Season 2

Seasons I and II Missy Bear and the flotilla were anchored overnight in the very large bay near to entrance of Lakki marina. It was a calm and peaceful night, except when I got up at 04:00 to investigate a loud noise. I stuck my nose through the companionway hatch to find the bow of an enormous car ferry bearing down on us. I swiftly debated waking Richard, but the anchorage is well-known and clearly marked on the charts. At that moment, the ferry dropped its bow anchor and s

We arrived in Symi to a grumpy reception from the marinero, but a warm welcome from our friends on Money Penny, and our soon-to-be friends on Infinite Blue. To be fair to the marinero, he had prepared a nice, easy berth for us with a lazy line that he could hand to us from the quay. But it was on the opposite side of the harbour – and a long walk - from our friends. And we wanted to be next to them. So, he had to jump on his moped, whizz around the harbour, leap into his ding

After just over three weeks in Turkey, it was time to start our journey back to Bozburun, where we planned to check out of Turkey, and back into Greece at Symi. It’s been a fascinating time. We’d had a few nights in Turkey already when we arrived in the Bay of Fethiye, and had been blown away with the scenery, the friendly people, and the food. We were due into the D-Marin marina in Gocek on the Friday, so we had a couple of nights at anchor in the steep, wooded bays before h

As in the British Empire, if you lived within the Ottoman empire, you were first and foremost an Ottoman subject, and then secondly a Turk, or Greek, or Serb, or Albanian, or Arab, or Armenian, or Kurd etc. As I wrote in ‘ Meet the Ottomans ’, subjects living inside the empire - the ‘Abode of Peace’ - could have enjoyed a generally peaceful and tolerant existence. At the frontier and beyond – the ‘Abode of War’ – well, that was a different matter. Admittedly, peace and toler

We anchored Missy Bear in Round Bay, launched Ursa Minor, and we four glided silently around he headland and into Tomb Bay. We were on an adventure to search for ancient treasure. We beached the dinghy on a shingle shore, beneath steep, rocky cliffs clothed in pine. Godfrey and Emily stayed to guard our means of escape, while Skipper and Lewis (Tomb-Raider, aged 12) set off up the wooded hillside, in wet flip-flops, alert and beady-eyed. We had already spied some basic, ‘pige

I didn’t sleep well last night. Various boat noises kept me awake, and then live music at a marina bar played until well past 02:00. I found myself singing along to “ Gimme gimme gimme a man after midnight ”, although by that time I was praying for headphones. I finally drifted off to sleep only to be woken at 03:00 by Richard, who had slept through all of the above, but was now complaining of voices chatting on a nearby boat. So, I wasn’t at my most alert, when Richard jumpe

Missy Bear anchored with two long lines ashore And so it was that Richard retrieved the two long shorelines, and hauled in the anchor at Boynuz Buku, in the bay of Gocek, enabling us to head up to the top of the bay to D-Marin, the marina that will be our home for a couple of weeks. Skipper mooched Missy Bear over to look at the fuel and waste pump-out dock, but the queue was enormous. All the charter boats were milling around in the stiff breeze, jostling for position to ref

We three children spent many happy hours and days on our parents’ allotment, set out on land leased from the National Coal Board (NCB). We mostly grew vegetables, and had some soft-fruit bushes. But we also kept hens, and fresh eggs were nearly always guaranteed outside the moulting season. Mum baked nearly every day. Our cockerel was never too popular with some of our neighbours who backed onto the allotments, as they would be woken often before dawn by a shrill, half-strang

After a voyage of 2,633 NM, Missy Bear has brought Richard and Alix safely to our destination of Gocek, on the Lycian coast of Türkiye.

People with a delicate stomach may wish to skip over this blog. We spent a few days in Leros marina, sitting out the high winds. Our guests, Sue and John, had to get back to Kos by Sunday evening for their late flight out back to the UK, which was the same flight on which our new guests, Tony and Rachelle, would be arriving. We needed to decide if we would sail to Kos, else ask our friends to get on a ferry (yes, obviously not the same one, I’m not that stupid). The forecast

Bozburun mosque We were rudely awoken, early, to a chorus of a host of Greek cockerels, but later were soothed by a slightly melancholic Muslim call-to-payer. We left the blue domes of the orthodox church behind, to be replaced later by the silver-grey dome of the village mosque. The bell-tower was replaced by the needle-like minaret with its sharp, pointy, missile-head, blue hat. At the half-way point from Symi, we dropped the Greek courtesy flag, to replace it with the cres

We left Arki slightly heavy of heart, a bit worried about Billy. However, a great sail across to Patmos soon shook out any cobwebs, and perked us all up. There was lots of room on the town quay, and we decided to park up next to a boat sporting a French tricolour. We slung the hook, and started motoring back to the quay, when a rather familiar-looking man appeared on the bow and started yelling at us. “ You stupide people ” he shouted. Now, there is nothing our skipper likes

Given that the Greeks have been making wine longer than most, and for at least 6,500 years, you would have thought that they’d be pretty good at it by now. Well, they are! I’m not sure one could say the same in 1987 when I first visited as a 20-year-old. But then again, I was not a wine-drinker back then. If I did drink it would have probably been a can or bottle of icy-cold, locally-brewed Amstel or Mythos beer. I certainly wasn’t knowledgeable about wine. We didn’t drink wi

Regular readers will remember that we have had a few battery problems since launching Missy Bear. We had a boiled engine battery coming into Sardinia, and another boiled battery in Kalamata marina. We set off from Leros marina on Saturday afternoon, motored out and then sailed up to the island of Patmos, where we anchored in a lovely bay. Padding around in the saloon in bare feet, you tend to register temperatures underfoot. The floorboard covering our house batteries was hot

The Mycale Strait with Turkey in the background Missy Bear is now, geographically or geologically, in Asia Minor. Samos is an island, but was only cut off from the mainland coast by an earthquake long ago. There is some limestone around, but a lot of the rock has been baked into a metamorphic schist. From the marina, you feel that you can almost reach out and touch Türkiye, as the Mycale strait is only 1km wide at its narrowest point. There is a Greek military station on the

OK. I’m predicting that anyone reading this will fall into one of three groups. The first group will be going “ What? ” The second group will be muttering “ Oooh, could be rude ?”. And the third group will be saying “ Alix love, you’ve got it wrong, there were four and twenty of them! And they came from Inverness ”. For those of you who are luckily unfamiliar with this, it is a play on the opening line of an RAF drinking song which goes, “ Four and twenty virgins came down fr

Missy Bear's Red Ensign remained furled as a mark of respect. We wish His Majesty King Charles III a long and successful reign

The crew members walked down the aisle passing out additional sick bags to the several peaky-looking passengers. The woman in front was gripping tightly onto the seat-back in front of her in a tissue-filled clench. The top of the thin and curly-haired pate of her partner, directly in front of me, was sweating profusely in the manner of someone in some anxiety or distress. The general buzzy background noise of chattering guests slowly quietened as each of them in turn stopped

Missy Bear in Leros marina, ready for her summer haul-out Once upon a time (well, many years ago), Richard and I did a one-day Royal Yachting Association (RYA) course on how to use a ship’s radio. This included the critical safety features for broadcasting a Mayday ( m' aider ), and of course the Nato, or phonetic alphabet – Alpha, Bravo, Charlie etc. Not long after, the two of us went sailing around the Whitsunday Islands in Australia on a 32' Jeanneau Sun Odyssey and though

A Hunter from 1936 My father Walter is 86 years old. He was born in 1936. He is almost as old as Wood Rose: a classic, hardwood, 24’ Gaff-rigged yacht, built and launched the year before at Hunter’s yard in the Norfolk Broads. Me sailing Wood Rose on Horsey Mere. Image (C) Roger Haynes The Broads is a series of medieval peat-workings that flooded, despite wind-powered pumping, as sea-levels gradually rose. The opportunity that these new ditches and broad, open lakes provided