Now that we’re in the Aegean and enjoying northern Meltemi winds, it’s screen cleaning day. Turkey and the Dodocanese Greek islands had Scirrocos, which are hot, dry winds from Africa. One morning in Kaş, at about 5:30 am, Rand and I were outside on deck and couldn’t believe the temperature. Strangely, it was much hotter outside than in our unairconditioned cabin inside. The air felt like the inside of an oven, insufferably hot and dry. Even more strangely, within a half hour, the winds shifted from south to north, and the temperature dropped at least 20 degrees.

Brown before

Clean white screen after

Believe it or not, the worst part of the African Scirrocos isn’t the heat, but the dust. The dust is brown and gets into everything. The Sahara desert is literally carried the width of the Mediterranean and drops on Turkey’s Lycian Coast.

So after leaving Scirroco-ville, we had to clean not just the topside of GG, but our screens as well. They largely caught the dust and kept it from coming inside, but they had become brown too.

Now they’re back to being white…until we sail to Morocco and the Canaries and Cabo Verde Islands where we will likely pick up some of the Western Sahara.