Introducing me and The Yin Yang Concept – Paros Sailing Experiences, how it started

This is the first article on this blog and actually my own first entry in a blog as well. The idea for this blog came from my cooperating associate George Tsiros, an idea that was immediately adopted and embraced.

From times to times I have been following few blogs either from curiosity, others by being interested on the content or even some that happened to personally know the person behind it. Whatever the case, I came to conclude that this is a nice way to share content, ideas and other relevant stuff, moreover I liked the idea of a more open and less regulated communicating channel where people can express themselves easier.

Hence when we started discussing with George the setup of the Yin Yang Concept -Paros sailing experiences website and our respective presence in social media in general, he mentioned that himself had his own blog where he is writing about things that satisfy him and dropped the idea, why not yourself as well?

So as I have a tendency to say yes to challenging proposals I replied immediately that this was cool and loved the idea, even before he ever finished the justification of the benefits of such a thing. Making the long story short, here we are with the Yin Yang Concept blog where I intend to share with you lots of stuff that I hope will make it interesting for you as they are for me.

The Yin Yang concept can be named as my third child whereas I have to admit that I love it almost equally to my 2 spectacular daughters, Ariadne and Lydia. It might sound odd for a professional seaman to declare that he cannot be far away from the sea even in his leave time, however this has always been the case for me and being sincere without apparent explanation. It might have been that I was raised up by the sea and vessels of all types were present in my everyday eye view, nevertheless since I can recall myself from my early childhood I was feeling an endless attraction for sea, ships and travelling. Fishing with my grandfather in Paros and sailing with dingy boats in Syros up to the end of my teenage years was the norm, progressing forward after school years I moved to merchant marine and started my professional deck officer career.

From Ships to my own Yacht

The strange thing is that even I was spending the most of my years at sea onboard ships, I still needed another gateway towards the sea –like if I was missing it- so the idea of having my own boat was always there. From times to times I came closer to acquiring a sailing yacht for pleasure, but funding was always the case as I had to often maintain 2 homes while simultaneously I started building my own in Paros Island.

Adult life cannot be but challenging for all of us and I was not the exception on this, hence after various adventures and more than a decade of permanent residency in Athens – that I never managed to see as attractive the least –I finally ended where I always wanted to permanently be based, Paros Cyclades Greece.

Actually the cruise director onboard the last ship under my command, introduced me as Captain Nikos Chalaris, a resident of the sea based in Paros Island Greece.

The Yin Yang was not supposed to be the case for the time as before I ever saw her for sale in internet, I had formed a company with two close friends and colleagues aiming to acquire a traditional wooden commercial yacht for starting our own little business. This did not come to be materialised and despite the disappointment and financial damage, I did not stop to think of having my own boat either for business or pleasure. I will not hide that my deepest desire for all my adult life was to live aboard my own sailing yacht and sail around the globe.

In summer 2018 my life eventually came to a point where existing path had come to a point of inevitable alteration hence an avalanche commenced to form in the passage of a warm Mediterranean summer. This caused drastical changes that proved life changing where after few months I found myself onboard a ship and looking for a new base to nest. One evening without much of thought and out of the blue, the idea of the ever wanted yacht came to my mind and without much of second thought I opened a Greek webpage where sailing yachts were listed for sale.

The Yin Yang Sailing Yacht

The Yin Yang was the second one I saw and this was it, I did not look for another one, by looking at her I knew this was that I was looking for. It cannot be but weird that by that time I was in Spain, the boat was wintering in Rhodes Greece but her owner that answered the Greek mob number, proved to be a Spanish!

While we came in contact and agreed to see the yacht after 2 months that I would end my contract on the cruise ship, I was surprised to find out that the Yin Yang had a commercial licence to operate as such and was actually executing daily sailing trips in Rhodes for the last 3 years. Her owners by then used to reside on her for the last 11 years, since 2008 that totally renovated her and my initial idea was to acquire her for my own residence.

Until I managed to first time inspect her in Rhodes by February 2019, I had already shaped a concept inside my head that would combine my endless will to return to my homeland while remaining at sea but not anymore working on merchant ships, and managing to make my living out of all available resources. This along with many other developments that occurred in the meantime drove me almost as hypnotised towards the Yin Yang.

The story is long and has lot of content, for the time being however I will end it here declaring happily that the Concept is alive and getting shape.

More of content to be shared in due time, for now thank you for reading all this up to here and happy to share this experience among many others with you.

Cheers