Logbooks 2009MARMARIS YAT MARINA, TURKEY
1. Escape from the marina
Cutting the lines from the marina after 6 months tied to the dock can be difficult, but as the weather improves and other friends leave you realise that it is time to go. There are a few hurdles that need to be cleared first, though.
1. change boat from caravan/storage area to a sailing machine.
After 6 months of not sailing, its surprising how much you've changed, little by little, so that it takes hours and hours to get the boat back to 'normal'. It's not just things like putting the sails back on, getting the running rigging right, making sure the outboard engine runs, the dinghy doesn't deflate the moment you put air into it. its more the stowage below that is the issue.
The forepeak has turned into a 'spare room' cluttered with all sorts of items that have been in continual use over the winter, so not worth putting away. the shelves are just stacked loose with bits an pieces as you might in a house, with no thought of being underway, heeling at 20 degrees turning books into lethal projectiles. And there seems to be a lot more of it than there was 6 months ago. where has it all come from? we've tried to sell (actually 'give away' is a better description) as much as we bought, but still stuff has multiplied.
Add to this we have 2 guests in 2 weeks who we have to find room for them to sleep - and their stuff.
2. check out of the marina.
hmm. you'd have thought that was the easy bit, you just pay your bill and go, don't you? Well, in theory, yes. in practice it turned out a little more complicated than that.
As i have previously mentioned, this winter was a bit wetter and colder and went on a bit longer than might normally be expected, so cruisers have been reluctant to leave. add to this 2 days of torrential rain followed by a good forecast and the pent up demand to be on their way was unleashed.
A secondary issue is the marina staff, or should i say staffing levels. Nazli, the office manager has not been replaced since she left in February and there has been a turn-over of staff in the office.
so direct 100 or so cruisers to an under-staffed, inexperienced office and what do you get? lots and lots of frustration.
fortunately one bright cruiser devised a queuing system so that people weren't sitting in the office all day, trying to say 'i'm before you', 'i'll only be 2 minutes' and getting very bad-tempered. the queue was over 100 long on the first 'bad' day and i think they managed to see 60 or 70 people, leaving 30 for the next day. and so it went on. the office staff were getting tired and so had to take long breaks and days off to add to the problem. In all this, all the staff were always very polite and as professional as their systems and processes allowed them to be.
by the time we wanted to check out 6 days later, terry went to the office at 9.10am, got given a number 33 and was eventually seen at 3pm! not really very good, but this is Turkey. they do things differently and not as we might expect and perhaps its a good thing that we don't always get what we want. i tell you, i'd rather be here than playing politics at work every day.
2 Out and about.
a. 11 May 2009. Marmaris to Fethiye. 50nm
So having successfully cleared the leaving the marina obstacles (well, most things stowed), we headed out to sea and off to Fethiye to meet up with Jamie and Liz on Esper who had spent the winter there.
The trip was not without drama. I had forgotten that our 'drip less' stern tube had begun dripping at the end of last season but stopped when we stopped using the engine. however, the drip was back with a vengance. We rang Tony on Full Flight for advice and mulled over what to do. Luckily we were able to sail some of the way (3 hours at 3 knots) but had to motor-sail the rest. The drip was relentless, and infact more of a trickle than a drip. very worrying. the bilge pump was doing its job by going off every 20 minutes or so as the float switch cut in.
Anchor down in Fethiye, we called over to Esper that we would be over asap, but we had a little problem to attend to. Terry tried to use an extra hose clip to make a better seal. no joy. we tried injecting more waterproof oil into the seal. still no joy. the more we pulled and twisted it, the worse it got. the bilge pump was now going off every 5 minutes or so, splurting out another litre of water. If all this failed, we would have to get hauled out and replace the seal. Once we had done all we could we paddled over to Esper for a drink and supper. Overnight we heard the pump go off several times, but at a much reduced rate, perhaps every 2-3 hours. not so bad.
Our enquiries about a haul out found that it would cost in excess of 400€ plus a mechanics time. expensive. By the time they could do it, the pump was going off less and less down to once or twice a day. we decided we could live with it until our scheduled lift in June.
So we had a few more days out and about, to Gocek and Boynuz Buku - our old favourites to meet our visitors, Jackie and Aileen. We had only met Jackie twice as a friend of a friend and we'd never met Aileen. But they are both keen dinghy sailors (in Scotland) looking for a short break. we like sailing with dinghy sailors as they can teach us a bit about sail trim and we knew Jackie was good fun, so no problem.
Jackie and Aileen arrived at the picturesque Boynuz Buku and it promptly started to rain. hard. thunder rumbling in the background. We hadn't intended doing any sailing that day, fortunately.
The next day we waited for the afternoon breeze to fill in, but as soon as we slipped lines, the thunder and lightning started again. we headed back to the bay, where the anchoring all went wrong and the clutch came off the cone and the chain all ran out meter after meter with me watching it wondering how well i had tied the bitter end on, fully expecting the string to break and the chain and and anchor to end up on the seabed. luckily my knot held and the clanking came to an abrupt end, it was pouring with rain again by now. once we had the windlass back together and the chain sorted we called it a day and settled back to reading, cups of tea, beers etc.
The next day we did sail over to Fethiye, but it rained again - you could see it coming down the valley behind the town. last time we had seen it like this we had violent wind with it too, but we had just rain. On the way in to Fethiye harbour we saw a seal trying his best to get his teeth into a squid!
we went ashore for showers and a meal and a bit of shopping.
The following day we decided to head back towards Marmaris. we set off in flat calm, saw dolphins and turtles. once out of the bay the wind was fickle, but soon set in - north west about a force 4, making us tack towards our destination still 30 miles away. the sea soon built up giving us quite a bit of leeway. one of our visitors also found it difficult to helm in the right direction and more than once we were headed back to Fethiye! to be fair a 9.5 tonne boat with a wheel rather than a tiller when you can't see the sails because of the bimini, is rather different to helming a dinghy!
So, about 2pm, still with 20miles to go to our chosen destination, we bore away to Ekincik. As we were sailing passed the long Dalyan beach we heard more thunder and watched as the lightning forked down onto the beach heading our way! we reefed the main in case there was wind with the squall and headed up to Ekincik. As luck would have it the squall passed behind us and we didn't feel anything other than about 10 drops of rain. phew!
Jackie and Aileen did the good holiday-maker thing and went swimming!
Our excitement was not yet over. the next day as we left Ekincik, we were approached by a Coastguard rib. they asked where we were going and then advised us to stay in Ekincik today as there was military firing exercise in progress. we asked them to show us where the firing area was and we would stay out of it, but the sight of a marine chart seemed to baffle them but they recited some english instructions from their clipboard 'stay a half mile off the shore'. this was absolutely no problem. we wished them good day and continued. there was a lot of traffic on the vhf radio. we listened to the coastguard and military ships instruct boats and ships to alter course and stay less than half a mile off the coast. this course took us inside of an island that sits outside a very large military bay that is forbidden to regular traffic and normally you would pass to the south of it. but as we neared the island, we saw explosions, parachutes, aeroplanes and then a helicopter taking off with 4 men on lines swinging below - complete with a huge Turkish flag. all very SAS.
We returned to Yat Marina to wave goodbye to Jackie and Aileen after their brief visit and then i said au revoir to Terry who returned to the UK for a week, leaving me on board to do all sorts of jobs (he thinks!).
