Kingfisher Yacht Cyprus

New Years Eve… …Covid restrictions lifted for one day! The wind was light… …Christopher and Anne were coming for a sail, so the company was good… …so Sue joined us! First time on Liza! It was a comfortable sail for non-sailors. I try to get out every week, but was good to have really easy sail for Sue.   One end of the cockpit… Christopher snoozing. The other end of the cockpit… Anne helming! And I'm just happy to be out sailing!

We're getting claustrophobic… we need a sail!  Yes, there is almost no wind …   the sail is just flapping and going nowhere… but we want to be out on the water… which means use the motor… which is noisy… so… we take lines from the tiller… we all sit on the bow and Helen and I steer the boat by pulling on the lines! And we anchor for Elizabeth to have a swim… …it's cold. …very cold! …very, very cold! …15 second swim! Beautiful skies though.  And worth it to be out on the water! So time for a nice hot chocolate when we're back on dry land. That is hot chocolate for the adults. Helen and Elizabeth opt for a ice-cold smoothie… …I did say it was cold didn't I?

Katie and Helen on the bow… almost their favourite place (when Helen isn't drowsing in the cabin or the cockpit). A nice goose wing run north... well, slow actually as the wind was only about 5-6 knots! Then anchor and time for a swim… and Helen decided to imitate a whale blowing water! And then Sheila, who is often on Liza , was coming back from a meeting so stopped to take some photos… Wow, we're a long way off, and I was sailing just outside the restricted swimming area! Zoomed in a bit better. I must either lend someone my camera with a long lens or get some photos taken from another boat! The starboard marker buoy for the main port...  …is shown as a single buoy on the chart but different shape  …till you zoom in and it then shows as two buoys!  

Pensive and ' Please take a photo, I look very beautiful today !'  (Groan from the rest of the crew, even though it is 100% true but not normally the thing one says!)   Sailing south which is unusual because the wind often comes from the south. My favourite town and favourite flag. I am only inshore registered so technically I don't have to fly a Cyprus flag. But I want to! (I also fly and EU flag) Diving boats over the Zenobia

The weather looked good for a long day sail over to Potamos and back. It's about 30 nautical miles which in a small boat is a good day sail. I checked the weather on Predictwind.com and Windfinder. The two most dissimilar forecasts came from Predictwind, but both looked reasonable.  There was supposed to be a lull as the wind changed direction but other than that would be great sailing across the bay and back. I've been using iSailor for my navigation app and they have changed to a subscription model so I thought I would check out other apps if I am going to have to pay a subscription. Don't get me wrong iSailor is good and I have used it for a number of years, but there are quirks to using it which I found frustrating. The charts are digital but display a lot of detail at all scales and so look cluttered and hard to read at times. I'd used Navionics charts on chart plotters so thought I would try their app. It was a lot cleaner in interface and had no learning curve. I...

One of the real joys for me of owning a boat is the ability to take friends our for a sail. Cath is the leader of Little Muse Theatre and I help her with some of the sound and lighting. I very much believe in youth theatre and so working with her on productions is something I enjoy. So today… my turn to take her with her daughter Daisy out for a sail. I brought Helen along - she's a friend of Daisy and I like to have someone who can sail with me. Little Muse Theatre is based in Larnaca and so normally Cath see's the sea from our town - today she saw our town from the sea! It's slowly developing with more high rise buildings and more hotels, but even still it's a nice small town with a great almost 'big village' feel to it. Neither Cath nor Daisy had sailed before… and so getting used the tiller where you move it left to go right and right to go left took a wee bit of getting used to. One of the things I always try to do for taking new people out is to make sure ...