Toys R Us

Hello. Hope you haven't forgotten about us? We are still living in Cyprus and working hard again.

We have done a bit of touring around the island. Tese are the ruins at Salamis in the Turkish occupied territory. Amazingly, this statue bore some resemblance to Alison!

Carolyn and Barbara came to visit us. A big thank you to Carolyn, who once again came bearing gifts, cooked fantastic food and helped us out. This was dinner out in Kyrinia, also in the occupied territory. We made a friend that night!! Carolyn and Barbara went back the next day to sample more of the delights of Belapays and St Hilarion.

There is some building work going on right outside our apartment. We and our guests have found it both amusing and interesting. This machine was boring holes 9 metres deep for the foundations. On the picture, you may just be able to make out the man hitting it with a hammer. We reckon far more time was spent hitting it with heavy objects, rather than boring holes.

A massive big thank you to Barbara, for all the wonderful gifts she brought over, including a fantastic cookbook that we are using tonight, newspapers and magazines. This is Barabara searching Garry's hair for nits - actually Barbara turned out to be a really good barber.

We have joined the local sailing club where Alison has successfully completed a dinghy sailing course and is now certified! As you can see the sailing conditions in November are perfect. We have done a couple of races, with no success so far, but we are really mad ferrit!!

Liz and Kate from Beverley came over to see us and look what they brought with them. It rained so heavily, the road outside the apartment flooded. Also a big thanks to Kate and Liz for "gifts" - newspapers, booze and magazines. We are still working our way through the Sunday Times and loving it.

More thanks to Liz and Kate. This is our Ducati being crated up ready to be shipped out to Cyprus. They worked really hard getting stuff out of our container and transporting it to Peterborough to be shipped over in another container. We also have to thank Peter Last from the sailing club in whose container it is.

Life seems to be all about toys at the moment. Liz and Kate dug out more of our favourite toys, two road bikes and two mountain bikes which are also coming over in the container. And ...........Garry has got a new job in a toy shop in Nicosia, that opens on 7th December.

So from when we first arrived and treated ourselves to one push bike between two, then we were offered a stunning deal on a one hundred year old scooter, we couldn't resist and now we are buying a car to get to Nicosia. We have significantly increased the contents of our toy cupboard and our carbon footprint. 5 bikes, one scooter, one ducati and a car. Anyone got a boat for sale?

Bye for now

Alison and Garry

Sausage Coffee

Before we get into this blog a couple of questions for you.

1. Donna Summer and the McArthur Park song, what is that all about? Some one left the cake out in the rain and it took so long to bake it and I'll never have that recipe again. Explain please.

2. Remember that other mad song with the lyrics "what is she going to look like with a chimney on her". Who sang it and what is that all about?

Have you guessed what we're listening to now?

Anyway onto the blog.

If you are a regular blog reader you will know we are now in Cyprus. Alison has a job working in a nursing home and Garry in a garage as a mechanic. Settling back into work hasn't been too onerous. Garry walks for half an hour with no traffic jams and Alison cycles for half an hour, no traffic jams. The weather is always beautiful and it's great not to drive, or have a car.

We do not have any pictures of Garry's work but his finger nails are permanently black, so you know he is doing a proper job. The new challenge in his life is fuel filters. Without going into too much detail, this is how it works.

1. On a Honda, you tighten the pipes as tight as you possibly can. When you've got them as tight as you possibly can, then you tighten them a bit more. But the b.......s still leak.

2. On a Vauxhall, you only need eight fingers. Unfortunately, they all need to be on one hand.

Fuel filters are now a great topic of conversation and a guaranteed cure for insomnia!

Here is the shared bike. If we go somewhere together, Arry gives Gal a crossie. We have substantially reduced our carbon footprint. Anyone else want to accept the challenge?

This was when we were off to an expats walking club, where you have to follow chalked arrows in the streets. We have met some nice people and it is a great way to explore Larnaka. Although it is a bit odd going for a walk in the evening, when you have been walking and cycling all day.

We had a bit of excitement one night, when the skip across the road caught fire. Alison volunteered to ring the firemen. Unfortunately, you cannot see on the picture, the guy who ran out of the opposite building in his undies with a bucket of water to put out the fire.

Bloody builders heh. Always posing!

This was on a walking tour of the historic side of Larnaka. The tour explained quite a bit about houses that were original turkish owned, but were taken over by the Cypriot Government and used to house refugees following the Turkish invasion in 1974. This island has some good history, ancient and modern.

These are all candles, so when you feel ill, you buy a candle that represents the part of the body affected, then take it to church and offer it to God. You may be able to make out hands, kidneys, lungs and feet. Yes, it is possible to buy willies and boobs!
What no garden? Just fill the pavement with pots. Another walking tour does the local arts and crafts people. Not he's not called Harry.

These are a few of the people that Alison works with. From left, Natalie, Abi, Joanna and Maria. They have been very patient and good to work with. The care home is interesting to say the least. Alison has been trying to learn some of the local lingo, but trying to figure out which of the residents she should listen to has been tricky. One or two of them talk sense, some of them talk to the fairies. So it's all greek to Al. One funny little story was an old lady who was muttering loads of gibberish then as a member of staff walked past, she came out with "and she's a silly old b......"Suddenly very lucid.

We don't have any more photos, but we should mention a few other bits and pieces. We invested in a recipe book and have been experimenting on each other. So we are eating really well with a fab fruit and veg shop just down the road. We have made our own sun dried tomatoes on the roof but have yet to try them. We are still making bread and have started sharing it with the neighbours. This has worked really well, we take bread to them and they provide booze. Actually the neighbours have been really good to us. They have helped us find jobs, regularly entertain us, are really good comapny and we are linked into their broadband as we speak. Thank you Angelos and Maria.

So where did the title "Sausage Coffee" come from. Well you may have guessed. Back to Alison's work - a resident asked for a coffee. Alison asked her if she wanted a special one and she replied yes please, a sausage one.

Bye for now

Gal and Arry

Free lunch in Cairo

On the last blog, we documented our final few days in Thailand and our move on to Cyprus. Finally here are the pictures to go with that and a little update from Cyprus.

On our last night in Thailand, we had a party for a few close friends (ie all our friends in Thailand!) in the local pub, which we normally refer to as "The Standard". Paul and Jojo, landlord and landlady, laid on great food and music and created an ideal atmosphere for seeing us off. Some of you may recognise above, Adrian on the left, Tony in the middle and Garry on the right. As the next destination would be a settled one, Garry took the opportunity to invest in a Hawaain shirt. What do you think?

Scott with his bevy of beauties. Now that Scott has re-assumed his role as bowman, he will be able to ask Siham for "head", five or six times during a race. She will always oblige. Non sailors may want to have this explained!

This is Thane who we sailed with down to Samui, during the regatta and back again, with his partner Dyer.

Nice picture isn't it - Gary and Pum.

After leaving The Standard, a hard core few (Tony, Siham Adrian and Alison) went on to a karaoke bar. Garry was tucked up in bed oblivious. At least we weren't thrown out this time.

The morning after, on our last day. We spent the day having a proper "Sunday", something Tony had been looking forward to for ages. Relaxing on the beach and larking about in the pool.

Fishing is a dangerous hobby - check out the guy wearing his crash hat. No-one wears them on their motorbikes, but they wear them fishing instead.

After spending the day on the beach , round the pool, making fountains out of the spa pump and going backwards down the slide, we went to the bar. Tony took control of the music and Siham had a blow dry! Tony lent us his car and driver to take us to the airport to set off for Cyprus, via Egypt.

This is Alison stood on a pyramid. Bit of a story with this. We had an 11 hour stopover in Cairo. We decided to take a trip with Egypt Air from the airport to the pyramids. We agreed with Egypt Air to pay the $35 price for the trip, but we fell lucky. It was the opening day of the new terminal three and as we were the first passengers to arrive, Egypt Air very kindly gave us the trip for free.

So we visited the pyramids and the Sphynx and had a lovely day out including a fantastic lunch. Thank you Egypt Air. Who says there's no such thing as a free lunch?

On to the next phase of our little adventure. We are now in Cyprus and the first thing we had to do when we arrived, was to secure jobs. So like you do, we went to the local pub for inspiration. Unfortunately, it had been knocked down. However, whilst walking down the street we found Stavros, aka Tony Soprano, and had a beer with him and his lovely ladies! He was the landlord of the football club bar that had been knocked down and is now the manager of another bar.

Larnaka (where we are living) has a great deal of history and plenty of things to see and do.
It's a small world and Seanoid and Mark from Hornsea (formerly Hedon) were on holiday in Pathos. We caught up with them in Limassol and they very kindly delivered some "stuff" from England. They are getting married next year, after a long engagement, so everyone wish them Congratulations.

So what progress have we made? We can make bread, count to ten in Greek, we've bought a bike (to share), Alison is working in a nursing home and Garry is busy looking for a job.

Bye for now. The blogs will continue.

Garry and Alison

Ko Samui Regatta - So Close.........

The last blog finished with us arriving at Ko Samui to take part in the Regatta for five days racing and seven nights partying.
Before we get into regatta stories, just check out the baby seat on this scooter. On closer examination, we also found a little seat belt.

On the Saturday, Alison started her tender driving lessons. The first lesson was how to fix a motor with only a pair of sunglasses as the tool kit. After this, it was how not to capsize. The day was spent converting El Coyote back from a cruise boat to a race boat.

Fortunately, Sunday was only practise racing, because as you can see Tony (lying down) was taking it easy on spinnaker trimming.

Sunday night after practice racing, just a few gentle beers on the beach. Not bad heh?

This was us going full bore in race trim. Weight on the rail as instructed to give us extra speed.

After a hard days racing, Chris and Thane enjoying a bite and a beer. This hospitality continued all week.

No, not Einstein, this is Kev our tactician doing an impression of a Thai boy's hairstyle.

This was the start of one of our races. It was very competitive. On the first day, we had windward - leeward racing (or round the cans for you land lubbers), second and third days were passage races, day four was a rest day. Day five was a race round Ko Samui Island itself. We chose to start at 8am, as the finish line was going to close at 6.30pm regardless. We felt we needed all of this time to get round the island. We had slight disadvantage starting early, as the forecast was for the winds to pick up later. More of this later.

Australian Maid, one of the boats competing in our class.

Ichiban, a boat we raced against in a previous regatta.

This is Cliff, showing Tony how to trim a spinnaker in proper racing mode.

This is Ichiban catching us up. We were absolutely flying, look at the wake coming off our stern.

This is Mikki and Garry after a race. She gave Garry a T shirt which he is very proud of, maybe you will see it one day...........

Back to the "round the island" race. This was our start, up at 5am, on the beach for 6.30am.

This was taken during the "round the island" race. Despite our early start, the wind had started to die off and the swanky race boats began to catch us. However, they don't always get it right despite fully trained professional crews with all the best equipment. This is Borocay, one of the top boats in Asia, stuck on a rock. We had seen it on our chart. Wonder why they didn't?

Still "round the island", we ran into a squall. The boat above is Hifi, that had just overtaken us. Not a problem as we were in a different racing class to them. The rest of our class at this point were five miles behind. We had the win in the bag. Shortly after this, the wind died and the race officials decided to abandon the race! We could see the finish line approximately half a mile away. Remember, the finishing line was supposed to stay open until 6.30pm and it was abandoned at 4.45pm! Very frustrating, finish line in sight, the rest of the fleet 5 miles behind. But heh, that's racing. Nevertheless, we had some very supportive comments from our fellow competitors.

As mentioned previously, some parts of Coyote are difficult to access. This is Tony in the anchor locker.

Chris and Hutch enjoying a drink, this time without falling off a motorbike! Chris, hope you feel better soon!

This is the second time that a Coyote shirt was on stage to collect a second place trophy. Overall, we finished fourth. Good result but if the abandoned race had finished, we would have been second.

After the racing was over, it was time to pack up and go back to Pattaya. Gary had blagged a spare boom off another boat. Fun and games loading it first onto the tender, then onto Coyote.
The journey back was absolutley amazing. We had the wind on the beam, travelled 178 nautical miles in 24 hours and 193 miles before we put in our first gybe. The night sail was terrific, with a clear sky and a full moon. It was almost like daylight and as the sea was a little rough, there were hardly any fishing boats to dodge around. Talking of fishing, Gary did buy a new lure and as luck would have it, we got a bite on the way back. As always, the one that got away was the biggest. In truth it was indeed huge, but we didn't get the chance to eat it.

And finally, check out fellow sailor Tony, drumming his socks off in the Coyote bar in Samui.

After sailing back to Pattaya, we hung around a few days, did some work, had a party and relaxed. We have since moved on and are now in Cyprus. We have a few thank yous to our friends in Thailand.

Gary, thanks for enabling us and the other Coyote crew members by providing a brilliant boat, a sense of humour and a competitive spirit. By the way, is the engine fixed yet?

Adrian, thanks for training Garry on boat repairing skills, the loan of your men and your tools.

Scott, thanks for the enthusiasm, encouragement and never ending smile.

Paul and Jojo, thanks for looking after us and putting on a great party for our last night in Thailand.

Tony, thanks for letting us chill out round your pool, and for the loan of your car and Schumacker.

Finally, thanks to all our fellow El Coyote crew. It was great sailing with you and we look forward to seeing you again.

Just popping down the job centre, will be in touch soon.

Garry and Alison

El Coyote's Identity Crisis

We had a few days of work to do before setting off to Ko Samui for the regatta. This time instead of sailing straight to Samui, we took four days to cruise down whilst one of our crew (Thane) completed his Bareboat Charter training course. The cruise down was a fun packed trip, with good winds, good food and a good laugh.

This is El Coyote moored in Ocean Marina undergoing final preparation. Adrian, (Gary's son) and his team, very kindly helped get the jobs finished on time. Once again Alison was up the mast (this time abandoned for an hour or so whilst Garry went shopping), she loves it up there but did come down with a touch of sunburn.

On Alison's 24th birthday, Tony had a barbeque. Normally when it rains, the barbie gets moved inside. Tony was unpeturbed and just moved the barbie into the bathroom. Gary and Pum bought a fabulous chocolate cake which was a real treat. A good time was had by all.

After the barbeque, the final work was completed. This is Adrian's team cleaning the boat.

On the way to Ko Samui, we had good strong winds. Spot the deliberate mistake above.

Actually it's not a mistake, we had to cook at an angle of 45 degrees. Good job the boat has a gimbled cooker! Not a drop of tomato sauce was spilt. It's good laugh chopping onions whilst they rolled around the galley.

The delivery crew from right are Thane, Freddie, Gary, Alison and Garry (behind the camera).
The boat is also gimbled!

We ran into a little squall which as you can tell was a bit of a challenge. The helmsman (Gary) is stood up straight, it's the boat that's leaning over. The toe rail was in the water and just for a laugh, Gary was ordering Garry round the boat to do very important jobs, such as, recover the bbq lid which was hanging the wrong side of the rail and tighten the clutch on the fishing rod. Just as well he fixed the rod as look what happened next.

Gary with his first ever fish. This easily fed all five of us when we barbequed it in foil pockets the next night on the boat. It is a striped makerel.

This is Freddie the cocktail queen. She magicked up some great drinks and salads.

However, Alison's attempt at cooking was not quite as successful. Check out the well done bacon!

We moored up here one night, but didn't realise how gorgeous it was until the morning. We're not sure it will be there much longer as the pillar in the middle is eroding quickly. The Gulf of Thailand is such a perfect cruising ground with empty sandy beaches, warm seas and good weather (normally!).

Fish number two, even bigger. This one is currently in the freezer ready for the trip back. We may need to invite some friends to eat it all.

Who says palm trees do not grow in the Gulf of Thailand? Garry's eyes were on other things. It is also very rare to see a bowman on the helm (maybe as they cannot see trees).

Fish number three. It looks green on the picture but is nearer to yellow. It is a yellow finned dorada which allegedly tastes lovely, but that too is in the freezer waiting its destiny. As always, the one that got away is the biggest, but you may be able to see more than half of our lure is missing. A huge fish took it along with one of the hooks. Just as we are writing this, the skipper is off to buy a new one for the return journey.

This is the fish celebration party, with Freddie and Garry dancing in the cockpit. Maybe a few too many cocktails were consumed as Garry struggled to get to bed in what he thought were 3 metre swells when it was actually flat calm.

This is where we anchored on the final night after a journey with 30 knots of wind and 9.4 knots of boat speed. Yeeha, wild ride! How pretty is the fishing village above?

These are the fishing boats we motored past early morning, before all hell broke loose again. Just after this picture was taken, we found ourselves again in 30 knots of wind. We had to get the sunshade down whilst we were still in our pyjamas.

The title of the blog relates to the different guises that El Coyote takes on. In the last blog, she was a racing boat (remember we won), on the trip down she was a cruise boat, but she has a hidden talent as a fishing boat.

We are writing this during the "rest" day - a holiday, from our holiday, at Ko Samui Regatta. So far we have three days of great racing but more of that on the next blog.

Alison and Garry