Hope's and Howard's Sailing Adventures

From Patmos in the Dodecanese we had envisaged an exciting, 51nm, eight hour, sail to Naxos, in the Cyclades. The forecast was for consistent northerly winds gusting 21-25 knots throughout the passage, and we were heading west. The first two hours were often invigorating with speeds up to 9.2 knots. And then the wind dropped, so for the next few hours we motored/motor sailed (engine plus mainsail). When the wind.. Read More

In the past we have anchored off Datça but this time thankfully there was room for us to Med moor to the dock and the dockmaster helped us with our lines ashore. Being on the dock made it much easier to connect with the agent we had hired from Bozburun to check us out of Turkey. We had arranged that she would meet us around 9:00am the following morning. However,.. Read More

The trouble with heading northwest along the Lycian coast is that the predominant winds are also from the west/northwest and they tend to curl around the coast. We have often been fooled, thinking the wind will be more favourable once we have rounded a headland only to find we are still heading into it. Since Lady Mayfair is a cutter rigged boat tacking is not so easy because of the.. Read More

I am happily writing this onboard Lady M at anchor in the beautiful, calm bay of Kas, Turkey. It has been quite a long road to get here but we are thankful to be enjoying the freedom of cruising in beautiful waters again. Although back issues still have not been resolved, we opted to try for at least one more season before trying surgery. As a result I, Hope, am.. Read More

We departed N Cyprus mid October 2023 with the intention of returning in early March 2024. It’s always good to have plans for options B, C, and D in place. Our house in Delaware was sold early November and while living in rented accommodation in Lewes, DE we viewed several houses in Oriental, NC; the sailing capital of NC. Our son and his family live in Southern Pines, NC. An.. Read More

We arrived back in our ‘home from home’, Finike Marina, on September 12 and departed on October 7. In the interim we had some more boat work done by the yard there. Their stainless steel workmanship is excellent (arch for the solar panels fabricated earlier this year), and they had no difficulty making an anchor strike plate to curve around the bow (our new anchor had done a little damage.. Read More

We hired a car in Kefalos in order to do some provisioning, visit several sites of historic interest, and view the marina in Kos town, at the other end (NE) of the island prior to the arrival of two UK friends. Stocking up was easy at the sole Lidl store on the island, but we were amazed to subsequently find a newly opened Tesco. The town of Kos was enjoyable.. Read More

Sounio Bay, with its temple to Poseidon, was our last anchorage before we departed for Kea, an island in the Cyclades closest to Athens. We had planned to cruise the Cyclades throughout the month of August. However, as mentioned previously, July and August usually have the strongest Meltemi winds so our route through the islands was predicated by the vagaries of the weather. We experienced a gentle downwind sail most.. Read More

Our stay in the large (1,000 berth) Alimos Marina, near Athens was useful. We finally managed to swop our empty camping gas bottles for full ones as well as purchase a few other boat bits from an excellent yacht chandler nearby. However, Athens was suffering from extreme heat, (the Acropolis was closed to visitors from noon until 5:00 pm each day) so our energy levels were rather low. Indeed, we.. Read More

Finally, we arrived in Greece at the island of Chios in the eastern Sporades. We had intended entering Greece further north at Lesvos, to explore the eastern Sporades islands further north and the northern Sporades islands close to mainland Greece, but the approximate five weeks delay due to boat issues severely impacted our timeline. As previously mentioned we needed to be near Athens by July 20 in order to meet.. Read More