Wednesday 24th May...
Linda - Day 10 of our new season, and we move on 40 miles west to Gemiler Adasi (Island). I'm afraid we must be in the back of beyond because I can't seem to upload any photos. Let's hope my write up loads before I lose it all.
Gemiler Island is a new destination for us. We skipped it last year because we were kind of rushing down to Finike. But everyone talks of how lovely it is, so it had to be done this time. There's not much in between Kas and Fethiye so the trip and coastline were quite boring, plus we've seen it before. Gemiler Island is located south of the headland at Fethiye and tonight we are anchored and tied to shore with stern lines on the north coast of the island as you can see in the photo. Thesee is bang on centre of the island's north coast.
We only got a little bit of sailing in for the last two hours of the six hour journey. The wind didn't fill in as much as forecast, but luckily the rain and thunder didn't come either.
En-route, one of the many headlands
It was very hard to actually pick out Gemiler Island until we were right up close to it. Thank goodness for our Chartplotter to tell us where to go.
Approaching Gemiler Adasi
Pirates already here
This anchorage is too deep to anchor freely, hence all the boats take lines ashore. We were all prepared to get the dinghy off ready for 'stern to' mooring, but as we approached the Ice Cream man offered to take our lines ashore for us. All he asked what that we buy an ice cream from him. That's a no-brainer then. We actually bought 3 ice creams, a crusty loaf, and he threw in a couple of apricots for Dean too.
The ice cream man takes our lines ashore
We are not alone! As well as being next door to White Cat, there must be at least another 20 yachts here along the shoreline. It must be mayhem once the summer season starts proper. A good time for us to visit me thinks. It's very peaceful and we can hear birds singing too. What's not to like!!!
'White Cat' arriving
Thursday 25th May...
Linda - We both slept well even though there is a slight constant sea swell that moves the boat a little. It was a lovely morning. The sea was so clear and we could easily see the bottom where it shelves steeply. We are 30 metres off the shoreline and are in about 13 metres of water. We have 70 metres of chain out to where the anchor is at a depth of 27 metres.
Dean said the birdsong at 5am was wonderful. At 9am about 12 goats passed by, mooching on the shore rummaging for their breakfast. Idyllic. Here on Gemiler Island there are many ruins and it is also famous 'apparantly' for being the place where St Nicholas (Father Christmas) spent a lot of time. It's also known as St Nicholas Island. We went ashore to look at the ruins and climb to the lighthouse. Normal entry charge to the island is 50TL but we still have our museum cards which gives us free entry.
Can't believe how much use we've had out of these.
As always on sightseeing days I took LOADS of photos....
Beautifully clear water, and one of our yellow shorelines
Ruins on the shoreline behind Thesee
Spot the black goat on the rock, centre of photo and a white one top right
Some of our neighbours
Local boat on the dinghy pontoon
Entrance to the ruins
Pilgrims used to stop here on their way to the Holy Land
How many Churches does one need on a small island?
We spot Thesee and White Cat
Top of the World..... not quite
Linda - A bit of indecisiveness this morning. We were debating whether to stay here or move on. I'd been awake since 4am with the boat rocking. It's only very slight but once you get it on your mind it won't go away, and I couldn't get back to sleep. Plus I wasn't looking forward to the party boats arriving again. Don't get me wrong, I love a good party, but only if it's MY kind of music, lol.
We gave it until midday and then made the decision to stay put. White Cat had left but Eternite is still here, so we're not Billy No Mates. It turned out to be a pleasant day, and the party boats didn't stay too long. Dean got his wetsuit on and went next door to scrub Eternite's propellor. It's amazing how much difference a clean prop makes. Yes, I know about these things being a lady of the sea (no not a mermaid of course).
Dean getting geared up for prop scrubbing
There he goes
One of the noisy boats
Then the next one
Well, one of my favourite saying is 'When you wake up in the morning, you never know what surprises the day will bring'. And today, around lunchtime and for some unknown reason, we were both thinking about making bread! I don't recall making bread since our first year of the Big Adventure in 2018, and we don't have any yeast anyway. However, Dean googled the internet and found a 'no yeast' bread recipe. There was no stopping us, and tonight for dinner we enjoyed Corned Beef salad, new potatoes, and our very own freshly made village bread. It was YUMMY 💛
Before and after cooking
Howzat?
Well tonight there are only 5 sailing boats here including us. The place is deserted. Friday's are the big change-over days for charter boats, so we need to keep that in mind when we want to visit popular anchorages.
Linda - Our noisy but very beautiful anchorage at Gemiler Island turned sour at 9pm last night, when the wind picked up. The sun had only just set, and for a couple of hours the wind came down off the mainland mountains. It's what's known as katabatic wind.
Copy this link for more info on katabatic winds
https://www.weatheronline.co.uk/reports/wxfacts/Katabatic-winds.htm
It all calmed down around midnight and we got some sleep, but at 3.30am the wind started up again. There's a few days of unstable weather due and this was obviously the start of it.
By first light it was calming once more, and at 8am both Eternite and ourselves on Thesee raised our anchors and made our way to our new anchorages. For us it was a 2 hour journey to Fethiye. On the way we had to go around the headland and up through the bay. It became very windy as we approached and navigated around the headland with winds up to about 25 knots. We were heading into it as well, which meant the apparant wind speed on the boat was almost 30 knots. Fortunately no swell, but there were a lot of white horses topping the waves.
Approaching the headland the white horses appearing
Gradually as we neared Fethiye it all started to calm down, and it was then just a case of dodging an endless stream of gullets that were departing for the day.
Nearing Fethiye
It's been a bit breezy this afternoon and I'm feeling a bit worn out with the lack of sleep, so it was just nice to sit in the cockpit and watch the world go by.
Is that a car or am I dreaming?
Sunday 28th May....
Dean -Well I thought I would have a shave before going to bed while the water was still warm. Big mistake! (We can only make hot water with mains power or with the engine running, but it then lasts about 24 hours), The water refused to pump away from the forward sink/shower. So 9.30pm saw me with my head inside the cupboard trying to clean out the pump.
Guess who?
Inside the pump
Joker valve
I managed to remove the head from the pump and clean out the valves and that seems to have sorted it out. Not much space to work inside the cupboard when you need two hands.
This morning we decided to stay as more wind and rain was forecast, which of course didn't materialise! The weather forecast here is useless. Anyway I thought I should look at the pump in the other sink/shower so the same again, all sorted now. While I was in the mood I had a look at the freezer. I've been trying to trace a low voltage error, you remember me trying to get to a connector behind the fridge a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, I traced the earth/negative wires to the main earth block in the electrical cupboard. I found two screws a little loose and some corrosion so with that now fixed we can see if things improve. Of course it was really difficult to get at!
Showing the negative wires on the blue block to the right
No animals where hurt during the maintenance, just! but plenty of swear words needed as usual.
Monday 29th May...
Linda - This morning we offloaded the dinghy and went ashore for some bits, bobs, and supplies. The dinghy was a little flat. Dean topped the air up with the foot pump before we got on our way ashore.
This is our third visit to Fethiye. Dean said he wasn't much keen on the place, but I like it quite a lot. For one thing, you can actually find things that you want to buy here.
Pretty roundabout in town
The Old Turkish Bath.... Dean went for Hamam here last year
Fancy Rummikub stands in a shop window.
The Turks are quite partial to a game of Rummikub.
Here's the shop window
Quaint lanterns
The markets sell amazing Dried Apricots, and Salted Nuts.
We stocked up on these.
This is the fabulous 'Yacht Boheme Hotel' where we stayed
with Alan & Yasi last November.
Walking through 'Ece Marina'
It's very lovely here outside the Marina Hotel too
Arriving back with our shopping
Dean takes no time in fixing the new rubber inset to the fast winch button
The old worn out rubber insert
Departure from Fethiye was approx 1.45pm. The seabed here is sticky mud, great for keeping you in place, but horrid when you lift the chain and anchor. Dean washed the mucky chain off as it came up. He doesn't want any of that mucky mud going into our anchor locker.
On the way out of the anchorage we passed an amazing catamaran called 'Hodor'. It looked like a support vessel because it had all sorts of 'toys' on board. So who owns this then? We googled it later on and found out that it's the 'Mother of all support boats'! It's the support boat for an 86 metre yacht called 'Lonian'. The owner is Lorenzo Fertitta, American Billionaire and Las Vegas Casino owner..... amongst many other things.
Copy and paste this link to see more info about this 'Toy Chest'
https://www.boatblurb.com/post/the-mother-of-all-support-boats
Hodor
This speedboat on Hodor's deck is actually longer than Thesee 😵
Helipad at the back, no helicopter today though
It was a 12 mile hop across to Gocek this afternoon, and to our amazement we managed to sail ALL the way. We were close hauled most of the way, the wind was around 11 knots, and we got 7 knots of speed. Plus there was no swell. That'll do nicely.
Look, here's the proof....
Mainsail and Genoa giving us 7 knots of speed
Genoa tell-tales flying
Mainsail
Then another surprise, we saw a gullet that was actually sailing. We don't think we've ever seen a gullet flying sails before.
We're now anchored in a place we call Ravine Cove (AKA Merdivenli Koyu). Yes, we've been here before too. It's one of the bays on the southern part of Gocek Limani. Think this will be our home for a couple of nights. Hopefully, some of the other guys will join us tomorrow.
Tuesday 30th May...
Linda - It was a lovely morning with goats wandering around the rocks, tinking their bells. Ravine Cove was busy today. Our friends on Eternite and White Cat arrived this afternoon and just about managed to squeeze into the only two places available. Dean had already been on an investigative visit along the shore to find places to tie to. There weren't many.
Views ashore
Clear water
High cliffs
Dean goes ashore
.....and finds a tortoise!
Can you see the tortoise?
Off in the other direction
Goats
We planned a BBQ on Thesee for late afternoon and invited everyone onboard. There were 9 of us in total. I think that might be a record!
BBQ started
BBQ Chicken, takes about 2 hours to cook on one briquette
A glass of Greek Wine for Dean to help with the job
Ready and waiting for our guests
Here come the first arrivals
We really enjoyed everyone's company and thank them all for bringing starters, burgers, salad, nibbles, and booze! I was enjoying myself so much that I forgot to take photos, doh! Tomorrow a new destination.
The next blog post will be called 'Next stop Marmaris'
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