Interlude
July in Georgia is like living in a steam room. Afternoon showers and thunderstorms, and relentless humid heat. After a few weeks in St. Marys we had had enough of it. We made plans to have our boat hauled out at the St. Marys boat yard for the remainder of the hurricane season and booked tickets to fly back to England and the Canary Islands to visit our respective families. Dave’s son and his girlfriend were due to have their first baby in August, and all in all, we felt it was time to see them all after almost a year.Before leaving we spent a lovely long weekend at Cumberland Island, which if you remember, we had only seen in the rain previously. This time it was sunny! We anchored in front of the landing dock and spent our days wandering around the magnificent island, experiencing its eerie forests, the sixteen mile long beach, and the beautiful ruins that remain from the days when the Carnegies celebrated their lives here with their friends. Wild horses, deer, armadillos, turkeys, horse shoe crabs, dolphins – you name it, we saw it all there! If you ever come to Georgia, make sure you take the ferry from St. Marys over there to enjoy the beauty of this natural reserve! Fully rested we motored back up the river to St. Marys, and enjoyed our old and new friends there, while preparing our boat for the hurricane season.
Hurricane Preparedness!
Our sails, our bimini and dodger and any loose objects had to be removed and stowed to decrease windage in the event of strong winds. Once done, we took Anam Cara up the North River to the boat yard, and had to wait for a high slack tide due to the very shallow haul out area. With a six foot tide, we only had about one foot under our keel there at haul out, and that was at high tide! My nerves a bit more frayed, we finally managed to get Anam Cara hauled and blocked safely at the little boat yard. We were immediately welcomed by all the cruisers who live on their boats there while fixing them up! This is one of the last DIY boat yards left, and has an incredibly relaxed and friendly atmosphere. While we worked our tails off getting the boat ready, our buddys at the boat yard invited us to their hearty meals in the evenings. Sitting on the little porch with them we began exchanging sea stories, and suddenly it dawned on me that we had quite a bit to talk about! All the advice we had sought out from other more experienced cruisers previously was suddenly being solicited from us! How far we had come, and how much we had already learned in such a short time!!!Savannah
A few days before our flight to London, our friends from St. Marys (Tom & Sybille) came to pick us up at the boat yard and gave us a ride to Savannah. We decided to spend a few days there to see Savannah and to avoid melting in the relentless heat on our boat without air conditioning. Over the internet I found us very cheap rooms close to downtown Savannah, and to our surprise, the place wasn’t too bad considering how inexpensive it was! Savannah is truly a lovely little place, with a very European flair to it – charming old buildings and parks. We enjoyed our first few days back on “the land”, eating delicious Thai food, taking long showers, watching TV in our hotel room! All things we hadn’t enjoyed in a long time! Best of all, when it rained and stormed, we didn’t worry about our anchor or whether all our hatches were closed, we just snuggled up in our huge hotel room bed together!Family time
A beautiful sunny England welcomed us with a perfect temperature of about 75 degrees farenheit. What a relief after the Georgian summer!We spent our days visiting with family,
staying at Dave’s brother’s
house. Pete and Brig treated us royally, and we spent many pleasant evenings
sitting in their lovely garden enjoying Brig’s fantastic food. Of course
visiting Dave’s son and daughter was fun as always. Bianca’s three
little kids become more adorable all the time, and Dylan was in the last weeks
prior to fatherhood. To my great fortune, we also coincided with my own sister,
Marion, who had moved from Australia to France with her family. Her sister in law
lives in London, and they flew over for a visit with Andy’s sister and
family, and with us! That meant that we could enjoy my wonderful little nieces too,
and we had much fun taking them for walks in the country picking fresh black
berries, visiting Covent Garden in London, and taking them to a 3-D movie!
Tenerife
After two weeks in England, it was time to move on to Tenerife to visit my parents. What a lovely reunion! They welcomed us with a fantastic meal on their beautiful terrace, overlooking the Atlantic. We were incredibly blessed too to have the use of a house in my parents neighborhood,
which
belongs to some dear friends. Having much more time to visit than ever before I finally
had a chance to really show Dave around
my birth place. We went on some lovely hikes, many of them with my
mother, who is an avid hiker, and knows the island inside out. We climbed up to the
rim of the islands crater.From here we had a spectacular view onto Teide, the almost
12,000 foot high volcano. Anaga, Teno, and the Canadas offered us splendid scenery,
and we felt joyful in its beauty and the opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with
our leg muscles! Nowhere we had taken our boat could even boast a hill, and now we
were hiking up steep canyons and mountains again!In addition to all the fabulous food in Tenerife, we also enjoyed wonderful company of many friends I hadn’t seen for a long time. My friends even organized a class reunion, to which, to my absolute amazement, some people appeared from far away! Tamara and her boyfriend Ryan flew in from Switzerland! Tamara and I hadn’t seen each other in 25 years probably! My headmaster and his wife, Chris and Margaret Green, came all the way from the other end of Tenerife to join us too! It was incredibly humbling and joyful to see all these beautiful people again. A true delight and treat!
Sailing against the wind
Anam Cara had not made it to the Mediterranean this year, and so my dear Dad, who needed his sailing fix, decided to charter a boat for the four of us, so we could enjoy some sailing together. We arrived in Greece on September 16th, and the next day, on the island of Naxos took over a 48 foot greek built Ocean Star which my parents had chartered before. A very comfortable boat, one you could actually walk around on, compared to our little 37 footer!Our first sail was, unfortunately, to be our only pleasant sail on this journey! We had a beautiful calm sea, and a following wind which gently propelled us towards the Southern tip of the island of Paros, where we found a sheltered and pleasant anchorage for the night. From then on, the “meltemi” hit for the remainder of our holiday! The meltemi is a strong cold northerly wind, which blows relentlessly for a day or two, or even a week, as was the case here! Seeing as our journey was all northbound towards Athens, we were cold, wet and tossed around high waves a lot! Our boat, fortunately, was very solidly built, and handled itself well.
The best thing about the Aegean Sea is the abundance of protected bays to anchor in, and so at least in the evenings, we were always safely tucked away somewhere, huddled inside the boat out of the cold, playing cards and cooking yummy food. As such, the highlight of our trip turned out to be a cove on the island of Kithnos, where we found a gorgeous hot spring right on the beach! Imagine it – crystal clear blue water, in a beautiful secluded bay, a rocky, fantastic landscape, and a small hot bath which you can lay in and get warm! It was like heaven on earth, and made the whole journey worth the while! We spent two days at the spot, warming ourselves up again, and hiking around the ruins and abandoned fields from times past. And at long last, the meltemi calmed down a bit, to make our journey back to Athens a little easier…
Farewell sweet home…
The last week in Tenerife is always the hardest, with the looming farewell! This time too, in our minds we are wondering what the future will hold for us, as we are not going back to a house, but rather a floating home that will take us, well, where??? The answer is, we don’t yet know! The unforeseen expenditures of the past year, and the repairs we still need to make on Anam Cara from the lightning strike, have left us much shorter on cash than we anticipated. We are hoping then, to be able to find jobs for some time to replenish our cruising funds.All that aside, we still enjoyed my Dad’s birthday with him and some friends, and a few more balmy and sunny days in Tenerife, swimming in the natural lava pools that exist there, and enjoying the many many things that make the place almost like paradise!
Autumn
Our plane touched down in London, Heathrow airport. We stepped off the plane to find ourselves in a different world. Cold wind hit us in the face, orange leaves swaying to the ground, the trees shedding their multicolored glory! It is fall, and with it comes a bit of melancholy and a bit of homesickness for California. I am sitting here looking out at a gloomy sky, Dave is in bed with a bad head cold, and these are our last days with family here in the UK. In California I know the persimmons are ripening, and the light is turning to gold every afternoon. It becomes vividly alive in my imagination, and if a boat could fly, well, we would surely bring it to California for a while before setting off on our next adventure, so that we could work and play amongst our beloved extended family, who we call friends!Dave’s new granddaughter Eila is the latest little angel that has been added to our family, and it is a joy to see Dylan and Kirstee delight in their first baby!
Jo, Dave’s sister, has flown in from Spain, so we can spend some time
together also. Bianca’s family is down with a cold also, making it a bit
difficult to play with her precious little ones. As much as we can, we will make
the best of the time that remains. After all, it is love and
gratitude that we hold in our hearts for all the wonderful people in our lives- our
families and our friends who bless us with their love all the time.
