New adventures

After I left Illusion + having been properly disillusioned by the Owners and zero progress in just about everything I resigned, handed over to my Chief Officer and went R&R to South Africa for a few weeks to clear my head. 

Ventum Maris in Valencia

Illusion Plus

26.12.2018 - 08.03.2019
14.06.2018 - 17.12.2018
m/y Illusion Plus

Illusion Plus

Joining again

Recently I was staying at my friends pad in Liguria, up in a medieval village of Montalto Ligure as I was doing rounds to the Riviera for various contacts looking for my next challenge. That aside my month was slowly coming to an end and one afternoon I was at the pad when I received an email out of the blue from China.

Yantai 200.000t mega crane and an oil-rig

Lady S

02.11.2017 - 02.12.2017
04.11.2016 - 05.01.2017

Captain
m/y Lady S

Lady S (courtesy by Burgess)

Moonlight II

29.08.2017-01.11.2017

02.03.2017-01.06.2017
p/v Moonlight II (ex. Alysia)

Moonlight II (courtesy of Yachtcharterfleet)

Hellenic day

This Sunday I decided with a few crew go see some hellenistic sites handpicked from the guide book.

Becin castle

Bodrum

Having settled into the Yalikavak marina we finally had a chance to take a few hours off and I decided to go to Bodrum to see the sights as I had never been there before. According to the guidebook the only places that have any value historically is the Bodrum castle and the Mausollus mausoleum.

Yalikavak marina

Doing a Ferretti

I received a phonecall about 2 weeks ago asking of I was interested to step in as Capt on a 25m Ferretti as the permanent Captain unfortunately had had a heart attack so I thought it would be ok to help out for a few days and said I was available. 

Local boats

Lichadonisia islands

Having heard about the Greek Seychelles I decided to go visit. The group of Islands are located on the NW corner of Evia. You can either drive on the mainland to Kamena Vourla and take a ferry over or drive through Evia and boat over. I decided to do it the hard way and drove through Evia to enjoy the scenery instead of the heavily trafficked boring highway (and tollways) up towards Thessaloniki. 

Lichadonisia

Road trip

As I signed off Moonlight II in Nice after the open day event and handover to the other Captain, I decided that instead of flying I'd be going to Greece by land. So I disembarked on a calm day and saw classic yachts at the Beaulieu anchorage.

s/s Delphine

s/y A

As we had finished our refit in Greece overhauling all machinery on Moonlight II we were fit for fight for a summer of charters and we set our heading for the French riviera. Our next stop was the open day display in Nice. It's a small event organized by ECPY with ML2 as the largest participant where we went in 1st and then the port was filled up with all other participants coming in size wise, kept 3-4 pilots busy for an afternoon.

s/y A

Suez

After having departed Dubai in good order for European summer we had finally arrived Suez, the ditch of decay and depravity in form of bureaucrats descending on you like the proverbial plague in search of bribes and presents. I have had a few unpleasant transits where the rot was so bad I have no words for it.

Some of the old wrecks trafficking these waters

Signing on p/v Moonlight II

After looking for my next gig after the temp on Lady S I was approached by Owners of Moonlight II to come and put together a dream team and get the boat charter ready for the summer things started moving very fast and on 1st March I was on a plane to London to get indoctrinated in the Burgess office.

Cunard house

SeaTALK

I was surfing the net and came across a site called Seatalk, It is a wonderful tool for those not so proficient in the english language wanting to get more familiar with seafaring terminology. Best of all it is free for anyone to use. I suggest to go to the FAQ section first or clicking the "how to use" video, as the website is not very straightforward to use.  Below is the excerpt from their homepage.

What is SeaTALK?

Training

After having stepped off Maryah in January I looked for new challenges but it appeared no one was stepping off or looking to employ Captain's. I ended turning down one offer as I was just about to board a plane for a course so that went as well. Then having been pretty much unemployed for most of 2016 I did my STCW Manila upgrading and renewed my license so I am good to go for the next 5 years.

Courtesy of The HR suite

Address to Haggis

I had the honor to be invited for Burns night at the British embassy and took opportunity to record the prayer to haggis that is customary to be done at every party when the haggis is brought in.

Donington Park - Download festival

Black Sabbath

Having been a fan since teenager it took me over 35yrs to finally see these guys live. I wish the weather had been a bit better but I spose this is the charm of open air festivals. Enjoy the pics below.

Video still to be uploaded

Maryah

24.09.2015 - 21.01.2016

31.07.2015 - 04.09.2015
13.05.2015 - 13.07.2015
08.08.2014 - 16.04.2015
31.01.2013 - 04.08.2014
21.08.2012 - 30.01.2013
m/y Maryah (ex Czar, Szczecinska B970/01, Fortune, Dalmorgeologiya) IMO no 9044619

M/y Maryah (photo by Manuel Hernandez via marinetraffic)

Montenegro

Maiden voyage with Maryah from Elefsina, Greece to Tivat, Montenegro to change registry from SOLAS passenger vessel to Private yacht (36p).

Rome

Pictures from my trip to Rome, pretty amazing city...

Marathon

Running, running and more running. Week in, week out. 5x per week running. The program that I was following was advised to by my running friend Alethea, see http://www.halhigdon.com/  . I started a bit late training so I had to cut off 3-4 weeks in the start so I literally hit the ground running. Wore out a pair trainers while training and managed to get a pair of new ones some weeks before the marathon day.

On the finishing

Marathon half-marathon

It has been a long time since I took up the proverbial "pencil" to put down some thoughts of mine. I guess the routine of doing the "captain's blog" after the many years on Kalizma sort of put me off blogging for awhile. It also did not help that I changed jobs and work on a confidential project, there is not much you can write about something that is confidential except that it is confidential.

Start of the race, picture compliments of the organizers

Kalizma

28.07.2023 - 24.08.2023

06.07.2012 - 20.08.2012
15.02.2012 - 14.03.2012
03.05.2011 - 29.05.2011
17.07.2010 - 19.12.2010
19.08.2009 - 29.05.2010
30.07.2009 - 07.08.2009
01.05.2008 - 28.06.2009
Captain
m/y Kalizma (ex. Minona, Cortynia, Odysseia)

Kalizma in Kuah Royal Langkawi yacht marina in 2008

Captain's blog July/ August 2012

So, my vacation was once again coming to an end. Unfortunately, this year the summer in Finland had yet to materialize so I had not enjoyed much of any warm weather although I had met a lot of old friends and a few new ones. Anyway, it was time to pack the 'ol trunk and get my arse to Helsinki to fly via Mumbai to Colombo.

Monitor lizard at Galle seafront