Hi,

We have spent the winter in Sciacca, Sicily. Sicily is a fantastic island with loads to see. The wine is excellent and quite reasonably priced. The food too, is great. Sciacca is a fishing village, so there are great fish restaurants.

The weather has been so so. Lots of wind and rain and the coldest has been 5 degrees! Brrr!!I had to invest in a sheepskin electric blanket!!!The marinais not so good, so we have been doing a lot of rocking and rolling!!!

We went sightseeing with our Swedish and American friends and managed to see quite a lot of Sicily, Syracuse, Mt Etna, Cefalu, Marsala, Palermo, Erice etc.

Our first guests arrived from Norway, but unfortunatly my friend was feeling too seasick , so they checked into a hotel nearby. We had a great time with them.

My niece, her husband and their son arrived next, on boxing day until 2nd of January. Spent the New Year with them and other Swedish friends.

I travelled to Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, and together with my sister, we went to South India for Ayurvedic treatment. 4 weeks in a rather basic cottage, with loads of treatments, vegetarian Indian food, no fruit or sweets. We survived the 4 weeks and actually I am feeling a little better. It was as per usual great to be with my sister. We laughed a lot!!!

Erik was onboard the boat, and just as well, as there were lots of storms and bad weather. He went back to Norway to check everything was ok.

My cousin and his partner have just visited, and again we had a great time together, with great sightseeing, good food and great company.

On the 2nd of April we will fly to Malta with friends and spend Easter there. We are looking forward to staying in a good hotel and spend time there.

18th of April, Erik’s son and his partner arrive for a week. They leave for Norway and we leave for the U.K. We have 2 new family memebers that I am dying to see!!!

Lucky for Erik, the famous, Beaulieu Boat Jumble is on at that time, so Erik is a happy bunny!!!

When we get back from the U.K. we will get the boat ready to start our summer sailing. The plan is to sail to Tunisia. We hope to spend about 3-4 weeks there and then cockwise around Sicily, through the Messina Straits, round the heel of Italy and up to Venice. There after, Slovania, around the Pelaponese and then head towards Turkey, for the winter. Most probably, Marmaris again.

That’s the general plan, but it all depepnds on the weather. Ok Bye for now and will try and keep you informed.

Erik and Shamira

Hi again!

Sorry we have been a litlte lazy updating our website, but here we are again. Summer 2007 was fantastic and hot. We were on the East Med Yacht Rally (EMYR)There were 6 of us onboard and we sailed from Kemer (Turkey) to North Cyprus, back to Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt and back to Israel, where we had a chance to travel to Jordan and the Dead Sea. Wow!! We have seen and experienced so much. Met so many interesting people and eaten lots of lovely food.

After we got back from the EMYR we sailed around Gøcek area and finally had the boat in Marmaris where we had a lot of work done on the boat.

We have been back in Norway and Erik had his lens operation and spent Xmas at Bømlo with my mum. Mum came with us to Marmaris. Not bad for a 80 year old woman!! We spent New Year onboard and then mum went back to London, Erik went to California to see Marius ( his son) and I flew to Kuala Lumpur to spend time with  my sister Nargis and my brother.in.law Taj.  K.L. is nice and hot and that’s what agrees with me most.I had a fantastic time in Malaysia and then Nargis and I flew to South India via Colombo (Sri Lanka) Nargis and I spent 2 weeks in a Ayurveda resort for all our aches and pains. Nargis (bless her) came with me, as I wanted to try something else for all my problems. We had a great time together, the food there was all vegetarian, yoga everyday,and lovely oil massages everyday. Unfortunately the treatment did not help me with my problem, but the doctors recogn that 2 weeks was too little

Coming back to Turkey, I was stuck in Bangkok for 2 nights and 3 days and I flew back to K.L and Erik (rescue team) came over with more tickets so I could get back onboard! We flew via Dubai, back to Istanbul and back onboard. Good to be back in Turkey even tho’ it’s cold here.

Erik and I are off to Cappadocia on Tusday the 25th of March and we will be gone for 5 days.

April 4th we will be in Norway for 2 weeks and then back onboard.

I guess you have worked out that the boat is in Marmaris. The marina is called Yacht Marina, and it’s a way from town center. Nice enough town, with a nice market every Thursday and nice restaurants, including an Indian restaurant. The nearest airport is called Dalalman. About 1.5 hrs drive.

Our first guests arrive from South Carolina on the 11th of May and then next set of guests ( my cousin and his wife from Calgary) will spend time with us onboard.

I hope that you enjoy looking at the pictures.

We will try and update the website more often.

Thanks and hope to see some of you onboard.

The temperature is raising rapidly and it’s great to wear t-shirts and shorts again.

We have been busy with loads of things. Had a great weekend in Istanbul. What a fantastic city! We got to see most of it and will go there again.

Erik has been poorly but is getting better. I am unfortunately still having problems with my facial pains and they have really bothered me these past few weeks. What to do,what to do???? Hopefully the warm weather will help?

Loads happening in the Kemer Marina, which has been taken over by new owners. Hope it will all be positive.

We aim to go to the UK and Norway at the end of March and return back to the boat after Easter.

Erik is busy getting the boat ready for the EMYR Rally. Check out the website www.emyr.org We will be sailing with 2 other couples starting 15th of May and we all  are really looking forward to that. The rally takes us to Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Egypt. Return back to Turkey approx. 25th of June.

As we said in our last letter we had Nadin, Christian and mama visititing and it was great having them here. We had so much fun and good food, until I got sick. No matter, I am now, as well as I can be and we are having so much fun.

We are slowly getting the boat ready to sail on Monday the 15th of May. I tell you, there is so much to do!! How we had time to work amazes me!! You start one end, and finish and have to start all over again! Anyway, keeps us busy!

The weather is has been very good, still a little on the cool side ( for me) but it’s getting warmer.

4 of our earlier collegues. were in our area and we took them and a few other good friends sailing for the day. Started the morning with champagne and strawberries!! Sailed to a place called Phaselis. Took the dingy to see the ancient city and sailed back to have chicken salad and the works! We hope they had a good time, we certainly did! Erik had 7 women onboard and all the other yachtiees were very envious! That was our first trip after the winter and of course we had a few technical “snags” but as the ladies said they were used to delays due to technical problems!

We were supposed to leave this week, but at the moment the marina is getting full due to the East Mediterranean Yacht Rally. EMYR…….check it out on the internett. We hope to do that next year. Approx. 81 boats are coming over, there is going to be a formal dinner on Saturday to welcome them all ( actually to be honest we are staying just for the free dinner!) Tonight the marina is going to full and we will visit our friends who have the best view on their boat, eat lovely Texan food and check the boats out.

We are not sure when we will be able to write again as we will be sailing, but we will keep you informed when we can. Bye for now.

This is the first post in the Shamirall online diary!

We will be publishing our thoughts and musings throughtout our journey, we hope to post at least weekly so please check back soon.