Telltales 65:

Telltales 70:

Terra Firma, after having lived on Sylphe for the last 6 years.

Marit has been forced to leave Sylphe a lot this summer, due to Rolands chartering activities. And than she basically becomes homeless. Not a good idea, so we decided to rent a house for the next two years and have a real "pied-a TERRA-FIRMA" for a change.

The physical location is the Greek island of Symi, just a little north-west of Rhodes, close under the Turkish mainland. The choice was not difficult after we had met the locals, seen the scenery of the island and the beauty of the houses. Symi is a small island that mostly lives from tourism. However, there are hardly hotels or accommodation on the island. And most tourists are day trippers, that arrive with the ferry in the morning and leave again in the evening. Rod Heikell correctly says in the Greek pilot book: "You can almost hear an audible sigh of relief, when the tourist leave at the end of the day" The village and island returns to its natural peace and quietness for the evening.

Finding a house was not that easy. First of all, all houses on Symi are small, and we wanted a place with three bedrooms !!!!!!, to receive some friends, if need be. The first house that we looked at, turned out to be the best, and we immediately fell in love with the place. Old style, Symi architecture, wooden floors, paneled ceilings and all the charms of an old house, including doors and windows that don't close completely.

Although Marit had seen some 10 houses, we had decided quite quickly, only to find out that the landlord had rented it out to someone else in the mean time. Oouughhhh, this resulted in one of those few occasions where Marit gets angry......not a pretty sight and the landlord quickly reversed his deal and the house was ours.

We came back to Symi by mid October, looked around, made our first friends on the island, had decided on a winter stop destination for Sylphe, as unfortunately Symi does not have a safe harbor for the winter gales. Thankfully the turkish mainland opposite has a great marina, only 15 miles away and this is where we dock Sylphe. (Marti Marina, www.martimarina.com)

The idea is to spend most of the time in the winter in the house, moving to Sylphe in the spring (or move Sylphe to Symi in the spring) for the varnish and maintenance. In the summer, when Roland charters, Marit has a base, to receive friends, family and others. Be welcome and visit.

Somewhere in the middle of this hill............basically behind the big green tree...one of the few on the island.

And the view from the balcony on the front is......

And there is even more space outside than just the balcony......a complete garden for the BBQ

And a shaded patio in the summer time in the back of the house

The problem was that we had all our furniture in storage in Holland. We had not seen it in 7 years (or in Marits case even longer), but we had it shipped to Symi in no time. However, we did not calculate on the fact that they would dump everything simply off the ferry.....and what about the 151 steps up tot he house???? Well that was sorted out with a smaller car and a local friend. So, all ended well

Settled in after three days of unpacking and seeing the most crazy stuff back again, of which we did not know that we even had it........

And of course in the summer time, Marit needs to be able to be on the water and explore the island, the beaches (most of them can not be reached by car or foot) so we boat another boat for her. A small winter project for Marit, where she can finally demonstrate her skills............

Ohhhhh, and if we are back on Sylphe.....THIS is the view from the boat, could be worse, couldn't it???

I guess, we will survive for a while again.......and don't be jaleaous, you could all have this, just a matter of choices......

Ahoy,

Marit and Roland

S/y SYLPHE