A recap of 2013 cruising season

Didim, Turkey

We finally made it to Turkey

For the last three years, our cruising plan has been to sail through Greece and onto Turkey for the winter. But at the end of the season, we have usually found ourselves in Italy. This year, through sheer determination, we made it all the way to Turkey (yeah!!), and Berkeley East is spending the winter in Didim, a small town on the west coast of the Aegean Sea.

While we reached our goal of Turkey, we did not get there as planned, and we did not end up in our expected winter destination. As usual, things changed the moment we arrived back at Berkeley East. First, our departure from Sicily was delayed because of weather when gale force winds, torrential downpours of red mud and hail all helped us enjoy a few extra weeks in our beloved Italy. To make up the time, we decided to go through the Corinth canal rather than around the Peloponnese as originally planned, but this turned out to be a nice change, as we visited places we might never have gotten to. With visa restrictions, we thought we had to make a quick dash to Turkey in order to get out of the European Union, however through the advice of friends, help from a yacht agent and mucho dinero, we managed an extended visa and ended up spending most of the summer in Greece, where we visited over 26 islands, the North and East coasts of the Peloponnese, and iconic sites on the mainland like Athens and Delphi.

Expectations and the unexpected

Every year, we have expectations of our planned cruising ground, assumptions that are created by guidebooks, movies, and other people’s perceptions. And every year, we are surprised by our travels. For instance, every region we have sailed in has notorious seasonal winds. In the Caribbean, it was the Christmas winds; in France we had the Mistral; in Croatia, there was the Bora; and this year in Greece, the devil was called the Meltimi. Most years, these winds have not been a major problem for us. We have had to stay in port a bit longer than anticipated, and have always had a few days and nights of very high winds at anchor. The Meltimi winds this year proved to be more challenging. During July and August in Greece, the strong north winds blew constantly, causing discomfort in just about every situation; sailing, at anchor, at docks, even walking. We expected to sail casually up, down and around the Greek islands. And while we tried repeatedly to do so, good sense finally prevailed; we had to accept the unexpected and move north to south, and west to east, never circling the islands.

We also had a vision of beautiful Greece, with lush islands, clustered white buildings trimmed in blue, over looking clear, aqua waters. While we found this on some of the islands and it is gorgeous, it was not the norm. A lot of the islands actually look and feel very Italian. And the summer months in Greece (especially in the famous Cyclades Islands) are so dry and windy that the quintessential beauty is often masked in a shroud of dust. Again, our views of Greece changed.

People always ask us about Greece, the financial crisis, the country’s stability, violence, protests, etc. And to be honest, with all the negative US news about Greece’s dire situation, we were uncertain about what we would find there. No horrific expectations, just concern. And while Greece clearly has financial challenges (don’t we all) it did not impact our travels. We found the Greek people to be hard working, friendly and industrious. On the islands they are removed from the government and its issues, but they have been affected by the reduction in international and Greek visitors. As one taxi driver put it “it was a lot cheaper with the drachma, it is too expensive for Greeks to travel with the Euro.” Which is why many of the islands we visited were not as crowded as we had expected.

This season, we also spent a month cruising the southwestern coast of Turkey. Unfortunately for us, our arrival in the country coincided with our president announcing plans to attack Syria. As we cruised along, a few hundred miles from Syria, we began to feel the military presence building. We could see and hear warships and submarines passing by. While we never really felt we were in any eminent danger, we decided to head back to Greece and then further north in Turkey, just in case. Along the way, we got our first tastes of Turkey, and while we enjoyed our time there, this area has a lot of international tourists and did not give us a good look at Turkish people and their culture. Again, it was not what we envisioned of Turkey. We look forward to seeing more of Turkey next year.

Since taking delivery of Berkeley East seven years ago she has spent all but seven days in the water, so we decided to give her a well-deserved rest on land this winter. In October, we had her hauled, put inside a hanger and started some projects on the deck, hull and rig. Hauling a 35-ton boat out of the water is always exciting, but this time we also had to remove the 75-foot mast, so she could go inside the building. The team did an outstanding job hoisting the mast out with a large crane in 20+ knot winds.

Then they picked her up with a travel lift, transferred her to a motorized trailer and ultimately squeezed her in to the hanger in a space far too small for our comfort.

But now BE is sitting high and dry, close but safe to her neighboring boats. And if we miss her, we can watch her via a web cam in the hanger. By spring she should be rested and refreshed for another exciting season in the Med. At this point, her destination is unknown.