A sticky end.

M.

As the end date of our time with Livianda approached we had to decide whether to have a jaunt further north and west, or start heading back towards the east. In the end we decided to pay attention to the weather forecast that predicted high wind and gusty Meltemi conditions settling in over the next week. It seemed to prudent to start a leisurely return, rather than face long downwind stretches in wild seas.

Datca dogs,. They don't care.

We chose Selimiye as a sheltered base for the evening. Its a pretty town on the south coast of the Gulf of Doris. On our only previous attempt to visit, we had been rather churlishly turfed out of the only remaining berth and found nowhere was safe to anchor in strong winds, with minimum depths of 20 metres and all best spots commandeered. We had retreated in darkness to our ‘ secret bay’ on the north coast. However we thought it worth another shot and set off in hope. On the way we read several accounts of others facing chaotic and unhelpful marineros and indeed found it impossible to contact anyone by phone or VHF.

We dawdled around the quay trying to look assertive and important, and eventually a berth cleared for us. However the marinero appeared completely non- plussed when we asked him to find a space for Livianda, despite her obvious arrival and presence close by. Looking like a rabbit in headlights, he jumped on his moped and sped off, with the words ‘ It’s full, It’s full ! ‘ audible on the breeze, clearly at odds with the vision of an empty berth close-by. I think there are dark dealings going on here that are only intelligible to Turkish speakers. So it was Livianda’s turn to head for the solitude of our secret hidey hole.

They really don't care.

It was indeed a lovely village, a bit more up market than some of the other isolated villages. Smart shops and restaurants surrounding the bay and overlapping the sea with pontoons built out to maximise the space. A swanky meal was indeed had, but the experience was somewhat spoiled by the monster motor yacht that parked in the reserved space on the pontoon, with surround lights on all night that illuminated the sea and spoiled the beautiful night sky, and throbbing air conditioning that droned on all night. Perhaps we’ll give this a miss in future.

Datca dog communing with fish.

After a VHF confab in the morning we set off to meet Livianda in Dirsek. This is a site of nostalgia for us all, since we first met Linda and Lindsey on a Sunsail flotilla many years ago. We all remember a happy visit to the small restaurant here with our families, and delighted to find that it really hasn’t changed in the intervening 20 yrs, except to find the next generation of the owner’s family working in the restaurant. This was a perfect end for our time together.

Lindsey came up trumps with a farewell breakfast of his excellent pancakes and we went our separate ways . They were mindful of the strong NW winds forecast and took the wise decision to head home to their base in Fethiye rather than wait for a long downwind run in big seas.

We wanted to hang around the gulf, to enjoy our last week, and decided to sit out the winds in Datcha where there would be plenty to occupy us, within the security of the harbour. It was the right choice when the 35km winds struck, bending the date palms and howling through the town. However others, making the same decision, came crowding in crossing anchors with gay abandon. No real disasters though and only one chain to disentangle this time.

Anchor macrame 

And so our reluctant journey back to base began with a night at Loryma [ no donkey entertainment this time] and then Ciftlik, where we heard of terrible fires sweeping through the forests surrounding Marmaris.

C.

From the sailing point of view it has been bit tricky. The pattern has been of light to no wind in the mornings, and then around lunch time the wind suddenly appears from the N and W and is then strong all afternoon and early evening, with steady winds 15-25 knots but big gusts of 35+ knots. This is interesting sailing and I am pleased we have got our reefing system well sorted.

The Meltemi

This is the Meltemi which blows all summer and is caused by a large high sitting over Greece and a low sitting over the mainland and an acceleration zone between them. This plus the effect of the hot air rising over North Africa causes a huge on shore wind from the North.

It has arrived a bit earlier this year than usual and has scotched our tactic of Spring and Autumn sailing to avoid it.

The local ex-pat cognoscenti say this is unusual weather for this time of year. We were in conversation with a senior pair on a 42ft Halberg Rassey in Ciftlik. They have circumnavigated the globe and done all the major passages that sailing has to offer and now live aboard in Turkey. They were quite clear that this region has some of the most ferocious winds and unpredictability of anywhere they have sailed. So we will continue to beware.

Being back in the marina is very strange. The frenetic activity that was going on when we were here just a month ago has ended. The yard is pretty much emptied of boats, the various service offices are mostly closed and the travel lifts sit parked and lonesome.

There are a fair number of Russians about, and they keep mostly to themselves as is their nature.

One of the main interests is the range of electric personal transport. Scooters, hover boards, two wheels, one wheel. They have become an essential style accessory.

It must be every little boys ultimate delight to charge down a floodlit pontoon at night on a scooter at 30 mph, in your pants!

I saw one guy belting down the pontoon really fast, on a single wheel, bandanna in place, mobile phone in hand followed closely by blonde girlfriend on her scooter. Definitely stoked, if that is the word.

It is hot, very hot. Even minor activity brings you out in a sweat and the lethargy is profound. It is a little triumph to have a pee, note to self, must drink more. Much to M’s horror at the plastic bottle use, we have actually taken to drinking sparkling water. I can recommend the stuff in the green bottle, Sirma.

In terms of jobs on the boat, it is hard to do anything.

My wind instrument had not worked since the mast had come down when the standing rigging was replaced. I had however convinced myself that the mast head transducer was fine, and the wiring was intact and it must therefore be the actual instrument on the binnacle that was the culprit.

I was recounting this to Lindsay from Livianda, when he piped up that he had an old broken one aboard that might actually work but the casing was smashed. I gratefully accepted his gift and was looking forward to trying to install it.

One of the problems is that our binnacle plastic casing is somewhat fragile and there are several broken bits held together by various adhesives.

Binnacle destruction

I tried to take it apart without further destruction. It was a bit like trying to peel a boiled egg without cracking the shell. M could not watch, she went shopping instead.

Eventually I managed this and removed the old instrument.

Electronic transplant surgery

I reformed a single instrument from the two dead ones using the carcass of one and the innards of the other. I wired it in and hey presto, wind speed and direction showing loud and clear, just 180 degrees the wrong way

Never mind, we put it all back together with lashings of white silicon, and enjoyed watching the wind speed go up and down and the direction arrow rotating nicely, just pointing in the wrong direction.

A bit breezy.

I got out the manual and read the various instructions for calibration. There is “User” calibration, “intermediate” calibration and the defcon three, ”dealer” calibration.

As with all things Raymarine there is a bewildering series of button presses to perform for different lengths of time to get into the various calibration modes. But to get into this one you also had to drive the boat round in a circle, twice, and slowly.

So the following day as we were setting off we performed the Raymarine ritual, and now have a fully functioning wind instrument, and pointing at the direction the wind is actually coming from.

This may not seem like a big issue but not having to look at the masthead indicator is a huge bonus for a bloke with a bad neck, and also prevents solar eye injury.

Pan handle replaced. 

I have a few jobs that have been sitting waiting to be done for a long time, and I think some of them are for the back burner. I had planned to put in a float switch for the bilge pumps so that they would pump out if there was a water leak while we are not here.

However that would mean leaving the batteries connected in circuit which I don’t want to do. I am leaving the solar panels connected so it is not really about the batteries flattening from being left in circuit, but I just don’t like live circuits left unattended in case of shorts/fires etc. Having seen some of the shonky wiring connections from previous maintenance, this is more of an issue. In any case, if there was major water ingress, the bilge pumps would pump away manfully until the batteries run out of juice, and then the boat still sinks, but with flat batteries. We have good loud water alarms in the bilges for when we are aboard, which is the most important thing.

Any buyers?

I had bought some charcoal filters to put in the water circuit for drinking water. What we have been doing is running the tap water through a filter jug before boiling for tea and coffee, and then bottling the boiled water for storage in the fridge. This actually works very well and the local water is probably completely fine anyway.

It turns out the filters I got are USA spec and need ¼ inch piping. Inches! Explain inches to a Turkish plumber. I guess the UK will get there eventually as well, as the only tangible outcome of Brexit.

Irrespective these are obviously designed for mains pressure and small calibre pipes and would almost certainly significantly reduce the flow in our pump drive system. So into the plastic recycling they go.

Our windlass has been completely robust, apart from the fact that you can’t use it by hand. There is a little lever that you can use that is meant to lift up a ratchet tooth and prevent the gypsy from rotating forwards and thereby allow a handle to be used to lift the chain manually. This has always been jammed and I was assured that the lever gets encrusted with salt and dirt and thereby sticks in place.

However in order to remove the gypsy to service it I needed to get this off. I waited until we were back in port as I did not want to risk being without a windlass at sea.

I set about dismantling it and it was all going well. I got the gypsy off,and the plate that strips the chain out of the gypsy and set about de-encrusting the tooth. It was encase in white stuff. Salt presumably. But as I scraped and dug a bit of blue plastic appeared and then it became clear this was a cable tie. ?????

More dissection, and it turned out I was exploring the scene of a crime. I suspect a previous attempt at freeing this had resulted in some of the fabric of the main casing being broken, and into the thread of one of the bolt holes.

A cable tie!

This had then been repaired with epoxy putty of some sort, with a cable tie embedded in it. I don’t understand exactly what had been done before but I had got to the point of not wanting to explore any more. I cleaned it up and put in some more epoxy putty and mechanically scarpered.

I then found an electrical relay associated with the alternator and starter motor with a broken wire coming from it. I could not work out what this was for, but I don’t like mysteries. Everything seems to be working so I could just ignore it. But it was playing on my mind.

I needed to follow the other wires from the relay and see what they were connected to. I ripped out the cushions and floor boards in the aft cabins and followed the cable back into the aft lockers. I exhumed the sails from the aft locker , ropes buckets and brushes as well. I then managed to follow this cable up into the steering binnacle.

But I had just been in there last week doing the wind instrument, and all was in order. It then dawned on me that the wiring going to the bow thruster switch had looked peculiar with some redundant wires taped to the connected ones. At some point someone had rewired the controller for the bow thruster. And not removed the existing ones Presumably it had stopped working, probably because of this broken wire!

So these projects had achieved the sum total of zip.

Just nothing.

We shall be off home soon, just doing a bit of tidying, cleaning and donating of clothes that don,t fit any more. Funny how that happens.

But we are very happy that everything aboard is in now in good order for when we return in the Autumn. Although all the work that was necessitated by our diesel leak was somewhat stressful, and put the kibosh on our plans, in some ways it has been a good thing.

I had always had some slight anxiety about some of the cracks that are present in the bonder between the hull and the internal moulding. But now we now know there has not been any significant grounding in the past, and all is in good structural order. Oh and the Insurance Company came up trumps. Good on them.

Off home.

We probably are not going to leave Turkey this season, but next year we hope to make some longer passages and head West again.