Muskie was launched back into the Mediterranean on Monday ready to have the mast stepped on Tuesday. The Copper Coat with its bronze brown colour, that will eventually change to green when its been in the sea for a while looked fab.

All went well with the mast stepping in the end, although at one point we did think the rig might have been made a little too short when the team had a struggle to put the forestay on. Then the rig was tensioned with a huge tension gauge, much bigger than the one I use for JC (Scorpion dinghy) and Muskie was ready for her sea trials on Wednesday. The team even helped us to put the sails on Tuesday evening.

Wednesday dawned with a lovely 12kts of wind and by 1000 am the sea trials were complete and we were free to go. We had a pump out of black water and got some fuel and then anchored in the bay for a couple of nights to get Muskie back together, put  the headlinings back up and everything back in place before setting off to explore some of Türkiye Ionian and Aeolian coast.

Our first stop was Port of St Paul, or as it turned out Port Nickolao because Port St Paul was a bit narrow and the wind direction was nothing like it said it should have been from the forecast, so we didn’t risk going in there and getting stuck if the anchor didn’t hold. We managed to sail most of the way after a windless start from Didim and anchored in Port Nickolao. The first time we anchored the wind was SW light with a westerly swell coming in. Then we had to put out more chain as the wind changed to the N NE, then more chain as the wind increased to F4-5 with a SW swell and NE wind, then more chain until the inevitable happened and we had to re-anchor. We are in for a roller coaster of a night!

Anyone for a game of Jenga?

They make a lovely sound when they fall down - mind your toes though.

Sunset from Port St Nickolao looking over Port St Paul with Samos in the background.