Season 1

Odysseus trying to resist the call of the Sirens I’ve finally managed to complete reading the ‘Odyssey’!! No, not Homer’s original. Nor a heavy and testing translation, faithfully true to his work. But a lighter adaptation by Simon Armitage written as a play for BBC Radio 4. Years ago, I had tried to enjoy a translation of Homer’s ‘The Iliad’, but I never completed it, because I’ll admit to finding it a bit heavy going. Armitage’s Odyssey however is an easy, frothy romp. Alth

Missy Bear has arrived Preveza in the modern region of Epirus, which lies on the eastern coast of the Ionian Sea. If we had strayed a few degrees off course on our crossing, we would have ended in Corfu or even possibly Albania, which formed part of the ancient region of Epirus. The Despotate of Epirus (red) The area is generally rugged and mountainous, but here at the mouth of the Gulf of Actium the landscape is gentler and the sea is calm, reflecting the blue of the late au

As you know, we’d got as far as Riposto on the east coast of Sicily, where we sat out the storms in the Ionian. We’d pinged a shackle on the mainsail on the way down, and headed out to find another one first thing on Monday morning, during a kind gap in the rain. Unfortunately, although shackles are generally two a penny, this one is a proprietary piece of kit, and we were unable to find a replacement. To add insult to injury, the heavens opened again… Riposto sits at the foo

Missy Bear Will cross the Ionian Sea. Missy Bear Will cross the Ionian Sea. Depart: 10:00 am, Monday, November 1. From: Riposto, Sicily To: Preveza, Greece Trip: 275 NM Crew: Richard and Tony B. Follow us live on: MarineTraffic.com The weather router on Windy App Leaving Riposto 09:10, with patch of blue sky over Etna. Very lost and tired friend. My colleague Will thinks it is a meadow or tree pipit. We had many small birds land onboard, and one landed in my lap. Some had a

Richard at the helm steering between Scylla and Charybdis This part of the trip has given us a few navigation challenges: crossing over from Sardinia; the yet-to-come crossing of the Ionian Sea to Preveza (a good mate is coming out to help Richard do this); and also getting through the Strait of Messina. For those of you whose geography is on a par with mine, the Straits of Messina is the narrow water way that separates the north-east of Sicily from the Italian main land. Wh

A dip off the stern... Richard writes the well-researched, informative blogs on history, art, culture in general really. Aside from the food-related ones just now, mine tend to be more about our travels, washing our smalls, doing the shopping etc. So, here’s another amble around our domestics on the north coast of Sicily. As you may recall, we spent a few nights in our arrival port of Trapani, waiting for the weather to improve again. This has set the scene for much of our jo

We were in Milazzo to bide our time and wait for a moment when Scylla and Charybdis would be asleep, so that we could pass between them and sail safely through their whirlpool into the Ionian Sea. Which side of the Strait would we choose? It was ‘ on the horns of a dilemma ’ and we would be ‘ between a rock and a hard place ’ whatever. Milazzo and its citadel. Photo of an aerial image of the Norman castle, somewhat enhanced by the Swabians and then the Aragonese (outer walls

My previous blog was the theory – here’s the practical. I hope you enjoyed the ‘ food through invasions ’ blog – I decided on the theme and then found some great websites that gave me so much information, but it was fun researching it. The trouble is now, every time we see a food stuff (e.g., figs), Richard asks me which culture introduced it. He’s obviously not read the blog. I’m going to try to avoid just writing a list of meals we have eaten here, although it will undoubte

Stromboli I was sitting in the cockpit typing this yesterday whilst anchored just off St Pietro village (on Isola di Panarea) and looking north-eastwards at the oldest lighthouse in the world, sitting about 10NM away. It is the shape of a child’s version of a volcano and there is a wisp of dark smoke emanating from the top, which is being carried by the gentle breeze in a thin grey band to the south-east. The lighthouse is of course, Stromboli. This flaming beacon guided anci

Trapani style Cous Cous with Sardines. “Sicily has suffered thirteen foreign dominations from which she has taken both the best and the worst. The sequence of different cultures has made Sicily a fascinating place, quite unlike any other” ( Andrea Camilleri, writer) [He wrote the Inspector Montalbano series, we had the whole set in the Oxfam bookshop earlier this year in an English translation which is quite rare]. It’s been a while since we had a chat about food. So, as it’s

Skipper high above the Duomo di Cefalu. In 1131, Roger II had been on a visit to his dominions on the Italian mainland to sort some of the usual issues with his people. One problem town was Amalfi, and Roger had despatched his Levantine Greek admiral, George of Antioch, with a fleet to blockade the town. Simultaneously, another of Roger's Greeks, Emir John, approached with an army sweeping up other rebellious towns before them. Amalfi soon fell. Duke Sergius VII of Naples had

Old map of Palermo. It shows the east-west axial street from the port to the western gate heading towards Monreale. The ‘Castello a Maro‘ is Arab then Norman. Roger II's palace complex is located south of the west gate. The Norman cathedral just north-east of the palace. When I studied Urban Design at Gloucester University, one of the first things you learn is that no matter how many times the buildings change over the centuries and even millennia, the street layout or patter

Monreale Cathedral. You may remember (from ‘ The Norman Conquest ’) that Roger’s Sicilian campaign started in 1061, when one of the Emirs (Ibn al-Timnah) asked him to come to his assistance during the infighting against other Arab rulers of the island. But this was not the first time that an external force had been invited, by an incumbent, to invade the island! You may recollect (from ‘ The island where east met west ’ ) that the Byzantines ruled Sicily from the 6th century,

Alix arriving at Palermo. I’m not going to dwell too long on our crossing from Sardinia . Richard has written about it, and I can’t really add much to it. Except, perhaps, to say that I did find it a lengthy night. We slipped lines at 07:00 and arrived the following day just before 13:00. The autumn nights are much longer; it was dark by 20:00. I need to do watches, which means I needs to rest when I am off-watch. But try as I might, I’m not one these people who can just put

The Doric-style Temple at Segesta, NW Sicily I have a soft spot for Greece. Greece was only my second foreign country to visit (after a rowing trip to Lille in France). I got there via first my first ever flight, from London to Athens on Olympic Airways. It was 1987 I think - when I was up at Keble College, Oxford – and I was one of about 170 Oxford rowers who descended on the naval college on Poros Island to take part in the first sea-trials of a newly constructed Greek Trir

Trapani with Mount Erice in the background. Missy Bear is moored about three-quarters up the right hand side of the photo. Why have sailors since ancient times favoured landing at Drepanum (Trapani) whence to climb Mount Erice (pronounced E-ree-che )? Ten points if you said, “For the sacred prostitutes!” The mountain has always had a cult of divinity to Venus. The early local tribes built an open-air temple there. When the Phoenician-Carthaginians arrived, they identified th

Re-launch! It was about 00:30 on Wednesday morning. There was no moon and the sky was a pitch-black shroud punctured by tiny pricks of light of varying lustre. The brightest and biggest had been Venus, but she had already set. The next most dazzling was Jupiter, following both her and the dimmer Saturn downwards on the ecliptic to the horizon on our starboard beam. The cruise ship Bonaria, approaching on our starboard quarter. Off the port beam appeared Orion, doing a super-s

There is a great scene in Blackadder Goes Forth about the causes of WW1. Baldrick says “ The thing is, the way I see it, these days there’s a war on, right? And, ages ago, there wasn’t a war on, right? So, there must have been a moment when there not being a war on went away, right? And there being a war on came along. So, what I want to know is – how did we get from the one case of affairs to the other case of affairs? ” And Blackadder replies, “ Do you mean why did the war

Regular readers may recall that when we arrived in Aubeterre in late August, Richard and I spent some time doing a deep clean of the main parts of the house. A lot of that involved wiping spider poo off various surfaces, and it did look nice when we had finished. I then read the papers, and discovered that September is the month when spiders mate, certainly for British house spiders. I have to say that in my experience, this does not apply to French house spiders. These littl

No, not that one! I never really enjoyed history lessons at school. Maybe it was the subject matter, maybe the teacher. Anyway, I dropped the subject at 13 years old, before ‘O’ level. But now I love history and would have loved to study it more. I never really had (i.e., never made) the time, when I was working. I’m sure that my experience is not unique. It’s one reason why I think that some education is wasted on the young. They are also often simply too young to appreciate