Well, here I am! I’m writing this sitting in the cockpit of Sea Thrift, a glass of ouzo at hand and dressed only in a pair of shorts. I’m anchored in the most perfectly sheltered harbour of Pethi on the island of Sime near the Turkish coast. I left Falmouth on 4 June, had a fairly quiet crossing of Biscay, but did have to endure a force 8 as I neared Cape Finisterre. That was quite exciting and exhausting as I was at the helm for about 11 hours. The autohelm couldn’t handle the job!

The boat, by the way, is a Rival 34 and, though not perfect, seems to do the job well enough. I stopped near Finisterre, Lisbon and Gibraltar, then one or two stops along the Spanish coast, Ibiza, Minorca, Sardinia, Sicily and Corfu. I only had one more day of heavy weather and for the most part I had suffered from not enough wind. I think Joan would back me up on this, that the lonian islands offer the best sailing for dinghies. Little wind in the mornings and light winds in the afternoons. Many of the harbours and anchorages are chock-a-block with charter boats, but it is not difficult to find peace and privacy, even for a yacht of 2m draught. I had friends meeting me in Crete from 1 September, so had to run down the lonian, but I stopped off at Levkas to look up Alan Gauci, who is with a sailing school there. Unfortunately, he was away for a week. I reached Crete in good time and had a 6 or 7 week rest from sailing. Instead I talked and drank all day with a variety of friends and acquaintances.

Navigation has been no problem at all, the Biscay crossing because of the magic Decca, but once in the Med and out of the Decca system, the biggest bonus is the lack of tides. Thus, dead reckoning is quite sufficient, but I’ve usually done a bit of astro’ and had quite good results. RDF isn’t too successful because many of the beacons are not working. When really well into the islands, it’s just ‘eyeball’ navigation, though visibility is often down to 3 or 4 miles.

I was without a chart covering the sail from Iraklion (Crete) to Rhodes, so I plotted my course on the index sheet; scale 1:2,000,000!! The character of the Aegean Sea became apparent on that trip: a force 5, gusting 6 and a nasty short and steep sea. The wind was on my beam and at best I sailed 70 miles in 10 hours. The full 140 miles took 27 hours, which is probably my best day’s sail yet. I remember before I left UK, I used to plan the trip on the basis of an average day’s sail of 120 miles. Wishful thinking! I think I will spend the winter in Bodrum (Turkey) and ‘do’ the Turkish coast next spring.

You know, I haven’t seen any yachts under (let me see) about 28’ long and certainly no dinghies. Though Sea Thrift is big enough for me, the one advantage of a larger boat would be the ability to carry a rigid tender and, if I could do so, I would of course rig it with a little lugsail. Many boats carry windsurfers, but I must admit that the business doesn’t appeal to me much, and looks impossible anyway!

I hope the DCA is doing well and, despite the poor summer, I hope you had some good sailing.