Salty Seas

Last night we met up with our Gap Sailing Adventure and today was our first day of sailing!

About the boat:
We are sailing a 50 foot, 2-sail sailing yacht. We use a foot wide board to bored the boat, which makes it truly like walking the plank. There are two helms and then a deck seating area with a table. Within the cabin there is a small galley kitchen, a seating area, 3 bathrooms, 4 bedrooms and the captains quarters. We are staying in a room with bunk beds, and we refer to them as coffins though. There is barely enough room for us both to stand in our room, turning around is out of the question. Our bags are on our beds during the day and on the floor at night. It's defiantly the tightest quarters we have been in yet, but still very nice. The boat is beautiful- it's a new boat but still has a lot of wood finishing and is tastefully done.

Our Captain:
Our captain, Cornelius, is a German 27 year-old balding sailor. He is, well, let's just say rough around the edges. I think the three things he loves most in life are sailing, cigarettes, and alcohol, and I think he loves them all equally as much. He is a very good sailor and has basically been on a boat most of his life. He can completely sail the boat by himself but we can help too.

Our fellow boat mates:
Ray: a single 30 something Canadian guy on his 2 week vacation for the year.
Jenny and Mike: a newly wed Canadian couple who are on their honeymoon.
Kara (mother), Masson (14) and Kaylie (12): a Texas family who is traveling around the world for 6 months... They are doing their school work remotely via the computer and Kara's teaching, and they will return in December and have to take final exams for school. They are in their 4th month of traveling and have some amazing stories.

Last night we met at a tavern in Mykonos. We were briefed on the week and then about the boat. We got to know each other while having drinks and watching the sunset- it was picturesque. Cornelius took us to a traditional nice Greek dinner at the traditional time for dinner, which is 9:30 pm. We are all accustomed to eating this late... But our Captain ordered to show us the Greek ways and we ended up with tons of food, including disgusting after-dinner shots. The dinner was way out of our usual budget. We were up way later than usual but had a good sleep as the boat rocked us to sleep.

Today we had a safety briefing and then set sail. We sat on the bow enjoying the sun and conversation. We sailed down wind most of the day which is suppose to be smoother but after about 2 hour Jorie and I both started feeling sea sick. We remained green the rest of the sail and even after we were on land tonight the sea sickness continued. We stopped in a beautiful bay with turquoise blue water. Although it was rather chilly with the wind, after some encouragement we all ended up getting into the cold water (not as cold as Sebago at the beginning of camp though). The water is so so salty which makes floating very easy. After splashing around a bit we had lunch in the gorgeous setting.

We ported tonight at Paros Island, which is south of Mykonos and a much smaller version. The town is cute but small and much more quiet. It took no time to explore the streets, and we found some great stores and even a good gyro. Because we found that dinner the night before didn't fit our budget we decided to eat on our own, so we had dinner (gyro) and dessert (delicious chocolate cake) for the two of us for a quarter of the price of last night.

We both feel rather queazy and off, but we hope tomorrow we will be able to manage our sea sickness better.

Things we have learned:
- tomatoes are bad for sea sickness....
- bananas taste the same going down as they do coming up (luckily this was not learned from experience)
- there is only about a one inch tide in the Mediterranean
- the topless trend appears to exists throughout the islands... Luckily our boat has not yet decided to follow the in- crowd