On a sailboat your have to keep a log book in which
you enter relevant information about your voyages. Logbook entries supposed to
be titled as going from “Towards” and not “To”? When sailing you never
know what happens. So it has become customary to speak and title the logs
“Towards” and not “To”. No all printed log book publishers know of this custom
though. The logbook we received from our broker with Next Life use the term
“To”.
The weather may require a change in your plans, or
technical problems may force you to look for another harbor. Today’s weather
forecasts are reliable enough to make it less of an issue for short trips of up
to 3 days. However, during the times with no real weather forecast these
customs were established. Recently, a sailor in an British magazine wrote about
his experiences, and that on occasion he forgot the “towards” and went by the
“to”, only to find that he put his boat and the live of his crew in danger.
Our story of changing “Towards” - or Next Life's Odyssey
We had struggled this whole trip from April on to
be at the pick up and drop off locations for our several sets of guests at
specific times. Our departure from Les Sables was delayed because of a really
bad spring. It was bad enough for a British sailing magazine to dedicate a
four-page article on it, and on the jet stream which kept sending low after low
south when it was supposed to keep them further north. So we had to delay
several times the arrival of Silke's dad, who was joining us for the crossing
of the Bay of Biscay and beyond. Our delayed departure from Les Sables meant
that our guests joining us in Malaga had to change their flights. Then we had
to make it to Mallorca for their departure. Pressing on under engine up the
Spanish coast, mostly against the wind and waves, made it so uncomfortable that
some of our guests decided to abandon ship early and fly home from a different
location.
Petra, Silke’s sister, was brave enough to stay on.
We tried to make it from Ibiza to Palma for Petra’s return flight a day before
her departure. About 5 miles after leaving the protection of Ibiza Island the
waves got really bad. Also our friend Gonzalo called me from Mallorca to report
that the easing winds in my earlier forecast had been replaced with force 9
(41+ knots) near Mallorca during the time of our estimated arrival. When the
next breaking wave on the beam made Next Life appear to stand on her ears, we
decided to turn back and run for cover.
Petra searched the Internet for options to change
her flight, use a ferry or a local flight to make it to her plane in Palma on
time. In the mean time I got weather forecasts from several sources and
convinced Petra that the next day really looked better. In deed we had a good
crossing.
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| Costa Concordia - not "To" but "Towards" |
For our next guest, Andrea, we got wiser and planned to make
it towards our next destination early. Good we did that as a leaking water
maker forced us to spend several days in and unplanned harbor to wait for the
new part from the US. Because of further delays with the repair I took the water
maker out of the boat and left it with the service center. We continued to Rome
where we rented a car and drove back up the coast to pick up the fixed water
maker a few days later.
We dropped Andrea and picked up Kim in Rome. We
had planned continuing down the Italian coast, but our wind instruments still
did not work, even though we had just received a new mast head unit. So we did a
180 degree turn and went all the way to Hyres on the French Riviera with Kazaio
to try for a third time to have our wind instrument fixed. Hyres has one of the largest Lagoon dealer and Raymarine installer. I am glad we did repair it there, as
it has been working ever since. (Update: I looked at the instruments 5
minutes after I wrote this and no wind readings. Luckily, after restarting all
instruments the wind readings are back. Do they want to tell me something?)
Having learned from past experiences we left
Corsica rather early to make it to Corfu. for our next guests. When
we arrived in Corfu we where exhausted from making it
to all the previous appointments, so we decided to change their travel
plans.
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| The Schönwalds |
When the Schoenwalds arrived we proposed to them
that they would have to take a ferry from a convenient island in the Cyclades
to Crete for their return flight. We felt we would not want to make the long
trip from Corfu to Crete in two weeks, and drop of Kim in Athens just a few
days later.
At the same time we told the Arbingers, our
September guests, to change their arrival airport. We had made plans to pick
them up in Rhodes and drop them in Catania on Sicily two weeks later. After a
series of emails they changed their arrival from Rhodes to Santorini in the
Cyclades. We thought we where all set now.
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| Next Life's Meltemi Odyssey |
As it turned out this year's Meltemi – the summer north
wind in the Cyclades – was blowing like mad and often for a full week
with no break. We got storm locked in Naousa on Paros.
For a few days we could not even cross the little bay in our dinghy to get into
town, neither did the ferry boats run to the beach near us. A nice spot to be locked in though. Kim even learned to wake board.
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| Kim's first wake board lesson |
When we finally did
get into town, all ferries to Crete were sold out. Can you believe it? Well, school started the next week in Germany and probably in other EU countries as
well and everybody was leaving the islands. A mad rush followed to book a ferry
the dame day to Piraeus (north), a hotel there for over night, then a ferry to Crete (south),
with another hotel there. We have to thank the Schoenwalds for taking on such
an odyssey through the Greek island, on what I am sure were crowded ships with
not place to sit, on voyages that measure in 10ths of hours.
Instead of sailing to Athens against the Meltemi to drop
off Kim, we decided to just sail one Island north to Mykonos. From there Kim and I took a
flight to Athens, while Silke and the pets stayed in Mykonos. We got to see the Acropolis and the Plaka.
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| Kim at the Acropolis |
Even air travel is not without “Towards” effects. Kim’s flight was delayed for
14 hours. I had booked my flight back to Mykonos 30 minutes before Kim’s
departure. It should have worked great as for the international flight we were
at the airport 3 hours before scheduled departure. My local flight only
required me to go through security only 30 minutes before departure. Well, the
long line up caused by rebooking so many people caused me to have to leave Kim
in the care of a nice Greek couple with two grand children in the line up. Kim
was put up in a hotel and arrived almost a day late in Victoria. Two weeks
later she got stuck in Vancouver on her flight to Tokio for a full day due to a
medical emergency with a passenger.
In the mean time Silke was sitting out a storm in
Mykonos.
After Mykonos we went back to Naousa and got storm
bound for several days again! After a few days we dared to leave our anchorage
and start heading south toward Santorini for the Arbingers. The fight north out
of the bay against the steep waves and maneuvering between little rocks and
islands to get some shelter on an otherwise lee shore was not fun at all. It
felt like someone was under the boat pounding it with a sledgehammer every 5
seconds. Spray was coming over the boat all the time. At one point Silke and I
got totally drenched by solid water on the fly bride about 3 meters above the
water. Boy, where we glad when we could point the bow down wind and get the
waves from the stern. Three reefs in the main and genoa was all we dared to
carry with winds gusting over 40 knots in the acceleration zone between Paros
and Paxos islands.
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| Waves pound Next Life |
Santorini was a challenge to find a suitable anchorage and we spend over
4 hours going from spot to spot. Next day we picked up the Arbingers and did
some sight seeing. We then told them that making it to Catania in time for
their return flight would be highly unlikely. We decided that we look for a
return flight from one of the Cyclades islands or Athens, depending on where we
will end up.
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| Santorini |
When the weather forecast looked like less wind, we started going
towards the island of Anafi, east of Santorini. Well this excursion did not
last long. The waves became so big and and steep on the beam that we got scared
and turned back toward Santorini. Having given up on our excursion east we
decided to get closer to Athens and send them on a ferry to meet their flight
there. With some more rough weather passages under engine against the wind we
made it to Adamas on the island of Milos. This is where the Arbingers left by
ferry and this would also be our jump off point two days later for the start of
our return trip through the Mediterranean. But that is another story.
