We have our home back! We arrived in Athens a couple of days ago, and picked out a dock in downtown Lavrion the day before the ship arrived. It encountered such good weather for the passage that it arrived 3 days early which amounted to a lot of shuffling of plans for us to get here in time. Then yesterday, we met the crew at 6am to head out to the Prima Dora to offload the boat. It came off even faster than it went on. After a cup of coffee from the friendly Filipino cook onboard and a survey of the boat, they gently placed our home back in the water and we motored over to the dock where George, the Greek whom we are renting a berth from, waited to hand us the lines. Our boat is the same as we left it, except it needs a good wash. Overall, we couldn't have asked for a better experience with shipping, and we feel the price was a once in a lifetime offer. We are still in a bit of shock over all that has happened in the past few weeks and a little down time is in order now just to catch up with ourselves. I hope to find some speedier internet to put up a bunch more pictures and make time to tell you about out trip to Nepal & India which is how we spent the interim time.
From Greece

From Greece
From Greece

We arrived in Athens from Qatar in the middle of the night and rented a car so we could get to a hotel and crash for a few hours. In the morning we stopped at a grocery store to get breakfast fixings and I found the sesame bagel & Greek yogurt I'd been craving after pretty much starving my way through India. More on that later... After scoping out the spot for the boat, there was enough time to get our first gyro sandwich and take in Poseidon's Temple, a pretty big ruin site right outside town. The whole area is completely filled with wildflowers and the air is so sweet. The sun has been bright and warm and the temp is great. Last night we fired up our little heater to take the chill off because when the sun sets the temp goes down into the 50's. I'm roasting a chicken tonight! We met the other cruisers on our dock yesterday at a pier picnic and tasted some Greek wine, Greek salad and talked with some Greeks too! And today, since we still have the car, we toured around more and took a nice walk.
From Greece
From Greece
From Greece

Our first impressions of Greece are that the people we've met are very warm & friendly and they have helped us many times because we can't read or understand a lick of the language- it's all Greek to us! The landscape is beautiful & much different than what we've seen before. The water is very clear and looking down the side of the ship yesterday I could see the whole hull. We've seen several closed shoppes but then the towns are thriving with restaurant goers and people strolling the shoreside paths for which there are many, so we're not sure. The hillsides right from the boat are full of walking trails & dirt roads. There are many stray dogs and cats but they are fat from being well fed. We are surprised to see this though. The air smells wonderful after pretty much suffocating in Kathmandu & India but smoking seems to be a national past time here so the air deteriorates if we're in public places. We are elated to be here. Jon keeps reminding me that we are indeed, walking around in Greece. He keeps telling me how OLD the ruins are. Meanwhile I'm soaking up all the pretty I've been missing. And I'm wondering how long it will take me to fall in the water while trying to board the boat on this passarail thing (the long board that runs from the stern to the seawall). I don't think I'll ever grow to love med-mooring!
From Greece

For much of today we have been within sight of Lavrion harbor where the ship is still anchored because it had to offload the two mega-yachts and dismantle all of the yacht cradles for delivery to Italy. It just blew me away to be strolling around the archaeological sites with the ship in view that we pulled up to in Thailand just over two weeks ago and then met up with again yesterday in such a different place. Each of us has come so far since then. It feels good to be home.