We ended up shipping Tenaya to Istanbul, not Antwerp, last year. For anyone considering shipping their boat through the Red Sea, we recommend using Sevenstar. They came to our rescue after Peters and May left us high and dry.

Traveling by land and air, we explored Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Hong Kong before meeting Tenaya in Istanbul in June 2014.

We sailed up the Bosphorus, the dividing line between Europe and Asia, and into the Black Sea. Not many people sail there - we saw one other cruising sailboat, an intrepid English couple who came down the Danube and were going to winter in Georgia on the 26' sailing yacht.

Friendly locals invited us for meals and tea, and we left Tenaya in the harbor at Samsun for a scenic, sometimes scary, road trip to see the Sumela Monastery, Uzengol and Ayder high in the mountains.

This year, 2015, we have sailed from Istanbul to Bodrum, stopping to see many ancient sites. We have just crossed to Greece where we will continue sailing and exploring through the Corinth Canal and up to Albania, Montenegro and Croatia. We'll end the season in Venice, Italy.

You can follow us at: www.tenayatravels.com