Life In 19x19

The waves lap at the shore as swallows swoop low over the water of the bay. Outside the bay, the wind is slowly dying down as the sun starts setting in the west. I'm sipping retsina white whine and eating some olives as I write.

Our sailing boat is anchored in Ormos Kouloura, a small cove off the north-east coast of Corfu, in the channel separating Greece from Albania. We've run a long line to a tree on shore, to prevent our boat from swinging on its anchor, as during the night the wind is predicted to swing around from east to west. Here we will spend the night, tucked cozily into our bunks in the bow of the ship.

For the next five months, until the end of September, I will be sailing around Greece together with my girlfriend, Gineke. Now and then, as time and internet access permit, I may post on L19. In this thread, I will try to post irregular updates on where we are and what we are doing.

Herman out.

Thanks for posting.

How are the expenses on a trip like this? Do you own the boat? Or rent? Do you pay much for anchorage?

How about legalities? Do you have to bother with customs or passports or any such things?

What is the boat like? How big? What kind of navigational equipment? etc.

Heh, the thread title made me think it was something about The King in Yellow.

Very envious. You seem to be on a worldwide tour.

cdybeijing wrote:Very envious. You seem to be on a worldwide tour.

That's the idea

We've been planning, and saving, for this for about 5 years. The idea was to take a year off to travel once I had finished organizing the European Go Congress 2009 and my girlfriend had finished her PhD. She finished it early last year, did the thesis defense last summer, so now we're traveling. 3 months China, 5 months sailing.

Joaz Banbeck wrote:Thanks for posting.

How are the expenses on a trip like this? Do you own the boat? Or rent? Do you pay much for anchorage?

How about legalities? Do you have to bother with customs or passports or any such things?

What is the boat like? How big? What kind of navigational equipment? etc.

The boat is a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 33.1, built in 1995, refitted in 2006. It is a smallish boat for this kind of thing. It is a little over 10m long (33.1 ft), 3.5m wide (10.5 ft) and has a draught (maximum depth it sticks into the water) of about 2m (6.5 ft). It has roller sails (the main sail rolls into the mast, the genua around the front mainstay). Beside the usual instruments (speed, wind, depth, compass) it has GPS navigator on board, though we usually prefer doing things the old-fashioned way, plotting a compass course on a map

We rent the boat. Originally, when we were planning this, we were thinking about buying one, but there are a lot of downsides to that. It is expensive, yes. A boat like this would normally cost about €1700 ($2500) per week in high season (jul-aug), €1400 ($2000) per week low season (may-oct), €1000 ($1400) per week off season. We're getting it 5 months (21 weeks) at about €700 ($1000) per week.

Anchorage fees depend on where you are. The bay I'm describing in my first post is free, of course, as you're just out in the wild on your own with no facilities, you drop your anchor where you like. The marina we started in ran at €40 per night with full facilities (electricity, water, gas, showers, toilets, shops & restaurants, etc).

There are not too many legalities. Normally, a foreign boat sailing in Greek waters needs to get a special document stamped at every port they visit, but since we're renting a Greek boat, that does not apply to us. Other than that, Greece is in the EU, so there's very little in passport formalities. We may, in the course of our travels, visit Turkey, Italy, or Croatia, in which case I don't know about the formalities yet

I'm impressed! Sounds like you'll have an excellent and memorable time Look forward to reading the updates!

Niiiice man! Enjoy the time off!!

Sometimes the waves don't lap at the shore, sometimes they pound on your boat.

We're both badly shaken after suddenly getting hit by gale force winds yesterday.

It seemed a nice enough day. We'd had a bad night, because the wind had been blowing from a different direction than predicted, sending an uncomfortable swell into our anchorage near Parga. Because of this, we decided to move on immediately, rather than spend another day here. We checked three weather reports, all of them in agreement that the day should bring wind from the north-east, force 3-4 along the coast, 5 further out to sea with maybe some force 6 here and there. Given that we wanted to move south-east along the coast, to Preveza, that seemed to be a pretty good forecast.

We moved out the bay and motored out some way to get some wind, a force three blowing from the NW. We raised sails and cruised slowly to the SE, the wind at our back. Annoyingly, the long waves from the SE that had been hitting our anchorage all night were still about, which made for choppy going. We decided to move a little closer to the coast, in hopes of less waves closer to land. While we were doing this, the wind started turning, then dropped away, so we decided to lower sails and continue on under engine power.

That turned out to be a wise decision. At first, the wind remained unpredictable, coming from all quarters, but after a while it settled on being easterly, force 5-6. Then, it started increasing strength. Wind force 7, wind force 8, wind force 9. We recorded gusts of wind up to 50 knots (90 km/h, 56mph), which is force 10 on the Beaufort scale. At this point, things were starting to look grim. We put on life-vests and beat a course directly into the wind, running for the coast, which was a few miles away. Not that there were any anchorages there, the closest accessible sheltered anchorage being more than 25km (15 miles) away, but at least it should reduce the wave height somewhat, and perhaps also the wind force. Force 9 winds out to sea can make waves 7-10 meters (20-30ft) high.

Fortunately the wind lessened a little, to wind force 8, under the coast. We then ran north-west in front of the wind along the coast, back to Parga, the nearest available shelter. We made it there safely, with no significant damage or personal injury, though we are both badly shaken. This thing really came out of nowhere, and it makes you realize just how powerless you are in the face of the forces of nature...

I'll keep you posted, thanks for reading.

We've had an absolutely excellent week, with good weather and even some playing with dolphins.

After the bad experience described in the previous post, we decided to take a few days off. We stayed at anchor off Parga and spent our days mostly ashore, hiking around the village and the fort. Good times, and a good way to shake the bad feelings.

When we felt comfortable again, we made a second attempt at going to Preveza. This time, things went without much of a hitch. No hard winds or other extreme weather. We made it to preveza just fine, and stuck around there for a day.

Next, we went into Amvrakikos Kolpos, the Gulf of Amvrakia. This is an inland sea, connected to the Ionian via the Preveza channel. It is notably more quiet, being out of the way a bit for most sailing trips, and is known for its ritch wildlife, due to the extensive silted marshes on its north coast. The wildlife includes dolphins, sea turtles and all sorts of birds.

We've sailed around here for about a week now, generally having an execllent time. The best day so far was May 20th, which happens to be Gineke's birthday. On that day, after a restless night due to drunken night fishermen on the pier where we were anchored, we went from Menidhion on the far east to Vonitsa on the south shore of the gulf. On the way, we ran into a group of dolphins. At first, there were two, a mother and young, sticking close together. Then two more joined, and later yet another two, for a total of six dolphins all around our boat.

We had a great time observing them lazily swimming around, until after a while they fell behind. We decided to move on, but as soon as we fired up the engine, two of the dolphins came towards us again. Apparently, the sound attracted them, they do like to play with boats. We decided to drive the engine up to max speed, which isn't all that much, about 6 knots (7mph/11kmh), but turned out to be enough to get one of the dolphins in a playful mood. He swam up to us quickly, then surfed and swam around in our bow wave. What an absolutely incredible sight! An experience we will both treasure for the rest of our lives, I'm sure.

Thanks for reading, Herman out.

like waves, our trip has its ups and downs. Most of last month has been great, but recently we had a bit of a down again. More on that later.

After leaving Amvrakikos Kolpos, where we played with the dolphins, we passed through the Lefkas canal, and visited Lefkas town on Lefkas island. For Lefkas, the term "island" is a bit of a stretch. The gap between Lefkas and the mainland silted shut a long long time ago. But, since the west coast of Lefkas is all inhospitable cliffs (though very beautiful), it is very attractive to dig a canal through the low silted area. The Corinthians already did so in the 8th century BC. And with that canal, it became an island again. And for Greek law, as long as there is no bridge, it counts as an island. Which is why even today, it is only connected to the mainland by ferry. The fact that this ferry is just as long as the canal is wide, and is laid straight across it with ramps on both sides is just a technicality. To Lefkas residents, it is FB Santa Maura, the ferry, and definiletly not a bridge.

From Lefkas, we went south, and for the last month we've been sailing around the so called "Inland Sea", an excellent sailing area, sheltered from the open sea by the islands of Lefkas, Cephalonia, Ithaca and Zakynthos. This is the same Ithaca of Homer's Odyssey fame, the home island of Odysseus himself. Many places around here are in fact associated with the Odyssey. Lovely area to be sailing in.

This week, while visiting Ithaca, we had a small down again. Ithaca is famed for the hard winds around it, and after a day with some of those hard winds, we noticed a tear in our Genoa (the sail in front of the mast). Nothing mayor, just a few inches, but you can't keep sailing with it, or it'll get bigger. So we put into Vathi, on Ithaca, and asked the port authority about sail repair. Turns out we had to go back to Lefkas for that. So back north we went. In Nidri, on Lefkas, we found a good sail repair shop, Sioux Sails, run by a British lady, together with her Dutch husband. her professional opinion was that the sail was fixable, but that it was very old and probably wouldn't last much longer. Since our charter company does not have a spare sail, we had it fixed and are hoping it'll lasty the remaining three months.

Next week, Gineke's mother will come visit us, and sail with us for a weekend. We're looking forward to that, as it's nice break from our regular schedule and we get to share this beautiful area with others.

Thanks for reading! Herman out.

Herman, be safe.

Awesome, traveling is always something to take advantage of. So much to see out there! Should be more like the days in the Bible where crops weren't planted every seventh year.

The waves go up.
The waves go down.

Gineke's mother's visit was a smashing success, we actually saw some dolphins again, and we also took the opportunity of having a rental car available to visit some caves inland on Cephalonia. A very nice change of pace, as we normally don't get more than a few miles from any harbor.

After the visit, we decided to move on out of the Ionian sea and try to visit the Aegean sea on the other side of Greece. We went south to Zakynthos, then east into the gulf of Corinth, as we want to pass through the Corinth Canal. We entered the gulf of Corinth from Patras, and moored in the tiny harbor of Nafpaktos on the mainland.

And that's where it all went wrong.

Mooring in Nafpaktos took some doing, as the quay that yachts normally moor on had silted, and was too shallow. So we put in at another quay, right next to a huge motor yacht. The motor yacht had put a line from their bow to the quay, sort of closing of the remaining space, and we had too push it away a bit to get close to the quay. That meant that our gangplank, the plank from the boat to the pier, was leaning on top of this rope. And with the waves and the tide, it can move around a bit. Not a safe situation.

We had just visited the beach for a swim, and were on our way back to the boat, when we saw a small yacht enter the harbor. I decided to help them moor, while Gineke went to the boat. As she stepped on the gangplank, one point rolled of the quay. Because of the line under the middle of the plank, that made the other end flip up out of its socket, and before she knew what happened, Gineke fell 1.5m (5ft) down into the water. She called out to me, and I rushed to help. She had managed to pull herself up onto the boat when I got there, but was in serious pain. It turned out she had hit a stone ledge just under the surface with her back, making a long gash of about 20cm (8in) across her lower back from left to right.

We immediately cleaned out the wound with water, then sterilized it with alcohol, put betadine on it and covered it with sterile gauze. It looked like the gash had not gone deep, and would probably heal on its own, so we decided to wait and see. After dinner, we noticed some fresh blood had seeped into the bandages, so we decided to visit a hospital and have it looked at. Turns out that all taxis in Greece were on strike that day, in protest of the current government regulations to stabilize the economy. Luckily, some people from a nearby restaurant were able to help us, as you could get a taxi for emergency reason such as this by calling the police.

The taxi driver was very nice. The restaurant staff had told him we wanted to go to the (major) hospital in Patras, but when he found out the wound was not that serious, he suggested to take us to the Nafpaktos medical center, which was much closer and therefore a much cheaper taxi fare. He also told us we would probably be helped a lot quicker.

At the medical center, the doctor at first agreed with us that the wound would probably heal on its own, and would not need stitches, but upon closer examination decided to put one stitch in, just to be sure. When putting that in, it started bleeding again, so they put in three more. They then covered it with gauze, gave her a prescription for some antibiotics, and sent us on our way.

And that's were we are now. Gineke should not put any stress on her lower back, so no bending or twisting, and should try to keep it dry. Because you can't really live on a boat without bending and twisting a little, here and there, and because the summer heat of 30-35°C (85-95°F) makes for a lot of sweating, we've decide to check into a hotel with airco. That's where we will be spending the next few days.

So for now, we're stuck here. We hope everything will be okay, and that we can continue our trip next week.

Thanks for reading, Herman out

One the road again! Or rather, given our mode of travel, on the waves again. Anyway, just a quick note to let people know that we're finally underway again after being stuck in Nafpaktos for 2 weeks, with 5 visits to the doctor.