09/14/2009, Melilla

Instant Decision, the Jeanneau 54 DS, tied up to a Fishing Protection vessel in the Moroccan port of El Jebha. We arrived there, crewing on her with skipper Keith Crawford, partner Mon and son-in-law Andy, after a ten-hour sail from Gibraltar, on a very lumpy sea but in bright sunshine. We had started off at 5.45am local time on Wednesday the 9th, so left Gib in the dark, all peeling our eyes for moving shipping and buoys and lighthouses in the dark. By the time light arrived we were off Ceuta, and the shipping soon disappeared behind us as we followed down the Moroccan coast.

We had a local police officer visit soon after arriving, and he took all our details including passports. We were all so tired we went to bed by nine oclock, still struggling with the time difference. Morocco runs on GMT, and our watches were set on Portuguese, SPanish and Gibraltar time, so every time calculation was difficult. Believe me!

Jimmy, the harbourmaster, came knocking after that, and when I eventually got up I asked him to come back tomorrow, which he did.

On Thursday we first sorted out a problem with Andy's eye by going up to the local hospital to get immediate attention, at no cost!!!!! Then four of us, minus Andy, set off in the taxi from hell with Nasser, the taxi driver who spoke no language any of us did, for the remote inland hill town of Chefchouan, 140 kilometres away over awful roads for the first 55 km, then OK ones for the rest. The taxi had no window winders, so Nasser came round with a little handle and opened or closed them as conditions demanded. The speedo and tank gauge didn't work, and the transmission grunged in the shaft all the way of our 2 and a half hour journey there and four hour journey back!

The town was spectacular and worth the journey, which in itself had taken us through the Rif mountains. Built in the fifteenth century, only 4 Europeans actually visited it between 1492 and 1920, when the Spaniards entered the town. It was a stronghold of Islam, with no unbelievers permitted to enter. The Souk was full of people, and as it was Ramadan the food stalls were interesting. People were buying food like it was going out of style, but none would eat until after dark. Our guide, Nasser, found us a restaurant where we had a great lunch, while he sat by and politely refused even a drink of water.

After lunch we had a look at the museum and the medina, then walked out along the river bank where there was an old-fashioned washhouse, woth women rubbing away at clothes to clean them in the flowing cold water, while their menfolk stood by watching from the nearby bridge.

We only saw one complete burkah, although most women kept their hair covered and wore long trousers, coats or leggings.

The town had a strange feature in that it was painted blue, up as far as a person can reach!

Our journey back was delayed on four counts: heavy rain, dense peasoup fog on the mountaintops where the roads were, multiple stops by the driver to talk to various unknown persons and exchange items with them - enough said - and lastly the roads had deteriorated further due to the rain, and the potholes were larger and more numerous.

Brilliant day all round, though. We were privileged to observe another culture without western intrusions, and we saw a good chunk of inland Morocco and its amazing mountains. Cactus grew in plenty by the roads and they produced prickly pears, which lived up to their name!

Back to EL Jebha, the most unspoilt of towns. No commercialism, totally undeveloped so far. All this may change when the planned new road reaches the town..

Friday 11 September

We left El Jebha for a 40 mile sail to Al Hoceima, which Keith wanted to visit. The wind was good as far as it went, but we ran out of room against a headland, and had to tack 12 miles out to sea before attempting to tack to clear the headland. Suddenly the wind dropped and we motored to Al Hoceima, where the smell of seagull poo on the dock and the fierce officials demanding paperwork made us decide to leave again early the next morning. On the 12th we sailed and motorsailed to Melilla, a lovely port of which mnore later.

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09/04/2009, Lagos

The highlight of this period between sailing was a visit from Morag, our very good friend from Scotland. This is a picture of her and Ju at the Saturday fruit and vegetable market here.

We are off on Monday by bus to Seville and Gibraltar, to crew on a 54 footer to Morocco and the Balearics. Watch this space for further reports!

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08/17/2009

What's a Grecian Urn?

About three drachmas a week (Morecambe and Wise, c.1977)

But seriously folks, they're on euros now, thank goodness! Our trip to Greece was a great success. We flew hop skip and jump from Faro to Gatwick to Corfu (the only way possible) and got cheap flights dependent on arriving in Gatwick after midnight and leaving around five in the morning. As you can imagine, we arrived somewhat bleary-eyed, to be bathed in the heat of a Greek lunchtime with no breeze. We quickly removed the legs from our convertible trousers, and thus magically clad in shorts we prepared to face the heat in the three weeks to come.

Andy and Pam were there to greet us at the marina, and we were made to feel very welcome on the boat. Andy's plans were fairly fluid for the three weeks we were there, so we were consulted as to what we wanted to see and do, which was great. We headed south, visiting Paxos, Levkas, Meganisi, Ithaka and Kephalonia. The winds are very strange in the Ionian, having more to do with the time of day than any coherent weather forecast. All night and early morning nothing, then the sun heats up the islands and by the afternoon strong breezes are tearing about the interface bewteen sea and land, enough to cause placidly anchored boats to drag and gently sailing boats to heel alarmingly. Mid-evening the wind runs out of energy as the land cools down again, and so on and so on. I think we only had one windy night, definitely no rain, and no bad weather at all for three weeks.

It was so hot that sweat kept pouring off my head and into my eyes, stinging horribly. Wearing a hat or a bandanna helped, but as June from Piper famously remarked, they don't tell you in the book of life that when you get into a hot climate sweat will sting your eyes! Andy had two splendid fans aboard Grand Slam, both working overtime all the time, consuming a meagre 0.5amps however, which the solar panel amply provided, also keeping the fridge cool for all the frozen and cold water bottles we kept in there, and the vast number of cans of chilled beer which we consumed at an alarming rate as soon as that yardarm had been sighted! Every evening was a party, really, as we relaxed after the heat of the day however we could, with dips in the sea, with cockpit cold showers, or just with the coldest of drinks in our hands..

We slept in the aft cabin, and managed a reasonable amount of sleep despite the heat. Only towards the end of the trip did we resort to sleeping up in the cockpit, which was magical in some anchorages. The absence of mosquitoes was wonderful. I think I only had two bites in three weeks. The insects of note were wasps, however, and we devised some interesting wasp magnets and traps, involving dead fish and bottles of sugary liquids!

Although we did sail some of the time, my clearest memory of this trip will be motorsailing, and learning how to moor to a pier stern-first. This involves an act of faith, dropping the anchor a couple of boat-lengths from the pier then reversing towards a tiny gap between two boats already there, hoping there are people aboard them to come and help fend off if necessary, and trying not to prang anything, not to come up too short on the anchor chan and thus not be able to get far enough back to throw lines to people on the dock..... There always were people on the dock, mercifully, but what we would have done if there hadn't been I do not know. A French skipper I spoke to in Poros on Kephalonia said he couldn't imagine anyone trying this form of mooring at home in Normandy. I agreed, and said I couldn't see it catching on in Scotland either. People are too worried about bashing dents in their gelcoats to risk this at home! We also tried bows-to mooring, which is the same as the above only you have to have an anchor ready to drop off the back end, then simply motor straight in to the gap, nudging the two boats out of the way with the bow, protected by big dolly fenders. Dolly fenders were introduced to us by Sue T on Tamar Swallow. Large and spherical, their name derives from Dolly Parton. Need I say more?

Meals were often taken in restaurants ashore, but we also ate very well aboard Grand Slam, thanks to Pam. I trotted out my old perennial Mauritian Potato Salad and it went down well, even with Andy who has an aversion to salads in most forms. Andy and Pam have a Cobb barbecue, on which we cooked some wonderful pork kebabs. Ju and I were so impressed we have ordered one for ourselves - Cobb barbecue that is, not pork kebabs! Anyone want a Force 10 charcoal barbecue, going cheap? We are also on the case to purchase some fans like Andy's.

We saw Piper and Arwen en route, and had some fun evenings together with their crews. We left Grand Slam in Sami on Kephalonia, and boarded a large ferry headed for Patras. We bought tickets for Athens, involving a bus and the ferry, and we boarded the bus in Sami, it got on to the ferry with us, though separately, and we rejoined it in Patras for the three hour drive to Athens. We had decided to spend 24 hours in Athens on the way home, as Ju had never been there, and I had only a hazy recollection of passing through it twenty odd years ago. The bus trip was spectacular, with the mountains on the right contrasting with the waters on the left as we headed along towards the Corinth Canal, whic we glimpsed in passing.

Athens was huge and sprawling, and we navigated by luck or chance and an internet cafe to a very nice hotel not far ffrom the centre, at a reasonable price - 49 euros for us both including a very substantial breakfast!
We walked round the Acropolis after an excellent meal in a cafe I picked out specially because it had lots of young people, and lots of Greeks, eating there. It was reasonably priced and very good food. The waiter even brought us a complimentary glass of sweet white Greek wine after we had paid the bill. We took photographs and simply enjoyed the feeling of being where western civilsation had really got started, then ambled gently back up to the hotel, and a good night's sleep.

Next morning we left our bags at reception and went off to the internationally famous archaeological museum, and were first in the door at 9am. It was awesome, the quantity and quality of sculpture and decorative art from as early as 6 centuries BC. Ju reminded me of the primitive nature of the carvings in Kilmartin Church compared with the grave sculptures we were looking at from the same period.
Museum leg set in around 11am, so we gave up and eventually got on an open-topped bus for 'the tour'. This took us back up to the Acropolis, which we visited properly this time as the gates were open. Awesome, but what a state it is in. The stones are all in a bad state of crumble due to over a century of chemical atmospheric pollution, now mercifully curbed at last - none of the smog I remember from Athens in the early 80s. The Greeks have wisely removed the original statues from the Erechtheon and replaced them with replicas, apart that is from the one Lord Elgin appropriated at the same time as what the Greeks call the Parthenon Marbles!

There is a lovely statue to Melina Mercouri, my favourite Greek actress and later politician, near the Acropolis. Not even she could persude the BM to hand them back!

See our gallery for photos of the Greek adventure. It has got us thinking we shouold head there too next summer, we just need to get Little Else kitted out to cope better with great heat first! Perhaps we'll keep the Azores for a later trip and hit the Med next year!

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