Fetiye, Turkey

We are now in Turkey, on the Aegean sea.

The trip from Malta was good, a vast improvement over the trip getting to Malta. We had good winds most of the way and it was good sailing, we even flew the spinnaker a few times and recorded some of our fastest times ever, 8-9 knots!.

We arrived in Fethiye at 3 am, after a 7 day, 800 mile journey. Normally we don't like to arrive in a strange place until daylight, but the entry looked clear and it was a full moon, so we headed for an anchorage off a beach. There were about 3 boats already there and through the binoculars I could see what I thought was construction equipment on the beach and just before we ran over it I spotted a buoyed off area, so we putted around looking for a place to drop the hook. It was quite deep everywhere except for a 10 metre hole near the cliffs. We dropped the anchor and turned the engine off. As we were tidying up I noticed that we were quite long way from the cliffs, when I checked our GPS we had drifted over 300 feet and were still going! Luckily there was no wind, but we were now in really deep water so the anchor would not even have been touching the bottom, not one of our better anchoring efforts, but we were a bit tired! We had another go and dumped loads of chain and hoped for the best, we fell into bed around 4 am.

Next morning we awoke to a beautiful morning in a sandy cove surrounded by wooded hills. The 'construction equipment' turned out to be beach huts and a big yellow water slide! We spent the day sleeping, cleaning up, having our traditional 'arrival in a new country' meal of full English breakfast (for lunch) having a dip to cool off and more sleeping. Next day we motored around the mile and a half to Fethiye town and anchored next to the marina.

We spent the next day trying to check in. This is a complicated procedure and involves buying a transit log from an agent, then schlepping around to the Harbour Master, Health dept, Immigration and customs offices. They all had to be visited in that order, luckily they are all clustered around the marina. However we hit a snag at the harbour master office when we discovered their computer system was down. Matters weren't helped by the fact that we had the wrong time

on our watches, despite checking with our Mediterranean Almanac to confirm Turkey was on the same time as the rest of Europe, it turned out they are in fact an hour later so everyone was about to close for lunch! We bought the transit log but nobody else could do anything until the harbour master had entered their information first. It was suggested that we could use an agent to do it for us, but they wanted to charge 75 Euros and as they used the same computer systems the harbour master, they were out of action as well. So we did what anyone does in these situations and went and had an ice cream! (Alan has learned his first word in Turkish, you guessed it:) At about 4.30 we decided to see if the computers were back up again. They were and it was mayhem in the harbour masters office (mainly full of agents!) We got done there at 5pm which gave us half an hour to get around all the other agencies which we managed with 5 minutes to spare. Next morning we had to wait half an hour at a bank to pay 'stamp duty' of about $5 and take the receipt back to the harbour master where formalities were finally completed! Yeah, now we could look around the town at our leisure, except Alan was on a mission to buy a 3G internet dongle, so it was off to the phone shops.

English friends of ours have their boat in the marina here at Fethiye and visit about 3 times a year for a week. They are out at the moment, so we have had them over for dinner and been out together, they obviously know the area very well and have given us lots of good local information. We are also expecting our first visitor to Sunflower since 2007! Another English friend of ours Michael arrives next week for a week. He has never been on a boat before so that will be interesting. We will need to clear a space for him to sleep in the V berth!

Most of the old town of Fethiye was destroyed in an earthquake in the 50's so the buildings are all quite modern, but there are no high rises and still lots of little shady alley ways full of lovely shops selling jewelry, rugs, pottery and all manner of sparkly trinkets. I managed to buy a lovely soft leather handbag in between chores:) The smell of roast meat wafts around from the many kebab shops. The atmosphere is lovely and I feel very at home here. The people are very friendly and I am looking forward to spending at least another year in this fascinating country.

Arriving in Turkey was quite a milestone for us. I can't believe that what set out as idle speculation in November 2009 has actually happened. We were sitting in the San Blas deciding where to go next and I thought Turkey would be nice, but that meant traveling up the western Caribbean to the US, crossing the Atlantic and then traveling 2000 miles from Gibraltar to the eastern Med, it all seemed impossibly far and yet here we are! I have decided next year I want to take it easy and enjoy Turkey and environs. It is a big country with plenty to see and do and day hops would be nice instead of long passages and I want to be able to take the time to enjoy and get to know the country and the people. So if you fancy a visit next year, there's lots of time to plan it:)

Must have gotten lost?

After zig zaging around all these lumps of Greek rock (islands) we finally found ourselves anchoring at about 2am. Luckily it was almost a full moon and all went reasonably well..

The only thing is that we are now in the Turkish port of Fethiye...not Marmaris. Hmmmm well it was not actually a mistake, we decided that as we have English friends with a boat in the marina here, we would come here to meet them, when they arrive next week.

Malta to Fethiye was about 750nm (about 1000kms) and took us 7 days. Good winds most of the way but sometimes it almost stopped and we were drifting along.

The Admiral will have more later.

Passing through Greece, nearly in Turkey

Despite conflicting weather forecasts we decided to leave Malta and just take whatever the weather gods threw at us. This has turned out to be a good decision so far. We left the small island of Gozo (Malta) at around midnight on Monday and today (Friday) we entered Greek waters have passed Kythera, the first of the the Greek Islands when approaching from the west.

We had excellent winds and good sailing for the first 2 days, recording some of our fasted times ever! Even when the wind dropped off a bit we have been able to sail all the way, today we even flew the spinnaker. We passed through a big electrical storm which gave us a bit of a fright, as it has been so long since we have been near any lightening. We went to code red and things got put in the oven, but the worst of the storm passed by us in about an hour then the stars came back out again:)

We are currently north of Crete in the Aegean Sea, having traversed the Ionian Sea, and will carry on through Greece and head for the Turkish mainland and Marmaris, which all going well, we should see in about 3 days time.

Time to Leave Malta (Gone from Gozo)

Today we checked out of Malta and are in a small anchorage doing all those jobs that have to be done before going to sea for  4 to 8 days. We plan to go staight through from Malta to Turkey about 650nm.  Give the fluky winds here this will take us at least 6 days. We could stop in the Greek Islands before this if we need to.

We have spent the last week or two around the smaller island of Gonzo. Very nice but rugged.

The Blue Lagoon, a very popular "beach" on Comino, next to Gozo

They pack the party boats....wonder how many they lose?

The bay next to the boat yard in Valletta.

Gone to Gozo

 Yet another couple of weeks have passed since we arrived in Malta, how time flies.

We went into the Kalkara boat yard the Tuesday after we arrived in preparation for the fridge guy to come on Wednesday. The boatyard was fine but a bit out of the way of most things. Valletta harbour is huge with points of land like fingers extending into it. Valletta is on the biggest 'finger' and we were located on a smaller finger almost next to it, so while we were close as the crow flies, by the time you wander around the shoreline the distances increase significantly. Valletta itself is a World Heritage site, but without the charm of some of the others we have been to (like Cartagena, Colombia) It is full of history and like everything else in Malta built from the local sandstone, it is also very hilly,but there is very little atmosphere. The main activity is a few fingers along where all the main marinas are (which were all full) Still, there was a bus stop outside our boat yard which took you into Valletta (a half hour trip) and from there you can change buses to go anywhere on the island.

British heritage  (phone box)

Despite having visited Malta back in the 70's with my Mum, I would swear I had never been here before, nothing looks familiar. But I expect they can build a lot of roads and houses in 35 years!

Anyway the fridge guy, Sandro, arrived on time on Tuesday and spent most of the day installing a new fridge compressor. I had emptied all the lockers and we had taken the carpet up as it was messy job. The compressor uses carbon brushes which give off black carbon dust and as it hadn't been working properly there was surplus black stuff everywhere. We had a minor panic when we discovered Sandro would only accept cash, and as the job was going to be around 900 Euros we weren't sure how we were going to get the cash so quickly! But the boatyard kindly offered to lend it to us! and handed over an envelope with 1000 Euros in it. They also came to our rescue and put our food in their fridge and freezer, otherwise I would have had loads of melted cheese and butter, it was so hot in the yard! No breeze and 35 degrees!

Sandro working on the new compressor install

The boat was in upheaval all day and once the new compressor was installed Alan was concerned that it was using much more power than the old one. He wasn't just concerned about the energy consumption but the wear on the motor. Sandro said it would sort itself out when the compressor was 'run in', but that night Alan hit the internet and discovered that the compressor company makes 3 different models which all look the same but have slightly different power outputs. Instead of having the lowest one we had the middle one which wasn't right, so we emailed Sandro and asked him to fix the problem. He replied that he would replace the compressor with the right one (luckily there was one at the dealer in Malta) but if it didn't fix the motor problem we would have to pay again, another 900 Euros. Alan was a bit pissed off with this reply as it wasn't our fault the wrong thing had been fitted. Also it was unlikely that most other people would have even realised there was a problem. Because Alan had all the gizmos to measure current draw etc and his techie background he knew exactly what was happening. Anyway, long story short, Sandro came back, put the right compressor in and it all worked perfectly, we gave him 30 Euros for an hours work, plus we had to spend and extra night at the yard. Alan slept so well that night, he has been worrying about the fridge since Morocco and nursing it along, so now he can relax. The extra day spent on the fridge meant we couldn't hire a car and explore the island, so once again I have just seen boatyards, chandleries and supermarkets!

It was such a relief to get back on anchor and at least be able to jump in for a dip if it got too hot.

We have been moving from anchorage to anchorage seeing new bits of Malta and Gozo. We prefer Gozo, it's a more manageable size, has more nooks and crannies to anchor in than Malta which has a few but which are all huge and crowded. We found one particularly pleasant bay,it was lovely, sandstone cliffs with a bit of greenery on the hillside (that's a rarity, it's so dry here) we had one of our better snorkels with some rocks and a few fishies. Everything here is so monochromatic, there's no coral, everything including the fish are shades of brown and beige. After the Caribbean it's like watching a black and white movie after being used to seeing everything in glorious technicolour. Anyway, we had just got back from our swim at about 5'ish when this party boat pulled along side us and dropped anchor while blasting out techno music at an outrageous sound level. There must have been a hundred or so youngsters all bikini clad, dancing and drinking. As soon as the anchor was down they jumped in and splashed around while the music boomed on. Oh well we thought, they won't stay long. Wrong! 3 hours later at 8 pm they finally headed off and left us with our bleeding ear drums! So much for our 'peaceful' anchorage!

We have also taken the bus to Victoria, the capitol of Gozo and in the centre of the island. The drive was through very dry and arid looking countryside. Not much growing except for lots of prickly pear cacti. There were 3 small shopping malls all very close together with some very familiar English shops! All the supermarkets stock English products like Marmite, HP sauce and custard powder, however most of the food is imported and quite pricey, especially the fresh produce. A shame after the lovely fruit and veg we had got used to in Sardinia.

The Maltese certainly like their fireworks! Wherever we have been, every night there are fireworks, even during the day when you can only hear them and see the smoke afterwards. We have since discovered that Malta has a long tradition of fireworks dating back to the 16th^h century when the island was occupied by the Knights Templar and they used to celebrate by letting off cannon and musket fire. There are 5 firework factories in Malta and Gozo and they actually have a firework competition every year in April. Definitely a time to have your ear plugs in!

It looks like we may have to wait a week for some wind to get us to Greece. We are going to try and get straight through to Turkey if we can, otherwise we may pull into a Greek island without checking in and wait for weather.

Mistrals are fun.......not...

Well the plan was that we leave Calasetta, Sardinia and use the Mistral (a strong NW wind that originates in the Alps near the Spanish/French boarder)to blow us all the way south east to Malta, 350 nm, about 500 kms. I checked the GRIB weather information every day before hand and the prediction firmed up and looked like 15-25 knots for most of the required 3 days, fading at the end so that we would have to motor for a few hours. Close to perfect.

So what could go wrong with such a planed and well thought out voyage?

A continuous 25-30 kts gusting almost 40 kts makes for a bloody uncomfortable sail, that's what.

One feature of the Med is that there is a very small tide (around half a metre), smaller currents and no big ocean swell. When the wind comes up the wind waves come up and when the wind stops the sea state calms quickly. So 15-20 knots behind us should not really be a problem....right? Well when the wind gods get a little carried away and keep puffin up to 40 knots the waves in the Med do get large. When we had a constant 30kts for a day, it was NOT a good idea to look behind the boat to see what was coming!

The wind was blowing directly in the direction we wanted to go, this might sound great but there is a problem. We can put out 2 sails at the front of the boat (goose winged jibs) and this can work well when the seas are slight, not so well with big seas. We were rolling from side to side furiously....not a happy crew! We eventually found a combination that worked, a very small main sail, a very small jib and sailing at an angle of about 30 degrees off our course. So we zig zagged down wind for two and a half days before the wind finally calmed down and here we are now no wind and motoring for the last 20 nm.

That was what really happened....here is the Admirals side of the story....

Quite scary, huge seas with the wind whipping the tops of them into frothy whitecaps. Most of them Sunflower surfed down (best not to look down from the the top of a multi storey wave at the rest of the ocean below!)Occasionally a rogue wave would hit the side of the boat with a huge thud knocking us all sideways and even dumping a large quantity of sea water over the deck and cockpit. We were both tired and battered from being knocked around the cabin, unable to sleep and trying to keep the boat on course. At times I asked myself what on earth I was doing, and why couldn't I live in a nice dry house that didn't keep lurching all over the place. Then as soon as things calmed down, the seas returned to a nice gentle undulating motion and Sunflower was purring along, I forgot all the bad stuff and was enjoying the joy of being underway again,..... until the next time anyway!

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Tales of Woe....

Hmmmm.....we do seem to have a couple little problems at the moment......

My media computer developed a networking driver problem so that I could
not connect to the internet. I tried all the usual stuff and finally an
XP repair. This all went well until I tried to log back on and it
required an activation before it would log me on but of course I can't
activate it until I can log on........Microsoft wins again!!!! Still
trying things...may require a rebuild. I still have 2 computers working
so it could be worse.

That means that I have been unable to update the web site until I move
it all to a spare computer.

So I thought I would update the Chronicles on line......so I log on to
the blog website and find that it will only allow me to edit titles but
not the body text!!! This on 2 different computers and 3 different
browsers.

That means the only way to update the Chronicles is via email, as I am
doing here,

I checked the Frig compressor a few days ago and find that it is leaking
more oil than it was so the seal is getting worse. It is 20 years old so
time for a replacement. It is a Frigomar manufactured in Italy. Hey we
are in Italy, should be no problem......I contact the factory and they
will send me one for 1500 euros yep one thousand and five hundred
euros...that must be close to $2000!!! The factory has now closed for
the August holidays. The short story is that I have found one in stock
in Malta (about 350 nm away). They even speak English there and the
price is .......... 650 euros.

Guess what.....we are sailing for Malta in the next few days. The winds
will blow in the right direction and it will be 3 nights at sea, heading
in the correct direction for our winter marina in Turkey. What could
go wrong........?