Escape from Marinaland
It is the end of our Winter stay in Aghios Nikolaos and we made our escape Marinaland a couple of weeks ago and are really enjoying being on anchor again...When it isn't blowing a hooley that is.
It has been the wettest and coldest winter in the Mediterranean so far, but that memory fades in the sunshine with the Mimosa flowering and the orange blossom giving off it's intoxicating aroma.
The Mulberry trees are budding and the Mallows and Crown Daisies decorating the landscape.
It was a marina of many live-aboards and therefore social events available for every taste... from the weekly BBQ, Bridge playing to a scratch band, which I joined giving performances over the winter at two open mic nights at a local bar.
I gave an all day art workshop in February, demonstrating a variety of printing, resist and painting techniques... how to solve the problem of the blank page and ideas on how to go about producing ones own traveling journal.
I took my latest one to give a few ideas, with some simple, un-daunting techniques that give a fast result capturing the moment.
This is important when one is travelling on quickly. It took me more than a couple of weeks to prepare and was a lot of fun. One of the group's partners even made a special cake with Art Workshop iced on it... It tasted delicious with a cuppa in the afternoon.
We've had a load of boat projects this Winter - upgrades on the engine, redesigning the cooker alcove with aluminium and stainless, building a false floor under the cooker with ventilation over the fridge compressor without letting the dust and dirt in, fitting two flexible water tanks under the berths, painting decks, repairing hull damage and the list goes on.
Always busy on an old wooden boat when we do everything ourselves. All good fun most of the time I have now started a new journal from Crete. We intend this year to explore North and East....So we'll see.
