Yassou Kypros !!! (Hello Cyprus)

So we are getting ready to leave for Cyprus and I'm playing with our new iPad - I take this very cool picture. OK, so my hair is a little messy, otherwise, not bad. Jenée jumps all over me with, "that picture is gross ... don't use that, grow up!"

Okie-Dokie. How's this? I just kill me!

Any hoo, we have a kitty based update for you. Welcome to my world.

And we're off! We are now on our way to Cyprus and Katie is put in her traveling prison. Trust me she's in there.

But it's not very long before she busts out. Fortunately most of the flight attendants like cats.

And she is well disguised at the airport terminal in Amsterdam.

Unfortunately, we were less than 1 hour from Cypress (16 hrs total travel time) that we needed to divert to Athens for a "minor mechanical problem". Place your bets ladies and gentlemen, place your bets! Here we are enjoying our complimentary sandwich at 10 PM (todays special - some kind of meat). Soon after, we were informed we'd be spending the night. Turned out to be a lovely Soffet Hotel about 200 steps from the front door - great breakfast. All in all, not a bad stop.

We arrived Larnaca, Cyprus in the morning and made our way to the apartment we rented for 2-3 weeks while we work on the boat. Here we are at the pool at the Santa Barbara Apartments and the pool is this big!

Katie is very comfortable in her new home.

Well back to work! We get to the Shipyard to begin working on Jungle and we're immediately invited to the boat yard luncheon. Held every day for the workers, it includes a full spread with beer and this special plum brandy. Personally, I think Zippo lighter fluid has a better finish, but what a feast and lovely gesture. One of the main guys there, Antonis, drove us to get a local cell phone and then drove us home. I'm telling you, these Greek Cypriots are the best. But I already new that due to my pal Demetris. We' see him this weekend.

On the way home, we stopped for a beer with Antonis. He was a great help last year and he'll be helping be helping me with some of the bigger jobs. More on all that work stuff later.

 

Catching up With Friends

Before we head out we paid some visits to friends and family. Here's the happy couple in San Diego. By the way, I'm using a new iPad and new blog software so from this post on, the blog will read from top to bottom, vs. bottom up on all previous posts. For those of you that read this and say "bottom up?", I say yikes! Now go back and read all 139 posts all over again!

We had a blast with Captain Roli Sanmann and Admiral Kathy Sanmann. Roli was part of Jungle 's maiden voyage from Hawaii to San Diego - 21 days. Roli's knowledge and seamanship were invaluable. He'd help me with gems like "try not to be an idiot today". I'm indebted to him forever.

Garrett treated me to a Boston Bruins, Anaheim Ducks game. Great seats.

There's some of the boys now. Garrett's a big Ducks fan - Bruins won this game. Sorry bro, thanks for the tickets.

The next night I'm back at the Honda Center to watch our friend Marc play in a a hockey game against the Ducks Alumni team - former players of the NHL team. We always enjoy or time with Marc and Louise. Here is Louise with a friend. Louise is fighting the good fight against brain cancer.

This is the Ducks team going through on ice introductions. This team included the captain of the Stanley Cup winning Ducks team Scott Neidemeyer.

There's ole #7 warming up. Marc's team (Sleestaks - don't ask) was leading most of the game but the Duck's scored 2 goals in the final minute to win by one. Unfortunately, my pics of the in game action isn't very good. Fortunately, there was a free after game dinner with all the players, so that was nice!

Here is Mon ami Marc with Kaden and Former Duck captain Scott Nedemeyer.

We spent an evening in Redondo Beach with our boat buddies, Ron and Linda. This is their beautiful new boat Ditto - 40' Norseman. Ron and Linda sailed with us from the Bahamas to Bermuda last year. We really enjoyed their marina riding bikes around Redondo and Hermosa Beach.

 

 

Jungle Jim and Jenée Getting Ready

OK. How's everyone doing? Cool.
We are doing great and are getting ready to set sail! We fly out of LAX to Cyprus on April 22 - me, the Admiral and Katie the world traveling fluff ball. We'll be sailing throughout the spring, summer and fall in the Med. From there, we'll have decisions to make, but will most likely sail back across the Atlantic in November.

We'll keep you posted!