The Voyage of the Mighty Tenho: November 2012

The last couple of weeks we’ve been exploring more Greek islands: Amorgos, Astipalya, Nisyros and Symi, each with something different to offer. Our favorite has always been the family hikes: a surreal hike through dense fog where stone walls and goats materialized out of the fog in Amorgos, the steaming stinking sulfur crater of Nisyros, and the sun-drenched rock mountaintops with ruins and cypress forests in Symi.

Having left our days of ancient Greek temple ruins behind, we’ve been spending more time visiting monasteries and Greek orthodox churches. In Symi, we enjoyed the festival of St. Michael, patron saint of the island and sailors, where we joined the procession around town, following the Greek orthodox priests, band and military unit, as they carried the icon and banners through town, complete with incense, holy water sprinklings and chanting. Our favorite churches however are the tiny little ones way up in the mountains.

The weather is still amazingly warm and sunny, and our sea dog of a girl Maggie still swims whenever we find a beach. But despite the good weather and lack of rain, we decided to call it quits in the Greek islands and head to our winter marina in Marmaris, Turkey. After five months of covering a lot of ground (over 5,000 miles as the crow flies), John and I were ready to stay in one place for some boat work, and the kids were dying to get to the marina, as they had heard there were a few other kids here. Hard to believe, but despite all our attempts to find other cruising families, this is the first time we’ve met other cruising kids since Spain (and the first boy since Bermuda).