Adventures of Thésée: Closing in towards Marmaris (and Gocek). Man Overboard!

Closing in towards Marmaris (and Gocek). Man Overboard!

Thursday 16th June...

Linda - Well, what a day! We rescued a man overboard! By 9.30am we were on the move and heading south west in order to round the next headland and tuck into the bay at Bozukkale. We had travelled about 5 miles and were about 1 mile off the headland when we spotted something in the water ahead. It looked like a buoy with something floating off it on the surface. As we got a bit nearer it soon became clear that what we could see was actually a human being holding onto something, and they began to wave their arms showing the distress signal. We were soon on the scene to find a man holding onto a pile of yellow floating line..... exactly like our new yellow floating lines we used the other day.

We lowered our swim ladder and he was able to climb aboard Thesee. He was in much distress, urging us to turn around and head back to where we had come from. He was a Turkish man and he used our VHF radio to call the coastguard for help. The story soon became clear. He had somehow fallen from his boat along with the yellow floating line (luckily). His boat was in autopilot mode and his wife was asleep onboard unaware of what had happened. His boat's autopilot course was heading towards the rocks about 3 miles away, and he was extremely upset about his wife being alright.

As we headed back to where he said his boat was heading there was a lot of communication between him and the coastguard. The coastguard had announced an emergency for anyone to look out for his boat in the vicinity. In no time at all we could see a fast coastguard boat speeding towards the intended destination, and a gullet boat had responded to the coastguard emergency, stopped and offloaded his rib and located the boat which by now was apparantly on the rocks. It was reported back to us that his wife was OK.

The man's yellow floating line... his lifesaver it would seem

The man anxious to see that his wife was OK,

kept looking through the binoculars.

Almost there now, the coastguard and the man's boat

Then the Big Daddy Coastguard turned up too

The gullet boat's rib transferring the man from Thesee

The small coastguard boat tows the boat away from the rocks

The Big Daddy Coastguard boat sends their RIB in for backup

It was all quite surreal. Honestly, we've been talking about it all day. We don't know how long the man was in the water for, but it must have been at least half an hour as his boat had travelled 3 miles from where picked him up. He is so very lucky that he had floating line to hang onto. The story ends well for this couple. We don't know how much damage the boat sustained but it was being towed by the coastguard when we left.

So we retraced our steps towards the headland, and almost 4 hours after we had left Bozburun we arrived in Bozukkale, a sheltered inlet on the south coast of the headland. We saw one of the restaurant quays waving a big flag, so we headed over and berthed on their wooden pontoon. It's very sturdy, much more so than a lot we've seen. It's a super place with pleasant views, cows and chickens on shore, and showers and wifi too. Bonus.

The pontoon at 'Sailors House' restaurant

Tonight's view

On the shore looking out to the boats

The restaurant

Turkish tea

A gullet comes in under sail

You may have noticed, I like signposts

So we went for dinner at 7pm, you get the quay free if you eat here. The tables are on the seashore. The waiter sat us right next to the lobster pen. Someone should have told him about how squeamish I am when it comes to anything fishy. Fortunately they also had lamb shank on the menu. Two please. The owners here are superb. It seems to be a family run place and they are obviously teaching their teenage children to follow in their footsteps. And everything is done very professionally, even down to pouring water and wine for dinner. We love it.

Lobsters

More lobsters

Another photo of Dean eating

Rum and Coke for me before bedtime

What a day it's been. One we shall never forget for years to come.

Friday 17th June...

Linda - Awake at 4am, it was a little roly poly and I just can't lie in bed when it's like that. There always seems to be a couple of hours of wind come through just before dawn, and then it calms down again. By 6.30am we were both up. I was itching to leave feeling somewhat uppety, but we hadn't paid the bill yet from last night because they wouldn't let us. So we had to wait until the owners arrived this morning. Even then, they insisted we sit and have a glass of tea!

It was gone 8.30am by the time we managed to get out of there. It's a great place and the owners family are making a big effort with everything, we were really impressed. But we need to get going and it was 20 miles north to the next destination called.... er, I'll have to look it up, hang on.......Kumlubuek. We are now only 6 miles south of Marmaris.

It was a freaky wind/no wind ride to get here. After yesterday's man overboard escapade, Dean suggested I practise rolling away the genoa sail. We always say we are going to practise manoeuvres but we hardly ever do.

The new anchorage is pretty good, nice views and well protected from this afternoon's north westerlies. Although, being so close to Marmaris it's busy with pirate boats and ferries, so roly poly again at times.

Pleasant mountain views tonight

Dean cleans his boom, even though

it's 35 degrees in the sun

A nice big cliff to keep off some of the wind

Saturday 18th June...

Linda - Wait for it....... I think we had a nice day! After a rolly(ish) night we moved north to Marmaris proper. The wind was gusting from the north, and there were white horses on the sea, but we concluded that it must be gusting between the islands and would be calmer in Marmaris bay. Our calculations proved correct. We passed Icemeler first looking for a pump out station, then ended up in the harbour/marina at Marmaris, where we did indeed get our holding tanks pumped out and topped up with diesel as well. Then it was a matter of dropping the hook in the anchorage for lunch. We were feeling upbeat and things were going well so we decided to stay.

Jagged rocks near Icemeler

At the fuel station. 30.18 Turkish Lira per litre.

That's roughly £1.42 per litre

Town quay

We took the dinghy ashore so that we could buy a MiFi portable Wi-fi device from Turkcell. This should be a more economical way of accessing the internet instead of clocking up big mobile phone charges. We're ticking all the boxes today. The town was great and buzzing with people. Nice beaches, waterfalls, and shops galore.

Marmaris

Bee and Honeycomb statue

with Thesee in the background

Fancy drainage canal

At the lovely waterfall in town

Back to Thesee about 4pm just in time to watch all the pirate boats returning from their daily outings.

Medusa

Davy Jones

Pegasus (on the bowsprit)

Orca Royal

Aslankok

Scary pirate on the rear

Tonight we went ashore again, back to the harbour/marina. It was really lovely. The harbour lined with lovely restaurants and then the upmarket marina shops too. We were very impressed. Dean thinks he's been here before in a previous life! He must have been a pirate once.

More waterfalls

Dozing cats everywhere

Must have a full tummy, this one

It might get noisy tonight, in fact 3 party boats have gone out so far. Dean is ready with his earplugs, and me... I shall be zonked just like these kitties.

Sunday 19th June...

Linda - Well we closed in on Marmaris (just like the blog title said), and we have now left it as there is wind due to come through on Tuesday and nowhere to hide in Marmaris. Shame we couldn't stay longer as it was a great anchorage and city. Oh well, the weather spoils our fun yet again.

So after one great day yesterday, we returned to normal and had a rough day. A long 45 miler to Gocek area, which we had to motor the whole way, and the predicted sea state of 0.3metres was much worse and rolled us around for the whole way. Once into shelter we were relieved, only to have to spend the next 3 hours trawling up and down the coast to find a suitable place to tie to shore. Finally by 6.30pm we found a spot and tied to shore. Please let this be calm and sheltered for Tuesday winds. Let's see how tonight and tomorrow go. It's sooooooooo busy here, all the bays are full and we thought being a Sunday most would be leaving after the weekend. No chance, everywhere is chock-a-block.

Once we had finished messing about tying up, a turtle paid us a visit. Must have been wondering what was going on.

Find me a place to anchor!!

Starboard stern line to shore

The wasps took a liking to Dean's shorts

So, a long stressful day. But glad to be here and safe.

Monday 20th June...

Linda - Quite pleasant today, here in Gocek Limani (harbour). I found out what it's called although the bays have their own name, but we are not in a bay, we're just along a straight piece of coastline. And it's not a harbour either!

We both got a great night's sleep, not even waking once before about 7pm. After breakfast Dean was on a mission to make a dent in his jobs list....

1. Repair one of my cupboard catches, because it wouldn't lock.

2. Repair oven igniter, loose wire (since I cleaned the oven...whoops)

3. Check bilges and clean, it seems the water leak we had is now fixed.

4. Put direct 12 v feed into fridge to stop it cutting out overnight.

5. Check battery leads and condition.

6. Worked on trying to find leaks in dinghy.

He found the main leak in the dinghy by spraying foamy water all over it and waiting for it to bubble. The second leak is still a mystery. Dean took ages cleaning the dinghy and working on it. He had a bit of a meltdown when his glue wouldn't stick. But not to worry, we have a multitude of glues here on Thesee, even some we keep in the fridge. Most of the glues came out today, some went in the bin (I think), others fared better. Well whichever glue he used seems to have worked well.

A number of neighbours arrived today, which always makes it more comforting, rather than being all alone.

New neighbour number 1

Dean sparing his foamy water to find the leak

Here's the bubbly leak

Neighbour number 2

Number 3

Number 2's anchor waiting to drop

And another large gullet has just come in to our port side.

There were a few gusts this afternoon and a few calms. We both had a swim as the water was so inviting and we were very hot, the temperature topping at 33 degrees today. Our friendly turtle paid us a visit twice today. Maybe we shall get to have a swim with it??

Refreshing dip after all the hard work

The Migros Supermarket boat!

Now it's my turn to cool off

Tuesday 21st June....

Linda - We were settled into our protected corner with stern lines ashore waiting for today's gusts of up to 28 knots from the west. So many boat comings and goings around us. All trying to get some shelter. It gives us great confidence in our choice when we see others joining us, especially if they are experienced captains with Turkish flags.....they must know what places are best. There were about 12 boats all tied stern to shore along our row. Just to think when we arrived two days ago we were all alone. Maybe they think we know what we're doing?

Our nearest port side neighbours

The nearest one above tried to leave about 5pm but we could see he had an issue. Later as the saga unfolds we see a diver turn up. They had only lost all of their anchor chain somehow, and the diver had to dive probably about 30 metres to find it and tie a line to it, in order to recover the lot. This went on for at least two hours. When they had finally recovered the anchor chain they tried to pull back into shore but one of their shorelines broke the rock off, and the second neighbour along had to come and tie him to another rock, because the first neighbours outboard engine wouldn't start. Bearing in mind all this is going on right in front of Thesee! We almost forgot all about the gusty winds going on around us. To be honest we were well protected from the winds, as we could see the white horses coming out of the bays.

Third in the row to port

This catamaran is first neighour to starboard.

And didn't cause us any trouble at all, lol.

You can see the other masts lined up along the shoreline.

Yet another day of anchor antics. I'm beginning to lose count now.

Wednesday 22nd June...

Linda - Today we took a short dinghy ride to the bay just north of us. It was very calm in there with two nice looking and seemingly pricey restaurants.

On the way back Dean said he could smell petrol. And just as we arrived back at the boat he noticed that the fuel pipe had broken off from from the engine! Yet another job for Mr C. People say that the definition of sailing is 'Boat maintenance in exotic places'. Just about sums it up at the moment.

Restaurant

Thésée

Wow, it has been really hot today. I took this reading this afternoon, but at one point it was over 39 degrees. We both went in for a swim to cool off, but now I am boiling again. It's 8.30pm here and inside the boat it's 34 degrees.

Temperature

We've had to run the portable generator again this afternoon as our boat batteries are not holding their charge. We only had them new last September. More troubles and strife to sort out.

Thursday 23rd June...

Linda - Nightmare Day. We managed to leave our spot without any trouble this morning, after being blocked in by a gullet for two days. We manoeuvred around him, as he obviously was going nowhere soon. This was the guy who dropped all his anchor chain to the seabed the other day. Poor Dean had to swim to to take our shore lines off. It sounds easy, but the lines were well spread out, and the rocks covered in all sorts of unusual creepy crawlies and jelly type beings. As soon as the lines are off the rocks the boat starts being pulled forward as the anchor chain retracts, meaning Dean has to swim even further just to get back on board, once the lines are released.

Our plan was to find a new spot a bit further north towards Gocek for a day or two. Easier said than done. The free swinging anchorages were full and only room to anchor in 25 metres of water. That's just ridiculous. We ended up in Gocek where it was even worse, and had to reverse our steps back down the coast. Still without any luck and by now the wind was blowing 24 knots, so no chance of tying to shore even if we had found a place.

We were left with no other option than to sail 13 miles downwind across the bay to Fethiye. With a reefed genoa we were doing 7 knots. All was ok until about half way when the wind, in an instant, turned from a westerly so a south easterly. Genoa away and engine on for the rest of the way in roly poly sea. Fortunately a couple of islands broke it up a bit towards the end.

So tonight we are at anchor in Fethiye. Much more pleasant, we just hope the loud music doesn't start from the nearby beach club. Will we ever start 'loving Turkey'?