Photo Tuatara squeezed into Paphos harbour, Cyprus

Whoa it's cold! Wooly hats, warm fleecy jackets, socks and long pants had to be looked for in long forgotten storage places as we exited the Suez Canal at Port Said. We eventually left Ismailia on Sunday, 23rd May at 11.30am, a late start because of a warship transiting the canal. Once again a hiccup with the pilots, 3 pilots for 5 boats. Lars quickly got onto the agent and after convincing him about diminishing visa time, 2 more pilots turned up. The late start and pushing into apposing current meant we didn't reach Port Said until near dark. The pilot boat came out to take off our disgruntled pilot.

"This is just not enough" when he received the "present" he asked for.

The pilot boat was not content with their 2 packets of cigarettes and motored intimidatingly along side maneuvering Tuatara close to an anchored ship. Alan stopped and they eventually gave up and peeled away with a smile. It is a game to them but a dangerous one for us I can see why some of the smaller yachts have felt very intimidated. The Malaysian cigarettes have very graphic anti smoking photos on the packets so I hope the cigarettes choke them every time they look at the throat cancer or aborted fetus photos. Egyptian cigarette packets have a photo of a droopy half smoked cigarette on them, a subtle indication as to how smoking affects the male sex life. Maybe affective in the very macho world of Egypt, but more likely they all think it won't affect them. As you can probably tell, as with cigarettes, Egypt has left a bad taste in our mouths. But we won't let that affect the wonderful memories we have of our 10 weeks in the Red Sea. It just proves that all Muslim countries and peoples are not the same.

Jo and Arnold from Just Jane were ready to take our lines here at the lovely little harbor of Paphos as we arrived yesterday afternoon. The Just Jane's appreciated how happy we were to leave Port Said behind sounds like their Pilot boat experience was much worse than ours, the Pilot actually went across their bow trying to cut them off. After dealing with the officials a sundowner to celebrate our arrival was the order of the day. A nice bottle of New Zealand Pinot Gris, one of our last bottles of NZ wine that we have been saving for a special occasion went down so well before dinner that dinner was rather a basic affair of noodles.

Paphos is a small harbor on the South West corner of Cyprus. There isn't much room, 3 yachts had left in the morning giving us a space. We are sorry not to have caught up with Street Legal and Alexandra but we appreciate the space left. Space in marinas and harbors on Cyprus is very hard to get so we will cling to this little corner for a week or so and do some exploring.

At present the early mornings and evenings are quite cool. The passage across from Egypt was positively freezing during the night and the days were marginally better. We haven't worn so many warm clothes since our NZ to Noumea passage last year. We both caught colds after our trip to Cairo so that didn't help either. It took a whole day before it really sunk in that we were at last in the Med. On leaving Port Said we had about 30 miles of negotiating anchored ships, moving ships, lit and unlit oil wells. A south bound convoy of ships were lining up for their canal transit, so they were moving out of the anchorage area, across our path, into the channel. Once we worked out that the moving ships had a flashing red light on their top we could wind our way through them safely. It was about 10 o'clock before we felt comfortable enough for one of us to go to bed. The rest of the trip was plain sailing rather plain motor sailing, not a lot of wind, only a few ships to look out for and a clear blue sea to cross.

Yesterday morning a pod of dolphins swam with us, skimming under and in front of our bow. At first we thought they had plastic bags caught on their fins, then we realized they had one or two sucker type fish attached to them. I don't think they were remora fish, they looked different, the fish looked like they had a thin membrane incasing them, hence the plastic bag look. They clung to the dolphins as they swam deep or dived out of the water, the dolphins certainly didn't worry about them. We have never seen these before with dolphins. After about 10 minutes the dolphins tired of their game with us and one by one swam off into the depths of the Med, taking their passengers with them.

Paphos looks to be a busy tourist destination, day trippers taking boat trips, a promenade full of restaurants and an old town to explore. According to those before us it's a hard place to tear yourself away from. So we are off today for a wander, get some Euros and maybe have a meal out. Oh and I am going to wear a sleeveless top .just because I can!!!