Author: Salty tales from Bali Hai

It had been a busy couple of days since we had arrived in England – first with a big family reunion and then the next day a meet up with one of my nephews and his wife and family at a fabulous National Trust property in Kent. Jonathan and I had been joined on this…

The week after we arrived in The Netherlands from Australia we were on the road again in our camper van and this time – as it was the half term break – we had our daughter Hannah and son-in-law Pieter with us. We were off to England! Pieter drove the first leg to Calais where…

A week after we had arrived in The Netherlands from Australia we were on the road again in our camper van and this time – as it was the half term break – we had our daughter Hannah and son-in-law Pieter with us. We were off to England! Pieter drove the first leg to Calais…

The time had come for us to head back to the Northern hemisphere once again and we decided to break the journey with a one night stop in Bali – something we had enjoyed last year on our way back to The Netherlands. As we were due to arrive in the evening and then fly…

When our son Ben was a small boy he was obsessed with tractors and diggers and spent many happy hours in the mud constructing imaginary building sites complete with intricate road systems. It therefore seems a perfect thing that as an adult he is now a proud owner of not just a big yellow tractor…

While we were in Europe last year a dear friend of ours Tas, passed away after a long illness. Unfortunately we were unable to return to Australia for his cremation or for the celebration of his life later on, so we decided to have a ceremony in January while his widow Libby was staying with…

Our 28 day voyage from Barcelona in Spain to Perth in Australia on the Queen Elizabeth was almost over – just one more stop to go – the beautiful island of Bali. Our fellow travellers and boat buddies Sue and John were meeting their niece who was on holiday in Bali so we decided to…

Back on board the Queen Elizabeth we watched the twinkling of the bright lights of Colombo in Sri Lanka as the boat was untied and we slowly drifted off from the quay. The ship’s departure was an impressive sight – tiny figures heaving her massive lines off gigantic bollards, the dead slow and very gentle…

There was plenty to keep us occupied and lots to observe on board the Queen Elizabeth while we plied our way from Egypt through the Gulf of Aden to Salalah in Dhofar, Oman. In addition to all the lectures, music and entertainment mentioned in previous blogs, we had cooking demonstrations, a performance of the guest…

The day trip to the Valley of the Kings and the Karnak Temple in Luxor was a real highlight of our voyage back to Australia on the cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth. The downside was that there were hundreds of people on the same trip – we were on bus number seven and there were quite…

With the Israeli military campaign against Palestine in full force only less than 120 nautical miles (roughly 200 kilometres) away from the start of the Suez Canal, we were concerned that our voyage back to Australia on the Queen Elizabeth might be rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. Fortunately this didn’t…

We were on our way back to Australia but instead of the usual long haul flights to get back we were on a sea voyage aboard the beautiful Queen Elizabeth cruise liner. The trip was going to be 28 days long and we were both slightly concerned that we might find the trip a little…

It was a great luxury for us to let someone else worry about paperwork, passage planning, provisioning and all the preparation required to get a ship out of port. From living on our 42 feet long Lagoon catamaran to being aboard the Queen Elizabeth – a cruise liner of 965 feet – was quite a…

The lead up to the beginning of our exciting voyage back to Australia flew by as we were frantically doing all the last minute jobs to winterise Sunday, plus packing for our trip. On our last night in Montenegro we returned to the lovely little garden restaurant called Leut that we had been to with…

We had one last day together with our daughter Hannah and son-in-law Pieter before they were flying home to the Netherlands so we decided to make a day of it. We hired a car for 24 hours to take us on a day trip to Dubrovnik and then the following day used it to drop…

We were very excited to be welcoming our niece, her husband and two high school-aged children for a quick five-day visit aboard Sunday. A full house for us as we also had our daughter Hannah and son-in-law Pieter staying. The family were arriving in the morning having caught an early flight from London and driven…

We had ten days between the departure of our last visitors (Sam and Tilly) and the arrival of our next guests – and then exactly a week after their departure, we were scheduled to leave Montenegro for Australia – so there was a whole lot of work to pack into a relatively small amount of…

We had a wonderful reunion aboard Sunday with our guests from Australia, Tilly and Sam, although the weather wasn’t so good for much of the time. Their first night was spent in Lazure Marina near Herceg Novi in Montenegro where we were booked to winter over and where we picked them up because the weather…

We were exploring the Bay of Kotor and were tucked into the anchorage of Uvala Ljuta where we had discovered the small oyster shack and had enjoyed a fabulous but very basic seafood meal. The following day we set off to take a look at the nearby village and quite by chance stumbled on another…

We felt rather small anchoring in Kotor not just because of the imposing San Giovanni hill rising steeply behind the ancient town, nor because of the towering and rather foreboding mountains that surround the anchorage but mainly because of the absolutely massive cruise liners moored outside the old city walls and only roughly 300 metres…

After four days of stormy weather – with high winds and buckets of rain at times – the sun finally came out and the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro had calmed down to its sparkling best. We hadn’t explored the inner part of the Bay yet so decided to pull our anchor up and take…

We had spent the day clearing up the mess caused by an intense rain storm which struck The Bay of Kotor just as we were leaving a BBQ party on M/V Entre Nous. The downpour was so intense that we couldn’t get back to Sunday to close the salon windows. When we did eventually get…

We left Albania rather disheartened. I really wanted to like the place but honestly on almost every count, it’s at the bottom of the list of all the countries we have visited this year (Australia, Bali in Indonesia, Turkey, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, France, England and Greece). We were now on…

After waving farewell to our friends Cathy and Peter, who had travelled with us to Albania from Greece, we spent a few days in Vlore waiting for favourable weather to set off for our next destination in Albania – Durrës. The anchorage in Vlore was starting to get a little noisy – pile drivers were…

From Livadi we followed the coastal boundary of Albania’s Karaburun Sazan National Marine Park. Famous for its diversity of habitats and its richness in flora and fauna, the park seems all but cut off from the “real” world. From the sea, the dramatic steep cliffs make entry almost impossible. On land the park is located…

Sarande in Albania had been a bit of a shock to the system after Greece. Although the bureaucracy in Greece is extremely trying and frustrating, the natural beauty and organic architecture of the Greek islands made up for a lot! In Sarande the architecture was shocking – just block after block of ugly apartments and…

Although we could see Albania from Corfu it still came as a surprise that it only took just a few hours to sail from Garitsa Bay in Greece to Sarande in Albania where we checked in. We were leaving Greece after three wonderful months – travelling first to the island of Limnos, from Turkey, and…

We dropped off our friend Jackie in Lefkada on the Greek mainland after a fun three weeks together aboard Sunday. She was off to Athens and onward to more adventures in Europe and Scandinavia We then left straight away for the Ionian island of Paxos as we were on a mission to get to Corfu…

Way back in 2019 we had stayed in the small town of Vonitsa on the south coast of Greece’s Ambracian Gulf – not once but twice. The first time was in the spring of 2019 when we drove our camper van from The Netherlands to Athens to view S/V Sunday with the plan to put…

We had been looking forward to visiting Cephalonia (Kefalonia) in the Ionian Islands as we had heard from a number people about its special beauty and its peaceful, secluded coves. Our boat buddies Sue and John, together with one of their sons and his children had left our anchorage in Agia Effimia- a picturesque and…

After transiting the Corinth Canal we headed straight for Loutraki Harbour in Corinth where our friends Sue and John were waiting for us aboard our buddy boat Catabella. It had been an amazing experience going through the Canal – although it wasn’t the first time for me as my family had sailed through it when…

As soon as we had seen Hannah and Pieter off on the ferry back to Athens, we pulled up Sunday’s anchor and left the island of Poros. The sadness of our daughter and son-in-law’s departure was tempered by the anticipation of ticking off another bucket list item – traversing the Corinth Canal. We had driven…

A very strange thing happened while we were anchored at the island of Poros, Greece. We were star gazing on the front deck of our catamaran Sunday and way up above us we saw a line of lights moving across the sky like a sparking string of diamonds. What on earth was it? Perhaps an…

Poros is an unexpectedly lovely island. You would think, being so close to Athens, that it would be ultra touristy and have lost its authentic Greek vibe but in fact that just isn’t true. Sure, there are a hoards of yachts tied up at the long, long, harbour wall – mostly charter yachts – and…

On the next leg of our Greek Odyssey from Skyros to Andros – the northernmost island in the Cyclades – we had some delightful company, a beautiful fluffy white Samoyed dog called Gursi. She wasn’t a exactly a stowaway and no, we didn’t press gang her but we did offer to have her aboard for…

Although we nearly lost our boat when it dragged at a weedy anchorage (reported in my last blog) in Skyros, we did end up having an amazing time there. One day we took a taxi with Sue and John from Catabella to the capital (also called Skyros but known locally as Chora, meaning town in…

Milia Beach on the Greek island of Alonnisos was divine – quiet, gorgeous clear water and really pretty. The day after our heavenly spa day (described in my last blog) we had a relaxing day – swimming and enjoying the sunshine. We left our great niece Molly sun bathing on the foredeck to go over…

Skiathos has a completely different vibe to its near neighbour Skopelos – much more crowded, less laid back, more commercial. However, it is not without some charm. There are white painted buildings, a meandering maze of pretty laneways, a profusion of bougainvillea and night jasmine, and tavernas, cafes and bars literally at every turn. There…