|
|
Wednesday, October 24th, Lefkas, Greece
In the past 10 days we
have traveled 525 miles from Monfalcone, our
northernmost waypoint, to our current location in Lefkas,
Greece. While our trip down the Adriatic to
Brindisi was challenging, the passage over to Greece was
easy. We left Brindisi on Wednesday afternoon,
after a few nights of catching up on our rest, doing
laundry and saying goodbye to real Italian gelato,
pizzas, pastas and grocery stores. We timed our
departure with the fuel dock schedule, which closes for
siesta at 12:30 and doesn't open back up until 4:30 or
5pm. Opting for earlier rather than later, we
headed out to sea at noon, and were pleasantly surprised
with a 10 knot breeze right on the beam in flat seas.
We had a marvelous sail until midnight or so, when the
breeze totally shut off. We motored the rest of
the way, right past Corfu and on to the island of Paxos.
We didn't want to make landfall in Corfu in the dark so
we elected to just keep going rather than slow down.
.JPG)
Now this is what we had
in mind! Sunshine and crystal clear water greeted
us at our first anchorage in nearly a month. Lakka
is a lovely bay on the northern tip of Paxos.
There is a small town with a few restaurants that have
mostly closed down for the season. We were happy
to soak up the rays and enjoy a swim with no need for
any further amenities.
.jpg)
Unfortunately, that is
the last time we saw the sun since arriving in Greece.
Conditions have alternated between a cold drizzle and a
driving downpour, including thunderstorms and even hail
at one point. After the devastating fires that
swept the country this summer, the locals are all very
happy for the water. It is a precious commodity
here and the reservoirs are getting a good top off.
We are taking the
opportunity to catch up on lots of school, which we put
aside for 22 days during our jaunt through Northern
Italy and Austria. The girls are doing very well
with it, and it passes the time quickly.
Naturally, we are hoping for better weather, although
the picture looks pretty grim on weather.com. We
just rode out some heavy winds here in Lefkas, and at
least those are disappearing from the forecast over the
next week.
Our game plan is to
arrive in Marmaris, Turkey by the end of November.
We'll make our way through the Corinth Canal to Athens
along the way. We have our fingers crossed that we
will get to enjoy some of these beautiful islands in
something other than full foul weather gear!
The bigger picture is
coming together for this winter. We had always
planned on spending the Christmas holidays in Seattle
with the Fisher family. We'll fly directly there
from Turkey. The Boyle clan is gathering in San
Francisco, where Joe's sister and brother-in-law live,
for New Year's. From there, we'll fly home to
Annapolis and spend the next three months there.
It will be wonderful to catch up with everyone on a more
relaxed schedule than previous visits home. We'll
return to the boat in April and get ourselves ready to
participate in the
Eastern Mediterranean Yacht Rally which will take us
from Turkey to Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Israel, and Egypt
over the next two months. It looks like a
fantastic opportunity to visit these places that we
would otherwise never dream of going to on our own.
We'll finish out the summer in Turkey and Greece and
make our way back across the Atlantic next
November/December.
Sorry for the lame
update, but the news is pretty slow. I did put
together a couple more
photo pages
from our time in Croatia and Northern Italy. I
hope you enjoy those and that everyone is safe from
those horrible fires in California.
Next Entry >>>>>>>>>
Many thanks to our friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
|
|
|
|
