Sunday, 5th May 2019 A week on the Hard with Plumbing and other games We flew out as usual with strangely-shaped and overweight luggage - this time containing a holding tank, valves & special loo pipe amongst other more normal boaty bits. We arrived in Athens on the Orthodox Easter Sunday and all was closed. We had thankfully hired a car to take us all of around 8km to an apartment we'd booked. The owners of "Mary's House" were charming and helpful, and anxio...

Up and Out, Good Jobs and Bad Saturday 6th October 2018 The final for this year. We lifted on a beautiful sunny morning to the sounds of the local naval establishment enjoying what sounded like a practice session for a passing out parade. That was after the normal bleating of the goats as they made their way past the boatyard. Safely up, we set about the usual clearing, cleaning and securing operations. Bits off and stowed, sails washed, strung up and stowed, the...

Sunday, 29th April 2018 A different, somewhat anxious start We are back in the land of blue skies and sunshine, although the path has not been as smooth as in previous years. First, we had booked an early flight from Heathrow enabling us to catch the mid-afternoon flight to Leros and do the journey in one hit with no sleepless night flying. Hurray, until Olympic decide to bump the afternoon flight and put us on an earlier flight that just happened to take off fr...

And So to Bed, 17th October 2016 We left the Cyclades and made our way back to the Dodecanese, stopping at a couple of favourite places for a last taste of swimming in clear water in stunning scenery. En-route we watched goats playing "king of the castle" on cliff tops, a gull taking a rest on a bit of flotsam (or a new form of pallet surfing - see pic) and met up with boats we had encountered before. For once we had it easy - no trying to beat the weather, or ...

Back to small planes, goats and reveille - and home. Sunday, 11th October 2015. Not only did we lunch and swim in beautiful sunshine off Archangelos, but took the opportunity of an afternoon lull in the breeze to drop and remove both the genoa and the mainsail. We were in the company of an Irish boat that was on the hard next to us last winter - they were doing much the same and followed us into Partheni to pick up a boatyard buoy in the evening. They were call...