This video is a description of my 2012 summer sailing plans which will include the countries of Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece and finally ending in Turkey. I also described some plans for future videos I will make and I talked about a Turkish Marina at Ayvalik. My blog is located at www.medsailor.com
I’m going to post a video which outlines my summer sailing season for 2012.
This summer I have four different crews joining me for various legs of the trip. I had planned on hitting two new Southern Greek islands that due to the difficulty of arriving at one of the crew exchange points it turns out that I will be just traveling through areas I have already been to before. Being a person who likes to discover new places that change was a bit disappointing but nonetheless I know where I will be going I’m familiar with the harbors and it will be a very enjoyable summer. At the end of the summer I plan on leaving my boat in a yard near Bodrum where I will be having some work done by very qualified artisans. I have always admired the wooden boats built in Turkey and it would be interesting for somebody to do a documentary on the classic Turkish Gullet.
Additionally I’m going to be posting below some of the text of an upcoming book I will be writing if you have comments please feel free to make them.
Be sure to check out my YouTube channel medsailordotcom and my website for posting audio travel stories www.traveltradeexchange.com
Below is an excerpt from my upcoming book.
On night vision and depth of field.
I had dropped off my family to fly home in Salerno. My next guests were going to meet me in Porta Rosa Sicily so I needed to work my way south. I decided to avoid the coast route and get off shore and head straight down from Capri.
I left Salerno and sailed to Capri and spent the night. The next morning I left Capri at the break of dawn and headed south. I had laid out a course straight through the Aeolian Islands en-route to Porta Rosa on the north coast of Sicily.
There was not a breath of wind so I engaged the boat on autopilot and motored. It was a very hot day, along the way I stopped a few times to go swimming and cool off. I was probably about 20 miles off shore and it was a little hazy I could only see water not any land.
I motored all day and then through the night, I did the best to entertain myself by reading or listening to music or short wave radio.
About 2.30 AM I needed to relieve myself, as the autopilot steered I worked myself carefully to the shrouds ( my preferred location because I could easily wrap my arms around the shrouds and secure myself while taking care of business) It was pitch black a few stars but on the horizon nothing on the water for 360 degrees.
As I was relieving myself I looked forward and suddenly a bright red/ orange light appeared directly in front of the boat. It looked no further than a couple hundred meters in front.
Quickly I made my way back to the cockpit and took the boat off auto pilot in order to avoid what I thought was another vessel that had suddenly appeared directly in front of me. I reduced speed and took the tiller. Suddenly the light went out! I was alarmed and the fight to stay awake had ended. I stopped the boat and carefully looked around …. nothing no light or hint of light anywhere. I stopped the engine to try and hear something and just silence. With much confusion I decided to proceed. So I started the engine and reengaged the autopilot.
About a half hour later the same phenomenon occurred again and I again went through the same routine. Again the light disappeared and there was nothing. This continued to occur about every half hour.
As the dawn broke the mystery was solved. What I was seeing was the volcano on Stromboli erupting. Stromboli was the northernmost Island in the Aeolian Island chain and my course was taking me close by the island The water was plenty deep and there were no hazards in the water around the island that I needed to worry about so I had not read about the Island in my pilot. But now I did and there it was it is described as the oldest lighthouse in the Mediterranean. It has been erupting for hundreds of years regularly.
Of course had I read the pilot carefully I would have been prepared for what I saw, However this time it was a fun mystery to solve and it helped to keep me awake.
Lessons I took away:
1. Depth perception is distorted at night. When I first saw Stromboli erupt I was probably about 20 miles away yet the light from the erupting volcano looked like it was directly in front of me and very close
2. Read all information you have available on the areas you are sailing through information is valuable. In this case I didn’t and it provided me with a great story but in sailing it is better to be informed.