Bit of A Knees Up

We exited Greece on a brisk day and sailed across the straits of Symi into the Gulf of Bozburun and parked up in the familiar town quay.

Just to prove she does helm.

Our (now) good friend the Marine Agent rapidly and efficiently took our papers, delivered a new Turkish Transit Log and deftly relieved us of the burden of another hundred quid.

It is good to know that we are making a significant contribution to the local economy, not just by buying groceries and beer, but by single handedly supporting the administration of the Mediterranean maritime bureaucracy of all maritime nations. Well someone has to be in charge and control the comings and goings, otherwise cruising sailors would just … go where they liked?

Anyway we salved our frustrations by finding a rather nice little restaurant. Some guys came round to the boat and handed in a well produced booklet advertising their new wine enterprise. They have been involved in regenerating an area that had previously produced good grapes but had fallen into decline. One of them had gone to Wine College, (what a good idea), had come out with plans for re-establishing the fertility of this land and had helped several growers to get back on their feet. They had just opened a shop selling their produce, and making Pizzas.
What was not to like!

The following day we needed solitude. So we set off to Dirsek, a bay we knew from previous trips that provided this. A good sail on the way and a nice night at anchor with shore lines.

The next morning the guys from the restaurant came round in their boat providing fresh bread and cheese and spinach flatbread from the clay oven. Great.

Solitude

Our friends Lindsay and Linda McKerrow had arrived a few days previously and were sailing in our direction with novice-sailing guests on board.

In the morning we received a call from Lindsay who sounded a bit concerned. One of their guests, Sharon, had injured her knee a couple of weeks previously and had it stitched up, but now it had blown up with an infection. Did we have any antibiotics?

We got out the medicines chest and rifled through. We did have several lots of antibiotics but all out of date. Although some were not too ancient and possibly useable. We arranged a rendezvous that evening on Loryma which was roughly equidistant.

High tech wind indicator

We moored up at the restaurant at the head of the bay next to Livianda, the McKerrows Bavaria 46. We were introduced to John and Sharon and joined in the general festivities.

Sharon’s knee was really quite nasty and I felt she should really get antibiotics that were definitely going to work so the following morning we set off for Datca where there is a Hospital with an A&E department.

The wind was in the SW and Livianda chose to sail South of Symi to make the most of this. We drifted up the Straits between Symi and the mainland with a light breeze on the beam, however on rounding the N end of Symi a brisk wind piped up and we sailed full pelt on a reach, reefed front and back, to Datca at high speed. Satisfyingly we got there well ahead, not because our strategy was better, that is just the way it goes, sailing wise.

Datca Turkish cultural festival.

Sharon’s leg had worsened significantly since the morning so she and John went off to hospital. I have to say I was thinking dark thoughts about the causes of late infections. They seemed to get fairly cursory if rapid consideration at A&E, and a very reasonable charge for attention, and returned with the same ,but fresh antibiotics. Fortunately these did seem to have had some effect by the next morning and some of my worst fears receded (gas gangrene, necrotising fasciitis).

Knidos to Sogut Limani

And on we sailed. Over the next several days we visited ancient Knidos, Sogut Limani and finally Orhaniye before John and Sharon had to depart. 

I will spare the gory details of a blow by blow account of the wild partying involved, what happens at sea, stays at sea. But suffice to say that after an adequate sufficiency it seems that John was prone to a strange condition in which random utterances can occur out of context, like “Kylie Minogue!”

Technically speaking this is a Brain Fart.

We won’t let loose the videos, honest John.

Anyway a great time was had with first rate companions.

From the technical side of things, I have been very pleased with the performance of the Raspberry Pi chart-plotter. It has been completely robust, using minimal power, the wireless connection can be made to any device on board. All the sensors from the Raymarine system and additional ones are readily seen on the system both on OpenCPN and Signal K. The Chart plotting is adequate, but not as slick as Navionics.

Waterproof Samsung Tablet

Both are available on a waterproof tablet I have mounted on the steering binnacle which is perfectly readable in sunlight. So all in all a success, and were my Raymarine plotter to go down I would not replace it, but use a combination of the Raspberry Pi and Navionics instead. Given that a new bespoke system is well over £10K this is the only way to go.

Things that have broken: 

On a sharp tack in heavy weather there was a sudden racket from the cabin. It turned out that a hand brush had fallen into the fan from the refrigeration system inside a cupboard and broken a blade from the fan.

 I have repaired it but the additional weight of just a small amount of epoxy has disturbed the bearing and it intermittently making a din and needs to be replaced.

Small epoxy repair unbalances the bearing!

Having been very pleased with the Honda 2.3 outboard, and the way it had stubbornly continued to work after two years of neglect, it finally succumbed. 

It would start but could not be kept running without the choke being held open. This is sure sign of a weak mixture and almost certainly a partially blocked jet.

So the carb was removed, stripped and cleaned. There was a little bit of rust in the main jet that was having a ball valve effect and was finally removed with a bit of wire. Unfortunately the gasket between the carb and the block did not survive having been previously repaired (poorly).

I had just finished a John Grisham (not recommended) so the back cover was sacrificed to make a new gasket. Seems to work fine.

Grisham has some value.

Livianda had a dodgy autohelm. The rudder sensor was giving duff messages to the computer making the boat drive round in circles. We finally located the computer under the chart table after following the cables all the way from the steering gear through the floor of the aft cabin.

This was the most inaccessible place. I am not sure how this was installed but I suspect the cabling and computer were all put in place and then the cabin and furniture built around it.

One of the wires fell out of its connection which was clearly the fault, but replacing it was just not possible given our levels of boat yoga skills. The best we could do was to remove all the wires. The autohelm works just fine without the input from the rudder sensor which is essentially an affectation.

Ants on my pants. Cicada actually