Category Archives: Cruising Guide

Information for other cruising boats. Our experiences finding places to anchor, dealing with officials, provisions, etc.

Welcome to Siracusa, Sicily, Italy

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By 0200, radio was quiet. The Monkey Boy must be out of range now.

We arrived at around 1000 local time. From the distance, we could see the walls of the fort in the water. We had emailed the marina a few days ago to try to get a reservation, and they never responded. We pulled inside the marina, where a worker signaled us to go around back to the outside floating docks. We went where directed, and saw he was standing in front of an open spot. The slip wasn’t much wider than Kosmos. Eric backed Kosmos in slowly, as Christi stood in back pushing us off the boats on either side to help keep centered. The worker tied up the back lines for us and handed us two mooring lines. Eric walked the first line to the front attached the first line with no problem. The second line was too short to tie off. The guy on the boat next to us saw Eric was struggling and jumped from his boat onto ours. The two of them tied one of our ropes to the mooring line to make it long enough to tie off.

Oh, and to clarify how the mooring lines work. The boats always back in. The mooring(s) is/are where the nose of the boat is. There are lines that go from the sea wall/floating dock to the mooring. You take the rope from the sea wall and walk it to the front of your boat, then pull on the line to get it as tight as you can, then tie it to a cleat (metal bar installed around the boat and on docks specifically meant for tying lines on to) at the front of your boat. Since the lines spend most of their time underwater, they are disgusting, full of algae and barnacles. The lines get your hands and clothes all dirty. They are nicknamed “slime lines”. We found out that most of the marinas in the Med use this system (though D-Marin in Turkey has old fashioned moorings where you have to use your boat hook to grab the mooring line or have someone in a dinghy hand it up to you).

Once we were securely berthed, we gave the marina worker a crew list and our vessel documentation. Since we are checked into the EU that is apparently all the paperwork we need to do. We didn’t seem to need to go and visit any authorities. Hmmm. It seems too good to be true that the paperwork is virtually non-existent.

It was weird to stand in the cockpit (back deck) and stare out at buildings that are hundreds of years old. Many are run down, but considering how old they are, they really don’t look that bad. A lot of them have fancy facades and appointments, and in their day were probably glorious. We haven’t actually been docked so close to a historic area before, and we found it to be sort of awe inspiring.

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We were starving, so went in search of food. The old part of Siracusa is called Continue reading →

Welcome to Pylos, Peloponnese Peninsula, Greece

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At about 0700 we tucked in between an island and the mainland. Sheltered by the island, we had about an hour and a half of flat seas. Ahhh. We were joyous about the reprieve. On the other side of the island, the waves were less vicious and easier to handle, for a while, anyway. This is because the island partially blocks the wind, slowing it down to only 10 knots apparent.

We had gone around the bottom of Greece and were now moving north, up the eastern side of the country. Our plan was to only be in Katacolon for a couple days, then move west to Sicily. Eric had been looking at the charts this morning for a port we could check out of the country from that was closer to our current position than Katacolon. We realized there was no real need to move so far north, seeing as the trip to Sicily would take the same amount of time no matter where we left from on the lower eastern side of Greece. He found what he was looking for, a small town named Pylos, located close to where we were.

At 0900 we pulled into the harbor, which was totally flat and calm. You’d never know how hard the wind was blowing in the ocean from looking at the bay. We pulled up to the “marina”, dubious about availability at this time of the year. Someone was waiting for us and directed us to a prime side tie spot marked “captain”. Of course, we assumed the guy worked for the marina. Turns out there is no marina staff. This guy sells diesel fuel and was hoping to get a new client, hence the helpfulness.

Pylos has a different look to it than the other places we have been to in Greece. Yes, the buildings are blocky and situated on a hill. Most of the buildings look like they are detached, at least the ones most visible. Most of the buildings are less than 5 stories and have pitched, red tile roofs. We guess the roofs are what change the look of the town so much, at least from the distance. In the Plain of Thessaly they also have some houses with pitched roofs, too. It also looks like many buildings in Pylos are relatively new.

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Once Kosmos was situated, we Continue reading →

Fixing the Exhaust Leak

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Eric was back at Customs at 0715, as told. He checked in with no problems. Then he walked to the tourist police, up a steep hill and four flights of stairs, to be told that the officers were all out checking in a cruise ship. They said to come back later. Grrr. Today is not starting out any better than yesterday!

After the unsuccessful trip to the tourist police, Eric went to the boat store next to the marina to ask about the gasket material, which comes as a board that you cut to the proper size and shape. They didn’t have it, but they could get it quickly. Great! He added a second supporting rope from the boom to the passarelle, which did the trick to make the passarelle stable. Here is a shot of our beautiful new passarelle. You can see what we mean about the angle being awkward against the sea wall.

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It is a fairly long walk to the tourist police from the marina, so Eric decided to Continue reading →

Passage from Bodrum, Turkey to Agios Nickolaos, Crete

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This morning we got ready to go back to sea. At 1100, the lift came to pick us up and put us back into the water. The wind had been screaming yesterday, and the forecast was the same for today. But, so far, the wind wasn’t too bad and the sea in the bay seemed to be calm. This is a very good thing.

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We had planned to take Ali and his family for a quick ride around the bay so they could experience being on a Nordhavn for themselves. There were a few cruisers staying at the yard that were watching Kosmos being put back in the water, so we invited them along, too. We were only out for 30 minutes, and it was a fun little ride.

We dropped off the guests, then took the 2 ½ hour ride over to D-Marina, where we tied up to the customs pier and checked out of the country. This was the fastest and easiest check out of all time. Within 15 minutes of tying up, we were pulling out again. We were so sad to see Continue reading →

Driving up to Izmir

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First a little update on our stabilizer repair. Our active fin hydraulic stabilizers are made by American Bow Thruster. ABT has been great to work with so far. They found a repair person for us here in Bodrum and shipped the part needed for the stabilizer repair. The part is supposed to arrive in two days. The repair guy asked if he could come and take a look at the boat this morning, wanting to see for himself what needed to be done to make sure he has all the right parts and tools on hand when he comes back to do the work. Three repair guys came by this morning at 1030, poked around the interior and exterior of the stabilizers, and by 1100 they were gone.

Once they left, we headed out to do some sightseeing. We drove up to Continue reading →