Distress in Greek Waters – Don’t Press That Red Button!
What happens if you end up in a distress situation in Greece, and call the coast guards? We tested, and lived to tell the story.
Auf Wiedersehen, Messolonghi!
Everything must come to an end, and that fortunately includes the corona lockdown. Our winter home, the town of Messolongi, emerged from its long slumber, and more and more people could be seen around town. The shops and services opened up one by one, and our small world: the marina, Lidl and AB supermarkets – the triangle our daily life had pretty much evolved around – was growing bigger. Finally pleasure boats were given the green light to sail from one port to another, that is those boats that already happened to be in Greek waters. Boats coming from abroad will have to wait for their turn a little while longer.
Successful Sailboat Project: Solar Energy and Self Suffiency
In the midst of busy boat projects you never have time to write down everything that goes on. Later on it seldom feels like a tempting subject, especially if there are interesting travel stories waiting to be told. But sometimes a perfect opportunity presents itself – like when you’re waiting on a Galician ría to get some engine service done, and it’s freezing cold and cloudy – so I decided on a little article about the solar energy system we installed a year ago. Besides, we now have a whole year’s worth of experience and insight. If you’re into technical stuff and boat projects, you might find this interesting – if not, travel stories will appear soon enough!
Done the Biscay!
There are certain things in life that you anticipate with such fear and anxiety, you feel quite surprised afterwards to have survived them. Things like the first day of school, driving test, first date, wedding day – and crossing the Bay of Biscay!
The Journey Continues! Roscoff and Camaret-sur-Mer
The spring in Brittany turned out to be long. Because of the blooming flowers and warm days we had experienced in February we had expected to be on our way much earlier, but it seems the phenomenon called the “second winter” is not entirely unknown beyond Scandinavia. April came and went before we felt ready to leave.
Happy New Year 2019!
These were some of the highlights of 2018 – one of the most memorable years for us so far, and undoubtedly the most eventful!
Six Months Recap and Christmas Greetings!
Our journey began in June this year. That means we have now sailed slowly, and not particularly surely, towards southerly latitudes for more than six months. Having reached such a milestone, many sailors like to draw a summary of the highlights, measure how well their expectations were met, publish statistics about their journey and so on. It’s a good idea, so why not give it a try.
Anchors aweigh!
If you’re reading this, it means we have untied the lines and are somewhere out at sea! Heading towards the southern horizon, I hope, and next time you will hear from us when we find land again.
Bittersweet times
A couple of days into May it was time to launch our boat, Aina. The time came sooner than we had really hoped for, as we were neck deep in boat projects. But the big crane had only been booked for one day, and the costs could be shared by several boats, so we had to be ready. We had the boat survey done, keel cooler units installed on the bottom, two layers of new antifouling applied and all the zincs replaced. Right on time!
Boat Projects Start Again – with Another Big Bang!
I have read Stephen Hawking’s Brief History of Time. I know the universe started with a Big Bang, and as soon as it’ll be done expanding it’ll shrink again, and another Big Bang will follow. The same theory seems to apply to boat projects. Last year it wreaked havoc on our little boat, and we had to sweat for days and weeks on end to get everything back together. But in the end we had a much better boat than we started with. I’m really hoping that this spring we can pull it off again – on our new boat! During the Easter holidays we finally had time, and tolerable weather – it’s a rare thing for the two to happen at the same time during the Finnish spring – to delve into the boat matters and to take a better look at our projects.
The Crew – Clever, Skilled, Qualified
Planning a great sailing voyage is hard work. And it’s almost all new to us. Budgeting and planning, refitting and kitting our boat, safety aspects, charts, cruising guides, navigation electronics and programs, weather, tides, insurance, permits and qualifications, vaccinations, prescriptions, cruising routes, interesting places to see along the way… Not to mention the mental preparation! It’s really hard to imagine what it will be like to give up a permanent home on solid ground and move your whole life onto a floating home on the water. What will it be like to swap your safe, familiar everyday life for an uncertain future, your regular income for living off savings or odd jobs – and your monotone, wearisome life for complete freedom!
Books, Blogs and Videotape – Inspiration and Knowledge for a Sailing Voyage
Winter days are short above 60° north. Really, really, depressingly short! But there’s one positive consequence: the evenings are very long! And if you like reading as much as I do, a long evening spent with a good book will make everything brighter! As we are planning to cast the lines and begin our big sailing adventure next summer, I have lately focused almost exclusively on sailing books. To be honest, I have also focused on browsing the web, but I can defend myself – it’s all been sailing related!
Sailing the Big Seas – From Dreams to Plans to Reality
”We sold everything, bought a sailboat and went sailing around the world!”
If you read blogs or watch Youtube channels about people cruising around in sailboats, you may have come across these words a few times. They seem to be the cruisers’ favourite urban legend. But you seldom hear the story behind the words.
Delayed by Storm
Our summer holiday started this afternoon. We had planned to hop on our boat and sail away the minute our last working day was over, particularly as the wind forecast was showing pretty nice figures earlier this week. According to a couple of different sources there was going to be a brisk easterly wind of 15 to 20 knots. That would have pushed us nicely dead downdwind for a few days, and we could have made it pretty far west towards the Archipelago Sea on the south west corner of Finland, perhaps even as far as the Åland islands. Easterlies are quite rare in the summer in the Gulf of Finland, where the prevailing winds are southwesterlies, so it’s always good to take advantage of them if heading west.
Ready for the Summer’s Sail – or the Seven Seas?
So you want to go sailing?
Countdown to summer sail
For most Finns the summer is now as good as over. July is the holiday month and now kids are going back to school and adults to work. But we still have our summer holidays to look forward to, and in just a few days we’ll begin our first longer journey on our own sailboat.
The last days we have been doing boat projects and have turned some of them pretty exotic without leaving the home port. Costs have been higher than anticipated, everything has taken more time than anticipated, and some lessons have been learned the hard way. Maybe we really are sailors now, because this is what everyone keeps telling it’s all about!
Here’s our newest crew member. I’m hoping our holiday photos will turn out better from now on.