Logbook and Photos

Update 10 - Christmas 2005 from Marmaris, Turkey

(Reprint of our Christmas newsletter sent to family and friends)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Seasons Greetings from southwest Turkey!  We hope this note finds you and your family and friends well and not going too crazy in the Christmas rush. We can’t believe we are about to spend our fourth and final Christmas aboard TIOGA!  Our travels over the years have provided unique Christmas settings, each one different and special.  This one finds us in a beautiful pine-clad bay in the midst of the mountains surrounding the marina in Marmaris, Turkey.  Though the winter weather is reasonably mild here, it is certainly not tropical and we are bracing ourselves for a couple of rainy and colder months!

In our last summer update, we had left Seville, Spain in late April and traveled east through the Straits of Gibraltar, briefly touching Africa, and then spent the spring and early summer months moving eastward through the Mediterranean, visiting the Balearic Islands, Barcelona, the islands of Sardinia (Italy) and Corsica (France), then on to a wonderful visit to Rome and nearby Pompeii.

Since then, we sailed south from Rome towards the Straits of Messina, taking a slight detour to the Aeolian Islands and a night sail past the volcanic island of Stombolli, though clouds snagged on her tip and largely foiled our plans to see this natural ‘lighthouse’.   With good planning and a touch of good fortune, we had an uneventful passage between Italy’s boot-tip and Sicily, a place where legends abound of her foul currents, whirlpools, and strong winds.  By mid-July, we made our passage across the Ionian Sea, the body of water separating the sole of Italy from Greece, and began our summer cruise amongst Greece’s many islands, each one offering something different in topography, history, and culture.   Cruising the Ionian Islands in the west towards the northern Cyclades group to our east, we transited the Corinth Canal the 3^rd week of August.  The canal is a narrow waterway between the south and mainland parts of Greece first attempted by Emperor Nero in 60 AD, but not actually completed until 1893.  We chose to give Athens a pass, as it is not a place to visit in the heat and crowds of summer if one can avoid it (we’ll try next spring).  By then, our traveling pace had really slowed down.  We got hung up on the island of Tinos for almost two weeks waiting for the near-gale and gale force “Meltemi” winds from the north to ease up and allow us to move on.  Maintaining our latitude, we decided to slip briefly into Turkey to visit Ephesus, a site of famous ancient ruins including a temple (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) to the goddess Artemis and also an important center of early Christianity.  Back into the Greek islands, we spent the fall months cruising slowly southward through the Dodecanese island group, ultimately towards our wintering destination in SW Turkey.   And we’d be remiss not to mention our fabulous trip by bus to Istanbul in early October, but you’ll have to check out the web site for that one, as we’ve got to keep this update under two pages!

We have really enjoyed this year’s traveling pace and the shorter distances relative to other years.  Though one could literally spend years cruising the Med, we feel content with the route and sites we have chosen so far as well as our down time where we just hang-out in a nice location and enjoy the pristine waters or the friendly locals.   We managed to remain cruising or ‘on-the-hook’ into late November before the short days and cold nights began to affect both our solar and physical output and thus we came into the marina at Marmaris for December 1^st to plug in and recharge!  It is a massive boating center with about 150 other cruisers and thankfully also some very nice families for the kids to enjoy over the winter.

This past year, we were delighted to have a number of visitors on board to give them a small taste of what our life is like.  First, Chris’s parents visited us for a spectacular Easter in Seville. Then, in October, Sheila’s cousin from Holland, and her 12-year-old son, spent 10 sun and fun-filled days traveling with us in southern Turkey and Greece.  Finally, Chris’s brother Mark caught up with us in late-November for four days in Fethiye, Turkey.

Our family continues to enjoy life on board our sailboat, though our rapidly growing sons don’t fit in all the small spots they used to!  Joel will be 12 in a couple of months and Gerrit moves on to a 10 year old at the end of April.  This past September, we started our 4^th and most effective year yet of home schooling. Joel is now in grade 6 and Gerrit, tackling grade 4.  We speak often now of our upcoming life back on land and the boys have very mixed emotions.   On the one hand, it will be exciting to pick out new beds and to be able to switch on their own fan or light without interfering with the other, yet they have spent most of their cognizant years living aboard TIOGA and she is their home, wherever she may be!

As another year draws to a close, we once again reflect on the amazing people we have met and the places we have visited over the past years.  We truly are blessed in this lifestyle and will continue to cherish this time with our family as this spring brings us into our fifth and final cruising season.  We’ll keep in touch as we head west for the first time in a long time.   After backtracking through some different Greek islands and the Corinth Canal, we plan to visit Sicily, Malta, Tunisia and then the islands of Sardinia and Corsica before taking TIOGA’s mast down and entering the canals of southern France in early June 2006.  We’ll spend the summer months heading north and conclude our trip next fall hopefully visiting with some of Sheila’s extended family in Holland and Chris’s extended family in England.  At this point in time, we plan to sell TIOGA in northern Europe in late 2006 and fly back to Canada in time for the next Christmas season.    For now, we’ll end this update wishing you the warmth of Christmas and all the best in 2006! 

Chris, Sheila, Joel & Gerrit Richards

s/v TIOGA

Marmaris, Turkey

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