With the best of intentions I started this blog when we left to go cruising in 2009. I made a post this spring, again with the intention to keep it up at least every week. Where did the summer go? It's August first and this is my second blog post!

Anyways we have been having a good summer visiting islands and motoring north along the west coast of Italy. But we turned around about a week ago and sailed (I did use that word, sailed!) south to Lavezzi, an island at the southern tip of Corsica. After a couple of days we sailed Porto Palma, a well protected anchorage in the La Maddalena islands to meet up with our friends on Fabuloso. We had a fabulous time swimming, snorkeling, sailing and eating. Both Doug and Cara are great cooks so we ate well and played RummiCube in the late afternoons. They left us and headed back to Olbia for some boat issues and we located our pals, Lillian and Mario, both Maltese and Canadian (after living there 30 years). When we put their position in our GPS they were only 3.6 miles south of us! So we pulled up anchor and sailed down for a visit. We last saw them in Malta this spring while Plankton was hauled out.
Arriving in Laconia on the Sard mainland deep in a bay where we planned to wait out a blow in the Bonifacio Straits, we met Halekai with Nancy and Burger aboard. They are in Seven Seas with us and also left their boat at MdR for the winter BUT we never met! They were away when we arrived and did not return until we had left. So we finally meet. Burger and Nancy have now circumnavigated the planet! We meet interesting folks out here! We all are now sailing around in the islands trying out new anchorages every day or two.

Now back to Snorkeling, Swimming and Sailing! So Plankton, Maltese Falcon and Halekai are all sitting in a beautiful anchorage with MF and Plankton on mooring balls. It's a huge anchorage caught in the shallows in the middle of three islands so you get great wave protection. There are lots of pretty rocks and coves and beaches to visit in your dinghy or you can just jump off your boat for a swim! Temperatures are very pleasant, not hot at night and warm enough to find pools of bath water for Doug to play in. He does not do cold or even cool water!

It seems as we get deep into the summer I care less about seeing castles and fortresses and churches. I become lethargic and prefer to just nap all afternoon in the cockpit. I have no need for towns of any kind, other than for buying groceries. I pretty much limit my activities to dingy riding, swimming and snorkeling, punctuated by our almost everyday sail to a new anchorage. They are never more than an hour or two apart. The sun is warm, the breeze is heavenly. Sometimes I play games on my Ipad down below in the shade of the salon, both hatches open with a fine breeze on me. We don't eat much. We drink lots of fluids.
What are we eating? For breakfast we each have an almond cookie and coffee. These almond cookies have no flour in them. They are made of almonds ground into a flour and egg whites. There is no way I can tell you how good they are! For lunch it's usually sandwiches and we try to have a hot meal with a salad for dinner. This is topped off with either chocolate or limoncello and a game of Mexican dominoes.
That's it for life on a boat in August. We limit boat work to squirting a little fresh water around the stainless and on the solar panel, cleaning the windshield about once a month and washing dishes and clothes. Anything that needs fixing gets a healthy round of duct tape!
That's all for today and possibly for months! Now I have to remember how to post this and hook it to my Facebook. Encouraging words will go a long way here!
Hope everyone is having a great summer. Life on Plankton is at its best right now.

Barb
S/V Plankton