The story so far
We raised our ARC flag on 15 August as we left our marina at Lavrio, near Athens, to begin our long journey to Las Palmas and onward to St. Lucia. It was only a short downwind sail to anchor under Cape Sounion for the last time in many years as this was the start of our circumnavigation. We soon passed through The Corinth Canal and made our way to The Ionian. We visited Ithaca, Lefkas and Cephalonia, anchoring out each night until we reached Zakyththos where we took on extra crew, Viv & Steve, for the journey as far as Lanzarote.
The expected Northerly winds, for once in this part of the world did not blow, in fact on our journey to Sicily, we needed to motor a lot of the way. A few days in Sicily tied up at Naxos, a small harbour for which no charge was made, enabled us to go up Mount Etna and the wonderful town of Taormina. A few days later we refuelled at a fuel dock along The Straits of Messina and later anchored in a bay off Volcano Island. Onward to Sardinia and eventually Ibiza, where we were quoted 294EUR to tie up in a marina for a night and water and electricity were extra! We anchored out in Talamanca Bay an area Michael had lived in, in the mid-seventies. Michael lived here 37 years ago and how Ibiza had changed.
After Ibiza we anchored in a wonderful isolated bay, hard to find in Southern Spain. Los Genoveses Bay near St. Jose was a gem. Onward to Gibraltar , motoring a lot, as the wind was now on the nose from the West. A few days spent in Marina Bay, Gibraltar was good for provisioning and to fill all our spare cans with the cheap diesel fuel.
We took longer than expected to get from Gibraltar to Lanzarote, either no wind or when it did blow it was from the South West. Again the Northerlies we expected did not happen. Leaving the yacht for 4 weeks in Puerto Calero Marina saw us back in the UK and Germany for 4 weeks and in fact Caroline even managed to get to The Scottish Highlands as well. The big event on 12 October was the marriage of Melissa and Daniel. They honeymooned in Lanzarote and have now joined us for some sail training practice down to Las Palmas. Daniel has never even set foot on a yacht before but a couple of days on he is gaining his sea legs
Michael & Caroline
Golden Spirit of Islay