A summer wedding, and a short sailing season

When we last checked in, we were back in the US for a couple of months for our son Taylor's wedding.

Before the wedding ceremony, Randy and I were fortunate to spend a weekend at the lake with the 'running gals' and their spouses. It was great to catch up with everyone. We do make quite a motley crew!

Rachael and I attended Haley's wedding shower, and then Randy and I helped with wedding preparations where we could. We spent a couple of days helping Haley's parents decorate and set up for the reception.

Our son Taylor and his sweetheart Haley were married on July 5th in eastern Iowa. The wedding was beautiful, and it was nice getting to know Haley's parents and meeting many members of their family. It also gave us an opportunity to visit with our daughter Rachael and her husband Austin from Colorado, Randy's brother Dave, also from Colorado, my brother Noel and his wife Lynette from the Seattle area, and our dear friends Ted and Linda from West Des Moines. We enjoyed hanging out with the kids' friends as well. The happy couple honeymooned in Southern CA, and are settled in the Quad Cities area.

A few days after the wedding, Randy and I hopped in our new pickup truck, hooked it up to our new (to us) camper, and headed south to our property in Haviland, KS. We spent a few weeks working on the building, mowing, clearing trees, burning debris. We had concrete poured, installed rain gutters, and finished the trim on the porch.

Randy caught up with a couple of high school buddies (Brad and Brian), and we also visited with friends Bob and Laura, their adorable pup Lola, and their also adorable grandkids.

Brad, Randy, and Brian at Haviland Friends Church

On August 2, we departed Wichita for Chicago. We were delayed in Chicago, and landed late in Newark, where we had missed our connection to Naples. We ended up spending a night in New Jersey, leaving on a late flight, and finally landing in Naples on August 4.

(PSA - Newark airport should be avoided if at all possible!)

We took a train to Salerno, and saw a man with a scooter outside the train station. The scooter started smoking, which smelled nasty, and before long it was fully engulfed in flames! The nearby policemen just watched it burn, and as we left the fire department was arriving.

We spent one night in this pretty town, and caught a bus to Policoro the next morning.

When we arrived back at the marina, the boat was still out of the water. We stayed at a nice little apartment 5 days, getting the boat ready for sailing. The full moon was really cool over the water.

We were back in the water on August 9, and bright and early on August 15 we left the nice folks at Policoro Marina and headed east for Gallipoli, Italy.

We stayed at anchor near Gallipoli for one night, the sunset was really beautiful.

We headed south and east from here, to Santa Maria di Leuca, Italy, which is located on the very southern tip of the heel of Italy. We anchored near the marina, and headed to shore for a few groceries (and a cold beverage!) This was our last night in lovely Italy.

On August 17 we headed east across the Ionian Sea to an anchorage off of the small Greek island of Erikousa. We had a lovely day with great wind and several hours of sailing. 😊

Anchorage at Erikousa, Greece

Our first night in Greece was quiet and restful. The next morning, we made our way south to Corfu, as we thought we had to check out of the EU before taking the boat to Albania. After much paperwork shuffling between customs and immigration, we had checked in to Greece, then checked out of Greece in the same day. We had to pay the monthly cruising tax for August, and also pay for a transit log, which is required here. After an exhausting day, we decided to head north to Albania. We needed to get the boat out of the EU to avoid paying a hefty VAT tax, and to give us 18 more months to cruise in the EU on our boat.

(So far, Greece has been a bit of a hassle!)

We motor-sailed north to Sarande, Albania, about 16 miles away. We passed several large ferries and passenger boats, and made the trip in about 3 hours. We actually gained an hour, as Albania is in a different time zone.

We anchored in Saranda Bay, which is close to the ferry terminal and customs office, and we had plenty of room. Little did we know how busy that bay is, day and night. There were small power boats filled with tourists coming and going constantly, and they whizzed by very close to our boat. There were numerous Jet skis, and some cool boats that looked like sports cars too. We were rocking and rolling in their wake the entire day. At night the huge party boats made their appearance, blasting music and blaring neon lights until 2 am. They did look cool though! Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep while we were in Albania!

We met a couple on a boat near ours from the UK. One afternoon the wind picked up, and an empty boat near them started dragging its anchor, heading right for them. We called the harbormaster, and they contacted someone to come and help. After the boat was moved, the UK couple tried to bring their anchor up, but it was caught in a chain that had been on the bottom of the bay. Randy took our dinghy over and tried to help them free it, but they ended up having to hire a diver to come and untangle it. Quite an exciting day!

We did have a really good experience with the Albanian authorities. We had hired an agent to help us get the boat checked in, and she was very efficient, and inexpensive. The immigration police only scanned our passports (no stamps), and we were allowed to park our dinghy at their dock and walk right through the ferry terminal immigration checkpoints without stopping. The produce was fresh and groceries were inexpensive, and we enjoyed delicious food and ice cold beverages.

We plan to revisit Albania again in the future, as it is a non-Schengen country, and close to Greece.

We headed back south to Corfu, this time to check the boat back in to Greece, and apply for a new transit log. We also needed a Greek sim card for wifi, and had to wait for the cell phone store to open on Monday morning.

Sunset at Corfu, Greece

On August 25, we left Corfu and headed south to an anchorage at a bay called Ormos Valtou. We stayed one night, then continued south to the Cleopatra Marina in Preveza. We had been 'on the hook', or staying at anchorages, for 10 days, and looked forward to unlimited water and electricity! We spent two nights at the marina, then made our way to an anchorage close by near the town of Preveza. We were a very short dinghy ride away from several chandleries and grocery stores, and stayed here for 11 more nights.

While we were there, our friends Dan and Robyn on SY Zoe sold their boat to a couple from Australia, and we were lucky enough to meet the new owners in Preveza. Dave and Trudy are enjoying their new boat, and we got to know them over ice cream and sundowners. While they were visiting us on our boat, a little storm kicked up, and we saw winds over 40 knots and large waves. The rope that Dave had tied his dinghy to our boat with snapped, and their dinghy went floating away. Randy took him in our dinghy to retrieve it, and it was quite an exciting ride back! We hope to catch up with them for more adventures next sailing season.

On Sept 9, we crossed the bay back to the Cleopatra Marina and Boatyard. We prepared the boat for haul-out, and on Thursday Sept 11 she was pulled out of the water, and placed in a slot in the enormous boatyard.

The boatyard has thousands of sailboats - Sunspot Baby is out there somewhere!

We hit a tiny snag in our plans. Our Delaware, USA boat registration expires at the end of 2025, and we were ready to renew it for another 3 years. However, the state of Delaware no longer allows international boats to register unless they spend a certain amount of time in Delaware waters. So we spoke with an agent about re-registering our boat in another location, and are currently awaiting the registration paperwork to be approved before we head back to the US.

So, we will be spending a bit more time in Greece (oh darn!), and hopefully have a bit of time to see some sites before we head back stateside for the winter.

Until our next update....