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

Feeling Like Sardines

Ithaca is a lovely and unspoilt island so, at the next day's briefing, we were pleased to discover that we would be heading for another port on Ithaca, that of Kioni. We hadn't been there before so we were all eager to see what it would be like. We didn't want to arrive there too soon though, as that would be to waste a good day's sailing, and that would never do.

When we did come into harbour, we were pleased to have our lead crew to park us, as it was very busy. Lots of flotillas had chosen the same harbour and we couldn't blame them, as it was rather lovely.

We managed to get a spot sideways onto the edge of a pier, so that's Milia you can see nearest the camera with me supervising operations from the top of the bimini awning. Then 2 more Sailing Holidays boats came in and were rafted against us, so their crews had to come across the front of our boat to get ashore.

Boats still kept coming after that, and were ingeniously inserted into places you'd never have thought a boat would go.

We were moored right beside a ferry mooring and had a bit of excitement, and a few heart stopping moments, when the ferry arrived and started reversing in. It finished up little more than a whisker away from us, but, such is the skill of these Greek Captains, Milia was never in any real danger. You can hardly see us in our next picture as we're the inside boat right next to the ferry.

There was something we really liked about the ferry. It ran excursions for tourists and clearly stopped now again for its passengers to take a dip. There were some great water slides for entering the water. Of course George & Yorkie simply had to have a go while I kept a careful watch to check they didn't bang their heads on the harbour wall.

I'd heard about a much better swimming place though and was keen to go exploring to find it. You'll hear how we got on next time.

Lots of love Eddie, George & Yorkie xxx

It Packs a Punch!

One of the things our lead crew do particularly well is that they arrange a mean punch party.

There are several ingredients for a successful punch party:

a) plenty of punch made to a secret recipe, but not so secret that you can’t identify appreciate some of the component ingredients, especially the Malibu and fruit, which are especially to a bear's taste.
b) some nibbles to absorb the punch, so enabling you to drink more – Stu’s cheese and caramelised onion dip was a big hit here!
c) a fine Mediterranean beach
d) an appreciative audience

We bears certainly provided the latter. While the humans were drinking their punch from little plastic cups, we got stuck in and downed a measuring jug full at a time –with a little encouragement from our lovely hostie, Holly of course.


Please don’t think for a moment that we were greedy and deprived anyone else of their fair share. The truth was that as the punch was provided in barrels, there was more than enough for everyone.

George & Yorkie note: that may be true, but it is also true to say that Eddie was the only one who stuck his whole head in. Strangley enough he can’t remember much that happened after that moment!


Anyway, great fun was had by all, to such an extent that a few days later we did it all again when we met up with another flotilla. After all it's good to be hospitable isn't it?

Lots of love, George, Yorkie & Eddie

The Boys are Back in Town (again)

Dear friends,

George, Yorkie and I (Eddie) are safely back from a most fantastic adventure. We really didn't want to come home, although now we are home, we have to admit it is good to see all our bear friends again and to down a pint (or two) of Wherry while regaling stories of our travels.

So where have we been and what have we been doing? George & Yorkie provide the clue to location with our first picture.


If the Mediterranean sunshine doesn't give it away, the Greek flag should. We have spent the last fortnight roaming the islands of the Ionian sea.

The bear flag departure photo and the fact that I, the chief Bears Unlimited boating bear, was going, should have provided the clue to our mode of transport. In case it didn't, here's a picture of me with my latest pride and joy and our home for the last fortnight,'Spetses'.


Spetses, as you can see if a very fine craft which is hardly surprising as she is a member of the Sailing Holidays, Whole Ionian, Jaguar flotilla and there is no finer flotilla afloat. So it's three cheers from us for Sailing Holidays and our lead crew of Jono, Holly & Stu (they'll be properly introduced soon).

Join me again tomorrow as I've so much to tell you.

Lots of love, Eddie, George & Yorkie xxx