Land, ho!

I know you're probably all wondering what's happened to me since I haven't posted for a little over two weeks now. I realized that I forgot to tell all of you, my loyal readers, that I was going sailing around the Greek Islands for a while; just got back today. That's right; after the Tuscany/Piemonte wine-buying spree, I went back to work for a four-day work week and just got so exhausted from it that I had to take another two weeks of leave. Actually, the five of us who went had been planning it for quite some time. One of my friends out here is pretty much a professional-level skipper, and the rest of us are at least competent at pulling on ropes and such, so it worked out well. I'll be posting the details of each day on the site here (based on events as recorded in our Official Ship's Log) (and I'll be backdating them to when they actually happened, just for posterity, so don't get confused when new posts start showing up between 5 Sep and now).

But for the quick highlights: 5 of us rented a 49 foot sailboat from The Moorings, a company with yacht rentals all over nice warm sunny places. We flew from Rome to Athens to Mykonos (one of the party capitals of Europe, apparently) where we stayed a night then ferried over to Siros, where we picked up the boat. Went from Siros to Serifos (big wind and waves) to Ios (REALLY big wind and waves) where we stayed an extra day and me and two other guys almost were lost at sea in our dinghy, to the south side of Paros where we stayed an extra day, to the north side of Paros, back to Siros to return the boat. Then we ferried back and stayed in Mykonos overnight last night, and flew home today. ~130 nautical miles of sailing altogether, and I'm ready to buy my own boat.

Like I said, details to be posted below, but give me a few days since I'm really tired now and since tomorrow will be taken up by the NATO Oktoberfest. (This event is hosted by the Germans who work at the NATO base here in Naples, and it would be very un-diplomatic of me to pass up this chance to demonstrate our solidarity with our allies.)