The time has come. It is bittersweet. We look forward to the next part of our adventure, but we have loved our time in Cyprus. It is a beautiful country. The people are kind and demonstrate generosity of spirit. In that way, they remind me of the people we met in Israel. It is one of the greatest pleasures of travel. It restores my faith in humanity when so many horrible things are happening in this world.

We have some repairs to make to the boat. Two of our windows have “popped.” I am using this term, I don’t think it is technically what it is called. What I mean is that they are no longer sealed to the boat entirely. The second one just popped yesterday. Apparently, this boat is known for windows cracking. I guess I’d rather have it pop than crack. Anywho, Michael and I are going to attempt to seal them today. Fingers crossed.

I guess that is the only actual repair we have to make, so I misspoke. The other stuff we need to do is typical maintenance and more cleaning. Seahike gets rub marks when she is in a berth. I am not really sure where they come from since we use fenders, but they magically appear. We also need to flush out the old coolant and add new. The only coolant we could find (was it in Egypt?) wasn’t exactly the right stuff so we want to swap it out with the right stuff.

We’ve changed our itinerary three times now. 🙂 The first time we changed it was because we learned that the Corinth Canal is going to be closed when we want to use it. The second time was yesterday, when a gentleman who has been sailing for 20 years recommended that we stop at Kas, Turkey before beginning our tour of the Greek Islands. So now we are going to do that.

As to when we leave Cyprus, we think it will either be late Sunday (like 11:00 p.m.) or early Monday (like 3:00 or 4:00 a.m.). We need to talk to the Control Room to see if we can leave under the cover of darkness. We also need to ask Customs and Immigration what hours they operate and whether we can check out with them one day and leave the next should the need occur. (I am writing this today because I think it is the only time I will have to dedicate to the blog.)

We still have a twisted main halyard. We kept waiting for a windless day and either we had one and didn’t take advantage (most likely!) or it was windy. We’ve never tried to untwist a halyard so we don’t even know if it can be done but it is a HUGE pain in the ass to raise the mainsail. First, I go to the mast to try to untwist the line by hand. Then we try to raise the sail. Then we see that it won’t go to the top of the mast because the lines are twisted. Then we drop the sail. Repeat. Repeat. Until success. If it is quite windy we can raise her with one reef in her and call it a day, but that isn’t always the case.

We finally went to Cape Greco. It is on the southeast corner of the island. It is beautiful. Here are some pictures both from the land and from Seahike.

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The last post, which was about my sister’s birthday, also included information about the first part of our final road trip in Cyprus. This post contains info about the rest of our trip.

On my sister’s actual birthday, March 23rd, we went for a hike. We actually went for several hikes on this road trip. This is the “hike” part of “Seahike.” The trail we hiked on March 23rd was the Millomeris Waterfall Trail. We chose this because it was about the right length (2.4 km round trip) and ended with a waterfall at the turn-around point. There are several hikes in Cyprus that end with a waterfall, so you have choices should you choose to hike here.

The instructions told us to park at the Platres Athletic Center, but Google Maps couldn’t find it, so we parked at the first “free parking” sign we saw and walked downhill about 50 meters to the sign that marked the trailhead. (I should note that a couple of hours later the parking lot was full, and we were there in the off season. If you are going to take this hike, you will want to get an early start.)

There were no surprises on this trail. No rock hopping. No boulders. Just a nice trail. There were uphill and downhill portions, but what respectable trail doesn’t have those? We walked by a babbling brook for quite a while before heading uphill and away from it. It is a beautiful trail and the waterfall is a treat for the eyes and spirit.

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As I sit on a bed in a hotel listening to a Greek cartoon, I think about my sister, whose birthday is today. Other than when we were at each other’s throats when we were younger, she’s been a good big sister. Happy day to you, Debbie. I hope it is awesome!!

Now, to what we’ve been doing. The last time I wrote, we’d returned from Israel. We then spent several weeks relaxing on Seahike at the marina. That included breaking in our new dinghy motor. I was very excited:

Michael did a fine job driving while I adopted the role of hood ornament so I could read my book, take pictures, and stare at the clouds.

I tried some octopus at the marina’s restaurant. It was very good!

We spent a wonderful afternoon with six 20-somethings. We met the three women on the cab ride home from Israel. We’d invited them to meet us for coffee at Coffee Berry and go for a sail with us. We were SO happy when they contacted us the next day. They asked if they could bring three of their friends. “Of course!”

There ended up being no wind that day, but we had a nice time chatting at the coffee shop, then took all of us out on Seahike (via motor). They were so much fun! It was a wonderful day!

We’ve had some rainy days in Ayia Napa. My umbrella reminds me to be safe:

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We were very happy with our trip thus far. We were also excited about what was ahead. We ended up deviating from my itinerary a bit due to lack of time, but it all turned out fine in the end.

We took the train from Jerusalem to the airport the morning of the 24th. We did that because we needed a car for the rest of our journey.

Our first stop on our road trip was to Ein Gedi Reserve. We absolutely did not have enough time there and would go back in a heartbeat if we are in Israel again. That said, we took a lovely short hike and saw four waterfalls. Now, that might not seem interesting but we were pretty much in a freakin’ desert, so four waterfalls seemed excessive. Here are some pics from our short hike:

We next drove to Masada National Park but they’d closed early that day so we had to skip it. We had already planned to go to the Dead Sea, so we followed that plan. Not much to say except it was absolutely beautiful and we floated!

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We took a little trip! The marinas in Israel had no room for us so we decided to fly there and visit for a week. Our itinerary was packed. That was the plan: spend a little time in a lot of places to get a feel for the country and have diverse experiences.

Those who worked with me know that I tend to plan using the “back of the napkin” method. Here are the notes I took:

Perhaps those who utilize a similar system will recognize the superior methodology. I ended up with a very well-organized itinerary that I typed in Google docs. We didn’t follow it 100 percent but it was a very useful guide and allowed us to make amendments on the fly. I highly recommend this approach.

We flew to Tel Aviv. Michael got a window seat so I told him that it was his duty to take pictures. With great seat assignment comes great responsibility. He did well.

The plan was to take the train from the airport to a station near our lodging. The plan played out well. . . . and it was really cheap!

Michael surprised me by suggesting that we walk the three kilometers to the hostel. It was a lovely night and a nice walk.

Once we checked in, we walked downstairs to the hostel bar for a beer. Michael was quite clear that he just wanted one beer. Okie dokie.

Little did we know that Matan (not sure how you actually spell his name, but it rhymes with “baton”) was bartending that night and that we would spend the next two hours laughing our heads off. I laughed so hard my stomach muscles hurt. The beer was also good. I was surprised when Matan asked us if we wanted a second round and Michael said yes. That’s when I knew for certain that he was having as good a time as I was.

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