Blog 1 – Finike, Turkey, Aug. 25, 2012 Welcome to the first of about fifteen Paul Blogs (or “Plogs”). I’ve resolved to write one each week during this fall sabbatical. There are many reasons people write blogs, I suppose, but I may be one of the few who are doing this in order to keep …
It is amazing how quickly we organize our lives to become predictable and routine. A boat is kind of a miniature island on which a society of two people live, leaving it only occasionally for cross-cultural experiences in port. Every morning now, when the sunlight starts shining through the plexiglass hatch above our berth, about …
It is Sunday morning and the waterfront in Volos is very quiet. Saturday nights are noisy, with thousands of people walking the wharf, but mostly sitting along the waterfront in the cafés that are jammed with people eating, drinking and socializing. Last night, on one end of the wharf a live band played Greek music. …
Volos is beautiful. Janet and I have come to realize that, if you need to fix up a boat, wait on Greek and American paperwork, and prepare for a Mediterranean voyage, this is probably the best place you could possibly be. Volos is due north of Athens about 300 kilometers. A small city of 112,000, …
Another week in Volos, Greece, on the boat that someday soon will be christened “SailingActs.” Mike Hostetler, worn out and limping after four intense days of desperately sanding, scrubbing, sweating, fixing, cleaning, in order to get the boat in the kind of shape that Janet’s first impression would be positive, left on Monday, May 17. …