Whew!  July has been one of the most “social” months we’ve had for a long time and we have just bid a fond Bon Voyage to our latest friends who spent the past week with us aboard Möbius.  Earlier in the month we were overjoyed to have our two granddaughters, Mom Lia and Dad Brian spend two weeks with us.  Brynn and Blair who just turned 8 and 6 respectively this month brought an explosion of laughter and energy onboard and everywhere we went.  All in all an awemazing month though I must admit that we two introverted Nauti Grandparents are now enjoying the chance to catch our breath and recharge our batteries.  I’ll do my best to give you a quick glimpse into our times with family and friends this past month and hope that a wee bit of our joy comes through on your end as well.

Change

This week’s title sums up one of my perspective on life in general and is one of the key reasons that I think I gravitated to this life of living on boats and sailing the world.  For boats themselves as well as the life of sailing them around the world (yes, whether powered by wind or sails we still refer to it as sailing) change is the one thing you can consistently count on and as so often seems to be the case, that is both the good and bad news.  Changes in systems, gear and equipment on the boat, aka breakage/failure, changes in the weather and changes in location, scenery, people, etc.  For the most part, I’ve always enjoyed change and accepted it as a constant in my life, indeed something I actively pursue and set myself up for and I believe that most people actually do like change.  Who would want things to always stay the same?  What I think most of us do NOT like is “being changed”.  Changed by others and not of our choosing.  All this as my long winded way of setting constant change as the context for the past month and likely that of the next few.

Kalymnos; Our Changed Location

For some geographical context you may recall that in the last Update we had checked out of Türkiye and checked into Greece on the island of Rhodes which is the gold star in the bottom Right of this screenshot of our maps.

(Click to enlarge any image in the blog)
We had been heading for Athens to meet with our family but guess what?!?  Yup, change.  For a confluence of reasons that are a MUCH longer story for another time, we changed and headed for the relatively small Greek island of Kalymnos which is the Red pin in these two maps.
Photos are much more revealing that maps and here is the view off the Port/Left deck of Möbius.  Now let’s climb up to near the top of that mountain across the way …………
…. and here’s the view from that elevated vantage point with some text to show where Möbius is tied up.
Over the years, our family and friends have come to understand that if they want to come visit us, they can chose a Date OR a Location but NOT both!  Think about that for a moment and you’ll soon appreciate how challenging that is.  It takes a LOT of perseverance and adaptability to come visit us and fortunately our family and friends are eXtremely flexible and willing to go to these great lengths to come for a visit.  Lucky us and our deep appreciation to all of you who take on these challenges and come to visit us.

Experiencing Life Through 6 and 8 Year Granddaughters

And so it was that on July 9th, Lia, Brian, Brynn and Blair flew into the tiny little Kalymnos airport literally perched atop a mountain top to the NW of Möbius which is the light patch in the middle of this sat photo.
A 15 minute downhill run later, we had their feet in the cool Aegean waters on one of the countless beaches here on the island.  We had outings every day, sometimes in a rental car to explore the 68 kilometers of coastal road around Kalymnos and sometimes just a short 15 minute walk into the town near where we are docked so we all got to know this small island quite well.
Wherever we went, Blair and Brynn mostly wanted to swim and this was our local swimming beach a short walk from Möbius which you can see in the upper Left of this photo, snuggled in between two much larger ships.
We sought out and found lots of small harbours like this one that typically had several restaurants to chose from, some local boats and of course more swimming.
They all had the Goldilocks combination of places for the girls to jump in for a swim …..
……. with tables on the waters edge for the adults to chat while easily keeping an eye on our simmers while we enjoyed some shade, drinks and food. 
We seemed to be able to find this ideal combo……
……. everywhere we went along the coast……
….. and a grand time was had by all.
Some evenings we would stroll into town and wander the small alleyways soaking up the local ambience.

In town, there was no shortage of little sidewalk restaurants along the waterfront to enjoy more delicious Greek food, wine and conversations.
One day we got going a bit early and caught the short 40 minute ferry over to the larger island and city of Kos.
Kos is a central hub amongst these islands so much busier and more tourists but also much more green and of course more ruins to see before we caught the ferry ….
…. back home to Möbius (seen in the background) complete with a bronze statue of the girls favorite; a Mermaid!
All too soon though, it was time to take the family back to the mountaintop airport for them to start their marathon of planes, trains and automobiles to get back to California.  Thanks Lia, Brian, Brynn and Blair, missing you already and can’t wait for our next time together wherever that may be.

Two days later our good friends Jeff and Kate came over on the ferry from Kos, where they had flown in, and spent a week onboard with us.  They too had been real troopers in adjusting their travel plans and itinerary for their two month long European adventure to be able to get to us here on Kalymnos. 

While our current location is ideal for us, its certainly not a dream destination for most and this is the view off our bow at night. 
Not to be outdone, this is the view from our stern. But Jeff & Kate were very understanding guests and we had lots of time to enjoy just hanging out and catching up with them.  They certainly left with some good stories to share about their unique adventure on Kalymnos and aboard Möbius.  All too soon though, Jeff & Kate needed to catch the ferry back over to Kos a few days ago and are now continuing their European tour to Venice, Milan and then on to Spain and France before they wind up their grand European adventure and head home to Vancouver.  Thanks Kate & Jeff for being such good sports to make all the changes needed to get here and for fitting into our unique accommodations and ambience!

Just right, Just for us

When we were designing Möbius one of the ways we described our design goals was to have a boat that would blend in very well to a fishing or commercial shipping port and stick out more in a fancy marina.  As you’ve been seeing in some of the photos, I think we, thanks to our awemazing designer NA Dennis, have met that design goal very well! 

The Goldilocks “fit” here for us here in Kalymnos is not just our “hood”, but that we have a side tie to a concrete dock that is at deck level and makes getting on/off the boat an easy one step operation which is VERY rare in this part of the world.  Pretty much every other place requires that you Med Moor by backing into the dock and then having a ramp or passerelle to get on/off the boat.  Works OK, but with Christine’s mobility still not fully returned after her knee surgery this presents a more serious issue and is one of several reasons why we have decided to take a break to allow Christine’s knee to fully recover and stay here in Kalymnos for the next month or two. 

While it would not suit most others I suspect, for us this is the latest version of what I frequently refer to as living on The No Plan Plan.  It’s a great example of the true freedom afforded by this way of living we are so fortunate to have that allows us to make such decisions and do what is just right, just for us. 

We pretty much have the whole concrete jetty to ourselves and with local surroundings like this ……
….. and sunsets like this from our SkyBridge at night, perhaps more of you can appreciate how this can feel like the ideal home for us right now until we decide to move on to the next location that is calling our name.

For the next while these Update posts will likely be a bit irregular as I’m not sure I will have enough content to warrant weekly Updates.  However, rest assured that I will continue to post Updates as things evolve here and I’ve got several posts to catch up on some technical topics I’ve promised for some time.  Please continue to send your questions and comments in the “Join the Discussion” box below and keep an eye out for those notification Email alerts if you’ve subscribed to the Möbius.World blog or check in from time to time as our grand adventure continues.

-Wayne