Jerri:
Memorial Day seems to come in two flavors: hot, sunny, and energetic or cool, gray, and sluggish. Today belongs to the latter category, but it’s fine with me because I’m not enjoying our national holidays this year (physical absence and mental/emotional strain) plus we are Sifnos bound!
Sifnos was our favorite island back in the day and we visited it frequently. We were always taking guests south and then heading back up north to pick up the next batch. Now that we are more seasoned sailors (we figured this out quickly last time, but it was too late due to people already making their travel plans), we pay more attention to where the favorable winds and seas will take us. We finally have a window of getting back from Sifnos to Lavrio relatively painlessly and decided we could deal with a 6-8 hour beat today to get there. It hasn’t been that bad actually. Plus we’re lying low, hanging out inside and taking it easy. Fortunately, the wind is favoring us (just barely) and we’ve been able to sail most of the way at a decent clip.
The past couple of weeks since my last post have had a few interesting happenings. First off, Tim met a chapter of Athens EO (Entrepreneurs Org) at the hotel we spent the night in prior to his departure. They were a great group, asked Tim to speak, and then treated us to dinner. It was interesting and fun to get to know them a little bit. What was particularly fun was when Marcie Levine (a forum member of Tim’s when he was in EO – YEO in those days), her husband Brian and son Matthew joined us for a sail in Santorini and Dionysus from the Athens group came along as well. We had a good day despite clouds and some rough seas. We made sure to sail in the proper direction, had a quick lunch, and dropped everyone off at the beach. Brian and Matthew went so far as to swim in! Tim and I took off immediately for a long sail to Paros, but the winds shifted and we were able to cut it short and go to Ios instead. We spent a couple of days there anchored off a quiet beach and were pleased that the tavernas are now open and there were a few people around.
Last night we met a British couple in a catamaran near us while dining and ended up chatting with them until late. We haven’t had much social time and enjoyed sharing experiences and laughing about all sorts of stuff for a few hours. My griping about the weather received some confirmation too. They were here last year at this time and said it was brutally hot and all they did was jump in and out of the water. They’ve only been in the water twice so far this year so I’m feeling quite hardy with my half dozen times.
It’s starting to rain again, Tim’s out adjusting the sails and we have about 45 minutes to go to our harbor. Our memories of Sifnos include some killer pizza, lobster spaghetti, and a kind pottery guy who was super great with the girls and their friends. We also bought some pottery on the island that we still have at home and hope to find some things on this visit too.