SV ICE BEAR

Vessel Name: ICE BEAR
Vessel Make/Model: Privilege 39
Hailing Port: Victoria Canada
Crew: Don and Cindy
About: From Vancouver Island British Columbia. Retired and enjoying relaxing Cruising.
Extra: we were hard core racers having sailed many many miles and loved the Long distance races with our previous three boats and friends boats but now we are pulling the throttles back. Even though ICE BEAR has a very nice turn of speed.
27 July 2019
12 July 2019 | Nydri marine
30 June 2019
07 May 2019
25 April 2019 | Temple of Zeus, Olympia
11 September 2018
03 August 2018
13 July 2018
27 June 2018 | Nafplio
11 June 2018
01 June 2018
19 May 2018
10 May 2018
06 May 2018
25 April 2018
20 January 2018
06 January 2018
19 December 2017
08 December 2017
Recent Blog Posts
27 July 2019

Paxos / Corfu

The next morning we paid the new Greek cruising tax said goodbye to the guys on Mangata and the lovely town of Preveza. Our next stop was Paxos. The island of Paxos was only a short hop up the Greek coast. It was a great place to wait for good conditions to cross the Adriatic sea to Italy. The harbour [...]

12 July 2019 | Nydri marine

The Bank

With our return to Vliho bay the weather cooled back down and the rain returned we spent the next few days doing more boat jobs.Found the rattle in the steering system there was wear in the linear drive and to fix it we needed new parts sigh one more job for Tunisia. Replaced the fresh water pump, fixed [...]

30 June 2019

The Aussie

We motored to the stern of Mangata and knocked. From inside we heard a hello woohoo he was home well we kinda knew he was home the dinghy was tied to the stern. We climbed aboard and went below for a quick tour and drink. I always forget how much room is inside a Bavaria. There must be at least [...]

07 May 2019

The next ten days were spent in the boat yard. Unlike last year there was no red dirt but it was cold and wet.Fortunately we had a heater and electricity. When it rained we went to the stores for parts and food when it dried for a few minutes we painted the bottoms, serviced the engines, repaired [...]

25 April 2019 | Temple of Zeus, Olympia

Adventure 2019 begins

The 2019 travel season started on April 2nd with a ferry ride to Vancouver where wonderful friends put us up for the night before the flight to Greece. Thank you so much. The flight was just the way we like flights uneventful. Once we passed through customs and satisfied the man at the exit that the [...]

24 April 2019

Wrap up of 2018 sailing season

When we left our intrepid traveler Emmet he was in Poros waiting for a weather system to pass. While waiting food was consumed and roads were walked. One of the boats near us had its anchor lifted and ended up side tied to the quay which wasn’t a great place to be. The surge from the storm and other [...]

Pucisca

26 September 2017
We were headed back to the island of Brac. The town of Pucisca. The first thing that you see as you near the opening to the towns harbour is a big quarry they were mining large slabs of limestone
to be shipped to building sites all over the world. Once past the quarry it didn't look much different than any other town. On the hill just inside the entrance to the bay there was a restaurant
and as we continued towards the town center we passed several well marked swimming areas and lots of the small fishing boats we had seen all the way up the coast. They were signs of active
improvements to the quay side they were building moles. A breakwater that the water cant flow under. The completed one had limestone benches and limestone street lights and a small limestone building that turned out to be the bathrooms and showers for probably anyone using the quay actually if you really looked at the town you noticed there was a lot of things built with limestone.
The warfenger had seen us coming and was on hand to help us tie. The town had lazy lines for our bow but they had intentionally installed them angled to the prevailing wind so we couldn't tie square to the quay. It took a little fiddling with the lines to get our starboard stern the three or four feet away from the quay to make the passerelle work right. As well as give the stern enough room to move when the next boat came in and lay on us as they tied. long live big fenders.
The town of Pucisca's claim to fame is all about limestone the quarry at the opening to the harbour has provided stone to the The palace in Split as well as Vienna, Budapest and the Whitehouse to name just a few. It seems if you are going to ship stone all over the world you might as well send stone cutters to work the stone as well and where are you going to get stone cutters ?
You have a school to teach them of course. On the other side of the Quay was a high school ages 14 and up for people that want to learn the stone cutter craft. Unfortunately while we were here the school was closed for the summer but during the school year they are more then happy to give tours. In front of the school were examples of the types of project the students did in various states of completion. There were a few I would have loved to see completed. Maybe when the student comes back this year. As well we were told that the graduating class project was to design and create a window for the school which explained why some window frames were made of wood and others were quite ornate. It looked like the school was expanding there was a crane and partially built addition to the school. I'm not sure if this construction project had become a teaching opportunity for the kids or if the construction workers were off doing summer jobs. Due to weather and a lack of desire to leave we spent 6 days tied here it gave us time to check out the local stores and walk around the town. There was an area with stalls set up to sell local things mostly smaller pieces of carved stone but some olive oil and carved olive wood to the other side of Ice Bear there was the local church with a bell tower a small market that sold local produce and a few step further there was a restaurant and bakery. The Bakery had 4 or 5 different pastry type thing including one that looked like a cherry strudel and mmmmm a donut, how could we resist. While exploring the streets we came across a store displaying carved wood. Once inside
we realized the store was connected to the workshop. Some one was in heaven and he and the craftsman talked for quite some time. This is also the town where we discovered green pepper
sauce on steak. I ordered it first at a restaurant buried in the maze of streets. I was expecting a steak with green peppers something that I hadn't noticed on a menu since we left Greece but I was wrong it was green peppercorns in a very light gravy omg sooo good who knew. Side note after we left the restaurant we passed a group of about 20 people from a flotilla wandering around lost looking for the same restaurant one wrong turn and they were done. You could tell by the way they had started to string out mutiny was in the cards. One morning when we opened the front door we noticed we had new neighbours on both sides. We needed to double check the one on the port side we could see a mast but that was all. Omg a shark. A shark is a 24 ft sailboat and this one had been lovingly restored they even had a outline of a shark in the material they used on the cockpit deck. Later that evening we hosted the crews from the boats on either side to pick their brains about where to go it seems the shark people had just begun traveling Croatia they were in the unique position of being able to trailer their boat to where ever they wanted to sail and the people to our starboard had cruised for years in central Croatia but hadn't gone south. We all had info to share. On a trip back to the market we found bacon and had a our first bacon and eggs since leaving home as well they had a lovely looking pork roast which we couldn't resist throwing into the oven nothing like a home cooked meal.
From Pucisca we did a quick motor to the south to Luka and stayed on a mooring ball for a few days and resealed the first window on our list. Then back to Pucisca for one day to restock the food and water. It was weird we had been sailing in Croatia for a month and had seen very few catamarans but as we entered the harbour we could see 5 heading towards the town. Turns out they had reserved space but there was still room for us. They were a flotilla of Cats full of people from California. Ok whatever. I guess if your going to travel with more then 30 of your closest friends a flotilla of Cats is the way to go. On our way to the store we passed by the church where a man popped his head out a door and said ooh no you don't.. get in here and enjoy. It was the man that carved the wood he was hosting a little get together for some friends from California and felt we couldn't be left out. So we drank his grapa ate his wonderful food met his friends and listened to some locals sing. Seems he cats were only in town for a few hours and then the
flotilla left with plans to return for a few days at the end of their trip. How kewl was that.
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