400 East Second Street
Benicia, California  94510
707-746-6600
 

17 May London - rough flight from SFO, first two hours out were spent holding on.  Don't understand a 747 at 30,000 ft and we were bouncing like a yoyo.  Havent had a ride like that since a DC3 in 59.

20 May Valetta Malta
Afloat at last!  Yesterday I had the boat yard install new teflon packing in the propeller shaft gland - that should stop the drips. They did a nice job on the bottom paint and the new oprning ports really help the below decks ventilation.  This morning they put the boat back in the water after an argument over the exchange rate - of course I couldn't win that one.  The engine started up right away and the thrusters are working nicely.  The wind was 15 kts or so but I had no trouble backing into a slip between two bigger boats.  The boat had a thick layer of yellow sand - from the shara no doubt. Fortunatery none of it got below decks. Tomorrow someone is coming to clean it off.  Now Arlene and I have to put things away, clean up and load a summers worth of provisions aboard.  I have a lot of routine maintence and fix ups to do - it never ends on a boat.

22 May Valetta Malta

"The bells - the bells"   There are 3 churches within half a mile from our berth and another 3 or 4 within a mile. Every so often they have
an orgy of bell ringing, not always on the hour.  Their clocks seem to differ by several minutes.  At noon the discordant noise lasts 
for over 30 minutes. To add to the problem several of the bells are in dire need of tuning. The effect is like the michelin man beating on a thick 
steel plate with a sledge hammer trying to keep time with the Tijauna brass. This morning I went to mass at the local church.  
The priest gave an eloquent sermon.  He spoke on sin - he was against it - I think.  My fluency in Maltese is limited.

23 May Malta
Red Lobsters
you see a lot of English in Malta.  I guess they come to escape the constant winter rains of the misty isles and get some sun.  A lot of them over do it - you see them walking on the sea front in their shorts and tank tops as red as a cooked lobster - I wonder how they would be with drawn butter?
28 May Valetta - we have spent the past 10 days cleaning the boat, doing required maintance, and nice to have improvements (a new fuel filter system with water seperators and presure gauge and a 45lb anchor) so today we went sight seeing.  We toured the island by bus and taxi and saw the cave where they imprisioned St Paul in 60 ad, some catacombs dating back to the phoenicians, a roman town house,and the new part where the fancy hotels and resturants are.  We were surprised to see how crowded and how dry the island is. The bell ringers are at it again - they went on for over a hour at 5pm.

1 June Marzamemi Italy
The weather report this morning was for light winds, smooth seas and nedgible swell but - they lied!  It started out ok at 0500 but within an hour we were being bounced around by a beam sea with white caps. A lot of "stuff" flew off of shelves and pretty well littered the cabin.  Things didn't settle down until we got into the lee of Sicily.  We got here at 1500, picked up the debris and crashed.
2 June Siracusa Sicily
The Rome weather station didn't send a weather message at all this morning, perhaps they are trying to forget yesterdays foul up.  There was no wind and the sea was glassy so we hot footed it here.  Now we are going to do some provisioning, some sight seeing and resting before we head for the toe of italy.  Must be a holliday, lots of people & kids about, an Italian Frigate tied up, open for general visitors, must have diesel generators - sounds like a diesel sub topping off the batteries before a night surface attack on a convoy off of sumatra. 

14 June La Castilla Italy
Weather has gotten warm again so we can put away the woolies again.  Needed fuel so asked at the office for 250-300 liters.  They put jerry cans in the back of a car and went to a service station. Took two trips!   Waitress in the resturant complemented me on my Italian - except I was speaking spanish!  Met a nice English couple.  He worked in the states, but now they live in France.  They limped into port with an overheating engine.  Pump impeller Disentgrated so he spent the day replacing it and getting the pieces out of the heat exchanger. We leave first light for St. Maria di Luce an 11 hr trip. Their sailboat is slower so they will leave in the afternoon and sail all night.

19 June Otranto italy
A fish story - They serve a lot of fish in the resaurants here. Last nite in Santa Maria di Leuce as an appetiser I had marinated (in olive oil - of course!) octopus, sardines, shrimp, scallops, and sea urchin With broiled mussels.  The main course was fried calamri (squid) The octopus was only a litle rubbery - all in all not bad.  Arlene stuck to the pasta & egg plant.  If you order a steak you get this overdone 1/4 inch thick piece of chewy meat.  The bread has the consistancy of hemp - better used for caulking the seams of a wooden boat.

28 June Dubrovnik Croatia
Got here Sat and spent Sat & Sun recouperating from our all night passage.  This is a wonderful marina. It has a simming pool, a supermarket with german beer & dutch cheeze, ATM's, 4 restaurants, a west marine and a taxi stand. There are a suprising number of anerican boats.   we spent sun lying around the pool.  The food is excellent, the people very frendly and many speak english.  Prices are a little cheaper than Italy. We toured the old city today.  It is a walled city with forts, battlements, a dungeon, a drawbridge - but no alligators in the moat.  It withstood a 15 month seige by the Saracen's in the 9th century - maybe they had algators back then. Now it is under seige by english and german tourists.

5 July
Here we are on the Dalmation coast and I haven't seen a single white dog with black spots - how disapointing!  A Mcgregor 65 tied up next to us with 7 very scantily dressed 20 something couples on board. (one girl had only a short scarf wraped around her)  At first we tried to figure out who was with whom, but we soon realized it was a menage a sept.  Its a different world!  Polace is a very small town, 20 restaurants, 1 mini market, 1 bakery, one street.  Had dinner at an interesting restaurant.  They make their own olive oil, their own wine, bake their own bread in an out door brick oven (the crust is black on the bottom) and lay their own eggs - at least thats what the waiter said.  Perhaps something was lost in translation.

7 July
Yesterday afternoon in Polace we were tied up to a restaurant pier, only 10 yards from the tables.  A woman was washing a big bag of mussels pierside, first she would rub the cloth bag on the pier and the pour buckets of sea water over it.  Next the cook was chopping up what looked like lamb on a tree stump chopping block, throwing the discards into the bay, finally one of the waiters was skinning and gutting a big stingray on the end of the pier. We could only surmise that these were going to by tonights menu specials.  (fricase of ray?)  Arlene and I stick to the steak, pasta, fried calamiri or octopus salad for obvious reasons.

12 July Split
Free enterprise
It's only been 12 years since Croatia got its independence from Yugoslavia and the communist system but they sure have picked up the capitalist system in a hurry.  Everone is well fed, well dressed and has a new car/motor scooter/motorcycle. No Porsche's yet but plenty of Audi's and MB's. Not a shoe box car in sight.   The houses are all well cared for even in the old walled cities.  Its particulary striking considering that their major "export" is tourism. Of course there are hourds of tourists everywhere.  I think they must send the waiters to charm school, most of them speak some english but the menu's are in 6 languages anyway.  Everyone is very friendly and tries hard to accomodate you.  When we pulled into Split, we tied up next to an american boat - from SF, accross the pier was another American boat - from SF.  We're going to get together tonight.

16 July Venice Italy
A bad begining - We took the over night ferry from Split Croatia to Venice. When we arrived we discovered that there was a transport strike and the buses and local ferry boats weren't running. Of course we were 30 miles from Venice.  Naturally taxis were in high demand.  The upshot was that we had a 3 hour wait in an empty warehouse for a taxi. Fortunately there was a snak shop selling cold drinks.  When our taxi arrived at the car park on the edge of the city we were able to get a water taxi which took us through the heart of the city down the grand canal.  It was a memorable introduction to Venice. passing St.Marks square the taxi took us across the lagoon to our hotel on Lido Island.  The hotel had its own dock so we landed right in front of the hotel.  Today we toured the Dodge's palace,and St. Marks. The palace was most impressive. Then we took a gondola ride through the city.  Some of the side canals were only 7 ft wide so 2 gondolas passing was a squeeze.  Once coming around a sharp corner I thought I was going to get the prow of an oncoming gondola in the chops, but the 2 gondolers managed to miss at the last second.  I mentioned to the gondoler that I used to row crew for Navy, but he wasn't impressed.
A local holiday - Today the Venitians are celibrating the end of the plague - 4 centuries ago.  Apparently as the plague was killing people right and left, the leading men of the city driven to desperate measures, promised God to go to church every Sunday, send their mistresses back to France and be good boys.  The ladies of the city promised to quit their secret tryists with their favorite gondoliers but the gondoliers went on strike so that didn't last. - anythingto satisfy the ladies! So tonight after high mass at St. Marks there will be a midnight fireworks display which should scare the pigeons away from St. Marks square for a few days at least.

Venice 17 July
What is it?  The bathroom in our hotel room has an extra piece of porcelian in it.  I have seen them before in other hotels but never been able to figure out their function. Several possibilites come to mind. Perhaps it is a baby bath.  Or you could wash out a few things if you didn't mind kneeling down. You could keep your pet goldfish in it, but I don't know of many people who travel with a pet goldfish, although I once saw a girl in Holland walking her ferrit.  It looked like a snake in a fur coat undulating along the ground.   I would think that the airport baggage xray would be bad for goldfish.  Finaly my curosity got the better of me and I asked the desk clerk.  "its a bidette - for personal hygiene sir" Personal hygiene - ok.  I examined it more closely.  There is no seat and no cover, just an oblong bowl with a faucet at the back end.  The faucet has a nozzle but its motion is very limited. I tried the water, the best I could get is luke warm.  So now the question is do you sit facing the nozzel or with your backside to the nozzel? Just how personal do you get? And who wants to get personal with luke warm water? Or maybe its just for the ladies?  Arlene didn't have a clue. Obviously more research is needed. Is a puzlement. 

22 July Milna Island of Brac
Yesterday we visited the old town part of split inside the walls of Diocletians palace.  The palace was completed in 305 AD as the emporeors retirement home.  Some of the original buildings are still standing.  There are a surprising number of private residences inside the walls.  It would be interesting to know if any of the current residents could trace their family history back to Roman times.  I suppose we will never know.
What do you say to a naked lady? - They have different customs in Europe. A common sight in the marinas on a warm afternoon are people standing on the swim platform or on the dock showering, sometimes just to cool off and sometimes with soap and shampoo having a real scrub.  Usually they are in bathing suits (very skimpy) or in their underware (black seems to be a favorite color for both sexes)  Rarely you see someone really get into the spirit and get naked.  Which leads to a conodrum - what is the proper ediquete when a naked lady is bathing on the dock and partially blocking your return to the boat? Do you look firmly to the side and edge past her with a "pardon madam" Do you keep your eyes downcast and step around her saying nothing?  I favor the sophisticated debonair approach, giving her an appreciative glance, looking her in the eye and saying "bon jour madam - nice tits. 

Vodice 31 July
The trip from north from Trogir took us througha maze of islands, some large but many quite small. There were very few light houses, channel markers, buoys or any significant landmarks.  In addition it was very hazy - visibility was less than 5 miles.  Fortunately we have the GPS/electronic chart plotter so there was no danger of getting lost.  It has worked beautifully and alowed us to navigate offshore with confidence.  I did notice however, going into Trogir that the chart showed the harbor 200 yards further south than it actually was.  Since the entrance channel was only 100 yards wide, this would have been a big problem at night.  I sent an email to the C-Map company to advise them of the problem.

4 August Jezera Croatia
Singing in the rain
Yesterday morning was hot but cloudy.  After checking the weather report and watching CNN weather, we decided to stay put.  Despite the weather reports, 3 or 4 of the 25 or so cruising boats in the marina got underway before noon - bad idea.  By 1230 it was gusting to 40-50 knots and raining. 10 minutes later it was a deluge with visibility less than 50 yards.  I have seen rain like that before but only in hurricanes.  The storm laster for 3 hours or so but the rain slacked off after an hour or so. The wind was so strong that it partially unziped one of the zippers on the canvas sun shade and turned the satellite dish antenna inspite of the clamp.  The wind was on our beam so I was concerned about upwind boats breaking their moorings and hitting Irish Mist but none did. As things improved several boats came into the harbor but after the first 3 or 4 there was no room so they had to anchor out.  Afterwards people gathered on the dock and compared notes - there were a lot of v!
 ery relieved people. This morning it was calm but now we have 50-60 kts from the East I'm checking the lines every 15 minutes, the marina lines on the bow are badly worn.  Nobody left this morning.

31 Aug Skradin
Up the river - we had to make our way 12 miles up the river yesterday to get here - a very twisty river with steep rocky hillsides.  This morning we took a boat up to the park and the falls.  There are a series of waterfalls stair steping up the hills.  It is quite picturesque.  There is a trail along the falls with lookout places and refreshment stands.  Fortunately we went early and beat the crowds.  At 1130 when we were coming back people were pouring in like disneyland.   
The redcoats are coming!  About a dozen charter boats came in yesterday - all flying the British flag.  It is some sort of group tour. Seems strange to hear english on the dock.