When we were enjoying ourselves in the Goeçek area, we got a phone call and had to change our plans for the rest of the season. Nothing dramatically had happened with family or so, but Béa had to spend more time in Belgium than was planned. So commuting to and from Turkey was not an option and we planned to sail back to Greece for the first part of the Autumn. We left Turkey beginning of August to be back in Poros two weeks later.

This time the route went from Goeçek via Ekinçek, Bosburun (Yesilova), Datça "for the check out", Nisyros (but not for a week as planned), Astipalaia, Ios, Sifnos and direct to Poros.

The Goeçek area is wonderful, but and it is a BIG BUT, the tourism industry with their Gulets (the turkish huge wooden boats that takes tourists onboard for a week or so) were a pain "low down". The pushed all private yachts out from the most beautiful places and in total acted very "bullyish" and disgustingly. They emptied their black water tanks as soon as they saw a bay they later wanted for themselves, to scare away boat people like us and others. If we had known this beforehand we would never had sailed to Turkey. We found the turkish people extremely nice, polite and hospitable, but the gulet industry spoiled all this in certain places. We were inspected several times by the Coast Guard, to see if we had our grey and black watertanks in order. They should have looked closer on the gulets instead, as they really poluted the environment.

The nature in that part of Turkey is stunning, BUT the Greek nature around the Ionian archipelago is just as wonderful, not to forget the surroundings of the Saronic Sea. Plus, there are less boats in Greece nowadays, as all people gather in Turkey during the season.

I have to mention Bosburun in Turkey, just north of the Simy island, as it became our favourite place in Turkey. It is totally unspoilt by tourism and has kept it's ooriginal look and culture. It is recommended to visit this town. We were moored to the quay just in front of "Osman's Place", a well known restaurant in the area. The people in this town (and elsewhere in Turkey for that matter) respected animals in a way we could never dream of in an south-eastern country. The stopped and went out of cars, motorbikes etc, just to move a sleeping dog or cat on the street. In Greece they just increase the speed instead.

The photos below are from June and July 2006, taken in Fetiey, Goeçek, Bosburun and Marti Marina, all in Turkey. The photos of cats below are from Bosburun.


























We left Turkey via Datça and sailed via Nisyros to Astipalaya, Ios, Sifnos, Hydra and back to Poros. The photos below are from this trip.

















I stayed on the boat when Béa first went via Athens to go to Belgium, but the commuting Greece Belgium was not practical. We decided to sail the boat back to Malta for the first part of the winter 07 - 08. I have quite a lot of photos from this trip, but my cousin still have them stored on his computer, I will get them sooner or later to post here.










I left Poros end of September for a direct trip to Malta. Onboard were, my cousin Muck and his two friends, Kari and Nick. This was a good number of crew and our shifts at sea were not too tiring. We had a real good trip, it took three days from Poros via the Corinth canal, Zakintos to Malta.

In October I was invited by my friend John Hollamby to participate in a veteran car rally from Valletta up around the island of Gozo and back to Valletta again. John has an old Sunbeam Tiger with a V8 engine in it. Enjoy the photos of the oldtimers. The first photos are my friends and crew from Poros to Malta. My cousin Muck and the two youngsters Kari and Nick, very good sailors all of them.

















November was a quite month. Béa's birthday was in December and we spoiled ourselves a bit by taking a nice long weekend at Malta Hilton. Béa had a lot of Hilton bonus points from her last job and those we used now. As with most of the small photos, just click on them and they will expand.








I stayed in Malta until just after the New Year 2008, when together with our friends Staffan and Gunilla I headed for Monastir in Tunisia. The plan was and is, that we shall finish our interior ceiling work there and fix some other little alterations that we have on our revision list.

The 9th Jan 08 in the morning Sea Otter was lifted out of the water and is now resting on the ground at the yard. I am staying with the boat, but living in a studio located in the monastir marina. Most of January i have spent with Béa visiting relatives and friends in Belgium. from February I am back in Monastir to oversee the works and to do some alteration to rig and re-install new speed log and wind instruments. We are also ordering a new Gennacker to be manufactored in Monastir.