Monthly Archives: July 2025

Our final Cruising on Cuffysark Sailing Catamaran 2024

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We headed to Ermoupoli where we were meeting Colin and Maggie (Serafina), David and Sarah (Wandering Star)  and a surprise visitor would be Bogden and Petra who we met on the Black Sea Rally. It was a big birthday for Colin and we were all meeting up to help him celebrate.  We moored up, in the tightest spot Ian could find in a small harbour just outside of the main town.  How we got into it, I don’t know, and more importantly how were we going to get out of it …..  but clearly we did!

The Church of the Assumption sits up high over the town top of Vrodado Hill.  It was early September and still very hot, there are a lot of steps up but we were determined to go up and have a look, well us girls were, Me, Sarah and Maggie.   It was a 35 minute walk into town, there are shuttle buses at the local supermarket but typically we just missed one.  So, nothing for it but to either sit and wait for a good while or walk, so we walked. 

We met the guys later at a bar, unsurprisingly!  After some refreshments we did get the guys to come with us to another church, The Dormition of the Virgin Mary Holy Orthodox Church, but this was across from the town hall so not such a hike and it was later in the day.  The stain glass windows had a great effect on the church when the sun was shining on them.  We had to stop for some refreshments where the fishing boats were on the way back.

We had a lovely evening celebrating Colin’s birthday with cocktails and dinner.  We spent about ten days in Ermoupoli, having a great time meeting up with this lot.  Sarah even put us through our paces with some circuit training, well all of us except for Ian!  It was then time to get moving.  So we parted ways hoping our paths will cross again in the future.  This is often the case with the sailing community, you may not see someone for a few years and then up they pop. 

We headed back to Livadi on Serifos where we bumped into John and Ange, who we’d spent the winter with in Tunisia.  We had a lovely evening with them and Ange’s sister who was visiting before heading back across to the mainland to the anchorage at Poros.  We stayed in this area for another couple of months flitting between the anchorage and the town quay, we were becoming like one of the locals.  We did go up the coast to Epidavros and Agistri, but unfortunately I had to reset my phone and I stupidly hadn’t downloaded all my photos so not got any from this part of the trip. 

Jessica and Dan were visiting so they met us at, where else, but Poros.  They arrived on the ferry and we took them to a lovely anchorage where we tied back to the rocks.  I say we, Dan got his first job, of getting in the water and tying back to the rocks.  He did such a good job, that when he got back to the boat, we told him, great, now you can tie the other side.  We visited a few other places before it was time for them to get the ferry back to Piraeus to head home.

We spent another month mooching about around Poros before we headed to the boat yard, just a few miles away to put Cuffysark to bed for the winter.  She was being stored on the hard this year.

We arrived back mid March 2025 to hand her over to her new owners.  We’d had her since 2012 and we’d been to a lot of places, met loads of people, made new friends and had a great time but it was now time to move onto new things.  It was a strange feeling walking away, but for me, I was ready.  I think Ian will miss her at times but nothing stays the same and you have to go out there and look for new opportunities. 

Autumn 2024

Florida to South Carolina

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We headed up to St Augustine.   There are many bridges on the Inter Coastal Waterway (ICW) some are high enough for us to get under and some we have to wait for them to be opened.   I was making a cuppa, one of Ian’s endless cups of tea, and got called up to the fly bridge. “Lo, stand on the storage box at the back and make sure we don’t touch the underneath of the bridge!!”  EEK!  It was about 2ft clearance but we got through.

St Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European and African-American origin in the US and was founded in 1565 by the Spanish.  It is known for its Spanish colonial architecture.  It’s a big tourist attraction.

We needed to get a few things so the bikes got their first outing.  We needed something from the hardware store so Ian thought he’d support the locals. Unfortunately they didn’t have what we wanted. So, we ended up in a big chain store which was a lot further away and it was really hot. Amazingly they have bike lanes in some places so we took that route back to the boat which was a bit un-nerving, well at least it was for me, with three lanes of traffic blasting past, it was like being on a dual carriage way but with three lanes. I had to peddle like the clappers a few times to get through the traffic lights as they turned amber to keep up with Ian. The traffic was heavy and there were quite a few crossroads.


Susan, Ian’s cousin, was coming to visit and she arrived the next day with Daisy the dog.  There was lots of chatting and running us around to collect a new water tank which we couldn’t quite get on a bike. We had a lovely meal in the oldest restaurant in Florida, the Colombia which was Spanish/Cuban cuisine, so tapas it was.

We had to start heading north to get out of the hurricane belt so the next four days we covered just over 210nm arriving in Beaufort, South Carolina.  Here we were meeting up with our friends, Colin and Maggie, who were in the process of buying their boat for the Great Loop.  It so happened that the Music Festival of the Lowcountry was being held that weekend.  They had various acts playing and topping the bill was a Michael Jackson tribute who have been touring since 2003.  They had some fans who it appeared were regulars at their gigs.  It did feel at some stages of the show that some believed MJ was really there.

In the US you have to be 21 to drink alcohol.  To get some drinks at the festival we had to buy tickets and it doesn’t matter how old you are, or how you look, you have to provide ID or no wrist band and no beer.  This is everywhere including the supermarket and the liquor store, you can only buy beer and wine in the supermarket.  Well I suppose if my birthday was 29th February I would have only been 15!

Friday night is the start of the weekend so Friday night drinks it must be.  Colin and Maggie managed to sniff out a local brewery, Shellring, in Royal Port Landings, well you’d expect nothing less from them.  It became our regular Friday night haunt for a few weeks. It was a very popular place with various ales, which were very strong, to choose from.

Just before you arrive at the brewery there is the “Cypress Wetlands”.  As you drive past, at first glance, you think there are lovely white flowers on the trees.  Only when you get closer do you realise, they are birds.  On the other side of the boardwalk, we spotted an alligator chilling.  This place was stunning.  We watched one bird attempting to balance on a twig, he was wobbling about all over the place and eventually fell off and went for a branch!

As Colin and Maggie had a car, we decided to have a day out at Savannah.  Savannah is just how you imagine the towns of the deep south to be.  Wooden houses with verandas surrounded by trees.  Many of the trees are live oak trees with Spanish moss, which we were reliably informed on a Trolley Tour that they are not Spanish and it is not moss.  They look pretty stunning around the parks and roads.

There are two Brits who made their mark in Savannah, Georgia.  The first was James Edward Oglethorpe, born in Yorkshire, England in 1696.  On June 9, 1732, the crown granted a charter to the Trustees for Establishing the Colony of Georgia. Oglethorpe himself led the first group of 114 colonists on the frigate Anne, landing at the site of today’s Savannah on February 1, 1733. The original charter banned slavery and granted religious freedom.  He returned to England in 1743. 

The other Brit was John Wesley the founder of Methodism.  He was invited by James Oglethorpe to serve as a minister to the early settlers .  He arrived in Savannah in 1736, but only stayed for two years before returning to England.  John Wesley said “The first rise of Methodism was in 1729 when four of us met together at Oxford. The second was in Savannah in 1736 when twenty or thirty persons met at my house”.

Savannah is the birth place of Johnny Mercer, an American lyricist, songwriter, and singer, best known for his contributions to the Great American Songbook and his co-founding of Capitol Records.  He wrote over a 1,000 songs, including classics like “Moon River,” “Days of Wine and Roses,” and “Hooray for Hollywood” 

June 2025