So a few days ago, I got the email I had been anticipating all along; essentially, the owner of the marina is now 93, and there is some squabbling with his heirs. Anyway, everyone at the marina is vacating, as supposedly his son (who is (supposedly) not in the will) got his father (who is now in an assisted care facility) to sign something saying that he was in charge. Hawk, the one guy that was a fixture at the marina, has been run off. Police have been involved on several occasions.

Unfortunately, as a result of all this, I’m going to have to move my boat; that’s not a bad thing, as the marina has literally been crumbling while I’ve been here- I take my life into my hands every time I walk along the decrepit dock. (see picture) The unfortunate part is that I will no longer be a bit player in the drama that takes place here. Oh well....

So I flew up here today (Saturday) on a last minute trip; I’ve schedule the boat to be hauled soon in fishing bay, and I have until Tuesday to get her over there.

I arrived around 14:00 local. There is now a gate at the front (see picture), and after identifying myself, it was opened for me. Upon getting to the boat, I found the batteries completely flat; this isn’t a good thing, as batteries can only do that a few times in their lives. Since these are only about a year old, I was pretty miffed. I traced the problem to a melted wire near the fuse box (did I mention decrepit? instead of a continuous piece of wire from the fuse box to the boat, there was a break in the line that had been spliced together. Not a deal killer, except it was below high water line, and the splice wasn’t water tight. As usual, I fixed it myself, as trying to get it “fixed” could have been problematic.

Now that the batteries are charging, I unpacked, replaced one of the lenses on the Hella cabin lights (unfortunately it’s clear, and the others were white, but beggars can’t be choosers- they don’t make white anymore, and they don’t sell lenses only- I had to buy an entire fixture). Replaced a few light bulbs, found that the VHF didn’t work; traced it to a fuse and sorted that out. Pumped the bilge (which was high, since the pump wasn’t working with flat batteries- I always get a fair bit of water down the mast, since it’s in mast furling). And of course, a front is moving through tomorrow, so tomorrow is 20-25 on the nose, with gusts to 35. Should be past by Monday morning though, when the wind will clock around and be favorable; hopefully the weather stays predictable!

More as it happens...

It's fair to say that we got lazy in the photo-taking department this summer after our EMYR/Middle Eastern extravaganza. Hence, one page for Malta, Tunisia, Sardegna, Corsica and the Balearics.
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Post-rally, a group of EMYR folks decided to take a trip over to Jordan to visit Petra. On our way, we visited Jerash and saw some more great Roman ruins and on our way back we visited Amman. Read More...

We visited three ports in Israel: Haifa, Ashkelon and Herzliya and took tours from those bases.
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We had a dolphIn escort to the EMYR rendezvous point outside the entrance to the Suez Canal. Hasan, the rally organizer, was onboard Valkyrie with us and his Bolero CD in the stereo seemed to be the correct music choice to attract dolphins and keep their attention for about one hour. Read More...

Our port of call in Lebanon was Jounieh, which is not far from Beirut. On the afternoon of our arrival, we headed off to Beirut, expecting to see a city ravaged by years of civil war. Instead we found an area reminiscent of a European city with brick-lined streets and sidewalk cafes surrounded by rehabbed buildings with wrought iron balconies. Read More...

We docked in Lattakia, Syria and then journeyed by bus to Damascus and Palmyra.
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In Iskenderun, we visited various sites in Antioch, including St. Peter's Church, a museum full of ancient mosaics and more. When we visited a castle, there were a lot of little children waiting to hand us wildflowers and weeds they had just picked. Read More...

Second stop for the EMYR was Mersin, Turkey. Ryan and I had some work to do on the boat, so we missed the tour to see St. Paul the Apostle's home in Tarsus. People returned with water from his well and dirt from a significant site. They also visited some other historically significant spots and enjoyed the tour. Read More...

In Northern Cyprus, the sights included a president, pirates, castles and a ghost town. At a reception in a castle along Girne's harbour, the president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Rauf Denktas, joined us. How often do you meet the leader of what most of the world considers a rogue nation?
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We visited Istanbul in December 2001and experienced COLD weather along with freezing rain. Given the state of the weather, we weren't really inspired to shoot a lot of photos and we forgot our camera in Marmaris, so we made due with a disposable. Read More...

On October 13, we arrived to our winter home in Marmaris, Turkey and we became multi-millionaires! Netsel Marmaris Marina is a huge marina complex and there is a good-sized town to keep up busy this winter. We're located on the south west coast of Turkey, about 300 miles south of Istanbul. There are about 45 other boats with liveaboards on them, including American boats. Read More...

The Dodecanese are a chain of 12 islands which are closer to mainland Turkey than Greece. We've visited three of them to date: Leros, Kos and Symi
Kos.
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We arrived to Katapola, Amorgos on Sept. 11 and learned about the NY and Pentagon tragedies in a mini-market. For the first couple days, we were anchored in the town harbour.
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With Paros as our base, we took a day trip over to Delos and Mykonos. An important archaeological site and sacred island, Delos is the mythical birthplace of the twins Apollo and Artemis. It was first inhabited in the 3rd millennium BC. During the Hellenistic times, it became one of the three most important religious centers in Greece and a successful commerce center. Wealthy merchants, mariners and bankers resided here. It became a free port in 167 BC.
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From Paros, we took a ferry to Santorini/Thira with my mom, sister and her friends Heidi and Angel. Santorini is thought to be the most spectacular Greek island of all. The island was originally circular, but around 1650 BC, a catastrophic volcanic eruption occurred and the center of the island sunk, leaving a caldera with high cliffs. Read More...

From Naxos, we sailed over to Parikia, the main ferry hub of the Cyclades. Once ashore, you can leave the mainstreet and enter a maze lined with shops, greenery and flowers. There are two open air movie theatres and we watched "Traffic" one night. It was in English, subtitled in Greek, so all the spoken Spanish was translated into Greek. We picked up occasional words and verbs, so I think we made some sense of it.
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We sailed into Naxos harbour (city of Hora/Naxos Town) after sailing for 5+ hours through winds that gusted up to 40 knots and nice rolling seas. Funny enough, thankfully our onboard guests, Tamra's mom, sister Laura and Laura's Seattle neighbor friends, Heidi and Angel, seemed to enjoy the little adventure at sea. Maybe being in the adventure mode is the secret to staving off seasickness.
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Siros is known as one of the less touristy cycladic islands. Ermoupolis (named after Hermes, god of trade, messengers and thieves) is the largest city in the cyclades and the capital city of this island group.
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After Monemvassia, we sailed over to Porto Kheli and spent a week there (they had assorted marine chandlaries to keep the captain content). We met up with La Zuccherina (Mark, Louisa, Chester and Griff, who we sailed with to Greece in April). After PK, it was onto Ermioni and then we left the Peloponnisos and sailed east to Hydra's Mondraki Bay. Read More...

The name, Monemvassia, comes from "Moni Emvasis" meaning single entrance. From the mainland, there is a kilometer-long bridge to enter into the walled village. Built in the sixth century by the Byzantines, it was an important port until the 20th century. Read More...

For the trip to Greece, we were joined by Ryan's dad and sister who flew over from the states. After leaving the Tiber River, we landed four days later on the island of Zakinthos. From Zak, it was on to the mainland of the Peloponnisos. Read More...

Once the vacation getaway for Roman emperors Augustus & Tiberius, today it's a scenic tourist-filled trap (of the nicest sorts of course). Ryan, Janel (my friend of LA & former Ogilvy PR colleague) and I opted to hike around instead of peruse the numerous gift shops, boutiques and high end designer collections, hence these photos give you a more serene view than the streets packed with German and American tour groups. Read More...

In April, we drove down to Napoli, got stuck in pre-soccer game traffic including cars, scalpers and fans (hence no photos) so we diverted to Sorrento and with that as our base, daytripped to Pompeii.
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Trial Run to Greece

As land-dwelling sailors for the past five-plus months, we jumped at the chance to join fellow Americans, the Heer family from San Francisco (whom we met at Tecnomar), on their journey from Rome to Greece. We left aboard La Zuccherina on April 1 with Mark, Luisa, Chester (age 10), Griff (age 6) & Read More...

Eight Days in Sub-Saharan Africa

In mid-February, Ryan, his parents and I flew to Dakar, Senegal to meet up with his sister, Rachael who is studying abroad there from Smith College. Read More...

Santa Claus Ousted by Pere Noel

Instead of being home for the holidays, the Strentz and Martell families flew from Seattle, Des Moines, Asheville, Rome and Dakar to meet up in Paris to celebrate Christmas 2000
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Land of Liederhosen

Early in December, we were off to Stuttgart, Germany, to meet Ryan's Aunt Bobbie for a quick trip through the Bavarian province.
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Following is the report from our first stint in the big city. While Rome has an overall grittier, more urban feeling than some other Italian destinations, when you're wandering through the Forum, you expect to see a Caesar and his entourage walking down one of the stone paths.
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Ostia Antica

This is Rome's ancient seaport, less than an hour from downtown Rome. For more than 600 years it was the main port and a trading center, and at the time of Christ, 80,000 people lived there. It later became a ghost town and has now been excavated.
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Exploring the birthplace of the Rennaisance... Read More...

After arriving at the train station from La Spezia, we (Tamra & Laura) boarded a vaporetto, aka waterbus, to take us to San Marco. Since there are no cars in Venice, you either walk or take vaporetto to where you want to go... Read More...

The birthplace of Michelangelo's marble for his sculptures. Read More...

Italian Rivieria
 
"...the traffic-free, lowbrow, underappreciated alternative to the French Riviera."
Defined by Rick Steves, host of popular PBS series "Travel in Europe with Rick Steves" and paperback travel companion to a cult including every American 50 to 60-year- old we've met and my 27-year-old sister. Read More...

Overland travel to France, to meet up with the parents. Read More...

Kicking it in the Balearic islands! Read More...

Overland to Sevilla.... Read More...

Land life on the beautiful southern coast of Spain! Read More...

Arriving in Gibraltar on July 1 marked the conclusion to our 3,600 nautical mile crossing... Read More...

Land ho!

On June 16, 2000, after 15 days at sea, we made landfall in the Azores, on the island of Faial. We sailed the entire way and revved the engine only for our approach into Horta harbor. Read More...