Monday 15th May....
Linda - Yes, we've finally got our act together and managed to depart from Finike. Thesee's berth for the last 10 months. We've given up actually finding a day to be able to sail out of here, so chose a calm day to motor the 15 miles west up to Gokkaya Limani (Smuggler's Cove), Kekova. On arrival we impressed ourselves with a well executed anchoring manoevre looking totally professional and calm. There's about 10 yachts here and I would say about 8 of them are Brits! Actually, 3 of them are our friends, Impavidus, Eternite, and White Cat.
Ready for departure, brand new ensign
Marineros come to assist with the lazy lines
Just leaving the marina
Dean all excited
Me all excited
Bye Bye Finike
Half way en-route, new flag flying brightly
Back into Gullet Land (not so many at the moment, but
always one in the way)
Arrival at Smuggler's Cove
Putting on the anchor snubber
Early evening get-together on Thesee with all the gang
Tuesday 16th May...
Linda - Day 2 of the new sailing season, and what an extremely calm day it was here in our beautiful anchorage. The most important job of the day was having a look at Thesee's bottom. He's been sitting in his berth at Finike marina for 10 months, we didn't really know what to expect.
Dean donned his shortie (short leg wetsuit), and hood to go and have a look down under. He remembered this time last year in Greece when he did the very same 'first look' and his head got very cold without his diving hood on. Turns out today the water wasn't too cold, he said he didn't even notice it. The result of the check as follows.... Keel coolers, very dirty. Prop, very dirty. Anode, respectable. Hull waterline, fairly mucky. Thesee's bottom, not too bad.
Almost ready to take the plunge
Just after 10am the important jobs were done.... Propellor and keel coolers scrubbed clean. The rest not so important, so will be done gradually as and when. I don't like him to spend too much time in the water, it's quite exhausting, so today's job was done in about 15 minutes.
All the boats in the anchorage left today except Impavidus and ourselves. Our two boats were alone for most of the day. It was beautiful. Eternite and White Cat will be back in a few days. It's 8pm now and our anchorage has just been invaded by three massive gullets 😢.
Today's peacefulness
Me in a moment of thoughtfulness
Somehow, Dean managed to find bits and bobs to do. When we lifted the passarelle from the pontoon yesterday as we left, it was very very mucky underneath. But now after a very good clean and polish it looks almost brand new again. He also treated the wood on the sugar scoop (ledge on the back of the boat) as it seemed to be starting to flake.
Perfect passaralle once more
Wednesday 17th May...
Linda - Today we were expecting some high winds from the West, as per the weather forecast. But in fact, we hardly had any issues at all, and what wind did arrive during the day came from the East! We were determined not to sit around all day, and therefore kept ourselves busy this morning with cleaning (me) and and also polishing the indoor stainless steel (Dean). At one point it started raining and the wind picked up. Dean thought it was a good idea to change our nice new flag for the old faded one, as it's smaller and we don't want to get it damaged.
A few boats came into the anchorage, which meant we had something to watch, and late afternoon Ant & Cid invited onboard Impavidus for a drink. The last few weeks we've been avoiding any kind of alcohol on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, but unfortunately this week that has all gone kaput, lol.
About to change flags
The old one looks so tiny in comparison
View of Thesee from onboard Impavidus
Just got back now, it's 8pm. Luckily we have some dinner prepared, and time to do a quick daily blog.
Linda - This anchorage here at Smuggler's Cove is superb, it's so sheltered from the outside waters. The winds blew up this afternoon, but we hardly felt anything here.
Three gullets anchored and rafted together near us, tied to shore overnight
We were invited for evening drinks on White Cat. They have visitors from the Netherlands. Our alcohol free three days has definately gone to pot this week.
However, we did get the dinghy into the water for its first run of the season. Dean looks after and maintains all of our equipment, and so the engine ran well for its first run-about of the year. He always calls it our car on water. We wouldn't be able to function without it.
Friday 19th May...
Linda - Over the last few days we'd heard that there is a cave on the nearby island (Asirli Adasi). This morning, as the dinghy was still in the water, we went to find the aforesaid cave. And here it is......
It was a decent sized cave, but the surrounding rocks looked dodgy. We thought it best not to enter. Instead we headed across the anchorage and into the picturesque inlet where the only bar in this area is located. Sadly, not open at the moment, but we have been there before anyway. It's called the Smuggler's Inn (of course).
Pirates only past this point, Jim lad
Smuggler's Inn
Back onboard, Dean was helping White Cat by checking and cleaning their outboard engine carburettor, which has been playing up again. He tried to repair one of the diaphragms in the carburettor, but with only limited equipment available he ended up re-forming a piece of very sticky tape using the shape of the top of my perfume bottle! The repair does seem to have made an improvement we hear 😂
Impavidus left the anchorage this morning, and it was quiet all morning. Fridays must be gullet change-over day I assume. Later on, the anchorage was packed again with new arrivals, some of which we knew as Finike escapees (as we are all becoming known).
New arrivals and friends
About 5pm the wind really picked up from the East, which means no protection here. It became quite blustery, we were pleased that we had already got the dinghy and outboard engine back on the boat. This went on for about an hour and a half whilst we prepared and ate dinner, and I even managed to get Dean playing Tri-ominos to take our mind off the wind. Even though I won game 1, it was the best of 3 and Dean won overall.
It's been AGES since we played Tri-ominoes
Linda - After spending a very lovely five nights in Smuggler's Cove we took the plunge and moved on to another anchorage this morning. This anchorage will be for just one night because tomorrow we're going to Kas. It was just a short five mile motor along Kekova Roads to our new anchorage. We've been here before too, but I had to look back at a previous blog post from last July to remember what I called it, as it's a bit obscure. Having re-checked I found that I had called it Sicak Koyu, and then it jogged my memory because this was the place where they 'apparantly' discovered the colour Purple for Royalty.
The inhabitants of this ancient Lycian city (called Aperlei) produced the dye by crushing Murex (mollusk) shells, and then traded it to different parts of the world via merchant traders who would come by ship to the region. The dye was much coveted among the elite in faraway lands.
Experiments done today show that 12000 snails were needed in order to procude 1.4 grams of the royal purple dye, and the proof of this lies buried in the surface of the earth on the hillsides, being formed by piles of Murex shells. The dye itself cost 20 times its weight in gold.
En-route passing the very picturesque village and castle of Kalekoy
Kalekoy close up
Dean spent an hour scraping Thesee's bottom this afternoon. It was pretty breezy but this anchorage is extremely protected from any swell. We rejoined Impavidus who arrived about 5 minutes ahead of us, and White Cat is here too. No gatherings today though, just and evening challenging Dean to Tri-ominos again.
Sunday 21st May...
Linda - At 9am we weighed anchor and set off towards Kas, which was about a 20 mile journey. At first there wasn't a great deal of wind, but the sea was calm and this gave us a chance to raise our brand new sails for the first time proper.
Mainsail
Main and Genoa
Genoa only
It's been a very overcast day today with some horrible high wind gusts later this afternoon. But we did get chance for a drink in the local bar with our friends Anne and Peter from White Cat.
Approaching Kas
Along the marina frontage
Very pretty flowers in the grassy verge
Landscaped gardens outside the marina office
Dean going to book us in at the reception
After we returned from our drinkies, Dean spent some time cleaning the electric winch buttons. The rubber inside is starting to perish, so needs some investigation. The picture below shows the two winch buttons, the one on the left is the slow speed, and right is the fast speed button. I always get them mixed up, so now I have named them San Fransisco...... SF... slow, fast.
The fast button on the right under investigation
Work in progress
Monday 22nd May...
Linda - There were more high wind gusts yesterday evening, and it seems overnight too. This morning Impavidus had left after having had boats drag near to them in the anchorage. And White Cat had to re-anchor after being blown towards the shoreline. It's not a good anchorage at all. It's very deep (around 20 metres) and not a lot of room to swing, plus there are buoys dotted about with small boats on. As for me, I slept through it all being tucked up in my bed in the marina.
A number of people winter their boats here in Kas marina. I have to say that the protection is not so great, with a lot of wash from passing dinghy's and small boats, let alone the weather.
The grey clouds hung around all day. Plus Dean has pulled a muscle in his leg and is currently limping. Therefore, we didn't venture far away, just staying around the boat. However a limping leg wasn't enough to stop Dean carrying out boat repairs. First was a repair to some stitching in the bimini. Blue cotton though, as the underside is blue and that's what we look at.
This is the repaired topside of the bimini
Man at work...stitching
The next photo is of our paddle wheel. This is the little thingy that goes into the hull and measures our speed through the water as it spins around. It's not been working properly, and is currently the main job of the moment. Today, Dean completely dismantled and then re-assembled it, finishing off by returning it into its position in the hull.
We didn't think much of it. Then the marineros came to tell us we had to move the boat to another berth because the owner was coming back. Dean was not amused because it takes a lot of faffing about. Anyway, as we were moving the boat, Dean noticed that the aforesaid paddle wheel seemed to be working a treat! Ha Ha.
Tuesday 23rd May...
Linda - Up and out early to walk up to the main part of town by the harbour, about a 15 minute walk from the marina. Luckily Dean's limping leg was working pretty well. We went for a coffee and to get some essential supplies. Unfortunately we were too early for the alcohol shop, which was a shame because Dean had been looking forward to getting even more essential supplies..... a bottle of Bowmore.
Along the road into town, very nice indeed
Coffee morning in the main square
Not many tourists about this early
Backstreet Boy
The shot bar
.....and Peaky Blinder's cafe of course 😂
After quite a decent shopping experience we were back on board by about midday. This afternoon Dean washed the decks....again. Dirty sandy rain yesterday. We had to pay for more electricity and water. This marina is part of the Setur group, like our winter berth at Finike. We are still covered by our contract which means we can have up to 14 days free berthing here in Kas, so just have to pay for the water and electric. Nice. But shame we are probably leaving tomorrow.
For dinner (jacket spuds, beans, cheese) Dean decided to open a bottle of wine which we've had for about a year now. We bought it in Greece last year after the shop recommended it to us, and believe me it wasn't cheap. That's why we hadn't opened it for so long. Dean opened and poured it, and we were shocked, it was sherry! Not wine! Ha ha. Now I can make sherry trifle.
Greek wine???
Tonight whilst eating dinner and watching TV, Dean thought he could hear big rain drops. He went outside to have a look around and was shocked to find a CAT playing around on top of our bimini! And he wouldn't come down, he was having a great time rolling around up there. Little tinker. We couldn't reach him, and so had to leave him and let him come down when he was ready.
The next blog post will be called 'Well on our way to Turkey's boating capital - Gocek'
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