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Limerence Update #72April 2006Winter in USA and Back to Corfu GreeceIt was still hot and sunny at the end of October when we toured Athens for three days on our way back to the States. We were looking forward to seeing this ancient place. Athens has been a city for 3,500 years but its greatest glory was during the Classical period of Ancient Greece from which so many artifacts still exist. The 5th century BC was an especially golden time when Perikles oversaw the building of the Acropolis which is the most recognizable symbol of Greece. In 1834, Athens became the capital of Greece. After many years of political turmoil and military dictatorship ending in 1974, Greece is now an established democracy and since 1981, a member of the European Union.
The Parthenon temple was begun in 447 BC and built to house the 40 foot high statue of Athena sculpted by Pheidias. Over the centuries the Parthenon has been used as a church, a mosque and an arsenal, suffering damage from explosions, pollution, and earthquakes. The crumbling columns are now being meticulously disassembled and reconstructed on site to preserve them. It was fascinating to see craftsmen working with similar tools that originally carved the pediments several thousand years ago. Since we visited late in the season, there weren’t many tourists and we could enjoy the place in relative peace and quiet. We met an elderly Greek archaeologist who was sitting alone contemplating the view. After overhearing our conversation and interest in the history of Greece he began to chat. He passionately talked to us for thirty minutes about the value of this magical place. That was a nice experience that just happens as a surprise.
After our tour of Athens, we were off to the USA! Our main objective after visiting our families was for Judy to have double knee replacement surgery. We rented an apartment on Pawleys Island in South Carolina, which is both convenient to Judy’s Mom, Doris, and in the neighborhood of Judy’s orthopedic surgeon. We first heard of Dr. Wright Skinner because he has done surgery on Doris for rotator cuff and hip replacement. Highly regarded in the field of knee replacement, we visited with Skinner in 2004 and after x-rays he determined that Judy was indeed a candidate for double knee replacement. The cartilage had almost completely deteriorated causing severe knee pain. The knee replacement that Dr. Skinner uses is the second generation Zimmer knee which is less invasive surgery with a smaller incision and faster recovery time. The first operation happened on December 6th, and the second one was February 9th.
After securing our apartment and before Thanksgiving, we drove to Melbourne Florida to attend the annual meeting of Seven Seas Cruising Association. That organization provides support and information to thousands of cruising sailors around the world. We have been active since joining in the mid-nineties. It was fun to attend the three day meeting and see several old friends we met cruising in the Caribbean. Our pals from "Majestic" and "Precept" whom we first met in Roma Italy also attended. After that, we crossed the State of Florida and spent a couple of days with our son Jason, his wife Debra, and little granddaughter, Kailey. We returned again to Jason’s for Christmas and brought Mother along! Our son Scott Allen and his wife Barbara, and grandson Nicholas came for the week from Milwaukee. Barb’s parents from Apollo Beach Florida, Margo and Jerry Warner and son Jeremy, also joined the party. Jason and Deb hosted a memorable Florida Christmas with palm trees decorated with twinkling lights.
By the way. . . both our daughters in law were pregnant! Debra later had Lawson on March 1, and Barbara had Brady on March 14th! What a thrill to become grandparents again, twice over! An interesting fact is that Barb is an identical twin, and her sister Nancy had a baby boy on April 3 – two weeks after Barb’s. Lots of baby boys this year in our family!
Right after Christmas Doug’s son, Jake Decker came to visit from Columbus Ohio. Jake is the Director of Flight Standards for NetJets – a time share airline company. Doug and Jake enjoyed plenty of "hangar" flying which means talking non-stop about flying. We weren’t able to see Drew Decker, Doug’s son who lives and works in San Diego. We promised to connect next year!
During the winter we loved spending time with Mother who is a well known artist. Judy’s sister Dianne surprised us all with a visit for Thanksgiving. Dianne works as art director for Town and Country magazine in Manhattan and lives with her partner Peter. While Judy was occupied with physical therapy and playing with Mom, Doug networked and participated in several men’s organizations, and did his bi-annual flight review and renewed his medical certificate. Over the winter, he flew a couple of times out of the Georgetown airport. Doug loves flying and dreamily reads aviation magazines and longs for his own plane. Our time passed quickly and since we like the Pawleys Island-Georgetown area so much, we casually started looking at homes, lots, and plantation subdivisions. We intended to consider a place in 2007. Now you can guess what happened next.
Since we have been homeless for eight years, we needed furniture for our new house. North Carolina is where 60% of the furniture is manufactured in the USA. Friends told us to check it out. They promised that we would have a huge selection at prices the local stores couldn’t match. We "Googled" furniture shopping and found a book called "How to Shop the North Carolina Furniture Markets". Using that as a reference, we booked an appointment with designer, Dale Schmidlin from Rose Furniture in High Point NC. Armed with house plans, magazine pictures and a strategy for each room, we met with Dale for four days as we systematically bought a house full of furniture. It was a mind-boggling experience. We felt huge anxiety doing more shopping in a few days than we had done in twenty years! Almost all the furniture is being custom made over the summer and will be warehoused until we order it delivered next fall. It’s nearly the end of April and we are back on board Limerence in Corfu Greece. We have completed a bunch of boat jobs and will be ready to start traveling in May. Judy’s knees continue to improve daily as she rides her bike and moves about on the boat. The Greek Orthodox Church Easter celebration is on the 23rd. These festivities are the most important of the Greek year, and something we’ll be fortunate to witness. It’s still cool here at night as the weather slowly mellows into spring. We are planning our sailing route from Corfu through the Corinth Canal and the Greek Islands, expecting to get to the Turkish coast by July. Our next update will be about that journey. Fair winds friends, Judy and Doug
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We arrived in Athens after a quick flight
from Corfu and checked our heavy bags into long term storage at the airport. We jumped on
the modern train-subway (built for the Olympics) and in thirty minutes were in central
Athens. Even though Athens is a gigantic sprawling city, the sight of the Acropolis
towering over it stirs the imagination! Our hotel balcony had a lovely view of the
Parthenon gleaming white against the rich blue sky. Hiking up to the Acropolis was the
first thing on our list. Judy shuddered to think of the pressure on her knees, but walked
slowly resting along the way, and made it to the top! The Acropolis consists of three
contrasting temples and a monumental gateway. The Roman style theatre of Herodes Atticus
was originally built in AD 161 and sits just below the Parthenon. We giggled and imagined
the Roman masons building the theatre and looking up at the Parthenon and commenting,
"Geez, Lorenzo. That temple up there sure is old". 
Visiting the National Archaeological Museum
would have been more enriching had there been a museum guide or map printed in English,
but nothing was available that day to help us understand what we were seeing! We had
"Eyewitness" series guide books with us that highlighted some of the most
popular exhibits. The death mask of Agamemnon found at Mycenae was thought to have
belonged to the legendary king and dates from c.1500 BC. It was strangely compelling as
were the Kouros statues. The highly stylized Kouros derived from Egyptian art and first
sculpted in the mid-seventh century BC are mesmerizing. The naked male statues are Kouros
and the clothed female counterparts are called Korai. After touring the museum we enjoyed
strolling through the Monastiraki neighborhood with markets and stalls selling everything
from junk to jewelry. We love to get the "buzz" that only can be experienced by
mingling with the local vendors and shopping crowd. We resisted the desire to buy a small
marble reproduction of the Acropolis.
Since we moved aboard Limerence in April of
1998, this boat has been our primary home. It is time to consider having a home base in
addition to our sail boat and we wanted to be close to Mother. Black magic isn’t real
is it? We stumbled upon our definition of a perfect home and bought it on the spot!
It’s in Heritage Plantation on Pawleys Island on a lovely wooded lot on the golf
course, and only a few blocks from a 60 slip deep water marina on the ICW-Waccamaw River.
Of course we’ll eventually buy a power boat to explore the Intracoastal Waterway. The
reason we think this decision may be black magic, is that the seller of our home asked if
they could rent it from us for six months while they build a home in Hilton Head! The
timing was perfect, as we intend to spend the summer sailing our boat to Turkey. We
couldn’t be happier with our decision. Now we have a place to return to in the
"off sailing season". The Mediterranean gets real cold and blustery in the
winter. Besides, we need to see our families and our grand children!