That sinking feeling.

We sailed round the end of the Marmaris peninsula and into the Gulf of Bozburun. The area is a major Gulet building and servicing centre and at this time of year they were all coming home for winter. The place was heaving with Gulets.

Romantic Idylle

However they are apparently not allowed into the harbour itself which was very quiet. The helpful harbour master brought us in and helped with mooring lines. We had a coffee at Osman’s Place where Lynne from Stirling is the Maitre D’. She is also the Cruising Associations Honorary Local Representative. She was chatty and friendly, and nice to hear a Scottish accent, so we felt duty bound to join!

That evening we went for a wander a bit away from the centre of the village and found a series of little waterfront restaurants to the East side and enjoyed an especially good veg casserole. So much so that M asked how it was made..apparently the secret is to fry the components separately with loads of olive oil and combine in a tomato sauce at the end. Rather than a ratatouille which is usually baken in an oven.

The next morning M did a bit of provisioning and went to store some stuff in the bilges, when she spotted a significant amount of water. In the previous week or so we had found a small amount of brackish water in the bilges but had rationalised that it may have been after the decks had been hosed down, with some ingress at a stanchion post, or after heavy rain. That it had tasted a bit salty may just have been from salt deposits in the bilge itself. It is amazing the capacity we have for self deception. This was clearly sea water.

Technical Alert !

So up came all the floor boards. The keel bolts were inspected, nothing obviously amiss but there is always a little bit of surface corrosion that can raise concern. All the through hull fittings were examined. This was somewhat unsatisfactory, as on this boat the construction method involves bonding an internal moulding to the hull. There are pros and cons to this but one con is that the actual junction between the through hull fittings and the hull laminate cannot be seen directly.

There were traces of a water trail leading aft and this was followed to the engine compartment.

I ran the engine and inspected all the hoses and junctions. No leaks were apparent.

My best perspective

However the hose going into the raw water pump mounted on the front of the engine had some salt encrustation around its junction. This had been present before, and I had tightened the jubilee clips and had actually put some spare hose on board in case it needed replaced, but having inspected it regularly I had never seen a leak. Again I could not see any leak with the engine running but I then found some salt water below this underneath in the battery compartment. This is not a good state of affairs, as salt water and lead acid batteries are a bad combination that can lead to chlorine gas production.

I ran the engine again but could not see any leak. However this junction was the most likely culprit. I resolved to replace the hose and shut down the engine.

Suddenly, there was a significant water leak, but where from? Eventually it became clear that the water was coming from the rear end of the pump. The crafty people who make these pumps (Jabsco) create a hole in the housing in which the drive shaft runs in order that if the water seal goes, the water escapes outwards, rather than risking it filling up the oil sump through the oil seal at the aft end of the shaft. And their foresight worked perfectly in this event.
Interestingly the leak only occurred when the engine shut down, because it is a suction pump and when running there is negative pressure inside the pump. Also it is above the water line so the only water that leaks is that which is in the exit pipe, so we were not going to sink.

So the water seal on the pump shaft had gone. I went on line and found that replacement pumps are available, for between £400 and £700! There are also refurbishment kits available for about £70, but in Bozburun? The manual was totally useless in giving any instruction as to what was involved but I had in fact done this job before on another boat and felt I could probably do this with the tools available. I removed the pump, but then found that the aft end of the drive shaft has a gear mounted on it. Clearly I was going to need a vice, gear puller, torque wrench, and a proper workshop to remove the gear and the bearings. So I gave up and looked for help.

Engine minus raw water pump

Fortunately Osman in the cafe could help.Our recent membership of the Cruising Association was clearly inspired! He phoned a friend and within an hour an engineer turned up. We managed to communicate the situation in engineering sign language and off he went with the pump. The next day it was returned having been fully refurbished, and fitted. A bargain at £100 all done. It turned out he was the young harbour master's Dad, so I managed to convey my thanks via an interpreter. The moral being that if you are going to have a mechanical breakdown, having it in the town that is the  centre of Gulet maintenance is a good thing. Also worth knowing that local craftsmen are so efficient and reasonably priced.

Ahhh..morning walk around Bozburun bay

A further example of the 'small world' occurred. A Beneteau 473 pulled in along side us and conversation occurred that evening in Osman's Place. It transpired that one of the crew is the brother of an ex colleague of mine! It is amazing how often these apparently unlikely coincidences occur. I would be grateful for statistical projections of the likelihood.

The weather has become quite settled with lighter winds and sunshine so we planned to take things easy. We had a few idyllic days anchored in bays around the Gulf of Doris, reading and swimming. Lovely but uneventful, before moving back to Datca to top up on food, water and electricity.

From here we have no deadlines, and the weather looks pretty settled until our return to base. We are, like everybody, awaiting the Brexit decisions, to try to mitigate any negative impacts of a ' no deal' on the 31st October. In this case, the position of the boat on the date of leaving the EU may have implications for our future sailing plans. At the moment we can still potentially decide to leave the boat in Greece or Turkey over winter, so we are going to hover around the Datca area to keep both options open. Surely there will be some clarity about it all soon ?

Boating stuff.

 

Building a Gulet up remote track!

Anchoring

I approach discussion of this subject with even more trepidation than cleating. There is nothing brings out the rabid hordes of opinionated yacht-masters than a discussion on anchoring.

I have witnessed a whole range of practise, some just lob in the anchor and serve the G&Ts, some habitually anchor with lines ashore, some very experienced sailors wont use anchors in a harbour and will drive away unless there is a mooring line. And then there is the crossed anchor paranoia alliance, who maintain a constant vigil on the foredeck in case a miscreant infringes their territory.

Recently in Loryma, one boat came in and anchored far too close to a boat already parked. Instead of making a huge fuss, the skipper quietly deployed his fenders as a hint, and when that did not work, he upped anchor and went elsewhere without a fuss.

Similarly in Boyuz Buku a boat anchored close to us in 10 metres depth but only some 20 metres from shore. He then fell back on the breeze at least 50 metres as he laid out what he considered sufficient scope. Clearly if the wind changed round during the night he would be having breakfasted ashore, unless he got tangled up on us first. It is tricky to know what to do, whether to express concern, and risk ending up being demonised in some other fellows blog, sit tight and hope for the best, or (what is probably the best thing) just quietly leave.

Hard to spot the sandy bits.

Anchoring in the Med is fundamentally different from the UK. Firstly the sea bed is commonly more steeply shelving meaning there are great depths until close to shore. This makes anchoring with lines ashore much more popular and is a very secure solution (usually).

Second – the problem of weed. Many bays are carpeted with a thick layer of sea grass. On a bright day you can sometimes see the bottom sufficiently well to drop on a patch of sand, but more commonly in the evening there is a breeze disturbing the surface and the angle of the sun is such that picking a spot is not feasible.

Having dragged our anchor in weed I have now adopted a much more aggressive anchor testing regimen. This involves dropping the anchor to the sea bed, reversing to straighten out the scope and then doing a gentle dig in of the anchor in reverse. I then repeat this a couple of times. I then do a couple of hard reverses under (nearly) full power and sit there for a bit.

I rationalise that if this holds, it is unlikely that any wind is going to make us drag (probably). It is surprising how often this hard test results in the anchor pulling out a big carpet of weed, when we seemed to have good holding under more gentle testing.We were significantly compromised when, having anchored with lines ashore, we dragged after dark. M had to get into the dinghy equipped with life jacket and knife between her teeth to release the shore line. Again it was a huge clump of weed that came up.

I may be making a bit of a meal of this, and I have rarely seen anyone else being as rigorous. The fact that others have few disasters, probably means that most of the time the weed will hold a casually deployed anchor in light winds. But we all have different, and also varying, attitudes to risk.We had previous experience of drifting at night when the Bora blew up without warning and we disloged a rug of weed roots, wakening only when nearly ashore. One bitten, twice shy.