A summary of our journey's

Our internet site is mainly written in french, so if you understand a little bit this language we invite you to read our complete adventures in the Aquabul's serie and in our first book "Entre lochs et calanques", with lot of maps, photos and drawing from the authors.
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Going West
-03 July 2005: 6pm we leave our friends and family from the Zealand harbor of Wemeldinge. After the Belgian coast, Dunkerque, Boulogne then Eastbourne and Brighton, we visit Chichester Harbor.
-21 July 2005: Cowes Island of Wight.
-15 August 2005: Plymouth for shopping and some maintenance.
-25 August 2005: Falmouth waiting less than 6 Beauforts...

First wintering in Ireland
-01 September 2005: We did it! Arrival in Kinsale Ireland (51°42'N - 008°31'W) after more then 36hoo of a relatively rough navigation.
-01 January 2006: 15°C, we are eating outside. Winter is warm in Kinsale.
-22 January 2006: During a traditional music session Jannik sing a song "Marin" (Known as sailor in English) in the Spaniard (our favorite Pub in Scilly near Kinsale).
-22 February 2006: We feel good here in Kinsale but the departure period arrives. We have to be ready for our journey to Scotland. Our numerous local friends, Colleen, Robert, Valérie, Maureen, Michael, Jef, Mary, Paul, Naura, Julien, Billy, and lot of others, artists, musicians or dancers, whish us everyday warm welcome.
-07 March 2006: Sensible change within the season, flowers everywhere, rise of temperature but storm wind as well - 10 Beaufort in the Celtic sea.

Going North in the Celtic sea
-19 March 2006: End of the St Patrick WE, We dance with the Kinsale Set Dancers during the Parade, a great moment.
-31 March 2006: We sadly leave Kinsale 10am March 29th, sea was rough. We are moored close to the oldest yacht club of the world (1720), The Royal Cork Yacht Club, were we are writing this. All OK on Board.
-6 April 2006: After 2 moorings in Youghal and then the river Suir, we are in Waterford. Rapid journey in a rough sea with the help of wind and current. We meet here a sympathetic couple from New Zealand, Allan, musician and Joyce, with Sojourner a cutter; they travel around the world since 7 years.
-10 April 2006: Jannik's father, Constant ROOSENS, left us. He was aged of close to 74 years, just two days before his birth date. The return and comeback is organized to assist at the funeral, on April 18th.
- End April 2006 rapid visit of the lovely harbors of Dunmore East, Kilmore and Wicklow where we meet our Irish friends Brendan et Ruth. In Dun Laoghaire we encounter Aries, our previous boat.
-30 April 2006: we are in Howth, north of Dublin after a great visit of the capital.
-9 May: arrival at Bangore, the Belfast's chic marina.

West Scotland
-11 May: After 62 nm we moor in Scotland via the nicer existing window: the Hebrides and the isle of Islay.
-16 May: Aquarellia is in loch Craignish, one of the Scotland's most beautiful sea lochs.
-26 May Tobermory, the Mull's capital, full of colors. It's from here that we planed to visit the strange island of Staffa.

Going South with the CGWR
-June 2nd, we use the Crinan canal nice shortcut for the Firth of Clyde.
-From 3 'till 10 of June Scottish stroll around the splendid Firth of Clyde, visit of Tarbert, clockwise tour of Bute then Arran. Today June 11th we are moored South of Kintyre Waiting good condition to sail toward the isle of Man.
-From Portpatrick near the Mull of Galloway we sailed to the isle of Man. 'till 14th our base is Douglas, the capital, nice weather and good tide for this journey, but then we have to wait more then a week 'cause of a storm.
-In flotilla we are 7 of us, visit of Pwllheli and Fishguard.
-This 29 of June we are ready for the next main event the "Sea Fair Haven Festival" in Milford Haven. 15 sail boats of the Celtic Goodwill Raid are presents.
-July 3rd. For the Jannik's birthday we anchor in the south Wales rivers.
-July 8 and 9 The stunning flotilla of boats in the Celtic Good Will Raid is part of the SeaSwansea Festival.
-visit of the splendid Corwal coast from Padstow to Penzance via St Ives. Now we had visit all the Cornwal coasts.
-July 20 and 21. 19hoo of channel crossing in group (7 sail yachts of the Celtic Goodwill Raid) from Cornwal to Britany. Major Engine issue far from any coast, more information in the next Aquabul.

North Britany
-July 21 Aber Wrac'h Brittany. We got here an incredible welcome, marina, official, lunch with traditional music, walk etc...
-July 22 to 30, family visit in L'Aber Wrac'h, with visit of this nice area.
-3-9 Aug.: Batz then sailing through Morlaix bay, river and town with the FAR festival.
-10-15 Aug.: bad anchorage near "l'île aux Moines" (7 îles) then Perros-Guirec and visit to Ploumanach.
-16-20 Aug.: Tréguier, then Bréhat, arrival during thunderstorm, 1h40 turning around before dropping our very metallic anchor ... 2 days and superb nights on the island. Nice and quick windy journey toward Saint Malo.
-25 Aug.: early departure from St Malo for Hélier on Jersey. Then we moor in Guernsey for the SeaGuernsey 2006 event.
-some days in Beaucette, lovely small harbor in the nature of this Guernsey north coast.
-Guernsey to St Vaast La Hougue, anchor for a good night.

Going South via the French canals
-With our masts horizontal since Le Havre we got the river Seine until Paris. Then the Loing river and canal, the Loire, the center canal the Saône river and finally the Rhône river. A nightmare, 24hoo aground near Viviers, avoids this area! After this, Aquarellia was one week out of the water to fix all the problems.
-Dec 4th 2006 we are back in the water in the very Med! Here in Port St Louis.

Second wintering in Carry-le-Rouet near Marseille
-We are ready to wintering in a nice Provencal resort.
Our welcome in Carry-le-Rouet reach the marvelous level of the Kinsale one. We are happy to live another winter experience !

Going East via Corsica and Italy
-March 28th 2007 Aquarellia is on the Frioul islands, on the starting block for a new trip to the East. Thanks to the Carryens welcome we certainly will come back.
-Les Embiez 5 days with lot of East wind, then here in Porquerolles, waiting for Westerly winds.
-Antibes after a wonderful anchorage in Port-Man, just waiting for nice westerly winds.
-16-04-2006 Crossing to Corsica with our preferred Dolphins, good sea good wind.
-Visits of Calvi and the wild cap Corse, île Rousse, Macinaggio, and Bastia for a last technical French speaking stop.
-25-04-2006 Go across Corsica and Elba. We anchor in Porto Campo the second night we were wake up by a bad swell at 1hoo just enough to go to Giglio.
- We anchor near Isola di Giannutri, the more south island of the Tuscan group. The Weather is wonderful.
- Riva di Traiano, a well protected harbor for our visit to the Italian Capital.
- Short stop in Porto Di Roma, hyper-too much-chic
- 07-05-2006 Ponza superb, with multicolored cliffs
- Ventotene then Ischia and Procida, very nice small island but not really well protected anchorage.
- We go "through" Capri (95€ twice this during the WE!!!) not for us!
-11-05-2006 We are in Salerno. This city is a nice small Napoli not as touristico than the rest of the Napoli area.
- Some days in Acciaroli. The fishing harbor and the crumbling old village is a gem.

- From May 20th 'till 23rd, we visit the Aeolian islands of Stromboli, Lipari and Vulcano. Whaw!
- We are waiting to cross to Greece in Calabria in the port of Roccela Jonica. We are in company of some other sailors as, Mintaka from Australia, Tékaméli out of Nice, Ellen from Corsica, Balata from Toulon and other ones. We are well protected for the 39 knots gusts.

Ionian Greece
-The 1st of June 2006 we left Italia for Greece with our new friends aboard of Ellen and Balata. The weather forecast is ok and predict some good wind for us. Mooring at 12hoo on the island of Othonoi, North of Corfu, facing Albania. A wonderful door to introduce Greece, we are 3 sailing boats anchoring for 2 nights near the wild beach of Fiki.
-Sailing and mooring around Corfu, Paxos, Levkas and the Meganisis quite island.
-One month of summer "wintering" in Cleopatra marina, antifouling and a short voyage toward our families.
-We enjoy the end of the touristic season in the nice Ionian anchorages such as Meganisis, Kalamos, Ithaque and since one week, Cepholonia. Cephalonia is 'till now, our preferred island.

The Peloponnese and the South Aegean
-New sea for us, the Kythira sea is a wonderful sailing area with good wind! Visit of Navarin, Methoni, and Kalamata.
-27-09-2007 we moor in Adamas, Milos, our first Cycladic island, great scenery! After a week of stay we visit the island of Folegandros and Santorin (Thira)
-12 Oct. we reach the Dodecanese island and enjoy the visit of Astipalaia, Nisiros and Simi
-25 Oct., we are in Rhodes,

Third wintering in Finike - Turkey
-29 Oct. 2007, Turkey! Another world, another continent, another country, another language… we are in Fethyie just before our wintering target of Finike some 75 nm ago.
-11 Jan. 2008, visit of the snowy Cappadoce.
-18 Feb. Historical snow falls on Finike Marina.
-28 Mar. Today it's an anniversary: we leaved our home 1000 days ago.
-2 Apr. 2008 Last evenings with our turkish friends, one aboard of Aquarellia, one in their house in Kumluca. Thanks to Kubilay, Rukiye, Ramazan, Emine, Dilek and all the Finike musicians! At 6h45AM we leave Finike for Kekova, 18 miles from here.
-5 Apr. Kekova we were invited to a traditional wedding.
-11 Apr. in Boynüz Bükü, sun in a scotish loch.
-9 May 2008 we are in Marmaris for some work on Aquarellia on the way to Istanbul.
-14 May: Turkish check-out in Datça for Kos in Greece.

East Agean
-From May 17th visit of the nice islands of the north Dodecanese: Kalimnos, Leros, Lipso, Patmos, Arki and Agatonisi.
-From 29 May with Samos to Lesbos (wonderful) via Chios.
-14 June: The Dardanelles

The sea of Marmara and the Black sea
-16 June: The sea of Marmara and the islands.
-July 2008 Istanbul in Fenerbahçe, up the Bosphorus and sailing in the south Black sea.
-23 July: visit of the village of Sile Black sea and participation of the Sile Festival.
-Down the Bosphorus and stay in Istinye for a second visit of Istanbul.
-12 August: visit of the village of Zeytinbagi, south of the sea of Marmara, meet lot of nice local people here.
-Going west - visit of the Erdek peninsula and the west islands of the Marmara sea.

North Aegean
-08 September: we leave Turkey for the Greek island of Limnos
-18 September: in Makedonia for a while, waiting for a better weather.
-29/9: Bad weather on the Athos mount area. We are looking for some protection in Nea Marmaras. This village is in the Kassandra bay in Macedonia.
-3/10: Long track from Sithonia, leaved at four in the morning for a nice bay in north Pelagos. Then because of a "thundery" weather-forecast we sadly skip the island of Alonnisos, one only night, for the better protected harbor of Skopelos.
-20/10: The Northern Sporades give no good protection facing the bad weather reported. So we decided to reach the gulf of Evia (Evvoia) via Orei in the Orei Channel, then Edhipsos, Limni, Khalkis and its famous bridge. Then we are sailing to Eretrios and after we visit Karavos near Aliveri waiting for better weather. The weather bulletin forecast 8 to 9 from NE so we pour a draft of wine to Poséidon to protect all our sailors friends in the area.
-4/11: We leave Evia for the most northern of the Cyclades : Andros. The weather is much better now, better than in the summer, says the locals.
Then and after a short cultural and technicalk visit to Athens we are looking for a small place to wintering in Egina.
-22/11: Today an alarming storm is planned on Aegina and the rest of the Greece seas. The harbor is not well protected as often in Greece. Yesterday 10AM we had 1016 hecto-Pascal (hPa), today same time 997 hPa, 991 hPa at 3 PM. A floating quay already walk out on the middle of the harbor. The ferries don’t move today . The island is isolated. We had administrative difficulties to access to one of the numerous free secure places in the harbor. Thanks to Gregory of the Asprakis boatyard, we receive a good safe place.

Because of the sad welcome we got in Aegina we sail away to Methana. Here the welcome is warm and the harbor safe. Ask Tasos he is helpful.
We take our time, 2 months, to visit all interesting sites we find in Argos, this Peloponnesus historical area, as Mycenae, Argos, Tiryns, Nauplia, Epidaurus, Trizina, and the pretty island of Poros.
We had also good time in Methana during the Carnivals and other seasonal feasts.
After 2 good months here we leave and take the Corinth canal “en route” for the Ionian via the Corinth golf.
We visited Ithea where we celebrate the Eastern feasts with the sail yacht Prélude (Jean Loup and Dan) and their local friends.
We sail to Trizonia, Messalongui, Nidri, Preveza and the North Ionian coast of Greece.

We dreamed to spend some time in South Albania and we did. This is one of our best souvenir.

However we had a very bad souvenir of a storm during a night anchorage in the North of Othonoï.
The weather forecast was still vigorous from Calabria to Siracusa.
In the open sea between Calabria and Sicilia we observed 5 turtles Careta-Careta and a Risso dolphin (Grampus griseus).
We visited Aci Trezza on the Etna moving feet, Catana and Siracusa. To reach Malta we have to wait for a "non siroco" day.
Close to Malta we saw a family of black Globicephals. They made us some waves. The male weight 4 tons.
We visit Valetta, the capital of Malta, another country for us, and the small island of Gozo.

July 2009 - A warm periode, a contact one.

Afer leaving Prélude and Gabago on the way to France; after a visit of the captain's parents sister and brother in law in Malta ; after spending good time with Isis and Lysigee in Gozo ; we anchor in the port of Empedocle and then in Sciacca "therma".
After a long track we reached the wonderfull island of Pantelleria, a black diamond on the middle of nowhere. That's it for the Sicily colors.

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