Logbook and Photos

Update 9 - Summer 2005 from Southern Italy

This is a reprint of our last update sent by e-mail to friends and family.

   July 11, 2005

Greetings from southern Italy! It's been six months since our last update so this one is long overdo. Once again, we hope this note finds you and your family and friends well. We are all doing well and enjoying a pleasantly warm Mediterranean summer.

Well, what's new with us? As they say in Spanish, vamos a ver - let's see. We are now into our fourth year of cruising and the other day, we celebrated our one-year anniversary of crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, safely landing in the Portuguese Azores 26 days out of Florida. You may recall from our Christmas (last) update that, after a number of months in Portugal, we had just arrived in Seville, Spain in time for Halloween. Well, we spent the next six months peacefully moored in the heart of the old city at Club Nautico Sevilla, a huge complex of manicured lawns, tennis courts, swimming pools, sport courts, and even a classroom for schooling the kids. We had an old car for running around and really enjoyed getting out and about inland to get a taste of the wonderful country of Spain. Other cruisers on the dock became our surrogate families and our Spanish lessons were a huge success, allowing us to reap so much more from our adventure.

After a great Christmas season, we all flew to Holland for a week in mid-January for a 50th wedding anniversary and the opportunity to visit with some of Sheila's Dutch relatives. For the duration of the early months of 2005, we continued to work hard on school and getting the boat ready for another season in order to make time for some visitors and large-scale events towards the end of our stay in Seville. In late March, was Semana Santa or Easter Week, for which Chris' parents from Victoria were able to join us. Every day from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, large bedeckled images and life-size representations from the Easter story are carried from Seville's many churches through the streets to the cathedral and back accompanied by long processions. Tens of thousands turn out day and night to witness these amazing processions, an annual event for centuries. Barely having had time to catch our breath, Easter Week was followed by the April Fair, the grounds of which were not even a stone throw from the Club. We sampled this event, which was six days and nights of eating, drinking, amazing costume and dress, music and dancing. During the fair, Seville had its first bullfight of the season, which we also attended, though very controversial.

Shortly thereafter, our six months in Seville came to an end. We sold our car to an auto-wrecker and, on April 23rd, we departed saying goodbye to some good friends and the fabulous city of Seville, which will be in our fond memories forever. Heading back down the Rio Guadalquiver, fresh water soon mixed with salt water and we crossed the bar back into the Atlantic Ocean, TIOGA's bow once again rising and falling with the swell. It felt good to be cruising again. Incidentally, the end of April also marked three years since Chris left the workforce and also Gerrit's 9th birthday.

Our next destination of note was Gibraltar, guarding the entrance to the Mediterranean region. Seeing the 'Rock' manifest as we approached from a distance and the continent of Africa on the other side of the Strait looming over our starboard bow was a sight to behold. From Gibraltar, we crossed the strait and briefly visited Morocco - camels, mint tea, hookah pipes, rug merchants, and the daily calls to prayer. With a favourable wind, we then entered the Med mid-March and sailed NE for the Balearic Islands 50 miles off the east coast of Spain, giving the concrete tourist jungle on the Spanish mainland a pass. In the Balearics, we found blue water lapping at sandy beaches and the sun gently smiling down on us. We worked our way north from Ibeza to Mallorca, then made a quick overnight passage back to the mainland to visit Barcelona for a week. Barcelona is a fascinating city rich in history and 'gaudy' architecture. From Barcelona, we sailed back to the Balearics, this time to Menorca. Here, with final exams complete and final work examples sent back home, we officially finished off the school year with a hot dog roast on the beach combined with the traditional burning of completed course material. It was such an event even the police showed up (whoops - no fires allowed)!

From Menorca, we made the 190-mile passage east to Sardinia, the largest island owned by Italy, and thus ended almost 8 great months in the country of Spain. Because we'll be visiting Sardinia (and Corsica to its north) in greater detail during the spring of 2006 on our way to the canals of France, we only spent about 10 days in early June exploring the areas' coves, shores, and islands before crossing to the Italian mainland to visit Rome for two weeks. Now, Rome is an amazing city that we really enjoyed. From the scope, grandeur, and atrocities of the Roman Empire to the history and treasures of the Vatican, including a newly restored Sistine Chapel and other Christian and classical masterpieces, we are further awed at the history and struggles of mankind - so many pieces to a complex puzzle.

From Rome, we sailed down the coast to Naples, where we made an excursion by train to visit Pompeii, a Roman city completely buried by a volcanic eruption in 79 AD. From the Bay of Napoli, it was then a short sail to one of Italy's favourite islands, Capri - playground of the rich and famous. (Yet still, we cannot get ourselves invited onto one of these mega-yachts for drinks. These rich folk just don't know what it's like to be neighbourly!) Anyway, Capri only has fair-weather anchorages, so after three nights we moved on under our own terms rather than those of inclement weather. They say in the Med (many things but in our case) that the wind is always coming from where you want to go. We want to go south towards and through the Straits of Messina, the body of water separating Sicily from Italy's boot tip. But the wind dictates otherwise and we end up in a place called Agropoli visiting some very fine examples of Greek temples at Paestum (and writing this update). After the Straits of Messina, we are only a hop, skip, and a jump from Greece which, along with Turkey, we'll spend the rest of 2005 exploring before shutting down for a few winter months in Marmaris, Turkey. Our most northerly and easterly destination this year is hopefully Istanbul, Turkey.

Well, enough said for now. We don't want this update to be a play-by-play but rather just to let you know we are alive and well. Next season, as we have alluded to, the plan is to sail back through the Med to the south of France and work our way through her canals from south to north, terminating the sailing portion of this life adventure in England or Holland late in 2006, not much more than a year from now (we can't believe it). We continue to meet wonderful people, the highlight of our trip and what it is all about - measuring one's wealth in memories and friends.

We are managing to keep our website reasonably up-to-date. For more pictures and commentary, please feel free to visit with us at www.TiogaAdventures.com. And of course, we'd love to hear your updates as well.

All our best, Chris, Sheila, Joel & Gerrit Richards s/v TIOGA Isla Lipari, Italy

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