Wayfarer Cyprus

6 Nautical miles

I went out for a sail with Tim today. Both of us had heavy work weeks and needed a 'blow the cobwebs away' time. Tim's daughter was arriving later in the day but she gave him permission to miss picking her up at the airport to have as a sail.

Maybe she believes her Dad is somewhat like me. My wife says that I am somehow a nicer person to have around after I have been sailing... well... something like that.

Anyway, her plane was late and we got back early enough that both happened - Tim had a sail and he managed to pick her up at the airport!

The change to the twisted shackle made the mainsheet run better, though the wind was very light and fickle. There was still some breakers on the shore, so we motored out for a few hundred metres and then started sailing.

This is part of my ongoing 'chart all the buoys in Larnaca Bay project'. We sailed past the large yellow mooring buoy and grabbed that as a waypoint.

There was another buoy we didn't log/photograph that used to be a yellow mooring buoy very similar to the one on the left except that all the paint has worn away and so now its just a rusting mooring buoy!

Then more black rubber tubes... as you can see these do have a couple of buoys to make them slightly more visible but as the photo shows they are not very clear.

Tim reckons that this is all dangerous information to publish for terrorists. No, I don't think so - anyone with Google Earth and Admiralty charts can get 90%, just not so easily.

We discovered a new 'how to annoy the coastguard' game. Not that we were playing I hasten to add, nor would we. While we were sailing Cyprus Radio announced a 'Pan Pan' all ships alert for a ship in difficulties somewhat south of Cyprus.

After the announcement an unidentified station came on the air asking them to repeat the position of this ship in difficulty. Actually all they said was 'Repeat location please'. Cyprus Radio politely and clearly repeated the location and then asked the calling station to identify itself. Silence. Repeat by Cyprus Radio to identify ship name. Silence again. Again request by Cyprus Radio [you could hear the frustration in the voice by now]. Silence again.

Coming in we started hauling the boat out with the winch and the front jockey wheel broke... at roughly the same time the centreboard dropped onto the jockey wheel and I now have a centre-board repair to do again. Tim reckons he's jinxed on the centre board, but it wasn't anything to do with him - I had cleated it, but obviously not fully up and it would have cleared the ground except for the jockey wheel. Oh well...