Greetings,

On Thursday, we told the boatyard office in Girne (Kyrenia) that we would leave in the morning, and on Friday morning we were awoken soon after 0700 by the manager & the Port Captain wanting to get our papers completed & passports returned. On returning from the office, Ann & Micheal, who own a boat in the yard & a house in the hills behind town, were on the quay to wave us off, so we left punctually with a feeling of leaving friends. The coast away from Girne is marked "Prohibited Area" on the charts, but we have met a few people who have sailed it. We told the Port Captain that we would spend a few days on this coast before returning to Turkey, he did not object & we have spent the last 3 days in 2 short hops east. There are no bays big enough to be called anchorages, but some little headlands have long rocky slabs off their ends running parallel to the coast, and we are tucked behind one of these with an anchor off the bow and a stern line ashore.

We have been practicing recorders & trying to play duets when nobody else is around. We got "discovered" in Girne by the yard manager, who was around at all times of night.

Our first planned stop turned out to have a tiny harbour with 3 fishing boats tucked inside: Too shallow for us. We walked quite a long way on Friday & Saturday and found a Lisugnian church up in the hills, with frescos covering all its walls. We are only 15 miles from Girne but in a different, slower world. A cowherd walked across a field apparently just to practice his English when he saw me, and everybody manages to make it look as if seeing you has been the highlight of their day!

Yesterday, we moved another 5 miles east. When we arrived, some men waved vigorously from the beach to tell us there were rocks. Since we already knew this we waved back and otherwise ignored them. We have been priding ourselves on getting better at anchoring and backing upwind to tie 200 ft of line onto a rock behind. When we had finished Dave rowed over to the fishermen who had waved, & found that they had fouled their propeller with a fishing line. Since we have snorkels, and the water felt relatively warm behind the rock slabs, I offered to dive & cut the line free. It had welded itself into solid nylon, and by the time their propeller was free, I was cold! The fisherman, who talked non-stop in English which I found difficulty in following, thanked us very much and told us that we should join his friend on the beach for a fish BBQ. That was excellent, and also served as an introduction to a couple of other people in the village.

There are a lot of empty homes along the coast. Some are left-over relics of the violent separation of Greeks from Turks in Cyprus in 1974, and some are abandoned plans to build property as a hedge against the massive inflation. Many people talk easily about the troubled past and many younger Turkish Cypriots grew up in England and returned in the last decade. They talked freely about their country; of poverty and of wealth, and the reputation (which is widespread) that some of the wealth in the richer south side has been gained illicitly in Eastern Europe. Life seems unstressed here now.

Much of the Mediterranean coast is rocky & bleak. Cyprus & Turkey seem to do a lot of tree replanting. The lower slopes have sparse olive & carrob trees, and are grazed by goats & cattle. However, the steeper, higher hillsides are covered with pine and, you're right, cyprus trees.

We shall make the jump back to Turkey soon sailing due north to visit some less westernised parts of the Turkish coast, but we shall omit Syria & Lebanon.

Best wishes

David