Where was I?
Rachel of London
Andi Healey (Skipper)
Wed 29 Jun 2011 19:42
Now. Where was I? Oh yes , Lagos.
It's now 7 weeks later (oops, not very good at this!) and we've been in
Marmaris, Turkey for 3 weeks. It's lovely here.
We left Lagos early on 8th May, with Tony, Terry Mac and myself on board.
Not a cloud in the sky and no wind to speak of. By midnight it had picked up
to a Force 7 from the East. Right on the nose with a very rough sea. Not
pleasant and what should have been an easy 24 hour leg took us 33 hours. We
stayed in Gibraltar for 3 days whilst we stocked up on fags, fuel, new
shirts and toffee vodka (more of that later).
The plan was to head to Marsala, Sicily, pick up Mike then head to Valetta,
Malta. The first 2 days where spent beating into an Easterly Force 5/6 but
then the wind obligingly backed to the Northwest and dropped to a Force 4,
so we were able to put in a 204.9 and 205.1 day.
One night in Marsala, then a nice overnight sail to Malta. We arrived at
10.00am in hot sunshine. This is more like it.
Wow....... Valetta is the most fantastic harbour entrance I have ever seen.
The city (the whole island) is steeped in history from the Knights of Saint
John (even the chandlery is in a building built in 1558) to World War 2. I
spent a couple of weeks in Malta while Tony went home to earn the money for
our adventure, and the guys went back to work. Met some lovely people and
invented a new "Dom Pedro"...... melted vanilla ice cream and toffee
vodka.. yum!
Tony, Mike and I left Malta on 4th June, wind on the nose of course, heading
for Crete. We decided, in anticipation of a wind shift, to get some South in
the bag, so headed off towards Libya. During the second night we heard the
NATO forces on the VHF telling the Libyan Navy not to leave port or approach
NATO ships or "you will be targeted for destruction". We turned left a bit
and ran away. Later we had 6 warships in sight (3 to port and 3 to
starboard, with us sailing through the middle of them). The hope was that
they were all on the same side and we wouldn't get caught in the crossfire!
On approaching Heraklion, Crete we had conflicting opinions from our various
Almanacs and pilot books about the depth of the marina, so Tony decided that
I should go ahead in the RIB and check it out. No problem! Except I jumped
in the RIB and shot off whilst we were still 4 miles away! Not my best call.
If anyone is thinking of going to Heraklion in a yacht that draws more than
2.5 metres. Don't! You end up on the outer harbour wall with the fishing
boats and ferries. Needless to say it was only a 1 night stop!
Mike had to get back to the UK, so Tony and I soldiered on to Turkey alone.
Good weather but not a lot of wind and we arrived in Marmaris on 9th June.
It's a great bas and we have been out sailing and diving (and lunching) in
the numerous local bays. We had a bit of excitement one afternoon. Heading
back to the marina we got caught in a sudden, violent thunderstorm,
including zero visibility, stinging hailstones and over 50 knots of freezing
wind. All out of a glorious Summers day. The wind and hail was that strong
that it managed to break our carbon fibre flagstaff and we could hear and
smell the lightening, it was that close. Very frightening, but "that which
doesn't kill us makes us stronger" and all that.
We are off down the coast exploring for the next few weeks so I'll try to be
a bit more conscientious with my updates!
Bye for now.
