Hot n Cruisin at last!

 

A fan and a squirt - heaven

Wow, who turned the heating up!!! One minute we have a pleasant 26 degrees and a nice breeze at night then all of a sudden it's 40 degrees, day and night!!! It was so awful, when the breeze blew it was like standing in front of a fan heater! The last time I experienced heat like this was in Ayers Rock and it was a really dry heat, so the sweat evaporated instantly ALSO we weren't actually out in it that much as we had air conditioned vehicles and hotels and restaurants! Here the only escape was to jump in the sea which was about 29 degrees. That was fine until you had to get out then it was suffocating heat again, it was hard to breath! at night it was brutal. Impossible to sleep even with nothing on and fans at full bore. We resorted to a squirty bottle of water and were spraying ourselves every 5 minutes to get some evaporative cooling. It was far too hot to do anything and everything inside the boat was really hot too. I picked up my shampoo bottle in the shower, it was hot and the normally thick creamy contents just ran out.

In retrospect our anchorage probably didn't help as we were surrounded on 3 sides by steep rocky hills which as well as blocking the breeze were also storing all that heat and radiating it out at night. We couldn't stand it any longer and left to go to Finike where we have booked a marina for next winter. It was such a relief to be out on open water where although there was no wind to sail at least we had a bit of airflow from the boat moving through the water.

We anchored outside our next winter marina and we dingoed ashore to look around, have some lunch and get supplies. The temp had dropped to a survivable 33 degrees although it felt hotter on land. The marina is fine although not as shiny as the Cyprus one since it was built in 1992. Finike seems very pleasant and is definitely not a tourist town, very much a working town although there are a few hotels and a beach around the bay. At least it won't close down during winter! The supermarket gave us a free lift back to the marina with all our shopping including an 11 kilo watermelon!! (the smallest one they had) I think I need a bigger fridge!:)

We were very hot and sweaty when we got back to Sunflower so decided a quick dip would cool us down. We were anchored in shallow water and the water temp was showing a respectable 27 degrees so we both jumped in. The water felt lovely and warm going down but as I bobbed up it suddenly became icy cold. This is odd because normally the water is colder deeper down. We were a bit puzzled and then realised we were anchored in front of a river outlet which was pouring it's icy water (from the high mountains surrounding Finike) into the ocean, and fresh water floats on top of salt water, so we had about 3 -4 inches of icy fresh water on top of the normal sea water. It was a very odd sensation having a warm body and very chilly top bit in the water. We had a very bracing but brief dip and emerged quite quickly!

A Tewksbury in motion

That night I had a lovely sleep and didn't sweat (or squirt)at all! The next morning we went on to the fuel dock and then headed about 15 miles east to a place called Kekova Roads which is very picturesque with lots of lovely anchorages and then next stop Kas. We decided not to get our residence visas here as it takes about 10 days,( we didn't want to wait here that long as we will be spending plenty of time here in the winter) so we will return to Fethiye and apply there and also go back to the nice dentist we found there as I have a toothy problem. No pain but a bit has broken off.

It is still hot, in the 30's, but bearable, especially if you're not ashore. The spike in temp wasn't local either as we heard from a friend in Fetihye it was the same there. They also just had an earthquake there, apparently they're very common in Turkey!

We have been in Kekova Roads for several days now which is very beautiful. Kekova is a 4 mile long island which acts as a wave barrier to the coastline behind it so it is very calm in here and there are lots of little inlets and anchorages with only a few crumbling ruins and goats for company.

A ruined castle at Kekova Roads

We had arrived and got anchored and only had one other boat for company. But by evening time the anchorage had become very crowded and lots of Tewksburys were around the place. They have the silliest little anchors and usually drop miles out and reverse ashore where they tie a rope to a rock. It had got very hot and steamy again and lightening was flashing in the distance. I hoped a storm would cool things down a bit. However we didn't get any rain but about mid night the storm was passing by and we got big wind gusts from all over the place and mayhem in the anchorage ensued! Boats were dragging all over the place particularly the Tewksburys! Their method of tying ashore means they don't swing to the wind, and they are such huge behemoths with high sides and lots of windage, we assume being hit by a wind bullet of about 30 knots beam on might have caused their ropes to break. Anyway there were about 4 of them lumbering around in the pitch black with this gale blowing, an Italian and Norwegian yacht were tangled together and we had an English boat who had anchored far too close to us now nosing our rear end.

We were swinging in all directions as the wind swirled around the hills on all sides of us. The English boat kept shining a spotlight on us in case we got too close and a poor Swiss boat was yelling at a Tewksbury who had decided to anchor inches away from them, the next morning we discovered all aboard this particular Tewks were drunk. The wind kept up until about 3.30 am so nobody got much sleep, to make things more uncomfortable the really hot wind was blowing so even at 4 am it was about 39 degrees outside and even hotter in the boat, impossible to sleep! Last night we almost had an action replay as we were surrounded by thunder storms, although this time we got some rain and minimal wind and thankfully the temp dropped to a positively chilly 25 degrees! At last a good nights sleep:)

Next morning there was a coast guard boat in the anchorage and they were boarding all the Tewks, so we wondered if the Swiss had reported the drunken captain.

We are moving today a few miles down the road to another anchorage and then Kas, Fethiye and Marmaris. We are wondering if it might be a bit cooler further north, also the prevailing winds in summer blow from north to south so it might be best to motor north before we have strong winds on the nose and then we can get blown back south. Can't believe John and Christine will be here in 3 months time!