Most of us only took naps of 2 to 4 hrs before waking early for next adventure.
Easy early morning cab ride from apartment to port to catch a ferry to Mykonos where we were to meet our sailboat Anastasia. Left Burke and Prausas. Took the slow ferry so we could enjoy the ride. We staked out a table on the upper deck. Only problem was the smokers all around us.
We met an interesting guy from Miami who is traveling for two months all around the world by himself. He had an interesting story – a 50 year old Cuban Jew who is a paralegal, with a 35 year old son who flys for the sheiks in Dubai. He had a hot night with a 30 year old when he was 15 and didn’t know about the son until 20 years later. Then he has an ex wife and fwo sons, all Jehova Witnesses and they nor his parents know about the new found son. He kept us entertained the whole trip.
When we got to Mykonos I realized that I was too relaxed, having forgotten to read email with directions on finding the boat. Eventually we found the boat and met the crew. We left our bags on the dock to sit at a taverna till they were ready for us. The yacht is roomy with four guest cabins and heads, a spacious salon and galley and lots of space on deck. It’s an older boat without fancy instrumentation, electric wenches or comfortable seating in cockpit. But it’s a sturdy heavy boat that sails well.
In the evening we had time to enjoy Mykonos town. It is very polished and commercial. And expensive. Glad to revisit since our last visit in 1987 but I enjoyed the less famous islands more. We did have a nice pasta dinner as we are getting tired of Greek food.
So our purpose of going to Mykonos was to meet the Sailing Yacht we had chartered for a week, S/Y Anastasia. We had charted with the Captain who owns the boat – Captain Marco got sick a few months before the trip so they hired a substitute captain – Stephan. The boat is an Atlantic 60′ – not a new boat, but very roomy with 4 guest cabins and 4 heads plus crew cabin and head in the bow of the boat. We originally thought we’d have three couples on the boat but ended up with two couples and Julie for part of the trip. We used the fourth cabin as a “closet” to store our luggage. The charter did not include any food so we were responsible for provisioning and cooking our own meals – which I’m usually in charge of anyways.
Our sailing is going to be in the Cyclades group of islands in Greece in the Aegean sea. Most people are familiar with Mykonos and Santorini, but there are many other wonderful islands that rival the charm of both of these big players. We don’t have a fixed itinerary other than we’d like to be in Milos on Tuesday night so Julie can catch a flight to Athens on Wednesday morning and we want to finish up in Paros. But with sailing you can’t count on anything other than there will be weather.
