Quick Update

Billabong is still on the hard in Finike Turkey ( View Location).

We are on a whirlwind four month trip through the states to visit family in three different states ( View locations). It's a little crazy.. but it's been great to catch up with family. We are REALLY enjoying our visit to the states.. but it is such a contrast our past year of sailing and life in Turkey.

Speaking of which, we have updated our blog with all the Blurbs that we originally mapped (via email) during our trip across the Indian Ocean and up the Red Sea (77 updated posts). They are shorter than our usual blogs and just include a status update, with position, and sometimes a photo (also see our Blog Album Summary or our Egypt Land Tour Photos). They complete the story and fill in some of the blanks and may help cruisers following in our wake with anchorages and cool places to stop. We've also added labels to help search blogs by country or area, in addition to our archive (by date). With the Geoblogs on this Page map you can quickly see the locations we blogged about in each area or time frame.

It also helped us test some new functionality that we may release for BlurbBits. If you are interested in giving BlurbBits a try or starting your own blog.. give us a shout!!

More news .. soon!!

The last part of the Red Sea in the hardest, the wind doesn't want you to leave. Non-stop 20-30 knots right on the nose, with ridiculously step seas for the amount of fetch. We sailed in similar winds at the same angle for 1800 nm from the Marshall Islands to Fiji but those seas were open ocean swell and not the boat stoppers that the Red Sea dishes up. Check out the number of tacks.. it was work.. all day non-stop work!! All that to travel 30 miles.. what you cover in a half an hour on the freeway!!