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Galley Slave As part of Missy Bear’s website upgrade, I’ve had to skim through and check the formatting of all the blogs. In doing this, I couldn’t help notice how certain words or subjects or themes recur frequently: “ Venice ”; “ pirates ”, “ Ottoman ”; “ knight ”; “ independence”; or “Arab ”, for example. One word that pops up everywhere is “ slave ”, and as we haven’t covered that topic yet, I decided to collate what we have learned on Missy Bear's voyages to date. By u

Oct Day, October 28, Lakki We have neighbours of several nationalities on Pontoon C: Italian; Swiss, French, and German amongst others. I said “ Buongiorno ” to one lady I had not met before, and she chastised me for using too hard an accent. “ I am not a German ”, she said. “ You must say it softly, ‘moo an sherno’. Not ‘bonn dgerno!’” I repeated what I had heard.  “Bravo”, she nodded approvingly .     I relayed this encounter to our regular Italian neighbour, Sergio. He’s f

Soggy Marmaris Rain in Pedi, Symi - good for cleaning the sprayhood Perspex I suppose I don’t recall such a wet sailing season as 2025. Rain is a rare commodity on our trips, and yet the sheer deluge forecast in Marmaris in May forced us to seek shelter in a marina. We got soaked-through in our ‘wet weather’ jackets and trousers. They are lightweight and not designed for a biblical drenching. They, and we, took two days to dry out. We even put the heating on in the evening, a

Missy Bear sails to Astypalaea Butterfly Island As well as the Knights Hospitaller, the Latins and Franks more generally liked to build a nice castle. The crews of Missy Bear and Money Penny have wandered around the earthquake-smitten ruins of our latest Latin edifice, on the remote Aegean island of Astypalaea. The island is shaped like a butterfly, its two mountainous wings linked by a narrow, rocky isthmus. It is quite barren and sparsely developed, with the main town or Ch

Icarian Sea Once upon a time, Alix and I were pretty poor at spotting and identifying birds. And then lockdowns happened, when we were permitted just one walk every twenty-four hours (crazy, wasn’t it) We were very lucky, because our daily release involved wandering around the neighbouring parkland and farmland of Cirencester. We took our time, as we wanted our precious per diem  freedom to last. Our walks became longer in distance, and we stopped more often to take notice of