The Scene: Navarino Bay, south-western Peloponnese The Cast and their Roles: Ivan Ivanov: To expand his Russian empire at the expense of...

We are moored alongside at Kiparissia, next to ‘Money Penny’ and ‘Blue Eyes’ (our Belgian sailor friend, Daniel). We had a lovely sail...

Missy Bear has sailed from Sicily across the Ionian Sea, through the Inland Sea and arrived at Katakolon, on the mainland Peloponnese....

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single Greek in charge of a kingdom must be in want of an island. Many versions abound...

Well, we have seen the statue and found the street name in Vathi, so that must be definitive proof that Odysseus came from Ithaca. The...

Our first evening at anchor, in Ormos Vlikho, was slightly spoiled by one thing. The pump on one of our Jabsco marine heads (loo!) had...

Fiskardo is a simply beautiful Cephalonian village... …especially in early spring, well before the tourist hordes arrive. It is tiny with...

Introduction [by Richard] If you were asked to name to top 10 most famous canals in the world, no doubt the Lefkas Canal would not make...

The origin of the name Preveza is contested, but is probably Slavic Albanian for “passage”. Maybe it means the north-south passage across...

In these days of jet travel, you can get from Cirencester to Greece in about four hours. Our journey took four days. Admittedly, we took...

”It dawned on me that, had we not won the award and delayed our departure, we would have been on the water during the hurricane.”...

One of the joys of sailing out in open water is that there are no roads, no road markings and no road signs. There are written ‘Rules of...

It is said that Venice was the first true European colonial empire. It has also been said that Venice gave Britain the blueprint for its...

Our sailing plans have been thrown up in the air again! No, not Brexit. Nor Covid-19. Not even the crazy little Tsar. Yet! No, the delay...

Well, it hardly seems any time at all since the school bell rang in Preveza, and it was the end of term. We handed the boat in at the...

My paternal great-grandfather was a bastard. You don’t need to excuse my language, because it is a technical fact. My father is called...

With the advent of Brexit, the freedom of movement within Europe came to an end: une fin; ein Ende; una fina etc. I’m not sure that I...

I was very lost. I was on the top of a hill somewhere in Dartmoor and the fog had come down. I had an OS map and a compass, and all I had...

As we have seen in my previous two blogs, you simply can’t fully enjoy sailing around the Eastern Mediterranean without an understanding...

Barbarossa (real name Hizir Reis) was born in the 1470s on the Aegean Island of Lesbos*, then already under Ottoman rule, to an Ottoman...