Gulf of Gulluk
After a peaceful night we contemplated a journey further North to Kusadasi from where we could visit Ephesus. However the promised south west wind did not materialise and we didn’t fancy beating against the northwester that transpired, So Genoa up and we run with it to Paradise Bay , proper name Kaziki Limani. Past fish farms and huge unfinished holiday resorts we were not hopeful that the unspoiled bay described by Rod Heikel in our ancient pilot book, would have been spared.
Didim to Paradise bay
Thankfully it has, bar a bit of aberrant plastic on the beach, and we spent the day reading, enjoying swimming in the emerald water and watching the occasional kingfisher whistling about. Paradise indeed.
There was one other boat anchored nearby, an American flagged new Island Packet 460 called Flying Fish. Out of interest I Googled it and found that the owner had a blog. He had bought the boat from new in Florida 2 years ago. The blog included interesting stuff about construction and fitting out, and I suspect the manufacturers were contributing. It is a thoughtful bit of reflection on his journey and worth a read.
He had sailed down to the Caribbean, through the Panama canal, across the Pacific to the Islands, NZ and Oz, the Indian Ocean and Red Sea and had ended up getting stuck in Turkey. Covid had meant he could not sail to Europe and was now running out of Visa time. He was having to leave his boat in a yard and head back to the USA. I think I would prefer to stay in Turkey.
M took an dawn picture of his boat and sent it to him. He sent a appreciative reply. It sounded like he was at a bit of a low ebb, seeking out increasingly remote anchorages and sad to be leaving the boat.
Summertime in Paradise.
Remote anchorages also seem to serve a purpose for the locals. There have been several occasions whereby in an out of the way spot a couple of boat loads of young Turks have turned up to have a hoe-down. This involves really loud Turkish music, dancing on deck, shouting, swimming and drinking. There may be other substances involved and hence the need for rurality (see Midnight Express).
It is quite endearing in it’s own way and at least the music is ethnically appropriate and does not involve doof doof. The also usually leave at sundown and drive off in a slightly random direction into the darkness, What could possibly go wrong?
From Paradise bay we sailed to the ancient port of Iassos, again avoiding a sunken harbour at its entrance. The pilot book described this as a lovely spot, and indeed we were not disappointed.
Despite the holiday villages engulfing most of the headlands around these parts, this was an unspoiled sleepy little village with its fishing caiques crowding the small quay and filling the small fish stalls at the harbour with the day’s catch.
Iassos Harbour
A walk through the village showed typical rural life continuing, with small market gardens growing pomegranates, aubergines, figs , with chickens screeching around and an occasional cow laconically surveying you on the way past. People respond with friendly ‘merhaba’ as you walk past and cats blink from their lairs in tractor seats.
The ruins were definitely worth a visit, being partially restored ,and giving a splendid view of the harbour. Our guide was a black lab type dog who became quite proprietorial as he guided us about and photo bombed every picture !
We reluctantly left our small bit of heaven and headed across the Gulf of Gulluk towards Gumusluk, a trip of about 25 miles. A nice breeze filled in from the WNW and allowed us to tack across the bay.
Iassos to Gumusluk
We also had to avoid the multiple fish farms. This particular Gulf seems to have been designated as the centre for Turkish fish farming. These vast structures are moved around the Gulf from place to place presumably to avoid waste product issues accumulating in one location. However this means they can be anywhere, and everywhere , and a significant proportion of the entire gulf is taken up by them. They are low lying structures and it is only the boats attending them that make them apparent from a distance. It is not until you get quite close that you can work out where one begins and another ends, and whether there is a gap you can sail through or not. A good pair of binos is essential. At night or in poor visibility this would be a no-go area. Apart from the ethical issues (depending on your recognition of sentience) this is all a bit distasteful and it is quite noticeable that the water in this entire area is quite cloudy due to algal bloom, or whatever, in comparison to the rest of the Med. Swimming?? Hmmm.
The entrance to Gumusluk is a bit like many old harbours around here in that there is a sunken ancient breakwater to avoid leaving a relatively small gap to get through into the harbour area.
Iassos was the same. Why these old breakwaters are all submerged is unclear, perhaps rising sea levels, or possibly sinking due to volcanic activity. Some of these narrow channels are not clear on the charts and having a pilot book is pretty essential.
Gumusluk is a busy little place with the frontage taken up through its entire length with fairly up-market restaurants. We avoided these and found one more to our social standing as slightly unwashed itinerants. The prices here seem to have fallen since last year and certainly the fall of the Turkish Lira makes eating out much more affordable. However whatever benefit you get from that is lost to the banking banditry who charge 5-10% to allow you the privilege of access to your cash at the ATM. The rich get rich.
The anchorage was busy. We had initially anchored not far off the town jetties but were shooed away by a Gulet skipper claiming were too close to the laid moorings. I am pretty sure we weren’t but we went further up the bay and did a tricky bit of inserting ourselves in quite a tight matrix of boats. I was not happy as we ended up some 20-30m from the boat lying behind. So we took it up, went a bit further forwards and did it all again. It seemed much better. Several other yachts came in, did a tour around and decided the anchorage was now full and sensibly left.
Really?
We were just settling down when a large Gulet came in and positioned itself in the small space we had just vacated. It dropped its huge hook down and laid out about 10m of scope, reversed on it and then seemed content. So the gap between us and the boat behind us, that we had taken such trouble to make large enough for safety, was now occupied by an 30m Gulet with 10m of anchor out, a miracle. Just shows theses maritime deities know what they are doing more then we mere nautical mortals.
So having been warned off being too close to laid moorings, when we departed the next morning we picked up a laid mooring. Not to worry, an opportunity to try out our mark 2 home made anchor crossing hook device. This is basically an 6 inch G clamp with two lines attached, one to dangle it down and hook up the errant line, the other to invert the hook and release the line once the anchor has been freed.
So we hooked up the line with no problem, dropped our anchor down and freed it, but then (again) I could not get the hook to invert and release the line. No amount of cajoling, pleading, shouting or tugging in different directions would persuade it to work. In the end (again) I had to cut it free and another £5 worth of hardware was lost to Davey Jones locker.
I need to rethink the design.
The subject of anchoring technique has got to the point where on various sailing forums it has been almost banned as a topic, in that it is more contentious than religion, politics and sport. It brings out fiercely held convictions in a way that almost nothing else can. So I am a bit reluctant to even go there.
However snubbers have to be discussed. When anchoring with an all chain rode, as opposed to a combination of chain and nylon anchor warp, there are potential problems. In particular chain does not stretch and this lack of elasticity can result in extreme forces on the boat gear in a blow. So most authorities recommend attaching a piece of rope, preferably nylon, to the chain and attaching this to the cleats or Sampson post. This also has the benefit of taking the weight off the windlass clutch, which is not designed to withstand such forces.
However the way our cleats, pulpit structure and bow roller are configured, attaching the snubber rope to a cleat means the warp is lying against the pushpit and the lateral forces would destroy the fittings. So last year we moved to having a bridle, with a rope going from each cleat outside of the pulpit to the chain. This worked well, until …. There are drain holes in the anchor locker on each side. These are to allow water that has got into the locker out and also allows you do wash down the anchor chain.
Thete is a hole in my boat.
On the outside there are dinky little triangular plastic bits that are meant to prevent water getting into the locker while underway. Yes the bridle managed to knock one of these off.
So it had to be replaced with a new one, made out of a yoghurt pot.
Macrame Snubber
However this also meant that a new solution for the snubber had to be found. I came up with a bit of macramé that allows the load to be shared between the two cleats and centralises the rope going over the bow roller onto the chain Seems to work at the moment, although it looks a bit complex.
Gumusluk to Kormen
There was a forecast for some Southerly winds. Not strong but blowing 15 knots gusting 25 knots. No particular drama other than the vast majority of harbours are positioned to be secure in winds N to SW, but are often open to the S and E.
So we headed from Gumusluk to a harbour on the S coast of the Gulf of Gokova, Kormen, which we remembered from flotillas many years ago. Our memory was that it was a very basic concrete and stone harbour with no facilities, but well protected from the S. This was confirmed by our rather ancient pilot book.
We had a nice downwind sail all the way and by the time we got there waves had built up a bit. There was no problem, but the harbour entrance is quite shallow and a sharp turn to starboard is need to enter. This would be interesting in a strong NW wind when the seas would be breaking at the entrance.
We were somewhat surprised to find a rather nice marina now ensconced, with pontoons and laid mooring. Very reasonably priced with a supermarket, restaurant and wine bar. It is also the ferry port for the Datca to Bodrum route, Datca being 10k across the isthmus.
Nive lines. Its a McGregor!
We had developed more comms problems. The Vodafone SIM we had bought a month ago had suddenly stopped, despite having been assured it would last out our visit, it only lasted a month. So we needed to visit Datca to sort it.
We planned to use the Dolmus, This is the local mini-bus service which is wonderful. Nice clean little buses that pretty much deliver people to their homes and pick them up anywhere. They carry all manner of goods, shopping, electronics etc. The drivers are very friendly (generally) and they cost a fixed fare of 5TL (50 pence) no matter how far you go. However working out the timings is a bit of an issue.
We waited 15 minutes in the blistering heat for the Dolmus to arrive and then decided to start walking the 6 miles to Datca. Fortunately after a mile or so the Dolmus stopped for us and we gratefully hopped on board. I think he had seen the vultures circling.
In Datca, we found the Vodafone shop but the lady spoke no English and didn’t seem terribly keen to try to help in any way so we gave up. We tried the another couple of shops but to no avail and finally tried the Turkcell shop. Again communication was really difficult but by a combination of single words and gestures we bought a new SIM, registered it using a Passport and rejoined the 21st century with a whopping 25GB of data for 15TL. We also made friends with the really helpful lady who served us, and sent us off with big smiles and waves. Full marks Turkcell, poor show Vodafone.
We were watching this guy for a while.
Telecoms in Turkey are very much state regulated. There are 3 main providers. If you have a domestic mobile device it must be registered through one of these and if you bring a phone from abroad you can either using roaming data (eye-watering) or buy a Turkish SIM. This means you register your foreign phone but if you continue to use it after 120 days, the phone gets blocked. What they want is for you to buy a Turkish phone that is fully monitored and taxed. Bossy or what.
I was also keen to visit the harbour. Datca is known to be a tricky spot in a Southerly wind. So I took up prime anchor watching position in a bar overlooking the harbour, along with a beer and several local aficionados, whilst M raided the local market.
Some assistance!
As hoped for, chaos was occurring. An elderly English gent had got into a pickle and had run across the anchor chain of the boat adjacent to his target berth. He was standing in the cockpit yelling “I am requesting assistance” to the harbour master.
The normally very friendly harbour master was getting a bit distressed. I got the impression he had already had to render assistance multiple times that morning and seemed somewhat frazzled. He went out in his dinghy to sort things out. The skipper had two further abortive attempts to get in and eventually the harbour master drove the boat in, only to find that the anchor had been dropped too late and was not biting. So out they went and did it all again.
A similar performance then took place on a German crewed boat, Husband (helm), Frau (anchor) and kids running up and down with increasingly fraught messaging. Twice they came in and nearly made the quay but the anchor had been stopped too early on both occasions and they rebounded straight back out again. The kids were getting a master class in shouting that will probably pass down the generations. Social services should have an office in the harbour. The wife stood, hands on hips yelling expletives that echoed around the harbour, and throwing down the anchor control in venomous rage. By this stage the Harbour master was throwing his hands up to the sky and shrugging shoulders in despair.
Meanwhile a small power craft, newly tied up, erupted into a frenzy of domestic strife and another round of yelling, throwing and all round bad behaviour ensued, before the lady on board left the boat and rode away on the back of a young man’s moped. No need for TV soaps around here.
I had resolved not to describe any more anchoring antics, but it really is too compelling, as shown by the gallery of guys in the bar. As soon as it was all resolved, they all left! It’s clearly a source of local entertainment.
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