Voyages from 1998 to 2005



Four Years in the Mediterranean and Black Sea - 2001 to 2004

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Summary Log #3 - Written at Hog Island, Grenada June 20, 2006

Statistical Summary

2001

Countries Visited - Spain (including the Balearics), Tunisia (including Tunis, Carthage and the Sahara desert), Malta (including Gozo), Italy (including Lampedusa, Sicily, Trieste, and Venice), Croatia, Greece (including Corfu, the Peloponnesus, Santorini, Milos and Rhodes), and Turkey

Distance Traveled - 3794 Nautical miles

2002

Countries Visited - Turkey, Northern Cyprus (including Nicosia), Syria (including Damascus and Palmyra), Lebanon (including Beirut, the Bekka Valley, and Baalbek), Israel (including Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Massada and the Dead Sea), Egypt (including Port Said, Cairo, the Sphinx, and the Pyramids of Giza), all on the EMYR, and then Greece (including several Aegean islands, as well as Delphi, Piraeus and Athens)

Distance Traveled - 3410 Nautical Miles

2003

Countries Visited - Greece (Aegean islands), Turkey (including Troy, Gallipoli, the Dardanelles, Sea of Marmara, Istanbul, the Bosphorus, and the Black Sea)

Distance Traveled - 1538 Nautical Miles

2004

Countries Visited - Turkey (including Istanbul and Ephesus), Bulgaria, Romania (including the Danube River and its Delta), Ukraine (including Odessa, Kiev, Crimea, Sevastopol, Balaclava, and Yalta), Greece (including Santorini, Crete, and the Peloponnesus), Italy (including the Strait of Messina, Aeolian Islands, Amalfi, Capri, Naples, and Rome)

Distance Traveled - 2795 Nautical Miles

Total Distance traveled 2001 to 2004 = 11,537 Miles

Total Number of individual logs written during 2001 to 2004 = 193 logs

Notes on our travels

Barcelona to the Balearics (Almost Dismasted!)

We enjoyed Barcelona, where many cruisers spend their winters near the central downtown area of this Catalonian city. There are two main marinas (Olympic and Port Vell) both with easy access to the downtown area. Feb 1 we left (on Judy’s birthday) for the Balearics, 175 miles south across the Med. We hit storms, and learned why cruisers stay put in marinas from October to April, as the Med is too stormy to be safe or enjoyable. Half way to Mallorca at sunset, the winds picked up to a force 8 gale in a space of 15 minutes. Judy was at the mast taking a reef in the main when I heard a loud explosion! What happened? Did we hit something? No, the stem plate holding our forestay and roller furling fractured and our 160 % genoa was flogging out to starboard in 30 knots of wind!

I immediately turned Veleda downwind to ease the pressure on the now unstayed mast. I am thankful that the Ontario 32 has a keel stepped mast which stayed up under these stresses, as I think if it had been deck-stepped, we would have lost it. Judy dropped the main, and, with the engine on and self steering engaged, we attached the spinnaker and pole lift halyards to the bow cleats to serve as temporary forestays while we wrestled the now-shredded flogging genoa and its roller furling drum onto the bow pulpit and tied it off. As we were a little over half way across, we continued under motor to Andraitx where we spent another month replacing the damaged gear. We enjoyed the Balearics, visiting most of the ports in Mallorca, and over to Menorca and Cabrera.

Tunisia, Malta and Sicily

We left Mahon on Menorca for Bizerte in Tunisia, a 60 hour sail of 315 miles for our first contact with Africa. We enjoyed Tunisia, visiting the ancient city of Carthage, now a suburb of Tunis, and touring south right down to the Sahara Desert. We went around to Monastir, another marina where many cruisers spend the winter in the warmer climates of Africa. However we did not appreciate the false welcomes of many who were just trying to get us into their shops, or asking money for showing us around the bazaars and city sites. When somebody was helpful, we wondered how much accepting such help would cost.

We stopped for a night at Lampedusa, a small pleasant Italian island, on our way from Tunisia to Malta. Many refugees from Africa try to get to Lampedusa to enter EU territory. Another day and we were in Malta, in the historic harbour of Valetta, anchored in Sleima Creek for a few weeks. We spent a weekend on Gozo, an adjacent island, before heading across to Sicily where we anchored on the southeast coast near Syracusa, enjoying the ethnographic park, museum, and a trip up to Mount Etna, which happened to be rumbling at that time, spewing black ash over some of the boats in the nearer marinas.

Croatia, Greece, and Turkey

From Sicily we went to the toe of Italy, across to the heel, into the Adriatic Sea, to Dubrovnik and up the Dalmatian (Croatia) coast, to Trieste and over to Venice. Back down, we avoided Albania to enter Greece at Corfu. We spent some time around Levkas and the Ionian Islands, another area where cruisers tend to winter (marinas at Levkas and anchorages a bit south near Nidri). From there we went around the Greek Peloponnesus (as opposed to going through the Corinth Canal), and enjoyed the dramatic scenery of this rugged coast, as well as the historic areas of Olympia, Pilos, and Monemvasia. Crossing the Aegean in October and November was fraught with storms, as we stopped at Milos, Santorini and Rhodes before our final two day dash to Kemer in Turkey just down the coast from Antalya.

We enjoyed Kemer and spent two winters there. Turkey is by far our favourite country. The sailing and scenery of the southwest coast of Anatolia and the Aegean coast is superb, with many bays for anchoring, convenient modern marinas, areas of ancient Roman and Greek history, and very friendly people.

Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Egypt

Next spring (2002) we went on the East Mediterranean Yacht Rally (EMYR), sponsored by Kemer Marina. This is a very worthwhile rally, not a race, and full of historic areas to visit, and many free social receptions in each port. (We got our money back in the first week of the six week rally, in free meals at receptions and free marinas at all locations.) We joined it at Bodrum, back to Kemer, the official start port for the international portion, and off to Northern Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Haifa and Ashkelon in Israel, over to Port Said in Egypt, and back to Herzliya (near Tel Aviv) in Israel to complete the rally.

We returned to Haifa for a few days free marina, courtesy of the EMYR, and back to Kemer, after which we played around in the Greek Aegean for the rest of the summer and fall, returning to Kemer for a second enjoyable winter.

The Black Sea, Bulgaria, Romania, and the Ukraine

In the spring of 2003 we made our way up the Aegean coast of Turkey into the Dardanelles (past Troy and the Gallipoli Peninsula), across the Sea of Marmara to Istanbul, and up the Bosphorus into the Black Sea. Unfortunately, when we were half way along the Black Sea coast of Turkey, in Sinop, we had an emergency phone call that Judy’s mother was dying of cancer. We sailed and motorsailed the 300 miles back to Istanbul to leave Veleda at Fenerbahce Marina and were back in Canada until the spring of 2004. In March we again left Istanbul and went into the Black Sea, but this time went clockwise around to Bulgaria and Romania. We liked both countries and had no problems clearing in or out.

From Constanta in Romania we left the Black Sea and went up the Black Sea/Danube Canal 70 km into the Danube River, then 300 km downstream to the Danube Delta at the border with the Ukraine. We enjoyed the Delta but had to spend an extra week in Tulcea to replace our prop shaft. Checking into the Ukraine at Ismail was a horror story, taking three days, with the fear that we would be charged $250.00 (US) a day as a commercial vessel; they did not understand what a private yacht was. We had to check in and out at every Ukrainian port. We enjoyed Odessa, taking a night train up to Kiev for a few days. We then went up the Dneiper and Bug Rivers to Nikolayev and Kherson, Russian shipbuilding towns north of the Crimea. In Crimea we went to Sevastopol, which is the main Russian Navy base for their Black Sea Fleet. After going to Balaclava and Yalta, we returned to Sevastopol for the Fleet Review the last weekend of July.

Back to Turkey, Greece and Italy

After the Fleet Review we then crossed the Black Sea back to Turkey. We like the north coast of Turkey very much. Down through the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, to Ephesus on the Turkish Aegean coast, before going into the Greek Aegean to Santorini and down to Crete. From Crete we had planned to sail directly to the Straits of Messina, but due to wind conditions instead went to the Greek island of Kithira, then to Methoni, a favourite anchorage on the Peloponnesus, before crossing the 318 miles to Reggio de Calabria on the mainland Italy side of the Straits of Messina. We went to the volcanic Aeolian islands of Vulcano and Stromboli north of Sicily, then coasted up the Italian peninsula to Amalfi, Capri and a few other towns and islands, past Naples, to Ostia, where we stayed at the marina where the Tiber River flows into the Tyrrhenian Sea, 15 miles from Rome. There we met several friends who were either going into the Med or getting ready to leave the Med next spring of 2005, as we were planning to do.

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