The season started early with a job delivering the Moody 376, Otra Vida, from Southampton to northern Spain. She had had a major refit but still wasn’t quite ready when we arrived in the SYS boatyard. The delay enabled us to catch up with a few friends which was nice but we were soon heading down the channel and crossing Biscay again. This time the wind was with us and we flew across and were soon tied up in Sada marina. We used the opportunity to see a bit of Galicia and took a bus to the famous pilgrimage site of Santiago de Compestela with many buildings dated back to the 11th century. We then treated ourselves to a couple of nights in Bilbao so we could see Frank Gehry’s stunning Guggenheim museum and Louise Bourgeois’ bronze spider.
We eventually got back to
Marmaris in June and soon after set sail for Limnos in the northern Aegean. The
meltemi had yet to start and thankfully we had a good run of southerly winds
helping us on our way. We crossed over to the third finger of the Halkidiki
peninsula with Mount Athos rising majestically out of the sea to a height of
2,000 metres. We slowly made our way along the coast looking out for both monasteries
and monks. It is a monastic community originally formed in Byzantine times
inaccessible by people and especially women. Only men are allowed to enter once
they have received special permission. We then dropped south to the Sporades
islands where we were picking up a friend and meeting others on their own boat.
We had a lovely time exploring Skiathos, Skopelos and Alonissos. Time to cross
the Aegean again and our first stop was Skyros harbour which greeted every
ferry with music and sparklers. After a couple of days we set off early for our
long windy passage to Lesvos and spent some time exploring the island by car.
One of its delights proved to be the little known Teriade museum exhibiting
book illustrations by amongst others Picasso, Matisse and Miro. From Lesvos we
nipped across to Ayvalik in Turkey to check out and back in again and then
started our journey south again. We stopped at the island of Oinousses and
discovered a wonderful maritime museum. We continued cruising the Dodecanese
islands stopping at Samos, Leros, Astypalaia, Nissyros and Symi. Our final stop
was in Rhodes to stock up before heading over to Marmaris for our fourth winter
of fun and games.
