2004

30 Dec 03 - 09 Jan 04 Brandenton to Ft Lauderdale, FL	We had a wonderful time here in Bradenton, the Twin Dolphin Marina is one of the best we've had the pleasure of visiting. We had a number of visitors here that helped make this an enjoyable stay. Here are some of our neighbors from Bilbo Baggins, Tortuga, Sweet C, and Renegade. Visitors include: Galit and her family, Etty, Jan, and their family, and Richard and Linda Mittleman. These were taken at various times. Some of the visitor's at the world famous Cajun and Farewell
10 -12 Feb 04 Ft Lauderdale to Nassau	We left Ft Lauderdale after 3 long weeks. Life on dry land sucks! We installed the stabilizers, the European power conversion, and the Gulf Coast Fuel Polishing system. Bob and his friend Steve accompanied us over to Nassau. We met a Swiss couple, Lukas and Desiree from Basel, here working at UBS, they joined us on board and then invited us to their home.
16 Feb Nassau to Norman's Cay	We then traveled to Norman's Cay to revisit MacDuff's, one of our favorite island spots. We had to sit out a storm and met Andy and Marilyn on Amida and Geoff and June on Concerto. Here are some pictures.
22 Feb Norman's Cay to Exuma Park	We then traveled to the Exuma Land and Sea Park for two weeks. The weather is beautiful and the water and sunsets are spectacular. Tsipy found some Banana Quits that will eat from your hand. Talk about strange coincidences, we met Ty and Suzanne onboard Concerto with our friends Geoff and June and Andy and Marilyn from Amida. Ty and I went out to rescue a boat that was dragging into the rocks. After the rescue we discovered that we both went to New Orleans Academy and graduated in the same year. Neither of us recognized the other but were able to reconstruct our classmates. He is the only classmate I have ever run into, in fact, he is the only person I've ever met that recognized NOA!
6 Mar Exuma Park to Nassau	After my generator heat exchanger developed a leak we returned to Nassau for repairs and new parts. We reunited with Compass Rose, Latitudes, and Millennium Odyssey. Tsipy's first attempt at cinnamon buns was great!
17 Mar Nassau to Highbourne Cay	We repaired the generator (had to have a new heat exchanger shipped in from the US) and departed Nassau for Highbourne Cay. We shared the dock with Highlander, a beautiful 150' yacht owned by the Forbes family. Captain Bill, Trish, Cathy and a crewman are shown waiting for Stephen Forbes to arrive for his vacation. We were accompanied by Island Style, a power cat with Kevin, Christine, and the kids onboard. We had a nice trip and then had a nice dinner on the dock.
18 Mar Highbourne Cay to Exuma Park	We traveled back to the Exuma Land and Sea Park to hide from the upcoming high winds. We did some interesting volunteer work, including bending conduit for electrical runs, repairing radios and antennas, and finally paving a walkway up the hill. We meet some new folks on Scandia, Latitudes, Dreamtime, and many others. Here are some photos. Tsipy decided to paint a sign for Boo Boo Hill, so after one of our volunteer days, we climbed back up the hill to plant it for posterity.
31 Mar Exuma Park to Nassau	We returned to Nassau to meet Ruthie and her friend Jerry for Passover. If the weather cooperates, we will take a short trip to show them a few of the out islands. Here is a photo of Odelia, note the addition of the hard top, kayak carriers, and sun shade.
8 Apr Nassau to Norman's Cay	Ruthie arrived and we had Passover Seder on the boat with Lukas and Desiree. Jerry arrived on Wednesday and on Thursday, we took off. Our friends Lukas and Desiree were able to come with us. We were able to visit Norman's Cay, had lunch at MacDuffs, and then snorkeled the plane wreck. Photos courtesy of Desiree and Lukas.
9 Apr Norman's Cay to Exuma Park	On Friday we traveled to the park for a short visit. We were able to spend four beautiful days with no winds. I added some more pictures.
11 Apr Exuma Park to Nassau	We returned to Nassau on Sunday so Ruthie and Jerry could return home to the cold north east. Great shots of the cruise ships and the seaplane. Chalk's is the oldest, continuously operating, seaplane company in the world. Note the seaplane port in the photo of Atlantis.
25 - 27 Apr Nassau to Ft Lauderdale	We finally got a weather break and headed for Ft Lauderdale. The trip took us three days via Chub Cay and Cat Cay. We are staying in Harbourtowne Marina in Dania Beach, just south of Ft Lauderdale. We have a list of scheduled repairs and upgrades as long as my arm. Hope to complete everything before our departure date. This will be the last of this cruising report. Next up, the Med!
Preparing for Dockwise Ft Lauderdale	I added a gangway to Odelia. Most of the marinas in Europe use Med mooring, you use an anchor or bouy to hold the front of the boat, back down against the quay, and then tie off using crossed lines. So, we needed a way to get off the boat from the stern. I bought a 10' aluminum scaffold and added some hardware to attach it to the boat. Here are some shots of deployed for its test run. In normal operation the wheels would be on the quay, but in Harbourtowne we couldn't back into the slip since the water was too shallow.
Loading on Dockwise	Here are some photos of Dockwise Express Yacht Transport, the Explorer. It is the smallest of the drydock ships in their fleet and it still carries over 20 yachts, four of them over 100 foot long. I had to back into the boat and tie off against a 70 footer, then other boats came in after us to fill in the back. It was a pretty impressive operation.
Visiting Athens	We arrived in Greece on 1 Jul to await the arrival of Dockwise Explorer. Bonnie and Mike arrived the same day and we did some sightseeing in Athens prior to the delivery. Here are some photos, courtesy of Mike the phamous photog.
Offloading in Piraeus, Greece	They were supposed to deliver Odelia on 3 Jul but it was delayed until Monday, 5 Jul to clear customs. Charlie arrived from the US on Sunday and accompanied us to the ship on Monday. Here is a photo of Odelia in the nearly empty hold of the dry dock ship. The offloading went well but processing through Greek customs and harbormasters took forever. We had a little maintenance problem, the impellors dried out during the trip over and when we pulled away from the ship both engines overheated. We had to stop and replace both impellors before traveling the 5 nm or so to Zea Marina. Once we tied up in traditional Med mooring, I took the inaugural steps off the new gangway. Itzhak arrived on Monday night, we provisioned on Tuesday, and took off on Wednesday.
7 - 11 Jul Athens to Kea and Serifos	We had a really miserable trip on Wednesday, we were hit by near gale force winds and waves. Welcome to the Meltemi (a Turkish word used to describe the seasonal, hot, dry winds from the north experienced during the summer). We took refuge at Kea, the first island we saw, and spent two nights at anchor being blown by high winds funneled through a gap in the high hills surrounding the anchorage. We left there for Naxos on Friday and again hit higher winds than predicted so we aborted the run and stopped at Serifos. The Meltemi was roaring through the harbor so I found a small anchorage on the side of the bay with better shelter to spend Shabbat. The beach was beautiful, we had a nice swim and a relaxing day.
11 - 12 Jul Serifos to Ios and Kos	Saturday night the wind died and we were unexpectedly swung toward the beach. When the anchor alarm went off (at 0200!), we decided to take off for Ios. We traveled through the night, watched a beautiful sunrise and anchored off a beautiful resort beach for the day and evening. We traveled over 70 nm the next day to Kos. We had a maintenance day enroute, lots of polishing and cleaning. Itzhak and Charlie had to leave us here to return to Israel. Our thanks to them for helping us with the trip, sorry it was a little rougher than we planned.
13 -15 Jul Kos to Rhodos	We left Kos and traveled to Rhodes, the harbor there was crowded beyond belief, just look at how close the boats were to us! The day we arrived the Olympic flame was carried through the old town, the photo isn't that good but you can see the runner going away from us in the lights from the motorcycle. We did a sightseeing tour the next day, the old town was beautiful, filled with twisting alleyways and a mix of architectural styles. The old castle of the Knights of St John is now a museum, the mosaics and statues were beyond belief.
16 - 18 Jul Rhodos, Greece to Fethiye and Finike, Turkey	We left Rhodes for Turkey, arriving in Fethiye on the Turkish Riviera. The marina was wonderful, our first real marina since the states with floating docks and everything. We took a short walking tour through the town. Terry may recognize the statue of Attaturk. We took an 85 nm trip to Finike the next day to spend Shabbat there prior to our trip to Cyprus. We were visited by two pods of dolphins along the way, much to the delight of Tsipy.
18 - 21 Jul Finike, Turkey to Limassol, Cyprus to Herzliya, Israel	From Finike, we traveled over night to Limassol in Cypress. We spent two nights there resting up for the last leg of our trip to Israel. We arrived on Thursday morning in Herzliya and were able to check in through customs there thanks to some help from our friends on Ora IV. Here are some photos of the flag raising ceremony when we lowered the "Q" flag and raised the Israeli courtesy flag. All of Tsipy's sisters were here and we had a wonderful welcome from all the family here in Israel. We had family over for several days, didn't want to sink the boat by inviting them all at once.
Palmahim Kibbutznicks	Tsipy was able to get together with her classmates from the Kibbutz Palmahim. Here are some photos of the party.
Herzliya Marina	We plan to stay here in Herzliya and here are some photos of the marina and our neighbors. Note the changes in Odelia and the Med mooring with the gangway. The large yacht in the photo belongs to one of the rich and famous here in Israel Sherry Harrison, owner of Bank Hapoalim and Carnival Cruise Lines. The marina itself is large, over 850 slips, and is fronted by a large shopping mall, condos, and lots of cafes and bars. The navy patrol boat came out to visit us on our arrival. Note the "red left returning" lights, we are under the IALA A system in the Med, kind of confusing at first.
Anniversay Party	I haven't updated the website in quite awhile, so thought I would add some photos of our recent guests and our shakedown cruise. First up is the combined anniversary celebration for Sammi and Dani and Tsipy and I. We had a most of the immediate family aboard with the obligatory dancing.
Tadiran Party	We had a great reunion with our friends from Tadiran. We originally met when I worked at GD. We teamed with Tadiran for an Army contract. Rafi, Avikam, Ze'ev, and Yair stayed for the proposal and often spent Shabat at our house in MA. It was great to see them and their lovely wives on the boat.
Visitors	Next up was a visit from another of Tsipy's family: Riki and her son from FL with Carmela and Maytal. That was followed by a visit from Itzhak, Hemda, David, and Rina. Itzhak made part of the trip from Greece with us and David was originally planning to come along but couldn't make it. Michael and Malka were finally able to visit once their house was renovated. The final picture is one of Shalom at the nursing home celebrating Sukkot.
Shakedown Cruise	Finally we took a short shakedown cruise south along the coast past Tel Aviv and Yafo to Palmahim. Nice weather and great company followed by a wonderful meal.