Tending to the Turtle

She rly is extremely demanding

Hey ppl - happy father’s day (it’s father’s day btw). Feels like a nice moment to shout out my old man, who you’ll notice in the comments as the guy who has signed up to Substack under the name “Dad” (sort of like Cher - no last name necessary). Dad was pretty concerned about this whole sailing malarkey (understandable given that he once watched me walk past a swimming pool - fully clothed - and fall in) but I hope that this post will reassure him that there’s nothing to worry about. Well, not much anyway.  

Charlie and I have been living on the Turtle for two weeks now and the time really has flown by. The days just seem to sort of evaporate: we get up, go for a swim, make coffee, do some squats if we’re feeling athletic, then suddenly it’s time for bed. Obviously, we do try to squeeze in a bit of sailing, too. But mostly I just feel as though I have been vigorously scrubbing things. 

Boats, it turns out, really do require an awful lot of maintenance - especially when there’s teak involved (there’s always teak involved). Yesterday, Charlie had me and Tom (his brother, who was visiting under the premise of a free holiday) on our hands and knees scrubbing the deck, while he manned the hose and bellowed at us to put more welly into it. (Charlie has sustained a minuscule cut to his finger, which he says excuses him from all cleaning duties until fully healed). I would be furious but, in fairness to the guy, the teak does look lovely now: all rich and auburn coloured (it was sort of a mushroom grey before).

Then there’s the awning (or "bimini" if we’re being boaty). It has a black mould problem so severe that no amount of home-made cleaning solution can fix it. I discovered this the hard way. Now, on top of the mould, it smells quite overwhelmingly of white wine vinegar. Other maintenance issues include: ropes that snap, toilets that leak, water makers that need servicing and cupboards that simply do not open (although, as luck would have it, spraying WD-40 into tiny crevices is one of Charlie’s all-time favourite activities - and that is most certainly not a euphamism).

But we can’t complain: we have been tidying the Turtle in some lovely places. On Saturday, we anchored off Agia, on the outskirts of Athens, and waited for Tom to arrive from the airport. His plane was severely delayed but I was thrilled as there was a beach bar that seemed to exclusively play club remixes of Eighties power ballads (the dubstep version of In the Air Tonight was a particular highlight). Tom eventually showed up at 4am, and we went to collect him from the beach on the tender (well, Charlie did. I lay in bed and pretended to be asleep). 

Early the next morning, we set sail to Hydra - the bohemian island retreat beloved by rock stars and writers including John Lennon, the Rolling Stones, Leonard Cohen - and now me(!). I spent most of the journey pretending to be a Leonard Cohen fan (when clearly I am more of a Phil Collins kind of gal) by singing Hallelujah from beginning to end. (Hallelujah being literally the only Leonard Cohen song I know - and, if I’m honest, that is only because it featured in the film Shrek). 

When we arrived, we decided to drop anchor in the quieter Mandraki Bay, rather than the lovely but extremely busy main port (we made that mistake a few years ago and I recall a lot of shouting, then Charlie having to go and lie down for an hour or two).

After lunch on board (spanakopita, tzatziki, Greek salad: why mess with perfection?), we wandered along the clifftop path into town, visiting the restaurant Piato, where the owner hands guests with a blank plate and a packet of sharpies - then hangs the resulting artwork on the wall. Was ELATED to discover that my artwork from our previous trip was still there (of a woman in a hat drinking a pina colada, of all things). Still, I came crashing back down to earth not five minutes later when attempting to order a beer: the waiter glowered at me before clarifying that Mythos is a drink for tourists and imbeciles and I should really only drink Fix. Truly humbling.

Lunch of legends

The next day, we set sail for Spetses (which my autocorrect keeps changing to sepsis - a bad omen if ever there was one), anchoring in a heavenly cove on the east side of the island so that Charlie could have a go on his new hydrofoil thing. He and Tom had a whale of a time - repeatedly hoiking themselves up and on to the board before promptly being slammed back down and pummelled by the wake. Not my idea of fun but it really does take all sorts. When they arrived back on board, Charlie had the exact same look as when he caught a giant sea bass but it slipped through his hands as he was cleaning it and sank: total devastation. Turns out that, much like that bass, the fin had fallen off the bottom of the board and into the inky depths. A tragedy! 

Still, determined to turn the day around, we cruised into Spetses town, which imo looks more like the Italian Riviera than Greece, with its wide piazzas and swanky waterside hotels. Distracted by the scenery, as we were anchoring, Charlie momentarily panicked that he’d severed the tender rope with the propellor. “Shall quickly I jump in and get it back?” I asked. “Good god no!” Charlie cried. But it was too late: I was in. This did not go down well: apparently you really shouldn’t jump off the back of a boat when the motor is running. 

Fortunately, the tender rope was still very much attached (it had just sunk slightly), so I shinnied into it like a seal onto an iceberg, then proceeded to be dragged around behind the Turtle until the anchorage was complete (this took quite some time as much of the seabed, it turned out, was comprised of impenetrable rock). We got there in the end and, friends once more, went for beers to celebrate. Charlie and I even rented a quadbike and zoomed around the island (I only nearly drove us off a cliff once). 

Spectacular Sepsis!

After that, it was on to Paros, an islet featuring all the things you’d expect of an Aegean archipelago: blue-domed churches, whitewashed villages, sandy beaches. Or so we thought. We anchored up in a pretty bay, then swam to what - from afar - looked like a quaint little cove. Up close, however, it quickly became apparent that it was a sort of wasp infested hell hole. We did our best to battle through a game of Molki, but quickly retreated to the Turtle after Tom got stung in the armpit. At sunrise, we fled, taking a quick pitstop on the party island of Agistri for water and somehow ending up with about €50 worth of pistachio products (in fairness they are a local delicacy). We dropped Tom back in Athens the following day - and I told him I will think of him every time time I look admiringly at the teak (which is actually quite a lot). 

Now, as I write this, Chazzle and I are heading up north to the Cyclades. It’s a tad windier up here, so we’re really putting our snazzy new North Sails to the test (natch they are performing magnificently). Plus, just to add a bit more jeopardy to proceedings, our all of our navigational instruments keep cutting out. This means that we’ll be cruising along, happy as clams, when - suddenly - the wheel starts going berserk and the boat violently jerks about 90 degrees in the wrong direction. Also, I think I just saw an enormous jelly fish - possibly a Portuguese man o’ war (Charlie reckons it was a plastic bag). Anyway, Dad, as I said, nothing to worry about. We’re having a lovely time!