Already 10 years and some learnings (July 2014- Octobre 2024)

This year is a symbolic year, as we were going to celebrate in July our 10 years on board of  Terus. We are really surprised to see how quickly time has passed. Our journey started in July  2014 when we boarded Terus for the first time in the marina of La Rochelle in France. Today we  are in Greece, close to the Turkish border. During the 10 years, we sailed 16,760 nautical miles  (31,000 km), or 70% of the circumference of the earth. We sailed in numerous countries, such as  France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Malta, Greece and Turkey, and visited numerous places and cities  inside the various countries, such as Rome, Barcelona, Florence, Athens and Istanbul. Some of  the places are  very crowded in the summer months, but we could avoid the crowds in most cases  by going early to    the museums and historical sites. From all those countries and places, we have a preference for  Greece, as it has numerous islands and offers so much variety. Greece also has plenty of places  where you can anchor for free or at a low price, which makes for significant savings compared to  other countries. We did encounter one technical problem with Terus with the gearbox. This  problem forced us to stay for an interval of 2 weeks in the marina, but luckily we saw the  problem coming so we could go to a good harbor where qualified people were available.  Experienced sailors will tell you that a good sailboat is a boat with a good engine, and this is  really true in the Med. We discovered that the Mediterranean Sea is often too windy or not  enough. In Greece, you frequently experience during the summer months a strong northerly wind  called the Meltemi which can last for several days, sometimes up to 10 days in a row. After the  Meltemi you have a few days of calm winds, and you use the engine to move to the next shelter.  We recommend you also invest in a good anchor to make sure the anchor is holding, and you can  sleep knowing that the anchor is holding. We recommend anchors that have most of the weight  forward on them, such as Rocnas or Spade. If you drop them on a sandy bottom, they will often  get fixed on the first attempt.  One of the pleasures of sailing are the encounters you make, which allow us to exchange  feedback on the places visited or futures destinations. We established contacts with people  from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, France, Germany, Belgium and English people who still  complain about Brexit.  One disappointment is that we did not catch a lot of fish, and this is particularly true East of  Sicily. The watermaker is also equipment that we used a lot. Several islands in Greece have an  issue with water that they try to solve with water makers, but they need to be maintained, which  is sometimes not the case. In several places, the water is salty and only good for sanitary  purposes. On Terus the watermaker allows us to make our own water that is of very good quality.  Also, when you have visitors on board, the 300 liters of the main water tank are rapidly  consumed. The watermaker allows you to stay outside the harbors as you do not need to refill the  tanks. The solar panels were also very useful, as they produced the power needed for the boat.  We could even make hot water with the solar energy, allowing us to enjoy a shower at the end of  the day.  In the Med it is very important to check constantly the wheather forcast. We used an app  Ventusky for the long range forcast, up to 10 days, in practise we found it reliable for the  forcast 5-6 days ahead. Wheather4D is another app we used but this one was more for the  wheather 3 days ahead as it was more detailed.  A special mention goes to the app Navily which is a very practical companion to find a mooring and  know how comfortable the mooring will be for the upcoming days. I would say Navily is an  essential tool for navigation, and besides the mooring information, you can also make reservations  at affiliated marinas ahead of your arrival.  To summarise I can say that we had in those 10 years a fantastic time with Terus and we look  forward to the upcomming seasons. There are still so many places to discover and I hope the  winter will soon be over.