On With the Show

It's happened at last. Talking about Greece, and it's lovely hot climate, has inspired the British weather to come up the goods, and we have enjoyed some really hot weather this weekend. Hoorah! - even if I (gardening Bear, Tommy) have had to be busy watering the garden tonight.

It was a great week to have our County Show, The Royal Norfolk Show. We're proud to say that our fine county of Norfolk does it show rather well and the Norfolk, is one of the biggest, if not the biggest in the country.

We like to have a Bears Unlimited Company holiday on one of the 2 show days. This year we chose to go on the first day, Wednesday.

It is too big to see everything and we tend to find that we all have our own particular interests. For example, action bear, Chelmer, tends to zoom off to the quad bikes and see the show at high speed, never stopping long enough to take a photo.

Being the Gardening Bear, I like to take things at a more leisurely pace. I simply love the wonderful floral displays and they give me great ideas for the Bear Cave garden.

I'm never too sure about artificial grass though. There's nothing like the real thing, even though it does take quite some time and effort to keep it lush and green.

I did, however, really like this fabulous rhino, cleverly coated with artificial grass. Patch climbed aboard  for my photo and reported that it was quite comfortable, but not as soft as real grass (probably softer than a hairy and wrinkled rhino hide though!)

One thing I completely approve of is the animal displays. They all fascinate me, especially the fine show cattle, but none were as cute as  ...

... this brood of tiny chicks. They were adorable and fitted perfectly into my rather small paw.

If Oakley's roasts weren't so delectable, it was almost enough to make me contemplate going vegetarian - but not for long though!

Lots of love Tommy and all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Marvellous Meganisi

Preparing to leave harbour for the first time on a flotilla holiday, is always a thrilling moment; we can't imagine that it could ever be otherwise. There is a massive sense of anticipation. Now that we have a few flotillas under our belt, it's less the excitement of venturing into the unknown, and more about the excitement of returning to some of our favourite places.

Our destination for our first day's sail was the town quay at Little Vathi on the island of Meganisi. It's tempting to keep the delights of Meganisi a secret, but we simply can't, we have to extol it's virtues as it' s probably our favourite Greek island.

It was a lovely first day, with a great sail and a fine swim from anchor in secluded bay, round the headland from Vathi town. On reaching the harbour, our lead crew expertly moored us in a fine spot on the town quay, and Louis soon had us ashore and exploring.

It's only a small town, but the essentials are there, namely lots of tavernas and a fine bakery. It doesn't take many minutes to get out into the quiet Greek countryside among the stone walls and the olive trees. It's such a peaceful spot ...

Lois took us to one of Meganisi's tourist attractions - a sunken aeroplane on the sea bed. The water was lovely and still and beautifully clear, as it tends to be in Greece, so we could see the plane really well and enjoyed swimming and diving round it.

We dined that night at a fine waterfront taverna where customers got a free shower - and very fine showers they were too. At the end of our meal we watched a fishing boat come in and unload it's catch of tuna, but we'd eaten too well to want to buy any.

Sheer bliss!

Lots of love, Eddie, Louis and crew xxx

Pre Departure Checks

Later in the afternoon of our arrival, we had our first briefing, and also a walk through the boat with our engineer Jamie, taking us through all the technical aspects. I hung onto Jamie's every word as I know there is a lot that can potentially go wrong on a boat. 

I was still getting my ear attuned to all the exciting noises Analipsi makes - my favourite being water lapping against the hull - when I heard 2 noises I wasn't expecting coming from the heads (boating name for the bathroom!) following a visit by one of my minders. 

Firstly the water pump roared like an aircraft engine being fired up, and then when all was quiet again, I heard what sounded like rain. I didn't think I'd brought the English bad weather with me. I hadn't, it was coming from the panel beside the toilet. 

I called Jamie over for a consultation, and minutes later he was hard at work replacing a section of pipe which had a small leak. As tends to happen, one thing leads to another and our water pump also turned out to be faulty. 

We took up quite a bit of Jamie's time before we set sail the next morning, but it did seem a good idea to get everything just so before we left base, where all the kit and spares are, and also the Chief Engineer. 

I find boats so interesting that I offered my services as engineer's mate. There isn't a lot of space on boats for working, so I thought my small and flexible paws might be useful for getting into tight spaces. 

In our first photo you can see our new pump on the floor, ready to go in. 

I'd quite like to have stayed to see the job through, but Patrick and Louis insisted I left Jamie in peace and quiet and joined them for our first taverna evening. When I heard they planned to go to the Ionian taverna, scene of many a happy meal in the past, when the Jaguar flotillas used to moor outside, I couldn't resist the pull. 

Amazingly the proprietor,Yannis, remembered us - perhaps he doesn't get too many bear visitors. We had a lovely waterside table and a beautiful meal and it was great to be with John and Emily again and catch up with all the news from Northern Ireland. 

Louis introduced Patrick to Plomari ouzo, in his opinion (and he's not alone in this opinion) the finest ouzo there is. As you can see, Louis couldn't wait to get to it. Rather unusually Patrick approached it with some caution, which may have been due to the pungent aroma, but it soon got his paw of approval. I prefer to stick to beer and I'm especially partial to the Greek beer, Mythos and anyway, I wanted a clear head for leaving harbour for the first time in the morning. 

Lots of love, Eddie and the crew of Analipsi xxx

A Life on The Ocean Wave

We’re back in more ways than one: we’re back blogging (sorry for the lack of posts recently) and we’re back from a wonderful maritime adventure with those great people at Sailing Holidays.

This is Boating Bear Eddie picking up the tale of our sailing adventure which has lasted two weeks and taken us to many of the wonderful islands of the South Ionian seas of Greece.

Readers with a long memory will know that flotilla sailing with Sailing Holidays is probably our favourite type of adventure, so good that it simply has to be repeated, and this was in fact our fourth trip with Sailing Holidays in the last 8 years.  Our first trip pre-dated this blog, but the other two have been reported in full and can be found in the archives of 2010 and 2007.

The trips are so popular with B.U. members that we set a new record for the biggest contingent travelling abroad – 7 of us. I was joined by travelling bears George and Yorkie (of course),  Irish bear Patrick, and our 3 members of Greek extraction: my fellow boating bear Louis (who joined us at the end of our last flotilla) and turtles Zak and Stavros (from Zachynthos).

Horse racing fan Patrick might seem like a strange choice of travelling companion for a boating adventure, but there was a lot of sense to his inclusion. He was there to be re-united with our good friends John and Emily from Northern Ireland, who we’d met on our first flotilla and were due to be sailing with us again. They had given Patrick to us when we visited them at their Irish home. Patrick was very excited at the thought of seeing them again.

We were all very excited when we arrived at the Sailing Holidays base at Sivota on the island of Lefkas. We set off along the harbour searching all the many Sailing Holidays moored boats for one with the exciting name of Analipsi, which was to be ours.

We soon found her ... 

... and there was a mad scramble aboard to check her out and admire her fine lines and her internal space. She instantly got the paw of approval. We couldn’t spend long though as we had an even more important job to do, to meet our lead crew.

We didn’t have to look hard as they were a friendly bunch and as keen to meet us as we were to meet them. Our lead crew were Skipper Liz, Hostie Pip and engineer Jamie. We liked them from our first meeting and thankfully they seemed to like us too.

We felt very privileged to have a female skipper as they are a rare breed. Liz is the only one this season, and in our opinion,  better than many of her male colleagues. The whole crew was a class act and, as a good lead crew are the key to the best flotillas, we knew we had a great two weeks ahead of us.

We’ll be telling you lots more about these great folk and all our new boating experiences in the days to come.

Back soon

Love Eddie and the crew of Analipsi

They Come in All Shapes and Sizes

We concluded a very pleasant week in Lanzarote with a visit to the Jardin de Cactus, otherwise known as the cactus garden. We'd actually passed it, and even gone into the car park, earlier in the week, to have a look at the huge metal cactus outside the gates. However, we hadn't thought that wandering round a load of cacti would be particularly exciting, and it wasn't our normal sort of holiday activity, so we'd decided to give it a miss.

However, while shopping in Eurospar one evening, in the middle of the wine section, we met a bear friendly Brit and got chatting. He'd been to the Cactus Garden that day and told us it was well worth a visit as it was an amazing artistic experience. He said it was the artistry with which the garden was laid out that was more important than the cacti themselves.

As it happened, the weather was cool, cloudy and windy on our final day - definitely not beach weather, but perfect for garden visiting - so we decided to pay a visit.

And we're pleased to say that having been, it is worth a visit, especially as the entry fee is very reasonable.

The garden is built in a former quarry, and it was the brain child of Lanzarote's most famous son - Cesar Manrique - who is responsible for most of Lanzarote's tasteful tourist attractions. Although the garden is full of cacti - about 10,000 types - there is much more there than simply cacti. There is a restored windmill and huge volcanic rocks have been turned into natural sculptures and water features.

Wandering round is an aesthetic experience that is very pleasing to the senses. The cacti really do come in all shapes and sizes. Some were quite snake like and reminded us a bit of the 'Day of the Triffids' ...

... while others were short and fat and looked almost fluffy in appearance, although fluffy they most definitely were not. Prickles seemed to be the order of the day and none of us wanted to get too close for photographs, all except one ...

Yorkie risked a close encounter when he found a cactus with fruit that looked good enough to eat. Apparently it was. Those spines were almost as big as Yorkie, so you have to admire his bravery - or foolishness!

After a very lesiurely circuit taking it all in, we stopped for coffee in the garden's cafe. We all agreed that completely misjudged just how much fun looking at cacti could be. 

A few hours after our visit, we were on a plane on the way home. Our visit to Lanzarote had been a successful one, full of interesting experiences, and we will no doubt return one day. In the meantime we have lots of material to write up for the Canary Islands chapter of the Friendly Planet Guide. 

Back soon, 

Love George, Yorkie and Pedro xxx

Submarine Safari

The highlight of our week in Lanzarote was a trip to the bottom of the ocean by submarine. We were venturing where no B.U. bear has been before and we were extremely excited. We booked the trip to celebrate an 80th birthday in the human element of our party (none of us bears can imagine being that old!) and what a  fine way to celebrate it was.

Our submarine was nothing other than a yellow submarine, which made our experience all the more authentic.

As we all boarded in an orderly fashion, our fellow submariners looked calm and composed, but we think that was just the British stiff upper lip syndrome, as we couldn't believe they could help but be as excited as we were. 

Each couple had their own port hole - in our case we were 3 bears to a port hole - but there was still plenty of room. 

Our safety boat led us out and told us when it was safe to dive. As we sank beneath the waves we could watch our submersion on the t.v. screens in front of our seats.

Once submerged our screen display changed to tell us important information about our dive, in particular how deep we were. We went down to around 30 metres (100 feet for those who like the old units).

It didn't take long for lots of lovely fish to appear. They were of all different sizes, shapes and colours and they were simply magical. We went past a couple of wrecks which had been moved to our dive site to encourage fish to colonise the area.

Aboard our support boat was a diver who swam round the submarine feeding the fish. He was very friendly and waved at us every time he passed. We were enthralled when he passed us hanging on to a huge ray who clearly enjoyed his food and wasn't going to miss out on a single scrap. 

You can share our ray experience by clicking on the following video clip ...

We loved every minute of our dive and, as we came back up to the surface, we sang along lustily to, what other than, the song Yellow Submarine, piped over the P.A. system. 

We all got dive certificates at the end, which we are proudly displaying in our Bear Cave. We'd recommend this experience to anyone. 

Lots of love George, Yorkie and Pedro xxx 

No Golf at El Golfo

In our bearish and versatile fashion, we're going back to Lanzarote, as we like talking about hot places when it's cold at home.

Upon leaving the Timanfaya Visitors' Centre, we drove to the coast at El Golfo and ate our packed lunch looking at the sea. This resort is still in the National Park  and here huge swathes of lava run into the sea and disappear beneath the waves. The coast path is an exception to the rule that you can't walk on the lava; you are free to do so as long as you keep to the coast path. As we like walking and we wanted to see the lava up close, we were pleased when we found a circular walk in our walking guide, and out we set.

It was slow going, as lava isn't the easiest of materials to walk on. We had to watch where we were putting our paws, and we all wore boots, as the edges of the lava could be quite sharp.

Our return to our hire bearmobile was via a rather off-road, road. A flat surface had been cleared but we were never more than a stride away from the lava rocks. While walkers are welcome on the path, unauthorised vehicles aren't, which is good, we thought, to preserve the fragile environment. We thought using the Timanfaya devil to advise of the traffic restriction was great, even if it was a bit battered.

On our return to our apartment it was still warn enough to use the pool ...

... which was nicely deserted and very inviting. We sat on the side first and chatted about our exciting day, while we anticipated our swim.

After our swim we decided on a game of giant poolside chess ...

... it wasn't the fastest game, as the pieces were so big relative to us, that we couldn't pick them up. We had to push them across the board to the required spot. You'd never have though that playing chess could provide such strenuous exercise. 

Lots of love, George, Yorkie and Pedro xxx