Getting Excited

M and I had a pleasant day or two learning the ropes in our new Marina. We met some of the incumbents in the bar, and a knowledgeable lot they seem to be.

Marmaris Yacht Marina

We travelled into Marmaris on the Dolmus, which is the local public transport system made up of mini-buses. They are remarkably regular, punctual and inexpensive. Marmaris Yacht Marina is some 8km from the town but with this resource that is not a`problem.

Marmaris itself is not the prettiest town in the med, and has to a large extent been taken over by the high volume/loud music/ cheap beer end of the tourist industry, which is a shame. The dffff, dffff, continues into the wee small hours and I am very glad we are in the marina we are in, rather than the others close to the town itself.

Marmaris

Marmaris must be the acme of the marine service industry. Large swathes of the town is taken up with shops and businesses catering for boat repair, maintenance and chandlers. We have a few jobs that we might get costings on but it is a bit gobsmacking where to start. I am sure advice will be forthcoming from the crew in the bar.

Our next visitors JR and Anita from Nelson, NZ arrived on time as planned. Both have been sailing before but primarily in passenger roles. We introduced them to the boat and its various functions and safety features and made plans to leave.. One concern was that we had not been issued with the blue card needed to log the black water suck-out tally.

For those not familiar, Turkey has legislation prohibiting the discharge of sewage into the sea. In fact many other countries have the same legislation but no other country that I know of has any plans to actually enforce it. This is on the basis that no other has put in place any facilities to remove the waste, apart from Turkey. So they have a scheme whereby you can have waste sucked from your holding tank at various ports and your diligence in doing this is recorded electronically using your blue card to identify the vessel. The idea is that doing this demonstrates your compliance with the law and the Coast guard wont fine you.

Reading up about this there are all kinds of issues. Many of the suck out sites don’t work, in which case you just come to a financial understanding with the suck out man and get your card stamped. However there are stories of the Coast Guard using this as a nice little earner. They know what marinas don't have a facility and lie in wait of boats leaving in order to fine them. Apparently they consider that 30l of black water per person per day should be in your tank. On that basis I worked out we might need to have our emptied twice a day!

Anyway we had not been issued with a blue card by Mr T, so we were in a fix. M successfully negotiated with the ladies inn the Marina office that if we had a suckout, they would give us a receipt that should keep the forces of law and order off our backs. So as we left the Marina I radioed the office to ask if we could visit the suck-out. Two Marinero’s kindly showed us the way round.

For those not interested in sewage

The suck out guy in protective gear approached. I proudly undid my waste outlet cap fitting (see “it all sucks”) and he put his suck out fitting in the orifice – it seemed to fit perfectly. We all gathered round in anticipation to see what would emerge. Nothing!

What was wrong? The guy checked his apparatus – it all seemed fine. We were all willing the tank contents to emerge. I went down below to the heads, checked all the various valves were as the should be and pumped more water into the tank. Still nothing.

Then it occurred to me that the tank has an air vent tube coming from the top and joining to a though hull fitting in the side of the boat. All that was happening was that the suck – out was just sucking air through this vent and while that was open to air, it was not possible to achieve a vacuum.

AT this point the suck out gut shrugged his shoulders, got on his moped and headed back to the office. M went after him shouting what about the receipt!

She followed him all the way to the office where he was explaining to the office ladies. The kindly explained to M that we had a fault, and while they had not retrieved any effluent from us, they could not charge us, and therefore they could not give us a receipt.

As she marched across the boat yard back to Summertime JR enquired if she had always walked like that. I explained that, no, what he was witnessing was angry walking.

We set off from Marmaris with the intention of heading W. The weather forecast was for lightish W winds turning SW which should allow us to sail some of it and if not the wind strength should not make motoring too unpleasant. When we got out the wind was constantly heading us and the strength considerably more than anticipated. We therefore had a somewhat shorter trip than originally planned and ended up in the little fjord of ancient Loryma. We managed one long tack as part of the trip just to get the sails up.

We took a place on the jetty belonging to a restaurant in the bay. We were soon surrounded by a flotilla of about 20 boats crewed by Russian families. I have to say they were great fun and boisterous but friendly and well mannered, contrary to some stereotypes. We had a really nice evening, including live music from an excellent female singer and male guitarist.

The next morning we continued W to the town of Datca on the N side of Gulf of Doris, sailing and motoring about 50:50. Datca is a medium sized town and I have history there. Many years ago on a Sunsail flotilla I managed to hit an underwater rock off the point of the harbour with the propeller, disabling the boat and nearly sinking a Coast Guard cutter. So revisiting the Datca rock is a bit of a pilgrimage.

Site of Datca rock -now a coast guard base.

It is about 10 years since we were last there and Datca has been smartened up considerably. It looks very prosperous with a large selection of restaurants and bars. There was an arts festival going on so loads of young Turkish arty types and festival goers wandering about and a very vibrant feel to the place. They have even extended the Coast Guard wharf with a concrete jetty to incorporate the Datca rock. So presumably I am not the only person to have come to grief on it.

The usual activities of walking, swimming and indulging were undertaken, however the main reason for coming was to try to get a Blue Card.

The flowers of Datca

 











  Datca is a Port of Entry and therefore has the full complement of Port Police, Customs, Coast Guard and Harbour Authority. So I first went to the Coast Guard office, who directed me to the Police station. The policeman spoke no English but managed to point me towards the large flag of the Customs office. The customs office directed me to the Harbour Master, who kindly informed me that I needed to go to the harbour buoy. For a few moments I thought he was trying to direct me to a customs berth for processing, but it then became clear he meant the harbour boy, i.e. the guys who took our lines on arrival. So back I went to the boat and the nice chaps in the shack sorted me out with a brand new Blue Card, and we were now street legal.I get the impression that things have changed quite significantly in Turkey over the last period of time. I was slightly fearful that the political lurch to the right in Turkey might have resulted in an increase in repression of women and religious standards being imposed. However this does not seem to be the case. Young Turkish women seem to have a much more apparent role in society than I remember. The girls are clothed in as little as their European counterparts, I have seen a few wearing religious clothing, but a minority. As I was sitting in the cockpit looking out over the quay, the call to prayer emanated from the mosque, and the occupants of the street bar opposite me were two women of around 40, making good use of two pints of Efes and a packet of Marlboro as they put the world to rights. No doubt they were discussing thee bloody nose the current President got in the re-run local elections he forced in Istanbul.

Another in the series.

The forecast had been for the Meltemi to strengthen somewhat which meant the wind would be firmly in the W, hence the plan to head W while it was possible to do so. So we were now going E and headed pretty much back the way we had come but this time with a strengthening wind behind us. We were aiming for another enclosed bay on the S side of the Marmaris peninsula, Serce Limani. We lost the wind a bit as we sailed in the lee of Simi but as we rounded the S side of Simi, I could see white caps appearing and the sea state increased significantly. We set the sails in anticipation of the breeze, but nothing happened. We just bobbed along on increasing waves and white caps, but no wind. So we motored another half a mile until quite suddenly the breeze arrived. Soon we were charging along downwind at 7-8 knots with 25 knots of wind indicated. Ideally we should have reefed but we only had a few miles to go and a single gybe to get into our destination, so we just went wheeee! I think JR and Anita enjoyed it.

In Serce Limani the restaurant at the head of the bay has layed moorings throughout, meaning it would actually be quite difficult to find enough room to anchor in an anchorable depth. The one we took was made of heavy duty macrami when I went to inspect it but others looked brand new.

A very smart re-painted blue Beneteau 411 crewed by three young Turkish women came in behind us. They picked up the mooring at a slightly overenthusiastic pace and the crew member lost the unequal struggle and the boat hook ended up in the water. The restaurant owner was on hand to help sort it out but it was nice to see them hooting with laughter at the event.

Anita at Caunos

From Serce we headed E again on a 35nm leg to Ekincek. This bay lies next to the estuary of the Dalyan river which we planned to visit. We started motoring until the afternoon breeze established itself and a had a good run to the target. At Ekincek the restaurant in the East bay has developed a very nice mooring quay with full assistance,excellent showers and loos. They charge a reasonable amount and you can choose to eat with them or not. This is the optimum arrangement in many ways. The restaurant has to exist on its merits rather than on captives and the quay presumably pays for itself.

Lycian Tombs Dalyan River

The following day we hired a flat bottomed boat to take us on the standard trip up the Dalyan river to view the ancient ruins of the city of Caunus, the Lycian tombs in the cliff and the ever elusive hammerhead turtles and Kingfishers. A nice day out.

It's hot

It is now hot, very hot, ranging from 25 degrees at night to 40 degrees during the day and more in direct sunlight. The other factors that go with this are the accentuation of sea breezes and catabatic winds. So at night moored in Ekincik bay there are fairly ferocious down blasts of catabatic winds which is essentially cold air falling off the surrounding mountains. I forgot to put away my hammock and the wind scoops we use during the day. This resulted in a cacophany of wind related roaring and howling. I put my head under the pillows but M bravely ventured on deck to retrieve the various bits of flying cloth and tighten stuff.

It's hard but someone has to.

I am glad we decided not to stay out here during July and August. Although so far it has not been too busy, I fear it will soon be insufferably hot.

So today we are heading back to Marmaris and the journey back to the UK. But we are looking forward to returning in September. I intend to restart blogging at theat point, but in the meantime we would appreciate feedback, positive and negative, to try to make the blog more relevant and/or more interesting.

We will have another go at sucking out!