We’ve been in Cyprus for 10 days and haven’t left the marina. 🙂 It’s all good. We decided to delay our sightseeing so we could get some things done on the boat. (Also, one of us <me> had some intestinal issues for several days, so we didn’t want to stray too far from the boat, if you get my drift.)

As noted in our previous post, we purchased, marked and installed our new anchor rode (80 meters of chain). We also replaced a bilge float switch, fixed a leak on the port side bilge, cleaned the inside and outside of the boat, purchased a water hose and nozzle so we can get potable water from the dock, gave our old anchor rode away, discovered that we need to order new switches for the starboard head, discovered that the port air conditioning/heating control board needs to be replaced, discovered that one of our speakers isn’t working (and ordered two new ones), made an effort to use up the food in the fridge/freezer, completed and documented an inventory of all spare parts and liquids we have on board and what we need to order, checked the brushes on the generator, organized the spare parts under the settee (for hopefully the third and last time), did four loads of laundry, started reaching out to marinas in Israel looking for a place to stay after we leave Cyprus, copied all of the pictures and videos from my phone to the laptop, trashed the yellow “jerry cans” as we won’t need them anymore, lined the remaining shelves in the galley with non slip material, pumped the oil out of the port engine compartment for the fourth (?) time (we have to run the port engine when we come into a marina for maneuverability and it sprays oil the entire time), and had two actual Yanmar mechanics look at the port engine. It hasn’t been all work and no play, of course, and we are very pleased with what we got done.

In case you are wondering, the fun has included several visits to the marina’s Christmas Village, almost daily visits to the chandlery (yes, I count this as fun), watching six Christmas movies plus other movies (we download them to our laptop), enjoying a couple of downpours (love the rain!), reading, listening to Christmas (and other) music, checking out the marina’s two beaches (too cold to swim, though!), exercising, doing crossword puzzles, playing soltaire, playing cribbage, and just hanging out together. We also met a few other sailors and a couple of the folks who work on the boats here.

We will be heading to the US today for 3.5 weeks of family/friends time. Ayia Napa Marina is a very safe place to leave our boat. We will be disconnecting Seahike from shore power while we are away, which is why we want to use up our food requiring cooling or freezing before we leave.

I want to share a funny thing that happened yesterday. Our water tanks ran out of water a few days ago. Michael informed me that he added just enough water for each of us to take a shower and get us through a couple of days and leave both tanks pretty empty while we were away. I reminded him that I was going to take a “real” shower, one where I shampoo my hair two times (because it gets so dirty between washes), condition it, and wash my body. He took his shower yesterday then left to go to the administrative office. I didn’t bother to check the level of the water in the tank – I just hopped into the shower. (You see where this is going, right?) I’d completed my shampooing and was part of the way through rinsing the soap from my body when the water pressure started to . . . die. I think I said something like, “Oh no, don’t do that.” The water stopped entirely. Michael wasn’t back, so I donned a bath towel and went to the bow of the boat to check the water tank. I couldn’t open the lid so I went back inside (taking a big step out of the compartment where the water tank is located), got the channel locks and opened the lid. Empty, of course. The water hose was conveniently sitting right there! I pushed the sprayer handle. Nothing. So I took another big step out of the compartment and got off of the boat to turn on the water at the source at the dock. I then added more than enough water to finish my shower.

It was actually quite amusing and I don’t think anyone was around. If they were, they had the rare (I assume it’s rare!) opportunity, privilege, horror – trying to find the right word here – of seeing a senior citizen running around in a bath towel and nothing else. 🙂 🙂 🙂

We went out to eat last night – the first night since we have been trying to use up our food. The English translation of the restaurant’s name is Blue Dream. That is perfect for bluewater sailors!

As we left the restaurant we strolled down to the Christmas Village and were delighted to see that there was a dance show backed up by Christmas music. There were dancers of all ages. They were all very good! Here are some pictures. More than you probably want to see, but I wanted to give you an idea of the breadth of the show.

We will leave you with a bunch of pictures of this beautiful marina as well as views from my runs. We wish you all the happiest of holidays this holiday season!! We might post a few of our landlocked adventures over the next three weeks.

And now for a couple of cleaning/repairing pictures.

And now some pictures of the marina.