What a start to the day

Woke up around 6.30 with the hope of being underway before 8. It always takes time to ready the boat before you can leave. Usually we de-flat the dinghy and up in IP on deck but while we were in turkey we added so now we can simply lift the dinghy and in theory less work... I keep testing it and try different heights and positions... a work in progress.. but for now it works.

So on leaving I decided it was time to get the water maker up and running ... make then I could wash the boat. After playing with it for 10 minutes we were successfully making fresh water.. and it even tasted OK.

The plan as to wash the decks so I needed to connect our long hose to our shower hose to get water. This meant making a connector... see below

While I waited for the tanks to fill I decided I should put out a line to test the waters. 5 minutes later I was fishing. 

The tanks were still not full but i went to check to make sure we didn't have any other problem. On returning to deck I heard the fishing real going crazy ... to I slowed down to see what was going on. Indeed we had cot something.. but I doubted it was a fish .. but I was wrong.

This guy was my personal best ever catch. I made one big mistake, I didn't weight it. My guess is that it was about 40 lbs (20kgs). Our fridge is not big enough to hold this guy unless I cut it up, so I set about the task. All I could think is what am I going to do with all this tuna... one can only eat so much. I love sushi, but this was a year supply. The job turned out harder than I expected, even with the sharpest knife, it took everything to cut him up. Below is a picture of the stake cut I had for dinner once the job was done. 

At noon, I had washed the deck, made water  and cot dinner ... :)

  

Another day ... another island... this time Sifnos .. what a place

So I said good bye to Schoinousa after a very pleasant two night stay. The weather wasn't good for heading north on Sunday so I took the day off... you can do that when your the captain :) ... and it's been a while since we had a real day off. Swam and then swam some more ... wrote some emails and finally talked to my folks at home whom I've almost abandoned with all the issues of getting out of Turkey... now trying to repair the damage ;) ... more calls needed.

The day was great over all, 5 hours of sailing with boat speeds of over 7.5 knots for most of it :) and maxing at over 8. It made the last two days of engining seem like a really bad idea...and waste of money. But we have to keep moving as we have some very special guests arriving in a few days ... and Zim has to be in Athens. 

The idea was to get as far as I could today and make the final journey to Athens the following day. The weather for later in the week in the islands as seen below is not a fun trip north. While it's safe as the islands are close together the waves are close together and make for a wet ride. So we set off at 8am sharp.

Our second sighting of dolphins since we left Marmaris occurred at around 12pm. They swam with the boat only for a few seconds and not long enough for me to get my camera out :) ... usually Anne has better luck.. Other than this is was a easy ride and we tied up single handed to the pier below on the island of Sifnos around 4pm.

Tomorrow it will be Poros, where I will hide out until Anne and our guests arrive... more on that later

On the move again

So with Anne in the US, and the boat a little behind schedule we had to find help to get the boat out of Turkey and start the process of getting Zim to Athens. A good friend offered to help and so finally Thursday morning with everything on board we started out of Greece. After a about 20 hours of motoring we stopped at Astypalaia. Magnus and Ida made the most of it and found the bar and food without even think :) The picture below was of us sitting on the beach enjoying some R&R It's starting to feel like we are ready to go.

Magnus and Ida head home and Zim and Joseph headed for Athens. 

It was a long day and the wind was on the nose the whole trip. The plan was to stop in Paros... but it was a little too wet so I pulled over for the night and stopped in Schoinousa.

At anchor in Schoinousa ... where is that.

Brunch and bike riding

Marys house - some pictures

Marmaris

Sun set on a beautiful spring evening

 

Joseph's mom's last days :)

 

Zimbabalooba bottom drying.