Not a very good start to being on our own. I was just about to go ashore about 8pm on Wednesday, 9^th July when, as Dick pressed the button on the remote, to lower the passarelle, there was a hissing sound and there, below the passarelle was a huge pool of oil and the whole thing was now inoperable. We really need to get the problem sorted before we move across the Aegean or we will have to wait until we lay the boat up for the winter. The passarelle was only fitted at the end of March, while the boat was out of the water, wintering in Marmaris, Turkey.

 Had to bite the bullet and sail back to Marmaris to get the passarelle repaired. It also gives us the opportunity to get various other things repaired and sorted while we are here. Things always happen for a reason and now we are in a marina. Actually on the outside pontoon, sea side, but as near as dammit as far as a marina is concerned. We have 2 lazy lines holding the bows and at least 4 lines ashore.

It was fortunate that we were tied up safely as the evening of the day we arrived in the marina, a squall hit us, raining briefly, on the decks which I had just cleaned, with the wind blowing a hooley!

I had my hair cut very short again today. I also had it bleached all over. It wasn’t possible to have highlights as my hair has been cut much too short. I quite like it but Dick isn’t too sure and reckons I must have visited the same barber as Annie Lennox. It will be OK in 3 or 4 weeks when the roots have grown a bit and the sun and sea have lightened it.

There are several Lagoon catamarans at this marina. One is the same model as our catamaran, and is moored just 100 metres away, on the same pontoon as us, wide open to the sea. The owner picked his up from France recently and is sailing it to Thailand, where he lives. He is much impressed with all the improvements we have made to our boat and is coming aboard later to get the details of the various types of equipment, covers, etc.

After rushing from one to place to the next, since we left Plymouth at the beginning of June, 2006, we can now slow down and do what we wanted to do from the beginning,  relax and cruise slowly from country to country, island to island, bay to bay.

Dick has updated the blog so that you can now see the passage that we have taken since leaving Plymouth. The automatic update ceased when we reached Lebanon because the satellite phone had stopped working. We hadn’t had a moment to rectify the backlog until our forced stop-over in Marmaris.

The posting of this blog is the 14^th July but I don’t expect to do another until the beginning of August.

Until the next time, have fun and enjoy the summer.

Below, Irene with new hair-do