The best way of storing carrots, subject to water temperature

The shriveled, slightly moldy carrot has been stored in the fridge, the fresher carrot in the bilge. We were happy to store some of our veggies in the hold for longer fresh keeping. However, all is not as it seems. In the Hot Mediterranean summer, veggies are best kept in the fridge (or better, the freezer). The water temperature went up by more than 10 degrees as we went into the Med, and this tipped the balance again.  We will start storing our veggies in the hold again when we are back in the Atlantic.

Some good sailing, still beautiful pictures, but no fish

Day 3 of Arjen's visit - occurred 14 August

See my earlier posts for an overview of my journey:
Day 2 - A new day, a new bay
Day 1 - Dining out on our first night
Day 0 - Visiting the SaltyPaws in Corfu

We wake up in the beautiful bay and the sea still perfectly calm due to the total absence of any wind. After a morning swim and breakfast, we decide to explore the island.

The whole southern side of the island is one slow curving bay and basically beach all the way. On the south-western corner is the small town. Walbert has read somewhere that there are only 8 permanent inhabitants on the whole island, but in season it is obviously busier although by no means crowded: There are only 10 people on the whole 1 kilometer long beach!

The small and remote island of Ereikousa. I've added a scale on the left. 

We realise that we didn't bring a camera so unfortunately no pictures. There is a very small park with an old torpedo as the main eye-catcher. We guess correctly that it is German-made but the date on the nameplate surprises us: it was built in 1965. How does that end up on display on this particular island? There is no explanation sign to help us out.

There are a handful of small hotels and B&Bs and some beautiful restaurants. Even with these hotels, it is really very empty and quiet and lovely. It really is a nice place away from 'the world'. The one thing we cannot understand is why a large, noisy and polluting power generator station was built right on the beach, next to the tiny town and in the middle of the bay. The low grumble can be heard throughout the town, beach and bay. And if the wind is in your direction, it smells, too! The island is small, but not that small that they could not have found a better spot!

We walk over to the windmill and wonder what it's for. It's too high up to be pumping water and we can hardly imagine it is for milling grains, as there is no farmland to speak of between the beach and the hills... Another island mystery!

We head over to the local shop for bread and a watermelon (and maybe some beers) and paddle back to the boat. 

The sea is still flat as a billiard sheet so we discuss our options for the rest of the day over lunch and another swim. I see something lying on the bottom so grab a mask and have a look around underwater. It turns out to be the remaining threads of an old Nike cap. Beside the cap, there is nothing to see underwater. I notice this is now our second, remote bay with no fish or underwater life to speak of.

Good news: when I climb back onto the boat, the wind has picked up! It is around 1 o'clock in the afternoon and we set sail for our anchoring spot for the night. This time it's not a bay but a shallow area in between two uninhabited rocks called Diaplo and Diakopo about 7 miles away.

Our journey for the afternoon, approx 7 nautical miles or 12 km.

We plan to anchor in the small sheltered area in between the two uninhabited rocks.
The passage is around 150 meters wide.

We have a lovely sail, with the wind briefly picking up to more than 20 knots apparent (apparent wind speed = the speed of the wind as you feel it on the moving boat) so we reef the main sail and genoa. The wind drops down a little shortly after to a comfortable 16 knots or so. We reach our destination readily and drop anchor. Three other sailing yachts are anchored in the narrow area and with us this anchorage is full. We decide to explore, and snorkel towards the rock's pebbly beach.

Once more we see so few fish or any other marine life, we are a little taken aback. This is such a contrast to when we were younger. You could see a a large variety of fish, including big schools of them swimming by. We would see starfish, octopusses and anemones and even coral! It was just a colorful cacophony but now it was just sand, seaweed and the occasional urchin. Nothing lives in the mediterranean anymore.

Now, the most beautiful thing we saw were the colourful pebbles of the beach. We walked around a little, threw some rocks around, made some pictures of the boat and the bay, and swam back. On returning to the boat, Walbert decided the underside needed some cleaning from the algae growth. See the picture report below.

The day wouldn't be over ... but that is for another post!

The captain is also OK underwater.

The rocks, another boat, and me!

Looking for some underwater action!

But alas, only sand and seaweed again.

The only colours ... the pebbles on the beach...

Beached!

A pastime for all ages: throwing pebbles

The view back towards the boat from the beach.

The boat again

Exploring our new surroundings. 

Swimming back to the boat.

Cleaning the underside of the boat. See that brown stuff coming off?

The rocks on south west Milos

The rocks on south west Milos

Luna and Tuxy insisted on making a stop at Milos, which is famous for it's kitty litter production. They were fascinated by the large installations to fill kitty litter tankers in bulk. Wow, there must be many cats in the world! The Rocks on the South West coast of Milos were fascinating, and we took a tour with the dingy into the caves and arches. After this stop, we had a fast crossing to Elafonisos on the peleponesos.

SaltyPaws Sail into the sunset

Lucky Luke and his fellow cowboys have been riding off into the sunset since the dawn of the Western. So far we have seen the sun set over our sterrn most days we set out sailing. This means that our general direction was east, and this took us closer and closer to Austriala. San Torini marks the furthest Easting we will make in the Med. The closest to Australia we have been is 6000 Nautical Miles. As we are turning west, so is the sunset turning over SaltyPaws's bow. The 6000 Nautical Miles to Australia have instantly more than doubled to 14000 Nautical miles. We have done about 20% of the total distance of the trip. Now we can finally say that the SaltyPaws is sailing into the sunset, until that austere moment that we reach the coast of Australia.

Favorite Anchorages revisited

As we make our track back through the Med to Gibraltar we have had the opportunity to revisit some of our favorite anchorages. We came back to the Punda Point at Paros, the beach, village and island of Elafonisos and the bay of Navarino. Every time we get to see new things.

In the bay of Navarino, we once again made the hike to the castle, but this time we walked back to the horse shoe beach (omega beach for the locals), and trekked back via the lagoon. The horseshoe beach would make a great anchorage, and we have seen some boats anchored there last time we went. Seeing the rocks from up-close, and the proximity to the shallow beach this one would be one of the last anchorages we would pick.

We timed this hike up to the castle well, as the day after a forest fire broke out. We had just moved our boat northwards into the bay, and we were clear of the smoke. At the time the fire broke our, there were 6 boats moored in the spot touched by the smoke. This quickly reduced to one, a Brit who's stiff upper lip prevented him to move the boat. From our position we could first make out the 2 reconnaissance fixed wing planes that went out to assess the fire. This was followed by a helicopter with a big bucket. After just 3 bucket splashes, the smoke stopped, however, the helicopter kept dumping more and more water for a long time, to prevent re-ignition.

As the fire broke out on the hiking trail, I do have my suspicions that the ignition was man made. Whether it was a carelessly tossed cigarette, a BBQ or a purpose lid fire I doubt we will ever find out.

A Round around SanTorini for my birthday

A Round around SanTorini for my birthday

What would you like for your birthday, is a question that I find harder to answer every year. Other than a smallish and ever expanding wish list of kite equipment, the list is pretty short. This year, for my birthday, I got a tour around SanTorini, and I could not be more happy about this gift.

We started with a night sail from our kite spot at Paros, towards the south end of Ios. After a nightly anchor drop in the tranquil bay, we continued sailing the next morning. SanTorini is notoriously hard for finding good anchor spots, but we found some close to the airport. However, we decided to continue our tour. By this time the wind had picked up from a leisurely 4 Beaufort, to a strong 6. For about one hour we had to motor straight against it. Once in the caldera, the waves subsided a bit, and we could once again switch off the engine. Elizabeth served a very nice organic! Chocolate mouse on a bed of fruit. Very nice, and healthier than your average birthday cake. Once inside we could see at least 4 cruise ships lined up, and a largish amount of Super yachts. On the outside of SanTorini we were surprised by the amount of parasols and sun beds on the beach. I allays thought people would visit the island, so they could enjoy it's beauty, the archaeological sites. The volcano and its cuisine and to top it all off the tightly wound villages, where once terrace is the neighbor's roof, and only donkeys can transport any loads as the roads are too narrow and steep for the cars. Apparently, the average tourist does not care about all this, and prefers to spend his time at the beach.

The caldera, the steep cliff edges and the cities precariously balanced on top are one impressive sight. A few years ago, we did a round around the central island on Andy's birthday, and it is only fitting that we came back for another round on my own.

After our tour around SanTorini, we steamed up with the massive cruise ship, that we have seen before in Stavanger (had MSC written on the side). We were running at 7 knots, and the large cruise ship took a long time overtaking us. At about ten o'clock at night, we dropped anchor again at Paros, to get a good night's sleep in preparation for a few more days of kiting.

The boat tour

Let me make good on an earlier promise: I'll take you on the boat tour! Let's start outside.

I've shown you the rear outside deck before, but I'll include them here again for completeness sake. There is a large dining table that seats 6 easily, and a further 'lounge-seat' that can also be used as a 2-person couch. LED lighting is build-in in the roof.

Up the steps is the helm, with a couch that seats two or three people. I don't have a good picture of it, only the overview from the front of the boat. So let me steal another picture from the brochure for your viewing pleasure. I don't know what these people are doing on my brother's boat but you can see the captain has ample room for himself and some bikini girls to either sit at the helm, lounge on the sun deck or just generally loiter around as the guy in the white shirt seems to be doing.

Moving forward, note the clean layout of the deck with only a single stay (Dutch: "stag") on starboard and port each. The front deck holds contain the anchor, fenders, spare lines and anchor chain, the gennacker sail and water maker, as well as various other pieces of sailing kit. Further up front is the trampoline. This  mainly stops the waves slamming into the underside of the "tunnel" while maintaining access.

Here is another picture from the brochure that gives a quite good impression of the generous amounts of living space. Finally, just sitting on the swimming platform with your feet in the water is a very nice place when you've anchored.

Are you ready to come inside? I will forgive you if you mistakenly think this penthouse pictures is a boat. It is actually a boat that is a floating penthouse.

I used the panorama function to make these pictures, so that's why you see some wavy lines and non-straight angles. Trust me, in real life it looks quite the part! Starting on port side, there is the kitchen with double sink, hot/cold water tap, microwave and oven (actually 2 ovens, one on gas and one electrical) and a three-burner gas cooktop. Plenty of storage in the cabinets and it includes a 4-drawer freezer. See that black thing in the middle? That's the fully automatic bean-grinding milk-frothing coffee machine. Then there's the stairs to the guest quarters, and finally the navigation station.

Moving on to starboard, there's the comfy couch with coffee table (or is it a cat table?), stairs to the captain's quarters and the fridge. Of course, there's LED lighting all around, built-in speakers and panoramic views through the windows. The wide sliding door is complemented by the sliding window of the kitchen top, making it one big open living area. No need to worry about rain or sun, as the rear deck was fully covered, remember?

 Down the stairs, we reach 'my' door on the left to the aft guest quarters.

 

Entering through the door, there is a ... (wait for it) ... free-standing double bed ?!?! on a boat? In the guest room? Seriously?? (sorry for the mess I made in the room...). Windows to the rear and the side, and an escape hatch on top; all opening windows are fitted with fly screens. There are of course several lighting options, indirect below the bed and normal overhead lighting. Reading lights are also available on both sides as well as a bedside 220 Volt outlet. (I assume this is for your phone charger- what did you think it was for??). I think it looks best with the reading lights and indirect lights on:

My suite in my favorite lighting option. Sorry for not making the bed.

The indirect lights only.

And the normal overhead lights

The reading lights only

Of course, there is an en-suite bathroom with a toilet, sink, mirror and full-size shower. It was hard to capture it on photo but I think you can see I am not exagerating. At least I managed to not make such a mess here ... guess why :)

The en-suite bathroom

Further kit and systems include the water maker, kitchen machine, full 220V system, built-in audio system with iPod support, electric winches, radar, marifone, auto-pilot with wind-direction integration and -oh yeah- I think you can read out all the ships systems and navigation info from your iPad.

Off course all this takes a bit of power (and let's not forget lighting up the boat in the evenings just to show off to the other boats that are just lit by a single candle just to preserve power)... which is supplied by the specially-ordered oversized solar panels, which generate 1.21 Gigawatt!

If you want more, please see this page which has the manufacturer's official 360 degree tour of the ship.