Pergamon, 8th September The forecast was for a few degrees cooler (only low 30's) so we decided to do the day trip to Turkey to visit Pergamon, one of the notable ancient sites. We caught the 9am ferry to Ayvalik for the 1 ½ hr crossing. En-route, we encountered yet another RIB filled to bursting with migrants heading for the Greek shore - unusual to see it in daylight, normally it's a night crossing to avoid detection.We had ordered (and paid for) a hire car o...

Desert Island Sunday 6th September We arrived back at the boat last Tuesday at 6.30am to a day promising to be meltingly hot. We discovered in our absence that the area had experienced a very localised, freak "hurricane", lasting about 20 minutes and with wind force estimated at F14/15! It caused one pontoon to break free complete with boats, and damage to canopies, sprayhoods, lines, rigging and warps. We had not known anything about it: the marina had not cont...

Limnos, Lesvos & Home 14th July-24th July 2015 Well ahead of the weather, we motored the entire 50nm from Thasos to Limnos in sweltering temperatures, anchoring in the bay off little Myrina. But the weather was coming, so we didn't dally there, although it's a nice place, but set off early Wednesday morning for the 70nm down to Molivos on Lesvos. We had good sailing for most of the way, then the wind started building and the sea state so that for the last fe...

Thasos, Island of Marble and Gold 10th-13th July Thasos is an ancient island of marble, rich too with gold and ochre mines, famed in antiquity for its wealth and for its fine "black" wine (I think a thick, rich, sweet grape must). We headed north from Liminaria to Thasos town. It had a secure harbour, so we decided to give ourselves a break and stay a couple of nights. There were a polyglot mix of sailors - Turkish, Bulgarian, French & Belgian - with the u...

Macedonia, Mount Athos and Monasteries 2nd -10th July, 2015 We had a good crossing from Limnos to Khalkidhiki - 60nm, sailing fast for the first half, then the wind died and the engine had to go on. This is Macedonia, northern Greece with its own personality, terrain and weather. We are as far north here as Porto in Portugal, when we were coming down to the Med 7 years ago!We aimed for the middle finger or peninsula, Sithonia, as it seemed more interesting tha...