Fixing the Exhaust Leak

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

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

Exploring Ephesus – Part 2

Continued from yesterday”¦ We exited the theater and continued up The Sacred Way. The left is mostly the theater. Beyond the theater on the left is a building some believe to be a private house, some believe to be a brothel.

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On the right is a big empty space that was once the town agora. The agora was once the heart of commerce for the city, and had colonnades and shops.

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Towards the end of The Sacred Way, there is Continue reading

Trip to Ephesus

Ephesus was founded in ancient times. One of the ancient seven wonders of the world, a temple devoted to the goddess Artemis (also called Cybele) was built here around 330 BC. By 600 BC, Ephesus had become an important port town. After Jesus’ death, the apostle St. John settled in Ephesus with the Virgin Mary prior to his exile to the nearby Dodacanese Island of Patmos towards the end of his life. It is believed that John wrote his gospel (his account of Jesus’ life which is now part of the bible) while in Ephesus. Ephesus was included as one of the seven churches that the book of Revelation was directed to (Revelation was written from Patmos). St. John and Mary are both buried in Ephesus. St. Paul spent three years in Ephesus, and while there wrote a letter to Christians in Corinth that was canonized in the bible as 1 Corinthians. During his later imprisonment in Rome, Paul wrote a letter to the Christians in Ephesus, which became canonized in the bible as the book of Ephesians.

In the early Christian days, the city was home to 250,000 people and the Romans had put a lot of energy into making it aesthetically beautiful. The problem with Ephesus’s location was Continue reading