Hellenic Head Case..........is this what cruising is really meant to be?

Last night in Kas we dined in the old town square a couple of streets back and enjoyed the night time ambiance. The meal was OK but under pressure of numbers they really failed to deliver and we all graciously extricated ourselves to drift off into the night. no problem we can't get it right every time. We wandered about taking in the night time sights and came across another tall sarcophagus, surrounded by locals smoking and talking, reflecting the casual ambiance with living amongst antiquities.

On the way home we picked up the laundry on the dock as the girl works till one in the morning and Gend and I had a drink in the cockpit until Pauly arrived home.
It was the first night that temperatures had dropped back into the comfort zone and it was a good sleep night for all. the usual is a fitful affair of lying there drenched and relishing the small temperature differential being pushed towards your face by a small electric fan. Thank goodness for inverters.
Woke a bit later and we had agreed it was to be a fruit breakfast. it just doesn't get any better. peaches pears, plums oranges, banana and ripe figs halved and coated in brown sugar, caramelised on the grill and drizzled with Greek honey all topped off with thick refreshingly tart yogurt.
Slipped the lines and it was my turn at the helm to take us out of the harbour. it was cool. dropped off the bowline and quickly let go stern lines and engaged ahead for a second as the 175 john Deere kicked into action propelled us forward and then immediately disengaged and ran slowly forward on sheer deadstick momentum. Repeat that a couple of times to move to the middle of the tight fairway and then worship at the alter of the thruster.
Bow and stern thrusters used contemporaneously are a miracle. finger tip pirouetting pleasure and then a glide out of the harbour bound for Kastellerizon just two miles away and our first Greek destination.

This morning as we crossed this narrow stretch of water from Turkey to Greece I started to develop a worrying and compelling thought about the nature of cruising.
It was an epiphany in as much as I found myself harbouring the thought that this was actually what cruising was. What we do at home is a sad, primitive exercise in survival ever grateful if we get two days in a row that you can rely on the weather to be the same even if that is blowing like forty bastards.Cruising here is like an endless surreal dream of all the best long hot amazing central Otago summers of your youth all just being rolled out day after day with no end in sight.
To that add enormous marine savvy infrastructure, gastronomic framework, endless hospitality, water that positively rewards you for swimming with its clarity and voluptuous warm pleasures.

This is actually what cruising should be not an exercise in survival, nights on anchor watch in the middle of summer, and waiting for weather to abate so you can make a run for home to enable a reasonable chance of not becoming a maritime statistic. Its a very seductive mix and one that has ensured I shall never really be the same. If you have a boat and like sailing and cruising in the best of climates, surrounded by cultural and historical interest, good food, and every marine service you can envisage, all cheaper than at home then this is where you should be.
It has done my head in.

It is a stunning approach into the small harbour surrounded on three sides by small semidetached brightly coloured lime washed buildings the head of the Bay the town and the promenade of restaurants. This time up an enterprising restaurateur provided the berthing instructions and like an airline groundstaff with out the light bats guided us with glee right onto his restaurants prominent section of wall. Yes we new it was a fit up but even with due diligence its virtually impossible to select a restaurant on merit until you have already dined there so we slid in like a willing lamb to the gentle slaughter. We knew he would get us for dinner and that was fine with us.
The girls wandered off and we walked and talked the length of water front town stopping at intervals to have a round of beers at tables half a metre from the sea.
lunch was grilled octopus, Greek salad and lamb chops, washed down with Mythos the Greek Beer. we adjourned to the cockpit for a coffee, Fletch for a snooze and me to the blog!