This last week has been dramatic to say the least. You’ll find out more in the coming weeks when the podcasts and photographs of our progress are published. Bear in mind we now have to be mindful of what we make public knowledge and what we hold back, so there will be a delay in what we report on. In the meantime we’ve been sitting out some nasty southerlies in this safe little anchorage and yesterday we had some fun. Our tender, which is a British-built Tinker, doubles up as a sailing dinghy so Cillian of ‘Cobble’ and myself put a bit of effort into rigging her up and taking her for her maiden sail! Is this the first ever Tinker to sail in the Red Sea? Maybe, maybe not, but what is impressive is that I’ve successfully managed to upload a video clip of said maiden voyage. Listen out for the gay Egyptian soundtrack!

Tags: dinghy, sail, tinker, video
Category: video clips
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I was very disappointed to read some of the comments you lot made about my dad’s efforts to line-fish off the back of the boat. You have to remember that whilst they look small to you, they are in fact a complete meal for a cat like me, so when he starts getting so good he pulls in not one, not two but three fish, one after the other, you have to admire his success. My dad’s great, I love him!

Tags: fishing
Category: fishing, video clips
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Lipsi. A quintessentially Greek island untouched by the hoards of package holiday tourists that populate the bigger Dodecanese islands. I’d say the people here are a mix of holidaying Greeks, a few backpackers and a bunch of yotties, not forgetting the gentle locals, which makes for a very peaceful atmosphere indeed. These next few log entries, including a special post by Millie The Cat, cover the rest of the Dodecanese islands and start with Lipsi, which is littered with some of my fave photographs of the Dodecanese islands. Let me know what you think of them by leaving a comment at the end of the page!

Tags: church, cycle, greek dancing, lipsi, photography
Category: log, video clips
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Liz has left me. She has gone and now it is just me, the cat and Esper. To pull myself out of my misery I attempted some single handed sailing, proving to myself and the world that I can stand alone, man against the elements, a conqueror, a hero. Impressive was the fact that I have never sailed solo before; even more impressive was that I managed to log two continents. Well, this all sounds good on paper, but the reality was that my first week was a complete screaming disaster. Dragging anchors, smashed solar panels, dysfunctional engines and rolling harbours all contributed to me desperately wanting my Queenie back on board. All this is set against a background of consistent 25-30knot winds that have been plaguing the Greek Islands all month. The usual self-deprecation is illustrated with loads of pics (look out for ‘Moon Goat’) and a couple of video clips too.

Tags: anchor, drag, gale, greece
Category: log, video clips
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It doesn’t seem to matter where you are this weekend: Turkey, England, Germany… it’s wet wherever you go. If the weather’s not ripping pontoons apart in Marmaris it’s holding up traffic on the M25 and making the autobahn a dangerous place to travel. For those who haven’t seen it we have some video evidence of the damage that wreaked havoc across Marmaris, recorded by Mike of ‘Roam’, hot off the press. In stark contrast to that we have a great movie of ‘Ilios’, ‘Viva Solo’, ‘Esper’, ‘Full Flight’ and ‘Lady Jessie’ all demonstrating what we like doing best. Any opportunity to send Liz off up into the air attached to a bit of string , camcorder in hand, has got to be worth the effort and she captured some fantastic video clips, which we present to you here. A pleasant musical refrain replaces the dirty-mouthed Liz battling with a shaky video camera.

Tags: boynuz buku, chute, göcek, marina, marmaris, skopia limani, storm
Category: video clips
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We did a lot of things this year. We did a lot of new things this year. New people, new experiences, new places and all that. One of the highlights, however, has to be sending Liz up into the sky to get a bird’s eye view of Esper under sail, with Mum and Dad helping to hoist some light wind sails.

Tags: chute, cruising, mizzen, sail, stay
Category: video clips
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A classic video clip of little Millie going for a dive in the warm waters of Boynuz Buku and proof that not only can cats swim but actually aren’t half bad at it either!

Tags: anchorage, cat, swim
Category: video clips
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Alanya is an odd place for yotties to visit. On the one hand it is full of German and Russian package holiday makers, basking on the most stunning of sandy beaches (a rarity in Turkey). It lacks local anchorages, suffers sloppy waters and rarely hosts ‘good’ sailing weather, located in the lull that is Antalya Bay. Oh and it doesn’t yet have a completed marina. On the other hand it boasts some stunning views of the Taurus mountains and the ‘old town’ and castle are well worth a visit. Annoyingly it also has a great brewery, which I missed. How the hell did that happen?

Tags: photographs, photography, turkey
Category: video clips
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More lazy days spent at anchor with nothing to do except swim, eat, drink, play games (Trish has every board game stashed away aboard ‘Dragon Song’) and explore. Concerned about getting their guest, Susie, back in time to catch her plane ‘Dragon Song’ left us, leaving Liz and myself on our own in the middle of nowhere. Not a building, road or person for miles. Not even a passing ship.

Tags: anchorage, cyprus
Category: video clips
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I’m not entirely sure why this happened: when the depth is over 100m the gauge normally just shows ‘—m’. I’ve never seen it show a reading like that before and I can only assume it was a shoal of fish, or one big fish, attracted by the sound of the boat’s chugging, monotone engine. Either that or a Turkish submarine was f***ing with us.

Tags: cyprus, finike, motor sail, turkey
Category: meeting new people, video clips
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FISH, now they are quite a different matter. Oh, just that word brings me out in goose pimples. F, I, S, H, fish. Tasty, fleshy, scaly, spiky, slimy, fresh, wriggling fish. Yummy, yum yum.

Tags: fish, fishing, turkey
Category: fishing, millie's cat-a-log, video clips
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Having spent much of the winter aboard Rama producing The Porthole, and spending Christmas Day around the dinner table with 18 friends, it was only fitting that Liz and I were invited to help deliver Rama to Malta, along with Gordon, the chief engineer who we had befriended over the winter period. The deal was that we could come along for the ride providing we helped out with a bit of cooking and watching…

Tags: malta, motor boat, turkey
Category: video clips
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Now I wouldn’t want you to think that we’ve been up to nothing but do-gooding these past weeks… Those of you that know us will be relieved to hear that there has been the usual amount of getting-up-to-mischief and having fun too! Now, where to start?

Tags: fancy dress, hallowe'en, marina, marmaris, party, turkey
Category: boat maintenance, observation, video clips
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After lashing the video camera and tripod to the granny bars we were able to capture some great shots of us tacking Esper. As it happened, after pressing the ‘record’ button we had to do two tacks in quick succession, both of which were caught on one six minute clip. Obviously we’ve edited this for you into a short 1 minute montage. Our fave sailing clip to date!

Tags: sail, tack
Category: video clips
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The great thing about Knidos is the lack of tourists. Because there is only one road leading to the headland very little road traffic bother to make the journey. Therefore the majority of tourists come by boat, and since the site Knidos sits on is so remote, nestled between a mountain and a hill at the end of the headland, there are very few people walking round the site.

Tags: ancient, historical, knidos, turkey
Category: observation, video clips
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Time for Ethan to get wet! Considering this was the first time Ethan and Chris had executed a manoeuvre like this they did really, really well. The great thing about these two was that they didn’t arse about. They listened and did as they were told until the boat was safe and secure. Proof that the best crew are not always the most qualified. In fact we executed our anchorage so well that another guy in a French-flagged boat who was having problems anchoring decided to copy us!

Tags: anchorage, anchoring, knidos, turkey
Category: video clips
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After lunch at a little restaurant by the shore we headed up to the hill on the other side of the bay, where we sat at the top and admired the beautiful views around the bay and across to Kos. We could see Esper anchored up with the other boats looking splendid. It was here that we each developed our “I like it up here” song with accompanying dance.

Tags: gumusluk, limon cafe, rabbit island, turkey
Category: video clips
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We took the dinghy to the end of the bay and up the creek. It might have been easier if we had figured out how the mediaeval sign system worked – it may have prevented us from going aground a few times! Anyway, we got ourselves to the end of the creek and carefully avoided feeding the crocodiles…

Tags: amazon creek, gokova, turkey
Category: video clips
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We had a gentle sail, beam reach, to Kazıklı. This place, as Jamie promised me, was a picturesque, mostly unspoilt, little piece of paradise. We took a long walk around the shore and saw a small turtle in a stream and lots of very pretty views.

Tags: kazıklı, turkey, turtle
Category: video clips
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Ahhh… back on Esper in lovely Bodrum. Boy was I looking forward to this break. I had already been counting down the days till I would be on board permanently and this would be a nice little taster.

Tags: backgammon, bodrum, catal ada, gumusluk, turkey
Category: video clips
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For someone who has been sailing for only two or so years, this really was a quantum leap. Don’t mind if I blow my own trumpet but how many people do you know are capable of taking a boat out and sailing for 10 miles, Taçking and gybing, and get it back in to the [...]

Tags: bodrum, single handed, solo, turkey, yat lift
Category: video clips
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It was a perfect Bodrum morning. The sky was blue, the birds were singing and everyone was smiling. We had agreed to put Esper in the water after lunchtime, around 2ish, bearing in mind that in Turkey “around 2 o’clock” is a very elastic concept…

Tags: bodrum, launch, marina, naming ceremony, turkey
Category: video clips
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Another miserable day on the weather front (the second in a row with no sun), giving us a grim backdrop for the bad news: the batteries had stopped charging and neither the skipper nor the first mate had any idea why this was so. Ocean Indies is, after all, a new boat. This situation meant we now had to run what is called a ‘dead ship’, i.e. no electricity.

Tags: squall, vhf
Category: heavy weather sailing, video clips
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Made my managerial debut today by catching my first dorado. When I say ‘catch’ I mean I chose the lure, cast the line, caught the fish, killed it, cleaned it, cooked it and consumed it. Actually when I say ‘cooked it’ that’s not strictly true since I cut it up into small strips, marinated it in lemon juice and ate it raw.

Tags: dorado, fish, fishing, moon, night watch
Category: fishing, video clips
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England are the rugby world champions! We followed the progress via the BBC World Service, whose coverage went something like this:

‘There are loads of people here in Sydney preparing for the World Cup. And now back to the news’

Tags: atlantic, bbc, dorado, fishing, swim, world service
Category: fishing, video clips
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Highlight today was seeing pilot whales, which are basically very large dolphins. In fact Simon claims dolphins are for kids and pilot whales are the real thing and I have to say they really are impressive sight swimming in massive pods alongside the boat, especially when they start jumping out of the water.

Tags: dolphins, dorado, fishing, moon, night watch, swim
Category: fishing, video clips
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Highlight of the day, however, was going for a swim in the middle of nowhere (24’ 40.61N, 18’ 44.12W). With the sun baking down accompanied by slow winds Simon devised a safety harness for us to wear whilst we took it in turns to dive off the bow into the warm, clear blue waters, floating a few miles above the sea bed.

Tags: atlantic, fishing, garlic, motor sail, night watch, swim
Category: fishing, video clips
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Like a character out of Tom Sawyer I spent my day bathing and reading on the trampoline and checking my line at the back of the boat, occasionally playing with the line as though I knew what I was doing.

Tags: atlantic, fish, fishing
Category: fishing, video clips
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With a high tide and strong winds the cycle ride became a very wet fairground ride as huge waves battered the sea walls, splashing up to 20ft high and spraying anyone in its path. Like four hung-over pratts on bikes. The trick was all about timing, something that Tim didn’t have, unfortunately for him and his clothes.

Tags: bicycle, cascais, cycle, lisbon, marina
Category: video clips
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