One if By Land Two If By Sea

Category: Travel 2025

  • Marcia 70th at Wakatobi

    Marica's 70th at Wakatobi

    How do you want to spend your birthday? “Snorkling a new area” Where? “Bernd told me about a place called Wakatobi” It’s on the other side of the world. “So!”

    While we are at it lets go to Singapore, then stop in Bali on the way…..that’s the way it happens.

    We started with a wonderful dinner with Howard and Sarah in San Francisco where we stayed overnight. Sarah is fully recovered and has become a skydiving instructor. Howard continues to split his time between Beijing and California….great kids.

    The next day it was on to Singapore. This is a city that undertakes bold projects with refined taste. A wonderful example of ‘enlightened monarchy’ without the monarch. The best example is the marina district with it waterfront, hotel, shopping, museum and spectacular garden. One outstanding building was the Atlas, a 30 story art deco with a spectacular lobby bar and restaurant. We stayed at the Park Royal Pickering with its hanging gardens.

    After a few days, it was time to move on to Bali, another new stop for both of us. Our first reaction was that the airport put those in the US to shame. We stayed at a beachfront hotel in the Seminyak area. Here was a several mile long beach with a walkway and a continuous string of vendors of surfing, cocktails and local food. Marcia walked around the city while Dan took it easy by the pool. We are sure there was lots more of the island to see, but we only had a couple of days.

    Next stop was our destination, the Wakatobi Dive Resort within the Wakatobi National Park. While the resort did not have exclusive rights to be in the park, we saw no other dive boats on the multitude of reefs within the Park.

    The resort itself was developed by a couple of Swiss brothers with no expense spared, yet fully committed to the using local resources and architectural style. The guest capacity was 70 and the staff numbered over 300. The result was a first class experience during our week at the resort.

    Marcia was off snorkeling multiple times a day either on the ‘house’ reef right off the resort or on one of the five dive boats that the resort built on the island. Take some time and look at her pictures of the reefs, fishes, and turtles.

    It was almost 24 hours of flight time to get back home, but a trip well worth traveling to the other side of the world.

    Marcia 70th trip 2025

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  • Italy Road Trip Sep 2025

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    Having cut the summer cruise short by a month, we decided to take a road trip and see more of Italy, particularly in the North.

    From Vibo we headed up the coast to Naples. While we had seen the city by water, it was time to explore on land. What a difference from the Naples of 25 years ago when Dan last visited. The highlight was clearly the Museum dedicated to the works from Pompii….what magnificent artistry.

    Crossing Italy, we moved up the east coast starting to Torano. Next stop was San Marino, a country within a country and still thriving. On to Bologna and Parma with a few day wandering around each of the delightful places.

    Brescia in the heart of gun manufacturing country was a pleasant surprise and worth the visit. Skirting north of Milan we started into the lakes region. Isola Bella on Lake Maggiore is an absolute gem. We drove up the east side of Maggiore then cut across the west side of Lake Como on route to St Moritz. St. Moritz turned out to be a disappointment in the off season with little open for business.

    On to Liechtenstein, a country of only 40,000 people, we stayed in the lovely capital of Vaduz. Liechtenstein has more companies registered there than there are people. With it’s international business and free trade zone, it is quite prosperous.

    We bypassed both Zurich and Bern having visited them on a prior road trip from Basel where we visited on True East in 2018. Our next stop was Grindelwald after traveling thru the Alps. Moving on to Great Saint Bernard Pass, we traced the steps of Hannibal and Napoleon on this route thru the Alps.

    Out of the Alps we passed thru the Aosta valley on route to Turin. While Turin is known as a car city, we found the Egyptian Museum to be the highlight. Our final stop on this 1,500 mile trek as Milan. This city is always a pleasure to visit for its culture, food and shopping.

    Once again it was back to Barcelona before heading home.

    Italy Road Trip Fall 2025

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  • TE Italy-South West Aug-Sep 2025

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    Returning from our aborted mid summer sojourn to Madeira and the Azores, we arranged for the boat to be launched at R Marine in Reggio. We immediately headed north to San Giovanni where we met Dan’s nephew Tony and his wife Julie. They had spent a couple of days in the area trying to track down some ancestry issues.

    Our next stop was Marina Carmello in Vibo. Before heading into port we decided to stop for a swim. While getting set up to anchor the boat, the port transmission locked in gear….oops. Once on the dock, mechanics from the marina inspected the situation and Dan consulted his experts in Norway, Greece and Florida. Conclusion was the gear box in that transmission would have to be replaced; however, we could still run the boat on one good engine.

    Not wanting to cut our adventure short, we decided to head out on that one good engine. On our way to Acropolis, we planned to anchor up for lunch and a swim….beautiful. Ready to move on, we were unable to raise the anchor. Thankfully, Tony was finally able to free the now bent up anchor….sure glad to have them aboard. The city of Agropolis features and enormous fortress, a massive marina and many fine restaurants.

    Continuing north, we decided to cut across the Gulf of Salerno directly to Capri. On the west side of Capri we found a fine spot to drop the hook and have lunch and a swim. Continuing on, we stopped at Positano. As there is no real port there, we picked up a mooring ball for the night. With all of the tour boats buzzing around and a moderate wind, staying on the boat overnight was untenable. A comfortable night in a hotel, great dinner and an a walking tour of this famous city. Cruising back east along the Amalfi coast we stopped at the small port of Cetara where Tony and Julie left us to continue their journey on to Pompii.

    At Cetera, we rented a car to drive the Amalfi coast over to Amalfi staying there overnight. Back in Cetera, Oriol and Tomas arrived from Barcelona to join us for a long weekend. We had anticipated a nice cruise back along the Amalfi coast, around Capri and over to Sorrento and on the other side of the peninsula. Instead we had a very rough trip to wonderful city of Sorrento. Given the weather, we took a ferry over to the island of Ischia for the day, renting a car for a tour of this great little island. The following day, the Barcelona boys left us and we took a day to relax.

    With Pompii less that 20 miles away, we decided to take a cab over and spent the night touring the ruins the following day. An amazing experience well worth the trip. We later read the book ‘Pompii’ by Robert Harris and visited the Museum at Naples…both highly recommended.

    Now we had to make a decision about there we were going to get the transmission replaced, a project we assumed would take the boat out of service for about a month. Go north or go back to Vino where we had met the mechanics. Returning to Vibo was about a 150 mile run and Dan decided that would be best and we would cut our cruise short and leave the boat there for the winter.

    TE Italy South West 2025

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  • TE Ionian Sea & Sicily 2025

    TE Ionian Sea and Sicily 2025

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    After a few days in Barcelona, we arrived in Corfu at the Gouvia Marina on May 9 and were greeted by our great winter crew, Ilias, Dimitries and David. Over the winter we continued with the 10+ year upgrade program with new interior upholstery, new solar panels and dozens of small fixes and tweaks.

    Leaving Corfu we made one more stop in Greece before heading over to Itlay. We had previously visited the island of Ereikoussa, with a population of about 500 souls. The waters here and on the adjacent island of Othonio are some of clearest we have ever seen. Unexpectedly, the marina was quite full; however, we found a spot.

    From Eikousa to the ‘stiletto heal’ of Italy is only about 60 miles. We got beautiful weather and having visited Otranto on a prior roadtrip, we decided to take a 170 nautical mile run to Cortone. This south coast of Italy along the sole of the boot is not very interesting. In four days we arrived in the Reggio Calabria area.

    We had expected to find several first class marinas in this area….what a surprise. In Porto Baler we found a small marina that had been built in the rustic style. We met the owner and it was clearly his design choice not due to a financial constraint. We rented a car here an headed up to Tropea, a classic hill top Italian town. While in the area, we made arrangements to store the boat during the latter part of July and early August at the only boatyard in the vicinity.

    We were now ready to start of circumnavigation of Sicily. We started on the east coast at Riposto. As is often the case, we like to leave the boat for a few days in a new area and explore the interior by car or train. From Riposto we took a train to the wonderful town of Taormina with its Roman ruins. Back on the boat we cruised to Catania, the major city in the region where Anna joined us. At Syracusa, more Roman ruins. Ragusa become our base where we returned several times.

    At Licata we rented a car and headed for Palermo where we dropped Anna at the airport returning to Licata by a different route. This gave us a good chance to see both the interior and the coast of the island. Returning to Ragusa, we took the ferry over to Malta. Malta is one enormous fortress sitting at the divide of the eastern and western Med. St John’s cathedral was one of the most embellished we have ever seen.

    Rounding the south west corner of the island we stopped at Marsala for a few days. Given the weather, we elected to take the ferry over to the island of Favigana. We also visited the ruins at Castelvetrano, amazing. On to Trapani with a side trip to the mountain town of Erice, what a ride.

    On to Palermo where we joined up with Steve and Tiffany. Cruising the north coast we spotted the hull of s/v Bayesian that sank off the town of Imerese. Cefalu was a great stop with crystal clear waters and a fine town. Soon we were back on the mainland at R Marine in Reggio Calabria where True East was hauled and stored for a month.

    TE Italy and Sicily 2025

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