Despite whiplash, bunnies and 2 real bitches we are again back on Tiercel and in the Aegean Sea. This is an opportunity for a 4 week break to work on the boat and enjoy some sailing. However, it is possibly worth a brief look back at our last few weeks in Scotland to set the scene for our journey.

Our trip here started in a wet, cold and windy Tarbert . We travelled to a wetter, colder and windier Dunfermline to leave our car with our son Will. Shortly after our arrival he appeared and took us out to a meal at the delightful Garvock House as a treat and reward for looking after his bunny hunters – 2 delightful lurcher bitches who like nothing better than dis-embowelling and eating raw bunny, on the hoof – Beatrix Potter this ain't.

Caol Na Mara, our house in Tarbert, is surrounded by jolly wee rabbits who like nothing better than winding up dogs by hopping around muttering about what wonderful sex lives they have compared to the mutts, and other such lapine wind ups. As a result the dogs were on aggressive bunny alert from the moment they arrived.

In Tarbert the fishermen regard rabbits as extremely unlucky and will not mention their names but call them "long eared wee bastards" or “underground racehorses”. Bear this in mind!

On the day before we left Gina was walking the dogs, on the lead, in the woods by the house, when one of the long eared wee bastards leapt out in front of them, took off like an underground racehorse, causing the dogs to fly off like supercharged drag racers . Gina got wrapped round a tree, took a tumble,banged her head and got an unpleasant whiplash injury to her neck. You could hear the sound of, less than discreet, bunny laughter, for days afterwards.

A month or so prior to this Rob, for no apparent reason, other than possibly his own curiosity, fell 10 feet backwards out of the attic, broke a rib and punctured a lung. Thus, when we left, we were not at peak fitness.

After leaving Will we headed to Edinburgh airport, caught the flight to Heathrow and then got the 21.00 flight to Athens which arrived on time at 02.30 on Wednesday morning. Now all we had to do was hang around waiting for our flight at 08.55 in the morning. We found tolerably uncomfortable seats and settled down for a long wait.

At about 05.00 we met a Brit woman who was importing a mini moke into Greece and was having some trouble getting the Greek Customs service to let her into the country so we helped her fill in the registration forms and were chatting merrily away . At about 05.30 Rob, whose back was giving him problems, wandered up to the departure area to check on the flights. To his amazement he was told that the flight was leaving in 10 minutes (i.e. 3 hours early) and we missed it. The ticket clerk told him that Olympic airlines had informed us by e-mail of the changes. We later discovered that this was while we were actually travelling!

As a result we had to re-organise ourselves to get the ferry from Piraeus, an hour’s bus drive from the airport. We got there at about 08.00 and our ferry left at 19.00 so we decided to find a hotel and rent a room for the day.

In any port, it is common practice for people to rent a room for the day, or even by the hour, but not necessarily to sleep, if you catch my drift. We tried a couple of seriously seedy hotels that wanted to charge us premium nooky rate (but would that guarantee premium nooky?), but eventually found a pleasant wee hotel that was happy to charge us half the night rate . Subsequently we slept sweet dreams till time to leave for our ferry.

This was just as well because the, unexpectedly long, 2 mile walk to the ferry was a bloody nightmare. Carrying heavy bags through the docks till we reached our ferry was a tad painful given our various ailments. However we settled into our 'couchettes’ and had an agreeable journey.

However, on our arrival at the yard at 03.15, despite our instructions to the yard, the boat was securely locked and the office well closed. Luckily Bob, the yard manager, woke up and after trying bolt cutters and hacksaw, eventually cut the padlock with an angle grinder and got us aboard at 05.30.

We slept the sleep of the just and innocent until 10.00 on Thursday morning and woke to a warm sunny day with the impossibly blue Lakki Bay glistening its welcome.

Since then we have been enjoying the large yellow thing in the sky (it has pissed down for the last 2 months in Scotland) and the general feeling of well-being that a little sunshine can bring .

After doing various jobs on the boat we launched Tiercel on Saturday without a hitch. The engine, after a 12 month lay-up, started instantly – bloody brilliant!

We continued to work on Tiercel all day on Sunday and Monday. It was good to be back among the liveaboard community. We met a Dutchman call Rij on the boat ‘Oxy Genius’ who knew Peter and Kaye from our sister ship ‘Wild Thyme’. Then on Monday we met up with Steve, Anna and their two kids (double the number they had when we last met) who we hadn’t seen for a couple of years when we were all gale bound in Ermoupolis on the island of Syros. Naturally we invited them across for a drink. Just prior to them appearing ‘Caladh’ slid into the berth next door to us with Richard and June having just finished their cruising season who, likewise, hadn’t met up with Steve, Anna and family for some time. As a result a memorable get together ensued.

The following morning at the crack of 8 we left to sail the 30 miles to Kos . Richard helped us to get out of our berth but we still managed to get a rope round the rudder. However, this sorted itself out and, as we left Richard shouted “You’re on your own now” – cheeky sod.

The sail out of the spectacular entrance to Lakki Bay, through the tricky(ish) passage among the tiny Velona Isles was conducted with quite strong winds hammering off of Leros. The wind continued to hold up well as we sailed along the bleak, rugged and mountainous coast of the Island of Kalymnos, past the wee goat island of Pserimos (where a few taverna owners make a living from the day trip boats) and the windy passage between it and Kos. Here we had an amusing half hour or so surfing down the waves created by the converging winds and currents in this narrow channel. At one point the log showed us at 11 knots!! Needless to say we haven’t required the use of a laxative since we arrived on Kos!

On arrival at the wonderful Kos Marina (if Carlsberg made marinas then they would probably be like this) we were met by the pilot boatman who escorted us to our berth, assisted us to tie up and greeted us like old friends. Then, to cap it all, we discovered that they are still charging the same price (20 euros) that they were in 2007 when we first sailed in here – remarkable.