Sardinia to Levkas

We're finally here - journey's end for a while and I'm pleased, we've done just short of 3,000 miles since end of September and it's nice to know we can stay put for a while. Only down side is joining the working class again and having to get back into the discipline of working every day.

The last 500 miles have taken some time due to multiple storms. After waiting 10 days for good weather in Cagliari, thankfully we had two calm, but cold, nights at sea to get to Milazzo, Sicilly. We thought we would only be there one night then the final push to Greece. But like so much of the latter part of this trip it was not to be. We waited four days for the next weather window to get as far as Messina (east coast of Sicilly), 5 hours away. We met a couple of guys in Messina who attempted to get across to Greece a couple of days before we got to Messina. They'd got out 100 miles into their journey, at shortest it's 250 miles to Greece, and had to turn back due to severe gales.

Next day we set out for our final leg with a seemingly reasonable forecast however when we got around the toe of Italy we had winds up to 25 knots which gave us a very uncomfortable, long, cold first night at sea, and by midday the next day we had forecasts of F9 (severe) gale warnings. When your average speed is only 5 – 6 miles per hour, 250 miles is a long way and we just moored up at the fuel dock in Levkas at 4am the next morning before the big winds started. Time for a bit of shut eye.

That wasn’t to last though, a couple of hours later someone was knocking on the boat and up we got and moved to our berth. Time for more shut eye!!

Next morning we got a shock, looking from where we are berthed across to mainland Greece there's SNOW on the hills!! So much for being somewhere warm for winter. It's not too bad during the day in the sun, but the wind is cold and it's really cold at night, all the warmest bedding on now. Hopefully it should start warming up a bit in another 4 weeks, so I guess I can cope (she said manfully through gritted teeth) hahaha.

We've got free wifi on the boat thanks to our new wifi toys. There's paying wifi in the Marina but it's really expensive - long live free wifi!!

I also have to find somewhere to do my Pilates, which isn't going to be easy, it's too cold to do it outside right now. There is a walking club here for the live aboards so I think I'll slink along to that and see where they go. Mark will have to do without me for a couple of mornings a week, my social life has to start somewhere!!

Next blog will be describing living and working in a foreign country where the written language resembles nothing we’ve had to deal with so far. Learnt my first Greek word today in the barbecue chicken shop, the guy spoke really good English so I said to him “you speak good English” quick as lightening he said “so do you”!! Anyway he told me how to say thankyou in Greek which phonetically is ‘ef-har-ris-to’ now I can go around saying thankyou to everyone. There’s also spoken Greek classes here at the marina so I’ll be a regular there over the next few weeks so I should have some basics pretty quickly – time will tell. Till next time 'ya-sou'.