Late April 2022
As last year, first a brief resumé of what we actually achieved last year, in case you missed our end of year pictorial round-up (and until Mate actually applies herself to updating the blog…):
We were granted permission to ‘splash’ at the beginning of April 2021, but having launched safely by simply floating off the trailer – just like the dinghies we always say L’Escale resembles – we remained on Preveza town quay until restrictions eased in May. By then, we were in the system and awaiting confirmation of our vaccination appointments, so we only cruised as far as Corfu, book-ending our sailing with trips to Levkas hospital.
We decided to stay in the Ionian to facilitate an easy return to the UK in August for some much-needed family time, and in September Mate’s mother flew out for a trip down memory lane. Second Mate joined us in October for an overnight blast through a thunderstorm to Kalamata in the Peloponnese, and we continued from there to Lavrion on the Attica peninsula for Athens, and a visit from brave new friends at the end of the month.
We spent November picking our weather windows to continue East and South via a selection of Aegean islands to our final destination, Rhodes, where we’d agreed to spend the Winter with our good friends from Gibraltar, the German couple who sail an Ovni 455CS. There being no room at the inn on Crete, we were optimistic of a pleasant, sheltered off-season exploring this fascinating island at our leisure…but it didn’t work out quite like that…
After a wet, windy and bouncy December and January in Rhodes, we fled to the UK for some ‘family business’ through February and March. In early April, we checked out of Greece to sail to Fethiye on the Turquoise or Lycian Coast of Southwest Turkey. We enjoyed Easter with our French/Norwegian sailing friends, and are slowly making our way North to Istanbul, which we intend to explore at leisurely length during May.
We shall return to Greece at the end of our three-month (non-visa) permitted visit, to explore the Aegean islands, hopefully with the Northerly meltemi wind always at our stern. We aim to reach Crete for another extended stay in September; making the most of our Greek residency. As the days shorten towards the end of this year, we hope to cruise the Dodecanese we missed last Autumn, and return to the Fethiye/Marmaris area for a Winter of boat jobs, relieved with a couple of trips independent of our beloved L’Escale, to Vienna for a pre-Christmas ‘fix’ postponed from last year, and a pre-season hunt for the Northern Lights on a Hurtigruten cruise of the West coast of Norway, early in 2023.
As always, we hope to see you somewhere, sometime …