We
are back on the boat. We flew out
to Turkey on Thursday. It was a
long boring day. With the two hour
difference in time it was after 10pm when we landed, so we had to have some
supper before we got to the boat.
We arrived after midnight and had some trouble finding the pontoon where
they moved our boat to after it was relaunched. But we eventually found it and fell asleep despite it being
very hot.
On
Friday we used the car to go to the big local supermarket to provision the
boat. Despite the supermarket
being part of the Tesco group, I couldn’t find much to buy. I was warned that Turkish food shopping
is a bit limited. So we managed to
get some stuff together to feed us for a few days. We had the boat cleaned inside and out and it is spotless,
except for one big problem. When
they stripped down the hull and sanded the keel, they didn’t seal up the keel
openings in the interior of the boat (despite Richard’s request that they do
so). So when I opened the
cupboards under the sinks I found black dust on everything. I therefore had to spend some time
cleaning after all, washing everything in those cupboards.
Today
we finally got away. It all took
longer than we hoped, but we were off by noon. We knew that the wind would be on the nose for most of the
way so we took advantage of a favourable wind for half an hour crossing the bay
in Marmaris, just using the genoa.
With its new Coppercoat antifouling the boat slid through the water
beautifully. For the rest of the
day we motored into headwinds. We
weren’t planning on going far. We
just went around the corner to Ciftlic, which was recommended. It was a pretty bay with a beach at one end and some
restaurants with pontoons at the other.
We thought we would like to anchor for the night, so we went at the
beach end of the bay. We were not
lucky with our attempts at anchoring.
The first time I put the anchor down, Richard went hard in reverse and
instead of setting, the anchor dragged.
When I took it up it was just full of weed. So we tried again to find a sandy patch, and thought we had
succeeded. However, when we went
for a swim Richard looked at it with the face mask and snorkel and found that
although the anchor was on sand, it was just lying there and not dug in again.
So
we had lunch and then decided what to do.
There were three possibilities.
Try to anchor again and hope we could set it well enough to stay the
night, go on one of the restaurant pontoons, or go to the next harbour. We chose the last alternative, which in
some respects was a bit of a mistake.
We knew that the wind would be on the nose going the way we planned, but
we didn’t expect it to be a force 4, touching 5 with a very choppy sea. So we were bobbing all about and worst
of all there was a lot of spray making a mess our newly cleaned boat
(especially the shiny chrome bits) and it also soaked our new sun shades, on
the front windows.
But
we make it to Bozuk Buku before it is dark. It is a lovely spot with an ancient citadel on a cliff
overlooking the bay. We decided at
the last minute to go onto a restaurant pontoon. They have pick up lines and the situation is pretty, under
the citadel. We do have to eat in
the restaurant, but that’s OK, because it really is too hot to cook. But we bought some ice this morning, so
after a swim, I make us rum punches, and we have two each! Then dinner at the restaurant which is
very average, but I have a nice grilled fish. Now I am in the cockpit in the pitch dark typing this
because it really is too hot below.
Not sure what we will do tomorrow.
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