Cyprus

September 11, 2007

The winds remained light to none existent and we motored steadily north towards Cyprus. Around 1000 hours we

were overflown by a military jet that passed directly over us, before making a sharp turn and heading back to the west. At 1240 hours Annette was dozing in the cockpit when a second jet fighter came screaming in, just a couple of hundred feet off the deck. It looked like Tom Cruise in the cockpit. The jet tore by our masts before making a very tight low level turn and reversing it's course. I was too busy trying to turn the camera on to see it's markings but the Cypriot customs officer said the only people around here with jet aircraft would be the Americans. Just saluting our big, new "Stars and Stripes" flying off the stern. Probably fortunate that we didn't fire the SAM 3.

At 1200 hours I called the marina at Limassol who said that they were fully booked, had no space, did not know about our e-mail reservation. We spent the next 30 minutes frantically coming up with an alternative cruising plan involving illegal overnight anchorages and navigation to Turkey, before calling the marina again. This time they were able to confirm that they did indeed have a space for us. Phew!

The wind had now begun to build from the west and for the first time in quite a while, we were close reaching under full sail. As we closed the Cyprus coast, we went to a beam reach and approached the marina at 9 knots in the stiffening breeze. We entered the marina through it's rocky, narrow entrance and had three dock helpers grabbing lines as we came alongside. Impressive! We are used to being ignored and handling the lines ourselves. It was right on 1700 hours - marina closing time - and we were surprised and pleased that the customs and immigration authorities cleared us into Cyprus immediately. We are here! St. Raphael Marina, Limassol. N 34 42.6' E 033 09.9'

September 12, 2007

As we approached the Cypriot coast yesterday, we could see high mountains reaching down to white sand beaches and the blue sea of the Mediterranean. Annette said that she never realized that Cyprus was mountainous. I said, "Of course it is. Anything remotely Greek has lots of mountains. Didn't you watch Anthony Quinn in 'The Guns of Navarone?' "

We rented a car this morning and set off to town to find an ATM. The marina is five miles east of the town of Limassol. Limassol is the second largest town on the island and seems to cater almost entirely to the tourist industry. As we drove along the sea frontage road, we passed cafes and bars in the hundreds, a multitude of holiday apartment blocks and hotels and a distinctly English orientation to the advertising, with "Fish and Chip" shops and cafes touting English breakfasts. We equipped ourselves with cash from an ATM and stopped for breakfast at a small cafe. My "English Breakfast" with sausage, bacon, fried egg, baked beans and toast was fine. Annette ordered spaghetti and when it finally arrived, she pronounced it disgusting. Hey, ya gotta' order the local fare!

Downtown city center Limassol has a medieval castle and we paid this a visit. Supposedly Richard the Lionheart, leader of the 3rd Crusade, married Berengaria of Navarre here in 1191. I hope that the lucky couple did not find the attendant as aggravating as we did. When we arrived, we were followed closely by same, who lost no time to chastise us for touching a glass display cabinet and for taking photographs. What on earth was the problem with photos? There was little on display, just a few examples of Byzantine ceramics. Fortunately another set of tourists arrived and he was able to devote his attentions to them. The view from the castle battlements was fine but there was little else to hold our interest.

We drove out to the west of Limassol along "Lady's Mile Beach". This was the beach off which we had intended to illegally anchor if denied space at the marina. The beach was entirely of pebbles, not so good for sunbathing and

swimming but perfectly shaped rocks for throwing. We searched for the monastery of "St. Nicholas of the Cats". The young lady at the information bureau had said that it was "interesting". When we arrived we found a chained gate and a sign entirely in Greek. Annette maintained that any signage that did not include English was not expecting visitors. Later that evening, I read in the tourist brochure that the monastery chapel dates to the 14th century. It was abandoned in the 16th. century and reoccupied by Orthodox nuns just 20 years ago. The guide notes that at the time of the monastery's founding, there was a severe drought which drove the local inhabitants out of the region. In their absence the area became infested with snakes. (So what were the snakes living on?)  Constantine the Great sent a commander (Kalokeros) to Cyprus to sort out the snakes and he released thousands of cats to exterminate the snakes. (Right...I would have immediately thought of cats to get rid of snakes...) What St. Nicholas had to do with the cats was nowhere mentioned.

September 13, 2007

Today was winery tour day. Really, there only so many ancient, crumbling ruins you can view before you must get serious. We drove our rental car up into the Cypriot mountains along narrow winding roads. The roads hugged the
edge of precipices and the villages themselves often hung at cliffs edge without visible means of support. It was

noticeably cooler as we got higher, with trees and vineyards replaced the arid fields of the coastal areas. We
saw a sign for a "traditional village" and turned into the sleepy village of Silikou. The streets were just wide enough for a single vehicle but fortunately there was no other traffic. After parking we wandered around the tiny village square and had a truly wonderful brunch at the village inn (Fried eggs, fried potatoes, fried cheese, olives, salad, fresh baked hot Pita bread - plus "Keo" beer of course!).

The lady innkeeper insisted on calling her friend Nicos, two villages over, who was in the process of wine-making and agreed show us his winery. The winery was a wonderfully untidy jumble of palettes of empty wine bottles, huge ancient clay jars that would have easily contained the 40 thieves plus Ali Baba, wooden barrels, old grape presses and the like, all mixed up with modern stainless steel equipment. Nicos welcomed us into his kitchen
and excused himself for a few minutes as he completed his discussion with "a government official". The conversation was Greek to me but the official was obviously from the Cypriot IRS. I wanted to interrupt and

advise Nicos to fight it to the Supreme Court, appeal, offer to settle for ten percent etc. but since the nature of the complaint was unknown to me, I wisely withheld such sage admonishments. Eventually, the IRS man left and I told Nicos that in the USA we have an expression, "Hello, I am from the government and I am here to help you!". Nicos said, "You understand completely". We tasted some wine and then moved along on our tour.

There was a lot of real estate for sale and some very pretty locations. The innkeeper had asked us earlier if we were from the village and clarified her question by indicating that many of the village residents were British retirees.

September 14, 2007

Cyprus has been a challenge for internet connectivity which we found surprising. The Limassol marina is occupied by large powerboats that rarely move from the dock and has little space for visitors. We detected three different WiFi wireless networks and purchased time on two out of the three. The first was the marina network itself and we were not able to connect to it, despite hauling our notebook computer from one end of the marina to the other. The second network belonged to the hotel that owns the marina. We found their US$8.50 per connection (maximum one hour) expensive, since we have been spoiled by free WiFi access across the globe. 

Nevertheless we bought three "connections". After two days the marina acknowledged that their modem had been turned off! We assuaged our irritation with a fine lunch of Cypriot style grilled kebabs and spent the balance of
the day wandering the gift shops and looking at real estate offerings.

September 15, 2007

Today we visited the capital of Cyprus at Lefkosia (Nicosia). As we drove into town we could see a huge Turkish flag outlined on the hillside behind the city, just to remind anyone who didn't know already, this is a divided city in a divided country. The history behind the division is simple enough, as are most religious and tribal wars. The country of Cyprus achieved independence from Britain in 1960 and there were three guarantor powers, Britain, Greece and Turkey. The population at that time was split 78% Greek, 18% Turkish, plus 4 % Armenian and Maronites, scattered all across the island. The Greek version of history states that although the constitution safeguarded the basic rights and freedoms of all citizens, it contained provisions that were "non-workable". In 1963, the Greek-Cypriot president proposed constitutional amendments that the Turkish side rejected. The Turkish side then withdrew from the government and set up their own club. In 1967 there was a military coup in Greece. This ruling junta then staged a military coup in Cyprus. The Turkish army invaded Cyprus almost immediately and grabbed 37% of the island. They then displaced 200,000 Greek Cypriots from their side and presumably a proportionate number of Turkish Cypriots were kicked out of the Greek side. They have been whining about it ever since and I noted that the newly elected Turkish President Abdullah Gul is in the process of visiting Cyprus on a State visit. Since the diplomatic world is more concerned that Gul's wife is wearing a Moslem headscarf whilst accompanying him on a State visit, we may be safe in assuming that no big changes in Greek Turkish relations are to be expected soon.

We drove up to the walls of the "old" city and found barbed wire and signs warning us of a "UN buffer zone". Since nobody was waving guns, we entered the old city and maneuvered our way through the narrow streets until

we found a spot where we could abandon our rent car. We then hiked to the tourist information center. We found this deeply buried in "gift" shops, which slowed progress considerably. The tourist center provided us with the
information that the only establishment open on a Saturday afternoon was the Archaeological museum. Just about every other museum or art gallery is closed on Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday. We decided to visit the
Archaeological museum.

The Archaeological museum was sparsely attended and was nonetheless very interesting. Cyprus has historically been a really good place to die and have all of your household implements buried with you. It was amazing to me
of the degree of sophistication of the pottery and ceramic decorations from nearly 5,000 years ago. Annette was fascinated with "diaper pins" or "safety pins" in copper and gold that were 4,000 years old and instantly
recognizable as to their function. Perhaps folks in the early bronze age used these pins for their toga like wraps and used velcro for the kids. The historical record does not clarify this.

On our return to Limassol, I realized that I had yet to enjoy that great British gift to culinary excellence, "fish and chips". We set out to find a "chippie", with precise directions given to us by a fellow marina resident. The directions terminated at a road barrier and diversion sign. We wandered around the village beyond but never found the grail of the "best fish on the island". Instead we opted for "Molly Malone's Irish Pub" on the main tourist drag. Annette loved her "Guinness and Beef Pie" and I made do with a poor imitation of fish and chips.

September 16, 2007

The rental car was returned this morning and we are reduced to being pedestrians again. Fellow Amel owner, Ian Shepherd, drove his motorcycle over from Larnaca, where he lives and we had a brief, pleasant and useful visit.

We have now serviced our port Genoa sheet winch and it is clicking away happily again. Doodlebug is again prepared for sea and the only task left was to check the internet for the latest weather. I had saved my final US$8.50 internet access code for this task. The internet would not connect! The hotel's server was down!

September 17, 2007

Yesterday we had warned the marina security police that we wanted to leave at first light, since we needed to retrieve passports and clearance documents from them. Again we were assured that they operated on a 24 hours basis. We woke at about 0450 hours and made the first round of tea and coffee in the darkness. At 0530 hours I walked over to the security office and asked for my documents. "You are leaving now?" "Well, in about 30 or 40 minutes. It will take me that long to stow the power cords and the passarelle (the boarding ramp)." "You come back here five minutes before you leave". "How the hell I am I going to get off the boat with the boarding ramp stowed?". "The other shift begins at 0615 hours. You leave then." "No, I am leaving now". Grudgingly the security officer handed over our documents. Fifteen minutes later he was standing on the dock, glowering at us from a few feet away, as we stowed the final gear and made ready to leave. I almost laughed out loud at his obvious discomfiture. There was nothing the officious twerp could do as we had already stowed the boarding ramp and were protected by a moat of seawater.

We motored quietly off the dock at 0600 hours and headed out to sea with winds of less than 3 knots. By 0900 hours we were off the main British airbase on Cyprus and had aircraft circling us every few minutes, just in case we began to launch Exocets or something. From noon onwards we were able to carry a little sail to boost the motor, as the winds were from the beam but in the 6 to 8 knot range. There was a lot of shipping during the night and the radio was filled with non-stop chatter of either "Nato Warship" or "Israeli Navy", asking different radar targets to identify themselves. When the "target" did not respond, they repeated the call ad nauseam, until we were ready to scream. We are just not used to this level of non-stop chatter on the VHF hailing channel, some legitimate and a lot of long and illegal conversations in various languages, presumably by fishermen. I say "illegal" because the International hailing frequency is supposed to be used for just hailing and then the connecting parties switch to another agreed frequency to talk at length. Eventually we just turned the volume way down and ignored the radio. The newer technology radios also have a "siren" or alarm than can be sounded in the event of an emergency. The siren sounds continuously until the recipient responds or answers. Our siren alarm went off twice during the night for what were routine maritime announcements regarding weather forecasts and navigation alerts. Most commercial vessels have now disconnected or turned off this important safety feature because of the widespread abuse of the alarm feature by various authorities around the world.