King Malu on Google Maps/Google Earth

If you zoom in on Google Earth/Google Maps, you'll see they have updated the imagery for Larnaca and King Malu is now clearly visible in her home berth!

Rhodes to Larnaca

The final leg of the voyage - from Rhodes to Larnaca.

As we leave Rhodes an extremely attractive mono-hull comes and moors alongside. Her name is Genevieve. Yes, this is a mega-yacht. The crew have black shirts, which looks smart, but must get incredibly hot in the summer sun of the Mediterranean.

It's time to leave the Greek islands behind.  It should take about 2 days and 2 nights, so we divide the crew into watches so that we can rest and take 3 hour stints at looking after the boat.

This will be a downwind leg the whole way - at least where we have wind, so as soon as we can we get the Main Sail up. This did slightly confuse family who were following the AIS signal as we turned back towards Rhodes to be into the wind. They wondered if we had a problem and were turning back for repairs. It's quite amazing to think that friends and family can watch that kind of detail.

We put the main out to port and the genoa out to starboard. The aim was to run goose-winged as far as possible and pick up what speed we can.


The heat has increased so Olivier decides on what seems total insanity to me. He trails a rope from the back of the boat to create a sort of swimming pool... that is if you hold on to the rope tight enough!

Tim and Geraldine watch from the stern. I'm on the fly bridge slowing the boat down.

Tim joins Olivier in the water. Geraldine, like me, prefers to be over and on the water not in and under it!

And this is what SAGA IV looks like from under it. The GoPro Hero2 certainly proved it's worth.

We arrive in Larnaca approximately 47 hours after leaving Rhodes.

Astypalaia to Rhodes

Now the start times got really crazy and I didn't leave my berth to watch. The wind is now set for downwind sailing all the way to Cyprus. Tim and I rarely do any downwind sailing on King Malu, so this is good for us.

Dolphins again, but this time the sea is much clearer and we are treated to a display of swimming by mammals few others can beat.

Washing down is part of the house-keeping on board and continues daily while sailing. There is a dish-washer and washing-machine to to help with the task of keeping what amounts to a small hotel running.

As we approach Rhodes the number of boats, both leisure and commercial increases. Till now we have seen very few boats except those at the anchorages.

As we arrive a small hydrofoil departs. The sea is calm enough for it now.

We dropped anchor outside the marina, since space within the marina is a premium. Strangely there are no floating pontoons which means that the number of boats that can be accommodated is less than half than if they did have them.

We arrived in Rhodes just before sunset. The castle and the old city are amazing. Just wish I could have seen the old Colossus of Rhodes.

We went ashore and had a fabulous meal. The restaurant was one that you had to know to find. Serendipitously we did so! Apparently the crew of SAGA IV had eaten there on the way out, but the route to the restaurant was quite different.

Koufonisi to Astypalaia

Talk about an early start! 6:30 Tim and Olivier were weighing anchor and on our way.

The wind looked right for setting the main sail today since it was broad reach. Setting the main with a canoe boom is not easy, someone, namely Olivier, has to go up into the canoe, undo the bag and connect the uphaul. Olivier has amazing balance. I would have done it with a safety line. He looked like he had been doing it all his life. Which he probably had!

Then time to haul it up. It's a heavy sail on a Lagoon 56, but fortunately there are electric self tailing winches. I think I could get used to these!

Except for the canoe main sail, the Lagoon 56 is actually quite an easy boat to sail. With in-boom furling then it would be very manageable by Tim and me. Of course... the cost would be prohibitive!

It seems like only an hour or so later there is a wind shift and so the main has to come down and Olivier is up in the canoe boom again tidying the sail!

The call is 'Dolphins' and they are out playing along our bow. Seems to me they were almost stroking themselves on the hull and dancing with delight.

Navigation onboard is with a dual Raymarine E-Series. They were good, but did lock up a couple of times and need resetting. This surprised me. I am having occasional lockup problems with the screen for the electric drive system we are developing, with the CanBus/NMEA2000 interface, but I would have expected Raymarine to be bolt proof and have no problems.

We passed islands that looked uninhabited and islands that looked like there was only one house on it. I cannot imagine living on an island alone. I suppose a hermit might enjoy it, but I think I need people too much for that!

 

Arrived in a beautiful bay and great wind for kite surfing.

Olivier's passion is kite-surfing. He was out across the bay... chasing him in the RIB was quite something... trying to get film of him was something else!

Mykonos to Koufonisi

It was a very early start for Tim and me - we flew from Larnaca to Athens then on to Mykonos. I must admit I don't like flying, and I like turbulence even less. There were quite strong winds coming in to Mykonos and so it was a lot bumpier than I like!

We had been given a GoPro Hero2 camera, a sports camera that is waterproof with a very wide angle 'fish eye' lens. The distortion of the lens take a little getting used to but it captures the action, and I shot quite a lot of video on the trip, which I'll edit into a short film.

Straight from Mykonos airport onto SAGA IV and shortly after set sail for Koufonisi.

The winds were fresh, but Olivier and Gerarldine keen to start the voyage. They were both tired of the strong winds of Mykonos and hoping for lighter winds as we sailed south.

Suddenly I spotted a canoe floating in the water, barely 200 metres on our starboard bow. Olivier brought SAGA round alongside.

We were somewhat concerned we might find a body attached, but when we brought it onboard we found it unoccupied. Most likely it blew off the beach of one of the islands nearby. Tim has been longing for a canoe for a couple of years after trying it in Thailand.

Tim set the lines for fishing. I was not expecting anything as we had caught nothing around Cyprus. However, not long after we got two bites. The port line broke almost immediately but the starboard line held. It was clearly a large fish as the fight was on.

We caught the largest tuna Tim has ever caught... 'Once in a lifetime catch' He was heavily bruised but ecstatic. It was also the largest catch on SAGA IV this season.

Arriving in Koufonisi we set the anchor and settled in for the night... Fresh tuna for dinner!

HUI development

Working on the HUI (Human User Interface) for the electric drive, both the firmware and the hardware. Any guesses what this but of hardware will be when integrated?