response, so we...

Leaving Massawa in Eritrea at 10:00 on Monday the 19th March, there was a perfect 10-12 knot wind from the east to take us up the coast on a broad reach. We decided to use the wind for as long as it lasted and sailed through the night and the following day, to anchor...

Note: This is a longer post than usual, as there was more time during this passage to reflect on events and record it for posterity. The 28th of February 2018, was spent checking out with the Cochin Harbour Master, Indian Customs and Immigration. A tedious process...

After Karen’s arrival from Melbourne, she and Michelle left by train the following day to Varkala, 4 hours south of Cochin, to go surfing. Three days later they took the train to Alappuzha, in the “Backwater” area to spend two days exploring these waterways. Annie and...

As reported in our previous post, we departed Langkawi in a hurry, as there were a number of deadlines ahead of us – much as we don’t like to rush! The shipwrights and service providers in Langkawi are mostly Australians and South Africans who have settled there and...

After Michelle left for Australia, we stayed on at anchor at Nai Harn Beach, which was well sheltered from the weeklong strong northerly winds. We did daily walks and took the opportunity to explore Phuket by rented car and mopeds. The car was necessary to collect...