Turkish Delight
Friday 27th May...
Dean - We left the Greek island of Kalymnos this morning. A little later than planned, as the alarm failed to go off! There was a small cruise ship just coming in with a tug as we left, typical.
Tug and cruise ship
On our way
Different scenery
Guess where?
Thesee crosses over to Turkish waters
Turkish coast guard
We had to employ an agent to officially enter Turkey. We had to go onto the customs quay to book in, passport control, customs and port police. All quite easy with the agents help. Then through duty free of course.
Meeting Phil and Ersun
Bodrum castle
Once we had filled up we moved to the anchorage the other side of the castle, It was quite choppy and a little windy but there were loads of boats in the anchorage so we decided to stay for the night. It calmed down about 8pm so we took the dinghy round to the marina to catch up with Cristina and Phil. It was dark by the time we got back to Thesee. And then.....
OMG..WTF.. the noise was horrendous. Obviously everybody here in turkey is deaf. The noise from the disco's, clubs, bars and all went on till 3.30am and was extremely loud. It was just a noise, not music.
Saturday 28th May....
Dean - We were up early this morning, obviously and we got the hell out of Badrum! never again....ever.
Bodrum castle
We motored just a short way south east to the next headland and anchored in a nice little bay called Aspat. Quite touristy but also quiet. It was just off the village called Akyarlar.
Our new anchorage
Trying a new position for my anchor ball
Luxury beach chairs/beds, and hula grass shading
Some of the views
Phil and Cristina arrive
Just after we dropped anchor a chap turned up in a little yellow dinghy and asked if we wanted to eat dinner at his restaurant. Why not! We rowed our dinghy ashore after lunch and booked a table with him. Phil and Cristina came over for drinks and the chap picked us up in the yellow dinghy ready for dinner.
Yellow dinghy chap
Girls
Boys and Girls
Our bottle of wine
Starters
The waiter showed us all the food available rather than bring a menu, there was a lot to choose from and it was really very nice. Just while we were eating of course a local cat turned up looking for scraps, and then a local (big) dog. Then a massive commotion of cats running dogs barking and waiters running! A huge (really very big) wild boar running down the beach with a couple of dogs in hot pursuit, Yikes! sorry no photo. Bit of a headache this morning!
Sunday 29th May...
Linda - It was an early start to the day as we weighed anchor at 7am. A short 15 miles (3 hours) north to Yalikavak to hide from some southerly winds due around 11am for the rest of the day. We've decided to go north for a week or so with Phil and Cris on Bora La, before turning southwards and continuing our slow journey to Finike. We've got two months to spare, but plenty of anchorages to laze about in on the way.
The anchorage at Yalikavak is deeper than we like but it's our best option for today. We had to anchor in 18 metres depth with 80 metres of chain out. Normally we like to be in about 5 or 6 metres depth, so quite a difference.
As we approached the anchorage there was a motor boat with his anchor stuck, as he raised it he brought up someone else's anchor also! It was quite shocking to see, the whole episode going on for about half an hour, long after we had anchored ourselves. To top it off he then reversed over his own dinghy and his engine chopped off the painter line, the dinghy went AWOL, and he had the other end of the line wrapped around his own propellor. He was certainly having a very bad day. Eventually all got sorted and the poor guy who was the 'victim' of all this had to re-anchor himself and reverse back onto the quay again.
Looking over to the marina, posh boats in there
Towards the fishing harbour
... and the beach
The two boats with an anchor headache
More shoreline ahead of us
Like I said, we had chosen this spot to hide from today's wind and swell. OMG the wind was so much worse than forecast, we reckon gusting over 30 knots. It's been going on all afternoon. Hence we don't leave the boat when it's like this. The good thing is though, that the anchor has held solid and we've just swivelled to and fro in a small semi-circle on our anchor watch app. Hope we can get ashore tomorrow to see what's here.
Our anchor watch app screen on the ipad
Our anchor is shown in the middle of the circle, and the squiggle on the top left is the track we have made whilst being here at anchor. If our anchor should drag and we go outside of the red area an alarm goes off to 'let us know' we've got a problem. We leave it on all night, just incase.
Monday 30th May...
Linda - The wind must have abated during the night as we slept well. It's too hot for the duvet so we just sleep under the empty cover, which also acts as a mozzie protector. It was a lovely morning and the four of us went ashore for coffee, bacon and eggs, in a restaurant with amazing table decorations....and tablecloths of course.
The amazing table decorations.
Thesee and Bora La in the background
...and lights
Nextdoor looks nice too
Afterwards, we walked along the quay and miraculously ended up at guess where? The Chandlery. But it was a good one and Dean at last found the 8 plait line he has spent an eternity looking for. Meanwhile, Cris and I went to the supermarket. We got bacon! The town is lovely, very upmarket and busy. It appears that the marina here is quite posh...and expensive. There were a lot of security guards around and even to get to the supermarket we had to walk through body scanners (like in an airport).
Dean also bought what looked like a draught excluder. He tells me that it's for soaking up diesel. Back on board he got the sewing machine out and split it into four pieces. How clever is Mr C? If you remember a few weeks ago we had a small diesel leak from the tank. Well, the leak is fixed but we are still getting diesel dribbles finding their way into the bilges. Now we can soak it up with the super duper diesel bunding, instead of using tissues.
3 of the 4 new pieces of diesel bunding
(the 4th one is collecting diesel) 😄
Showing off his 8 plait line
(and his 6 pack?)
Close up of the 8 plait
Even more detail
The 8 plait has been turned into our new snubber line. It now reaches back to the second cleat and therefore is longer, giving more stretch to make it more flexible and stop the line snatching when we are at anchor. I can't find an easier explanation than that.
The new snubber line tonight
...and on the port side
We have another new location tonight, just about 1 mile across the bay to a small anchorage called Bahce Koyu. There are about 6 other boat with us. We've all tucked in here because tomorrow we have north westerlies.
The new anchorage and swimming area
Nice and peaceful for the moment
Linda - We are having issues connecting to the internet, which is why I am actually writing this on Thursday! It might be a bit hit and miss until we can get it sorted out.
So Tuesday was the last day of the month. You know what that means? Monthly maintenance time. We stayed on board in our anchorage doing the jobs and having a clean up. We've added another job to the monthly maintenance spreadsheet....... Human maintenance! We check our blood pressure with our new machine which we brought back from the UK with us.
The first time I've ever had my
blood pressure taken wearing sunglasses
After the jobs were done, we sat around watching the goings on throughout the day. It's a nice anchorage but nothing here apart from a small bar and a posh beach club..... and some cows keeping cool under the trees. Phil and Cris invited us for dinner on Bora La....it was delicious, as always.
Wednesday 1st June...
Linda - I've been waking up before Dean and it's lovely to sit in the cockpit just as the sun rises. The mornings are calm, just the way I like it. Being up so early, at 8.30am we went ashore for a short walk and look about. We asked if we were allowed to go into the beach club bar, but they want the equivalent of £20 just to go in the resort. We ended up in the small slightly run down bar with Phil and Cris. Well it's cheap so we were happy.
Walkies to another bay
The posh beach club
Thesee's anchorage
Some boats tied to shore a long way out
Where the cows were
Phil and Cris dinghying back from the beach
Dean noticed that his new snubber line had been catching on the small outlet which lets water run out of the anchor locker. The line had started chafing. Action needed. He decided to glue some rubber on the rough edges of the small outlet. We'll monitor this to see if it fixes the problem, or see if the rubber falls off.
Affixing rubber
In Turkey you are not allowed to empty 'black' water into the sea, if you know what I mean. So they have what we call a 'Poo Boat', which comes around the anchorages and pumps out your holding tanks. This has to be done about every 15 days. The boat comes around the anchorages peeping his horn quite discreetly and you just flag him down if you're in need of its services.
Phil took advantage. It'll be us next time.
Staying on the subject, Dean decided to have a go at checking ours. He's never been able to open them, even though he made a special tool some years ago. Today he was DETERMINED. This was no longer going to beat him. He used the hairdryer to warm around the inspection port, whilst at the same time holding a bag of ice cubes on the inspection port itself. Also using silicon spray to protect the seal. Grit and determination finally paid off and he got to look inside. Too much information??
Thursday 2nd June...
Linda - We've moved on 15 miles north and east around the headland and into a place called Torba. I like to call it Torbay. It's very nice and the protection is good it seems. It's obvious that it's a big holiday resort. Still quiet though and very nice to look at. Across the bay on the hill we can see a massive water park with a huge fairground wheel and a fairy castle.
On the way, passing 'wreck rock'!
Keep clear
Fabulous mansions on the hillsides
... and rock formations
Beautiful
View from Thesee in Torba
Linda - OMG and Quadruple OMG. Last night at 9.30pm until midnight we were subjected to a major squall. We had been watching a lightning storm going on inland for an hour or so, but didn't think much of it as it was on the mountains. We had even left the dinghy (with outboard motor) in the water. Around 9.30pm the wind picked up and the waves it created were huge, and started bouncing us forward and backwards with enough force to make the back of the boat slam on the water violently with every to and fro. I honestly could barely look out the window to watch. I just kept staring at the lightning on the hills, but now and again a high wave would come past the window!
The waves were virtually breaking on the windows of the restaurants as the wind whisped them along the shore. This went on for two and a half hours. Dean kept watch in and outside. To top it all we had left the dinghy in the water at the back of Thesee. Ridiculously, we hardly ever leave the dinghy in the water overnight. Typical. With every slam of Thesee's transom the dinghy got a load of water. It's a miracle that the dinghy and engine didn't overturn.
Bora La was next to us and I could see them rocking forwards and back with every wave, along with about another four boats in the anchorage. Dean said some waves were breaking over the bow. Finally, it all started to calm down and by 1am we were in bed.
This morning, we just wanted to get out of there. So we had decided to move 20 miles north. That's when more trouble started! Dean was lifting the anchor and thought it was struggling a bit. He called me forward as he could see something coming up out of the water at the bow. Guess what? He was actually pulling up half a shipwreck!
WTF !
Anchor chain doubly wrapped around the bars
and through the rest.... HOW !
😮 Yikes
We had spun around so many times last night, we had actually wrapped our anchor chain around the guardrails of a shipwreck! Twice. And Dean had pulled it up. We couldn't even see the anchor yet. For half an hour Dean struggled with it trying to release the anchor chain. The wreck even had a fish caught up in it. Eventually, using his special tripping hook (thanks Laser) he managed to unravel it all. He couldn't let it go yet though as it might still drop back down on top of the anchor. So he had to tie it on until he raised the anchor fully. When that came up it was also attached to a object which looked like some steel work from the wreck. Once that was free he unhooked the bars and released it all back into the sea. We were free!!
Dean was running high adrenaline and we couldn't stop talking about it as we continued our journey north to and anchorage near Didim called Kuruerik Buekue. Honestly, if I had known we were anchored to a wreck last night when the squall was going on I would have been doubly worried. It all seemed so surreal. And the thing was that Dean always dives to check the anchor is set OK, and this time the water was so murky he couldn't see it in 10 metres. He would have had a heart attack to see it anchored to a boat wouldn't he?
Our track around the anchor
(this was already before the squall started)
Moving on, we are now in our new anchorage east of Didim. So far so good, and all is calm.
En route - Bora La leading the way today
More pirates as we near the anchorage
Bit of a holiday resort, but quiet
Saturday 4th June...
Linda - It happened again last night. At 11pm the wind got up quite strong and ruffled up the sea. Fortunately this time it wasn't as bad as the previous night, and only lasted for about an hour or so. But at the time it's worrying as you don't know how long it's going to go on for.
The early morning was calm, but we had a bit of blow around 9am which stopped our arrangement of going ashore for breakfast. We did get ashore around 11am, taking Phil and Cris in our dinghy as their outboard engine was playing up. Cris forgot to take any shoes, but fortunately I had two pairs, lol. So we got by.
It was only a short walk to the nearest shop and then we had lunch in a beach bar.
Mosque near the supermarket
View from the beach bar
Thesee and Bora La
The anchorage is huge with good depths
Cris in the dinghy
Heading back to the boats
Tonight we repaid the compliment and had a BBQ on board Thesee. Dean cooked a pork joint, and it was perfection. A nice evening. But now more lightning on the hills for the third night in a row. We have the dinghy stowed on board. Waiting for the wind to start but praying it won't.
Sunday 5th June...
Linda - Sadly, it was time to part ways with our good friends Phil & Cristina. They are heading north towards Izmir, and it's time for us to go back south to continue our journey towards Finike. Still, it was fortunate that we managed to spend 9 days sailing, eating, and drinking together 😀.
We departed at 11am, and it was only 15 miles south across the Bay of Gulluk where we anchored in Bahce Koyu. We were here earlier in the week, it's a good spot. Being a Sunday it was very busy with local motor yachts, but we still found a spot for Thesee. Tonight they have all gone home and only a couple of boats here with us now. Not sure whether we shall stay tomorrow or move on.
Maybe a new blog post tomorrow....let's see.
