last post

Tenho has about 3 weeks to go until she's back home in the Chesapeake (along with John and crew), but for the kids, cat and me, the trip is over.  We're at the airport, just waiting for our flight back to the U.S.  And in another month or so, our house will be empty and we'll move back in...by September, kids will be back in school and job prospects are starting to look up...   So that's it, the end of the Voyage of the Mighty Tenho!  Although who knows, maybe someday.........

"There's something in the water!"

“There’s something in the water!”  Those words have always meant some exciting new discovery, something new to learn.   This time, however, was a bit different.  We were just past Gibraltar and three miles off the coast of Spain, when my dad’s 74 year old eagle eyes spotted something in the water.  “There’s something in the water!  It look like a stick?”   Ten seconds closer and Hugo exclaimed “it looks like a lost dinghy!”  Seconds later, through the binoculars, I could see a person in a red life jacket.  Instantly, we did a quick turn to take down the sails and went alongside and John yelled down “do you need help?”  Ummm….man in 65°F (18°C) water clinging to kayak with no paddle three miles from land drifting into the Atlantic Ocean?  Ya think maybe he needs help?  The rescue was easy…Hugo helped prep a line and get the swim ladder into the water while John put the kayak on the lee side of the boat so the man could grab the rope.  Luckily he’d been able to pull his upper body out of the water and up onto the kayak so he wasn’t completely hypothermic, and minutes later we’d pulled him (and his kayak) up onto the boat.  We wrapped him in a sleeping bag and warm hat, and Hugo practiced his Spanish asking him questions.  Turns out he’d lost his paddle in 3 to 4 meter seas and spent 2 hours hanging onto his kayak in the water. Somewhere in the story was also a paddling friend and family, one of whom alerted the Spanish Coast Guard when Mr. Kayaker was overdue (we never did get his name).  The Coast Guard had been looking for him a couple of miles away along the shore, but instantly came over when we called them.  We met up with them near the shore in calmer seas and transferred man and boat.  The whole episode was less than 45 minutes long, and before we knew it, we had the sails back up and had resumed our trip to the Azores.

Two hundred miles off the Azores came the next “there’s something in the water!”  It looked like a Chinese cargo ship had lost a load of wontons or frozen shrimp overboard.  Maybe from the “Great Happy” cargo ship we’d passed in the night?  (Who comes up with a name like that for a cargo ship anyway?)   We fished one out and saw it was a small snail, surrounded by a huge mass of eggs and air bubbles.   Where did the snails come from and where could those tiny snail larvae possibly hope to end up?

My favorite “there’s something in the water” moment was in Marina de Ragusa in Sicily.  Maggie was on the pier next to the boat when she suddenly yelled “There’s something in the water…it looks like an UNDERWATER FLYING DRAGON!”  It was about 6 inches long and I’ll be darned if the dark blackish thing didn’t have a squarish head, two horns, and moved through the water by flapping rounded wings on either side of its body.  Just like an flying dragon.  A Google search later, we discovered it was a sea hare, although we decided someone obviously wasn’t very imaginative if they thought the things on its head looked more like rabbit ears than dragon horns.

But now, we’ve come to the last of our water discoveries on this trip.  Here we are, finally, in the Azores, exactly eight days and 1200 miles after leaving Cartagena, Spain.  What a long trip.  The first few days we clawed our way against wind and currents, then a few days of glorious ocean sailing, followed by motoring into the wind.  But here we are, and just one short week in Ponta Delgada, and then I’ll be on  a plane with my kids and the cat back to the US, leaving John and my two brothers-in-law to bring Tenho back to the Chesapeake.

Throwing the kayaker a line

 

Spanish Coast Guard escorting us to shore for transfer

 

Kayaker man safely transferred

Rescue tracks

 

Rescue tracks

 

 

Snail and eggs

 



Underwater flying dragon

 

 

Underwater flying dragon

 



Cartagena Spain

We arrived in Cartagena just in time to catch the beginning of “A Taste of Cartagena”, with food from all the local restaurants and live music just a few hundred yards away at the entrance to the marina.  The kids have enjoyed being back in a town they remember from last fall and every day after homework they head into town to buy ice cream and go to the park.  

The next leg of our trip is hopefully a non-stop sail to the Azores, so we’ve been working to get the boat ready, changing oil, stocking up on groceries and pre-cooking meals.  If all goes well, my next post will be from the Azores in about 7-9 days. 

Main pedestrian area in Cartagena

 

Hugo about to launch

 

Maggie

 

The kids' favorite ice cream store in Cartagena

last photos from Italy and now we're in Spain

After four days/three nights underway, yesterday we finally arrived in Cartagena, Spain.  A long crossing…the gale that had been howling down from France left big waves that hit us on the beam and made everyone a bit queasy the first day.  Despite anti-seasickness meds, Maggie threw up 4 times in the first 24 hours, although I think she was a bit disappointed she didn’t beat Hugo’s record of 7 times in 1 day when he was 8 and had the stomach flu.  What a tough little up-chucker.  Never a whimper or complaint, she just gets it over with and then goes back to sleep.

It was a rude re-introduction back into sailing…we’d had such a nice few days in our last stop in Italy in Cagliari, on the island of Sardinia.  Cagliari is a perfect place to see superb examples of all the various civilizations that have dominated large areas of the Med:  it has a Carthaginian necropolis, a Roman amphitheater, Byzantine churches and a wonderful walled medieval part of town.  The well laid out archeological museum explains the history of the island, particularly the unique Sardinian Nuraghe civilization, which started around 1800 BC.  What an interesting comparison to what we'd seen from the same time period in Egypt.  We rented a car and drove into the interior of the island to learn more about the Nuraghe with a visit to a remarkably well-preserved massive fort-like tower and village.  Then we drove up to the nearby plateau, where the Nuraghe went to get the enormous volcanic basalt stones they used to build their towers, and also saw the cork trees which the Nuraghe used as insulation in their sleeping areas.

Another gale from the west starts tomorrow, so we’ll stay here in Cartagena until it blows through, and then head towards Gibraltar.

Nuraghe village remains



Their tower complexes included a

courtyard with a well







 

 



Remains of a house, with a circular ritual

bathing area and an arch from the cooking oven



Nuraghe warrior figure



Phoenician amulet necklace...have to admit I like their

faces better than the classical Greek ones!

slogging west

Slowly, slowly, slowly, we’re making our way west.  We just can’t seem to get a good break in the weather to make any distance.  After leaving Ragusa, we continued along the southern coast of Sicily to the sea port town of Marsala and waited there while the wind howled from the east. A nice place for  a stop – we saw an 8^th century BC Carthaginian shipwreck and joined in the Saturday evening passeggiata down the main drag in town.  Wow, to see all the pre-teen Italian boys decked out in their oh-too-chic hair styles and sunglasses!   The next day we tried to head west again, but gave up after 20 miles of beating into the seas and wind and found shelter in the Egadi Islands.  The tiny town of Marettimo had just enough room at the town quay for us to sneak in between the fishing boats and ferry for the night.  Our next leg was a one night sail to Cagliari on the Italian island of Sardinia, as far as we could go before the next gale started.  We’ll stay here another day or so until the gale blows through and then try to go to the Balearics or Cartagena.

Sicilian island of Marettimo

leaving Sicily and heading west to ???

Funny how the best and biggest Greek ruins we've seen are not in Greece.  Turkey's Greek ruins were best, followed by the Valley of the Temples we visited this past week in Sicily.  Really gave us a feel for just how widely the ancient Greek world spread.  And a nice drive through the Sicilian countryside, past old stone walls and fields full of harvested winter wheat.

Speaking of spreading...it's amazing how far the Sahara dust spreads when the wind blows from the south.  All across the Med, from Israel to Turkey, Greece and Sicily, we could always tell when the wind was blowing from the south by the warm wind and layer of red dust it left all over the boat.  Yesterday it was so hazy, you could look right at the sun at sunset with binoculars and see dark sunspots.  And the winds that accompanied the dust were so strong, it would have impossible to come into the harbor through the breaking waves.  

Looks like the wind is finally starting to turn around and will blow from the east, so we leave tonight to sail to the western tip of Sicily, and then west as far as the weather will comfortably allow...likely either the Balearics or Cartagena, Spain.

One of several temples in the ancient Greek city

of Akragas, built in the 5th - 6th century BC



Breaking waves at the entrance to Marina de Ragusa

Saraha dust at sunset

 

 

Arrived in Sicily

It took four days and three nights to reach the southern coast of Sicily, sailing about half the time and motoring the rest when the wind died.  No moon at night, so the stars were brilliant, as was the tuna fishing and dolphin displays.  We're here for at least a week until the gale blows through, but between studying and catching up on chores, the kids are putting the time to good use.  Maggie can now free climb up about 30' to the first spreader using only her hands and feet (with a climbing harness for safety of course), while Hugo and John figured out how to combine swinging on the halyards with sailing. It's like rock climbing meets kite boarding. 

Someone asked me the other day if I would miss spending so much time with the kids.  I have to admit, we are fortunate to have kids who haven't gotten into organized weekend activities yet (they weren't interested, and we didn't push it).  That means we've always had long family weekends together, so I've never felt deprived of kid-time, despite always working full-time.  To be honest, the trip was never about just having more time with the kids, as much as we love them.  So what WAS the motivation for the trip?  That's a blog post for some other day!

More tuna for breakfast, lunch and dinner

Watching dolphins below

 

Striped dolphins below the bow

 

Maggie free climbing

 

Her foot technique



Hugo using a wind scoop as a sail

 

Big gust of wind

 

 

 

 

 

leaving Croatia, heading to Sicily

It's been lovely day-sailing between little green islands and anchoring each night, but time to start covering ground again.  Looks like we have a week before the weather becomes contrary, so tomorrow we leave Croatia and hightail it to Sicily to meet my dad.  It will be at least two or three nights sailing, depending on weather and if we decide to stop enroute.  My dad will sail with us to the Azores...it will be the longest time I've spent together with my dad since high school! 




6th century Byzantine castle ruins on the Croatian island

of Žirje, Tenho anchored in bay below

In Croatia, the kids learned the meaning of

the word "naturist" and "rubberneck"

A bucket of stars

In six short weeks, I’ll be back in the U.S. with the kids, with John just a few weeks behind.  One foot is already  home, as I start applying for jobs and looking into options…do we move back into our house?  Or keep it rented and live in a small apartment or the boat until we have jobs?  The other foot is still on the road in our floating home, exploring the Croatian islands and finding new anchorages each night.  Tonight we found a dark secluded inlet between two islands, where the kids explored the shoreline in the dinghy while John and I enjoyed a drink in the cockpit.  Before bed, we went out to admire the stars and the bioluminescent plankton in the water.  We pulled up a bucket of water, and as the kids put their hands in it and swirled them around, Hugo exclaimed “it’s a bucket of stars!”  What a perfect description of this past year together.

A bucket of stars

Croatia

I must admit, Croatia is one too-cute town after another, on perfect little islands.  But don't look too closely...there's a veritable soup of plastic bits swirling in pools here and there offshore and covering the shoreline.   Not that other places we’ve been haven’t had similar problems, but not like this.  In Turkey, the beach debris seemed to be mainly household plastic with Hebrew, Turkish and Arabic writing, and it actually made for interesting beach combing as the kids found toys, shoes and other oddities (the mannequin foot was my favorite).  And in the Chesapeake, even the tiniest and most remote beach we can find is guaranteed to have at least several balloon strings from the American infatuation with releasing balloons to celebrate events. Here it seems to be more commercial/industrial waste, consisting of tar balls like big piles of poop, nets, bins and containers.  We also had our first experience with a privately owned bay.  Who knew you could own the restaurant on the beach and also charge anyone $50 for anchoring up to half a mile offshore. 

Our favorite thing in Croatia is to sail to a new island every day,anchor in a secluded little bay and spend the evening dinking around on shore (and wishing for at least occasional internet).  Provides a great opportunity for "Strike Team Alpha" to practice our moves...we can now the get skiff launched off the bow and ready to zip to shore in 4 minutes 10 seconds! 

We're now in Pula, near the border between Croatia and Slovenia.  We'll stay here for a few days for a birthday celebration with our Slovenian friends, then we'll head back down the Adriatic.

Looking down to the town quay in Kotor, Montenegro. 

Our boat is circled in black.



The town of Vis, Croatia, with charter boats

at the town quay

View of the town of Unije, Croatia,

 from our anchorage



Tenho anchored near Kut, Croatia, while the

kids find hermit crabs



 



Maggie and her home-made looking glass



sailing to Montenegro

There’s something very unique and slightly peculiar about doing multiple day/night crossings.  First, there’s the “preparing for a long passage” mentality that takes over, and we fill up with water, fuel, food, clean laundry, and send last e-mails, as if we were setting off on a wagon train out west.  Once at sea, there’s a sense of just biding time, and we fall into a routine of keeping occupied with games, reading, movies, and mulling over future plans.    

On this crossing, we sailed past the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth, crossing the track we made last October when we sailed from Sicily to Greece.  Both John and I were tempted to turn east and do it all over again!  What a different feeling it is now, with the end of our trip in sight.  In just two months, I have plane tickets to fly with the kids (and cat) from the Azores back to the US, while John will finish sailing the final leg with my two brothers-in-law.  On one hand, I was tempted to have us all sail back together, but sailing across the Atlantic isn’t actually that much fun for the kids, so instead we’ll spend those last few weeks on my parents’ farm in Wisconsin.   

But back to the crossing.  Without any land nearby, we find we get inordinately excited about any signs of land…anything that isn’t water or wind.  Like the lost little bird that flew into the cabin and then stayed on our boat for awhile eating bugs, or the night hawk that flew past, or the phosphorescent plankton in the water at night which makes it look like we’re sailing on top of the Milky way.  Especially exciting…the ZZZZING of the fishing line!  Fish on!  It’s our family at its best, adrenaline and spirits high, everyone wanting to get the filet knife, but not wanting to jinx it until the fish is in the boat, and Maggie doing her special fish dance.   Day two was a repeat, an even bigger tuna this time!   

We’ll stay here in Montenegro in the Bay of Kotor for a few days, then head to Croatia.

Little tuna...



Big tuna!

Sailing alongside the mountains of Montenegro

in the Bay of Kotor

Approaching the town of Kotor, at the base of 

the "Black Mountain" that gave Montenegro

its name

 

leaving Greece, heading to Montenegro

Yesterday we had a wonderful last day on the Peloponnese, driving out to almost the end of the wild and dramatic Mani, the central peninsula of the Peloponnese.  Traveling off-season is such a treat, having normally crowded beaches and tourist sites all to ourselves.  I'd love to come back and hike the rugged peaks of the Taygetos Mountains, but as in a quote shared with me by a fellow cruiser in Turkey, Robert Frost nailed it when he said "Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back." 

Tonight is our last stop in Greece in the Bay of Navarino.  As we prepared to drop our anchor, we imagined what it must have been like in 1827, when the bay was filled with 89 anchored Turkish and Egyptian warships, and the British fleet of 26 ships entered the bay.  When the battle was over, 53 of the Turkish/Egyptian ships had sunk (including 6,000 deaths) and the Greeks were on their way to independence. 

Tomorrow we leave Greece, go past Albania, and to Montenegro.  Two nights under sail and we should arrive Saturday.  Although we'd like to spend more time in the Greek Ionian Islands on the way there, we'll take advantage of the favorable winds the next few days and make some tracks.  It will be a nice change...today we had the wind on our nose all day (meaning we had to motor all day), despite the fact that we went south from Kalamata, then west around the point, and then north to Pylos.  How can the wind possible blow that many directions in one day?  That's sailing (errr...motoring) in the Med!



Phoneas beach



The subterranean river of the Diros caves all to ourselves

Castle in the Bay of Navarino, built by Turks in 1573

sailing around the Peloponnese

Slowly working our way around the Peloponnese...  Koiladia on the northeast side was our last stop with friends before heading off alone again.  The bay had nearby hills for hiking and harvesting wild arugula and asparagus, and a beach filled with plastic debris which made for good boat-building material for the kids.  The funniest thing was when we were on the boat doing schoolwork, when all of a sudden John looked outside and yelled “BUOYS!”  Some fisherman had apparently lost a whole box of small doughnut-shaped buoys overboard somewhere upwind of us, and so for the next half hour, John and the kids had a mad game of chase, zipping around the bay in the dinghy and scooping up buoys before they drifted to shore.  It was the Greek version of Harry Potter’s Quidditch!  

Then we sailed to the Byzantine walled city of Monemvasia.   Monemvasia’s Eastern Orthodox church was modeled after the Aya Sofya church in Istanbul.  What a tangled history…both served at various times as either a church or a mosque as the Greeks and Turks fought over the land, culminating in the “1923 population exchange”, where about 1.5 million Greeks moved from Turkey to Greece, and 500,000 Muslims from Greece to Turkey in an “agreed mutual expulsion.” 

 

We sailed/motored around the southern Cape Maleas of the Peloponnese on a calm day with a huge pod of striped dolphins, and then spent an evening anchored in the funny little bay of Porto Kagio.  We drifted in circles on anchor and read aloud the stories of the Trojan War, as the wind blew down from the barren hills topped with odd square towers of the Mani inhabitants, the true originators of the word “maniac” (notwithstanding any legitimate claims to that title by Maine residents).

 

In Kalamata, in between eating way too many fat black olives, we rented a car to visit Sparta and (what else?) their stunning olive museum, the Byzantine walled city of Mystra, and to hike in the Taygetos mountain range.  One  more stop in the Peloponnese, and then we’ll head to the Ionian Islands and up towards the Adriatic.



The "S.S. Minnow" is ready to sail in Koiladia

 

Chasing errant Greek fishing buoys

Sailing to the walled city of Monemvasia

 

Looking down from Monemvasia to Tenho, the only
sailboat  in the marina (circled in black).

 

Aya Sofya in Monemvasia.  First a church,

it was a mosque while under Turkish rule, and is

now restored as an Eastern Orthodox church.





And here's our photo of the Aya Sofya in Istanbul

from our visit in December, with minarets

from when it was converted to a mosque in 1493. 

In 1935 it became a museum.



Kids watching dolphins from the bow





Striped Dolphin



 

Taygetos Mountains from the castle on top of

the Byzantine walled city of Mystras

Greek lunch!  Wild arugula, cheese, bread, olives & wine