This technology stuff is killing me

OMG - I can't keep up! With all this new stuff, well maybe just new to me, like Facebook, email, blogging, Twitter (although, I have yet to try this one), and now, new from Google - Buzz, I am so far behind! Apparently I am already following 9 people! Really? I'm still not exactly sure how it works, and I definitely know I didn't sign up for yet another program.
I know being busy is no excuse for my lack of posting of late, but not to fear, our recent stories and pictures will be coming soon.
Thanks for reading, and waiting....
Meow & the Man

Karpathos, Greece

Unfortunately on the sail over from Crete to this island, only 180nm away, I came down with a head cold. No fun when you have to stand watch in the middle of the night, or when it starts to rain as it inevitably does sailing in winter. To top that off, the power system on the boat stopped working. With the wind dying, the wind generator or what we call “Meap” (Mechanical energy appliance producer), would do us no good. Additionally, the engine did not seem to be charging the batteries either. Hmmmm. So not only did the wind die in the middle of the night, so did our nav lights, wind instruments and compass light. Great.
Our 36 hour trip ended up taking us 50 hours, as we had to sail around to allow the wind generator to charge up the batteries to start the engine, not really so bad, except I just didn’t feel well. I wanted a couch, a fireplace, a blankie, a hot cup of tea, a TV with copious amounts of movies, and a place to plant myself for hours. Home sounded good.
Anyhow, this is a very cute Greek island, totally something out of a brochure, but really small. The whole town where we stopped is only like three streets deep. Upon doing boat chores (and something we knew about from when we were underway), the head (toilet) was wobbling, and needed repairs. When Brian went to fix it, he discovered that both brackets that hold the toilet down were broken completely. Yeah…He had to remove everything including the vanity to get the repair done. Oh, this boat has like 3 screw drivers and a pair of pliers Brian bought.
Okay, since Carl was at his friends, we stayed on the boat, but the next night we checked into a hotel. It’s no fun to have to wait until the café opens in the morning to go to the bathroom! Did I mention that there were no facilities here – bathroom or shower, or did I have to? On the plus side, I feel much better, but it’s still raining.
So, my shower average is now 6 days. Gross, I know, and probably way TMI, but it’s not all glamorous, all the time people. I am so looking forward to warm weather and warmer water (ocean) where showers are not such a concern since all you have to do is jump in to the sea – ahhhhhhh………
Oh, I finally got a gyros, a spanikopita, and a piece of baklava. Yummy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/katnbrian/sets/72157623109371813/

Crete – Chania

After 20 years of wanting to come to Greece, I finally arrived. It just wasn’t in summer, like I had hoped. Okay, trying to make the best of it, my heart just really wasn’t there. Anyhow, this town had a very picturesque waterfront and romantic interior, something of which I expected. However, again this port had no shower facilities for women and even less of a bathroom if you could call it that. What’s up with these European countries and their sub standard facilities? Mexico was a dream compared to what I have been experiencing here.

With that said, Brian & I checked into a room. I stunk, and knew it. Being totally grateful, I took full advantage of the shower and private bath right after we got some boat chores done first – like getting camping gas to cook with. Ya, we arrived on a Saturday, knowing that everything is closed Sunday, we had to hustle. Anyhow, we managed to have a nice dinner where we ate huge Greek salads. I swear, I ate about 3 whole tomatoes myself!

Due to weather, it was decided we would not leave until maybe Monday. Great, more time to explore. There is supposed to be a great hike and some nice beaches on the southwest side of the island of Crete. Renting a car, Brian and I took off on our adventure. It being already late afternoon and we hadn’t eaten yet, we rushed out of town to make a sunset dinner in Sougia.

Our Rental Car

Well, it was romance “interrupt-us” as we came around the corner of a windy mountainous road and encountered a truck coming down in our lane. We had no where to go but into him, literally. Yes, that’s right – smack-a-roo! Luckily, we were headed up the hill and only in first gear, impacting at 5- 10 mph, so no one got hurt. That’s the good news. The bad news was we were Americans. Oh, and they spoke no English (in the truck). Then it started to rain. Right. Three hours later, a trip down to the police station in the police car, a trip back up to get the car, and a discussion with our rental agent (who showed up) about who was at fault (as they tried to blame us – good thing we had the camera & the evidence was clearly against them, but still it was bad – the driver even went so far as to pick up the glass & plastic and move it into his lane to try and blame us, bad), and still no dinner or food, we were escorted back to the boat. Yes, you heard correctly. They had no other car to give us. Not that it mattered since our plans were ruined. Their Insurance - it's all Greek to us!

Starving, we headed into old town for some quick dinner. Not wanting to spend the big bucks on a tourist trap water front restaurant recommended by the rental car agent, we went to what we thought would be a reasonable place. Yeah, it was except we just didn’t expect them to take our dinner out of the freezer right in front of us! Laughing, because what are you going to do, cry (?), we decided to write off the day. The only welcome site was the big beer Brian ordered – it was well, big.

The "Freezer"

A "big" beer :)

Desperate to improve my mood, we ended up getting a car (no charge) the next day. We drove in the opposite direction this time up to the next big city – Rethyknos. I could see in summer what fun it could be, but in winter there wasn’t really anything to do. We ate at a “noodle bar” but came out thinking, where were the noodles? Really trying, we located the movie theatre and ascertained that yes; they did have movies in English. Great, this always lifts my spirits. Well, we went to the Hugh Grant, Sara Jessica Parker movie – Did you hear about the Morgan’s? It wasn’t good, but it’s funny how you enjoy anything in English, and at this point, I did. Anyhow, another day was awash.

Tuesday we leave for Karpathos, Greece and to visit with one of Carl’s friends.

Sorry, we didn't take many scenic photos, but what we did you can find here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/katnbrian/sets/72157623221747998/

Passing through the Ion Stream

This was another heinous 6 day sail crossing from Malta to Greece via the Ionian Sea. In the middle, we were hundreds of miles from anything. It rained often, I was cold, everything was wet, & we ran out of cooking gas. We all knew that would happen since we could not procure it over the holidays while in Malta, but it still blew! Okay, anyhow, we went from wet and windy, to wet, to no wind, to wind. When you came on shift you would ask, any rain, any big ones (waves that came over the whole boat soaking everything)?

Sleeping Giants:

Twelve miles off of Malta is a spot where the Med is just a few hundred feet deep and we passed through 35 huge ships sleeping at anchor. Brian was doing the Porky Pig " Be wery, wery, quiet" as we sail silently between them.

This ship wasn't sleeping!

On the windless nights the stars shone so brightly that one has to concluded that there has to be life out there just based on numbers. If 0.000001% chance were considered, there would be at least 100 possiblities. Yeah, we got a lot of time on our hands to think up this stuff, especially in the middle of the night, alone, at the helm.

Malta - a sailing country with a history problem!

It only took us 3 days to get to Malta. We arrived at 3am the morning of New Year's Eve and tied up between a large fishing boat and the Coast Guard station. Well, at least we made it. After being greeted by a very curious cat, who joined us in the saloon for snacks, we all turned in for a rest. The rest lasted until 6 AM with someone telling us we were in the wrong spot. After we moved, I couldn't wait to take a shower, get some laundry done (since we had been doing it by hand in a bucket for the last 3 weeks), and go exploring.

Hi, I'm here for the boat kitty interview?

Two out of three isn't so bad, unless of course the one is no shower facilities! Oh, and it being a holiday weekend and all, most shops were closed or closing by 1pm today (Friday, NYE). Okay, send out the scout! Brian jumped on Carl's mt. bike and off he went. We needed new navigation lights as the last one melted due to a short, and we were sailing with one of those " stick to the wall" battery lights inside the colored lense. I grabbed the passports, and Carl & I checked into the country. We were then greeted by some other cruisers, in Malta for the winter, who pointed us in the correct direction, & invited us to a New Year's Day BBQ - Great.

Carl at the BBQ - did I mention all the kitties?

We were all expecting Malta to be extremely expensive, according to all the guide books and the fact that as an island country it imports everything (but aparently baked goods)! So you can imagine our pleasant surprise when we found things to be very reasonable indeed. As a bonus, everyone speaks English because Maltese is so difficult.

And all the yummy treats!

and all the Maltese kitties!

Instead of doing the tourist, hop on, hop off bus, our lonely Planet guide suggested taking the local bus loop around the old city of Valletta, for $0.47 euro cents! Now that’s my kind of tour guide. Another plus side, the old buses are so cool and fun to ride. We also did a lot of walking, which is fine by me.

This city and what we’ve seen of the country, is like something out of a romantic movie. Actually the waterfront reminds us a lot of Venice with San Marcos in the background of the grand canal. Malta even calls this section the “grand harbor”. Boy is it amazing, hence all the photo’s we took of it.

One of many city buses - Bri's in the drivers seat!

Anyhow, We just loved Malta. The food/treats were yummy (and cheap), the history immense, the coffee good, everyone spoke English, and it was so romantic. Such a different island experience for me too. I am use to islands looking like Hawaii, you know, tropical, and it is definitely not like Manhattan!

However, even though English was spoken, it doesn't mean there were not translation issues. Speaking to one man at the bus stop, he asked if we had pizza's and cheese cakes like they had back in the US. I was eating a pizza slice and said, "sure. We actually have a place called the Cheesecake factory with like, 27 different kinds. " Later I would find out that he mean these filo dough, ricotta, savory, pastry things that were only .25 euro cents! Oops. I would show you a picture of one, but I ate it. :) Meow

Enjoy the pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/katnbrian/sets/72157623221585018/