It's Cinco de Mayo in Kypros - Hella! (Come!)

We took a road trip to Nicosia, the Capitol of Cyprus and home of Demetris Theoharous, my main man, the master of Kypros and all around great guy. We met at and Irish pub called FinnBar on May 5 - Cinco de Mayo - why not! Demetris buddy Greg Bedrosian joined up with us. Greg picked up a new HP scanner/printer for Jungle. A helpful travel tip, if your printer is 50/60 Hz, that's a plus. If it is only 120V AC, then it will probably only run for a while - in our case 6 months. But I knew this cause I'm an Electrical Engineer! I got a degree and everything! Just call me Sparky.

Sorry, no photos of the boys, but here's Finn's bar. An Irish bar all decked out for Cinco de Mayo, go figure.

I'm toasting the day in style. I didn't actually drink this Tequila but used it to clean Jungle's engine. Man, that bay is shining! I ordered nachos with guacamole and I got nacho cheese chips right out of the bag. And ale!

In Cyprus, dinner is at ten, the night starts at midnight, yeah! We are just warming up. Nicosia is a charming city and reminds me of my hometown of Boston, very green, very walk able, only better weather in winter. Demetris treated us to a wonderful steak dinner "in his village".

Now, back to the fun stuff. This here is a toilet bowl, custom made baby! Bet you wish you had one. The electric switch to allow water in failed and let water in slowly all the time. I had to search a while for a replacement, of course it wasn't the same, but I made it work.

Close up of the switch installation - the problem is the limited amount of space you have in a boat to work. I need a massage.

Back home in our little one bedroom apartment while Jenée is busy at work.

There's the admiral with tools in hand. We have it organized just the way we like it.

Ahhhh, KEO. The local Cyprus beer is like most local beers - the locals don't drink them. Don't matter, I dig KEO. Efharisto!

 

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!

Arizona Mountain Ride

We had a great time and a great view. For some reason, my helmet slips to the side, which makes for a good look - kinda like Bob's Big Boy!

Well, plenty of time to recover and make our way to Jerome.

The next day, we saddled up for a ride to Jerome, a converted Ghost town. Unfortunately, Capn' Jimbo missed a turn and we ended up in Bum-F, AZ. Oooopsie.

Love was in the air.

Oh yes, we had fun that night. RJ, just has that certain look about him.

Terry Furlong entertained us throughout dinner. Terry was originally a band member on the Grass Roots (Midnight Confessions). Terry has cool storys on meeting Elvis, Beatles, Beach Boys, Rolling Stones, Joe Cocker, Charles Manson (yep, that Charles Manson). We had a great time hanging out with Terry and even bought his book.

We headed out to dinner at the Cattleman's Restaurant. Had a western steak and shared a table with these wonderful ladies from Prescott.

OK, back to the present. This is funny "gallows humor" from Jersey Lillys Saloon.

As mentioned before, I know the boys from our hockey playing days. I found this team photo and here we are - with hair! That's RJ, top left, Kyle next to him. Skip over Blaine, we all do, then you come to me and Yanko. This team is the Portland Royals, hailing from Portland, Oregon. This is from a Las Vegas tournament - we won! Yahoo!

This is more like it. We found a nice resting spot.

And tht's Whiskey Row for a reason ... next door to the hotel is Matt's Saloon, Jersey Lilly, A-1 Palace and, hey look, there's Yanko up on the balcony. Let's check it out.Then it's on to Route 89 and a 3 hour ride up a winding mountain road to Prescott, AZ. The temperture dropped from the high 60's to the low 50's. It's an absolutely beautiful ride with wonderful canyon views as you ride up. Prescott is the original state capital of Arizona and has an Old West feel. Neat place. This is the St. Michael's Hotel where we stayed overnight, also has an Old West feel. The street in front is called Whiskey Row.

Here is where things get just a little strange. We stopped for lunch in Wickenburg and run into this fellow, wearing a badge and carrying a loaded sidearm - all legal in Arizona. Looks like RJ's older brother.

We headed north to Highway 60 and on to Wickenburg.

The next day, it's time to ride! Unfortunately, my bike died - right in the Harley Davidson parking lot. How convenient! The fine folks there diagnosed my problem (loose alternator cable), got me fixed up, battery recharged and on our way - no charge! love those guys.

After the game, we took in an 8 piece band playing pretty cool, albeit, whacked out music. We had such fun!

That night, at the Phoenix Coyote hockey game, Yanko gets to pose with the Stanley Cup. Very nice.

Now I get in the picture. We go back to the mid 1990's and played hockey together in Portland, OR. I use the term "played" loosely.

Here is lovely Jenée after a 6 hour ride from SoCal to Arizona. These are the boys, from left; R.J. Moore (RJ), Kyle King (Kinger) and Darren Yankovsky (Yanko).

Time to catch up with old friends and go for a Harley ride in the Arizona mountains. Jenée and I trailered in our 2 bikes to the home of my good friend, Darren Yankovsky in Buckeye, AZ. I realize I don't have many pictures of the actual ride and sights. Oh well, how 'bout I talk you through it. This is the bike carrier on our truck.