Karma and all that

We did not go to Greece, Honest.

Over the next week, the crews of Summertime and Livianda had a fine old time wending our way East, stopping at places at random including Bozburun, somewhere else, and Ciftlik.

Bozburun is particularly commended as a very pleasant little town with helpful harbour staff and Lynne, a nice lady from Paisley running Osman’s restaurant.

Citadel at ancient Loryma - 500BC

If proof were needed.

Folk from the West of Scotland all seem related by events and acquaintance. For instance Lindsay and Margaret went to the same primary school, have quite a few people in common and were often doing the same activities at the same time, like swimming at the same corporation pool. Conversations were often about “did you know Jimmy Mc so and so” or “my brother must have been in the class ahead of your sister”. I am pretty certain if we had delved into Lynne's background her great aunt Jean would have been Lindsay’s cousin’s god-parent and her father would have had a fight with Margaret’s uncle.

From Ciftlik we took the now familiar route to Skopea Limani via an overnight stop at Ekincik. Lightish winds were with us most of the time but we managed to sail the majority of these trips. Got the cruising chute up on the third attempt! The chute was a pretty site, but not the launching. Also we immediately lost the wind direction we needed and had to drop it.

We then carried on further East to Cold Water bay adjacent to Olu Deniz.

Olu Deniz is a major tourist site and shown on all the Turkish tourist advertising, but worth a brief stop. It consists of a picturesque lagoon separated from the sea by a long spit of sandy beach. Yachts are not permitted to enter the lagoon but can anchor outside, although with all the Doof Doof, and high volume rap, you probably would not want to.

The restaurant at Cold Water bay is run by a nice chap called Ali and his wife, who is from Thailand. They are an excellent couple. He is a parking Ninja and manages to safely stern-to berth, with anchors and shore lines, dozens of boats into a very small space. It is not worth trying to get in there before late afternoon as it is infested with Gulets playing painfully loud musak, and they take up all the berthing space. Fortunately they leave late afternoon. There are underwater fresh water springs in the bay that bring ice cold water from the mountains, which makes swimming a very strange experience with warm sea and cold spring water trying to admix, but forming swirls and currents of the two dissimilar liquids.

30 -  love

The restaurant is a walk up a steep path, but well worth if for the Thai curry menu.
In the morning Ali came round and provided bread for all his guests, gratis, and helped boats to leave by handling their shore lines. Not a single anchor was crossed – genius.

Which Album Cover

It was at this point that we parted company with Lindsay and Linda. We had a great time with them and really enjoyed their company, and late night games of cards and Yahtzee. Our apologies to others who may have been kept awake with the hilarity. So we sailed East and they sailed West back to their base at Fethiye.

We look forward to sailing with them again. I am not sure why it had taken so long for our acquaintance to re-form. I think life just gets in the way.

Yedi Burundi - oily calm

Our next voyage is South and East past an area called Yedi Burunlar, Seven Capes in English. This is a barren coastline with high towering mountains and steep bluffs forming the austere seven capes. There are no harbours or anchorages for some 35 nm and the coast has a fearsome reputation for big, confused seas when the winds are blowing. We had to motor for the first couple of hours and then managed to beat into a SE wind most of the rest of the way.

Crocodile Rock

The first harbour reached is at the town of Kalkan. After quite a long day we were a bit tired and looking forward to a peaceful berthing. However when we entered the harbour it was immediately apparent we had a problem. There were a small number of yachts moored but the entire harbour was taken up with Gulets and tripper boats.

Chaos in Kalkan

I had spotted a couple of potential anchorages in the area but I was keen to get ashore to try to sort out our phone problems. M radioed the harbour master to ask for advice, which promptly came back in the form “Kalkan harbour is full”!

We had a conversation with another boat of Brits who were also hanging about. They had been told that once all the tripper boats were in, the harbour master would try to find them space. They had been waiting for a couple of hours So we hung about in anticipation of similar dealings.

Eventually a big Gulet skipper took pity upon us and offered that we both moor up alongside him, on a temporary basis.

Over the next hour another couple of dozen tripper boats returned with their cargoes of lobster pink tourists, to be delivered to the local bars.

Gulets park in surprising spots

By this time another half a dozen yachts had arrived and a game of yacht pontoon building commenced.
To be fair the Gulet crews and the harbour master did a fine job of fitting us all in, and as professionals in rope handling, were very tolerant of the amateurs on the yachts. Four yachts ended up rafted up alongside him and his crew were helpful and friendly. The only proviso was to take your shoes off while crossing them. Fair enough.

We had a couple of drinks on board with two British couples on a charter yacht adjoining us on the raft, Martin, Dave, Gill and Jill, and after the world events were sorted, we went off to explore the town by climbing over boats and the Gulet.

Kalkan is now a very major tourist enterprise, with street after street of quite cool bars, upmarket shops and restaurants. The predominant clientele is Brits on land based package holidays. This explains why there are so many tripper boats to take them off to local beaches for booze cruises. Clearly the meagre income the locals will make from a few yachties who might just buy at the supermarket and eat aboard means that making space in the harbour for them makes no economic sense. Can’t blame them.

The next morning we conspired with our neighbours that when the raft was dismantled we would try to nip in to vacated berths. However the plan, from our perspective, failed on contact with reality. Our neighbour (RYA instructor) nipped out in reverse and went straight round into a vacated space with great aplomb.
We tried to follow but were not quite ready to drop the anchor at the right moment and lost our position.
However by now it was complete mayhem, with Gulet after Gulet charging out into the tiny harbour. We were nearly mown down by one, yelled at by another and we could not manoeuvre inside the harbour with all this going on. So we drove outside the harbour and watched for an opportunity to have another go. There was a brief lull in the frenetic activity so in we went for another go. We were just about to drop when the harbour master appeared and started shouting he wanted us to drop in a different spot – missed again. More frenzy and us getting in the way ensued for another half an hour.

At this point a Norwegian yacht with Dad and young daughter as the only crew started lifting its anchor to leave. So we waited for them to go. He moved forward to roughly the spot where we had been instructed to drop, and picked up a huge chain and two mooring lines. At this point I decided we had had enough of Kalkan and sheepishly motored out of the harbour.

As I glanced back I could see things were not going well with the yacht still firmly held fast, the boat hook in the water and the little girl looking distraught. Sailing can be a hard master.

Things that have broken.

Laptop – as previously intimated, it cannot do the heat, but is fine if stored in the fridge.

Chinese phone – the battery seems to have failed – I suspect a heat related issue as well.

Curtailed the flying a bit.

Foresail furler. We nearly had to retire to Marmaris to try to get this sorted. It was becoming increasingly difficult to furl and unfurl, and seemed to get stuck at a certain point in the rotation around the forestay. I then remembered that I had thought the luff was a bit loose and had tensioned the halyard a bit. On de-tensioning it the problem was resolved.

Number 8 wire solution

Kettle Handle – this fell off. M could not identify a suitable replacement that met all her criteria (whistle, no lid and spout loading). So I drilled a couple of holes, straightened a coat hanger and re-formed it to pass twice through the holes. I then insulated the metal with two layers of twine whipping. I believe in NZ this is known as the number 8 wire solution.

Batteries – I think these are on the way out. I have three lead acid, non-maintenance batteries with a capacity of 435 amp-hours. Despite the solar panel and several episodes of overnight charging they are not holding the charge. I think this will be costly but I am hoping they will last through so I can get new ones next season.

OJ – another carton of orange juice disgorged its contents into the bilge – we wondered why we had such a flying insect problem. I think from now on cartons can only be stored in the fridge, or another container.

Fan belt – loose and needed tightening.

Deck Brush – head fell off

Cockpit locker catch. One of the spring loaded cockpit locker catches has fallen apart three times. I have tried putting it back together using a variety of sealants and adhesives, but it still falls apart. If I get a solution I will post it.

Television antenna cable. M announced that the mast (which she was sitting against) had an important looking cable broken. This explains why the TV box receiver has never worked.

Wee toes - this can happen if shoes are not worn on deck.

Spectacles… many pairs broken and held together with micropore tape… seems to be a bit of a yachtie look, probably due to aberrant feet or bums around the cockpit.

Several glasses and mugs. We do have plastic ones but they’re never quite the same for a cuppa, so don’t use them …..and we always forget that they go flying during a tack or gybe.

I also lost a sandal between the Gulet and the next yacht - but had previously found a nice big fender floating in the sea - Karma