Monday, January 25, 2010

Cruising again soon

It is exactly two years ago since we updated our blogspot, and now is a good time to look back on what’s happened so far and advise about our future plans:
October 2006: purchased Nordhavn 46 Envoy, located in Ostia, Italy
March 2007: joined Envoy in Ostia for the start of an intended 15 month cruise
December 2007: signed a contract to sell Hunt Agencies, the company in which I was a major shareholder
January 2008: cut our cruise short to return home and assist the management of the acquiring company
During 2007 our voyage took us down the west coast of Italy to Sicily and the Aeolian Islands, through the Straits of Messina and north east to Corfu, down the west coast of Greece and the Ionian Islands, through the Gulf of Corinth and the Corinthian Canal to the Saronic Islands and Piraeus and then east through the Greek Middle Cyclades and some of the Dodecanese Islands to Marmaris, Turkey where Envoy is currently located.
Envoy has been left unattended since January 2008, but we protected her with a custom-built waterproof cover, installed two dehumidifiers inside, left the batteries on charge and contracted a local marine engineering company, Demir Marine, to go aboard and make regular checks. In addition, several friends have been able to inspect Envoy and independently assure us that mostly everything is OK. Knowing that Envoy would be out of the water for at least two years we also contracted Demir Marine to renew the gelcoat and paint on all underwater hull sections including the rudder and stabilizer fins.
I retire from full-time work on 31 March and we will arrive back in Marmaris on 5 April. When Envoy is ready to cruise again we plan to cruise to the Greek Islands of Rhodes, Lindos, Karpathos and Crete, where we will stay for several weeks. We will then return to Marmaris via Milos, Kimolos, Fologandros, Sikinos, Santorini, Anafi and Tilos.
I have made an arrangement with a premium, coffee-table quality, Australasian boating magazine, “Pacific Motor Yacht”, to publish a regular column about our Med cruising adventures and our first article appears in the March/April edition. Pacific Motor Yacht has a great on-line version which is free, and uses a "flick pages" format making it very reader-friendly. Google Pacific Motor Yacht magazine for details.
Technical
If you read over our blog entry of 6 January 2008 you’ll be able to see the details of what we did to prepare Envoy for long term storage. When we return to Marmaris there will be considerable work needed to get Envoy back into cruising trim, and we estimate it will take 4-6 weeks to complete this and start cruising again.

1 comment:

marianna said...

Bon voyage! when you come to Karpathos and you have time to explore come and visit my pretty medieval village Menetes and have traditional food at the taverna Perdika on the square.