Saturday 8 June – Saturday 14 June

Things almost went to plan. We got off to a bad start when Jonathan discovered that he had lost his wallet. After multiple phone calls, all credit cards were cancelled by the time he and Nigel had driven to the marina to organise the boat pickup. The process was only slowed down slightly when a new security question had Jonathan beaten momentarily. “How old are you?” It’s a tricky one!

The boys were delighted to learn that our boat (a Fountaine Pajot, Lucia 40) would be ready early and so opted to begin the boat checking process straight away. This left the girls stranded at the hotel and having to get a taxi to the supermarket to do our provisioning for the week. A minor glitch in the days planning. Jonathan was there to pick them up once the shopping was completed. We had learned our lesson from the last sailing trip – keep the hire car until the provisioning is completed. A weeks’ worth of shopping is too much to carry.

SK Yachting were a fabulous charter company. Not only were we able to leave several hours before the scheduled 5 pm boarding time, they also put someone on-board to drive the boat out of the marina. It’s not that we are incompetent but when you have not set foot on a boat for several years and the first task is to manoeuvre 40 feet of unfamiliar boat out of a cramped marina berth it’s nice to have help.

Flat calm conditions meant of peaceful sail (mostly motor-sail) to the first of many scenic anchorages – Gebekse Bay.

A popular anchoring style in the numerous fiord-like inlets around this coastline is to secure the anchor and take a line ashore from the stern. We managed this every night. Jonathan was allocated the unenviable task of swimming ashore with the stern line and tying it securely (a three to one vote – very democratic!). He was almost competent by the end of the week – rabbit comes up the hole, around the tree and back down the hole again.

Having congratulated ourselves for successfully anchoring, we settled down to watch a steady procession of boats (all on charter from SK Sailing) taking forever to manage the same manoeuvre on the opposite side of the inlet. Entertainment over, it was time to enjoy the first of many beautiful sunsets and fabulous meals on-board.

Sunday 9 June

The next morning a local fisherman pulled up alongside and after a little bit of haggling we sorted our evening menu and then set off to explore the cove – beautiful views and more ruins of course.

After a magical day’s sailing we anchored in Serçe Limanı. All of the guidebooks urged yachts to tie up at the wharf by Captain Nemo’s restaurant. This was free of charge if you eat at Captain Nemo’s. With fresh fish on board and any number of very capable chefs (that’s everyone except Nigel), we opted to anchor in the southern end of the bay and copy and paste from yesterday “beautiful sunsets and fabulous meal”.

Monday 10 June

Yesterday we had been unable to start the outboard motor on the dinghy so today we had arranged a rendezvous at Söğüt for repairs or replacement. We had hoped to get more water and a few supplies but the water hose was out of action and the shopping was very limited. We did at least get to practice docking manoeuvres – no scratches.

When we were leaving, we had a carefully thought out plan, with a job for everyone, that would have taken us away from the jetty despite the onshore breeze. The dock attendant had other ideas that nearly cost us some gel-coat. We did get away unscathed but it was another learning opportunity. And the outboard? Operator error. With some new starting instructions, we had no more problems. We headed off to find an anchorage for the night.

We circled a sheltered bay looking for a suitable anchorage very aware of a large gulet motoring behind us.

Having found a likely cove we set course only to watch the gulet cut straight across and take the place. We were sailing and had right of way but might is right and we went looking elsewhere.

Catamarans have a very shallow draught, which meant that we were able to secure ourselves in a very secluded spot well away from the ‘big boys’. Hills surrounded us on three sides and we were protected from westerlies by the island of Kizil Ada and from south-westerlies by the smaller island of Zetin Adasi. Google translate confirmed that Ada means island but it gave up on ‘adasi’. We assume that it means small island or islet.

Sunset photos and the usual fabulous meal. We are getting used to this life.

Tuesday 11 June

Nigel was up early to scale the ridge that had helped shelter us last night and capture some sunrise panoramas. Then we headed for a change in scenery.

But first we experienced some downwind sailing and in the absence of a spinnaker (or any other downwind sail) got to experiment with wing-on-wing sail configurations. All good fun.

The change of scenery simply meant swapping olive trees and low-lying scrub covered hill slopes for pine covered hills in a fjord-like inlet called Bencik. This was on the Dacta Peninsular so we would have driven past several days ago.

There were no rocks to tie our stern line to so we used a tree instead. Many bore the scars of previous visitors with deep rub marks in their bark.

Jonathan narrowly escaped serious injury after falling down the steep bank he had just scaled to tie us to a suitable tree. But at least we were safely anchored. At least we were until Nigel decided that we were too close to a boat that had anchored without a stern line. He reasoned that a change in wind direction could see the boat swing 180˚ and bump into us. Shame he didn’t think of that earlier! A scratched and bruised Jonathan got back into the water to find us another tree.

Eventually we were anchored suitably and enjoyed a blissfully quiet night with scarcely a ripple on the water.

Wednesday 12 June

From now on we are retracing our steps back to Marmaris but we had no intention of staying in the same anchorages. Today we spent the morning tacking our way upwind in anticipation of a fast-downwind sail through the channel separating the Marmaris Peninsular from the Greek island of Simi. We had no sooner made our turn downwind when the wind dropped to zero and we ended up starting engines.

The wind did return however and we were able race the sleek looking monohull (in the photo below) that came ridiculously close. There was lots of smiling and waving but two sail boats heading in the same direction is, by definition, a race. They cut through on an inside line as we rounded a headland but since we were the first to drop our sails and motor into Bozukkale, our anchorage for tonight, we took that as a win for us.

Bozukkale is inaccessible by road but still houses three restaurants to serve the boating community and tour boats. A boat came out from Sailor’s House, the central restaurant, to offer us a place on the jetty. As usual, we declined, and secured ourselves next to several million dollars’ worth of gin palace.

The restaurant man asked how much chain we had laid out with the anchor and reassured us that we would be OK for the night. He did however warn us that the wind, that was still gusting, contrary to the forecast, would continue throughout the night.

We did take the dinghy ashore to enjoy a beer at the restaurant and arranged to bring the boat alongside in the morning to get fresh water. We had read that the restaurant baked their own bread so we asked if we could buy some. We were in luck. They were just about to fire up the oven. Obviously, we had to have another round of drinks while the wood-fired oven was brought up to temperature -then another while the bread baked.

At least we had delicious bread for breakfast after a noisy night afloat.

The flotilla that had entertained us on our first night also arrived. They seemed unable to decide what to do. Eventually one managed the difficult stern on approach to the jetty, in the steadily increasing wind, and secured themselves.

The other three attempted the same manoeuvre several times before anchoring elsewhere for a while. They obviously decided that their anchorage was too uncomfortable and as the light faded, but not the wind, came back for another attempt.

This had long since ceased to be entertainment and we were feeling quite sorry for them. The whole process had taken several hours. Eventually two more were safely docked and in the morning, we saw that the fourth had also got there some time after dark.

Thursday 13 June

Bozukkale means ‘broken castle’ and the bay was once a military port. The ancient citadel is still visible on the western headland and we spent the morning exploring and enjoying the views.

We had one last job before leaving. We needed water and that meant berthing next to the flotilla that were preparing to leave.

We managed the Mediterranean style mooring reasonably competently. Nigel backed up into the wind. Claire and Sue got stern lines secured and Jonathan picked up the lazy line and secured the port bow. Finally, the friendly attendant on the wharf handed a second lazy line to Nigel who then secured the starboard bow. We were safely tied up and began the long process of adding some water to our tank via a hosepipe with hardly any water pressure.

We idled away the time chatting to the people on the nearest flotilla boat. They were all students from Istanbul University and members of the sailing club. This was their end of year trip. As the first cast off we were ready with extra fenders, just in case.

Fortunately for us the other boats were not yet ready to leave.

Once we had enough water to get us back to Marmaris we gave up on the dribbling hosepipe and prepared to leave.

This is where things could so easily have got really messy!

The plan was to simply reverse the process. Jonathan would cast of the bow lines and Claire and Sue the stern lines and Nigel would gently motor forward, assisted by the stiff breeze.

All seemed to be going well. We cast off and motored forward until Claire yelled that we were still attached to the jetty. Nigel had neglected to tell Jonathan about the second bow line on the starboard bow. The lazy line was now wrapped around the propeller and we were attempting to tow the wharf out to sea. Now the breeze that was supposed to help us clear the wharf smoothly was threatening to take us to the rocks off our starboard bow.

This where having two engines really helps. Using the port engine, we managed to get close enough to the wharf to secure a stern line. Disaster was temporarily averted. One of our new-found friends from the university borrowed our dive mask and jumped in to assess the damage. He wanted to cut the line off the propeller. The wharf man was having none of it. He did not want to lose his mooring system. Fortunately, our student friend was able to quickly unravel the mess. The bow rope and its lazy line were released and we could breathe a big sigh of relief, send a chorus of thankyous to our saviour, and head out to sea. Another learning experience survived.

Our plan for today was to find tiny anchorage behind a large rock called Arap Adasi. We knew that we could only stay overnight if the sea was calm. We couldn’t spot the islet and were not convinced that it would be a safe place to stay so headed back Gebekse Bay where we had spent the first night.

The north-westerly wind seemed to be funnelling through the narrow inlet so we headed to the nearby harbour of Çiftlik. The best anchorages were taken leaving just the more exposed side of the bay for us. We headed back out and retraced our steps to a sheltered bay just around from Gebekse.

We found a perfect spot. We were totally sheltered from the north-westerly and as long as the wind did not back to the south we would be fine. Just to be sure we put out a stern line from each hull to keep the boat centred in our tiny cove. The forecast was for the wind to veer more northerly so we knew we would have a fabulous last night. Cue the sunset, delicious meal and late night drinks on the trampoline to enjoy the breeze. And so to bed…

But not to sleep. The wind took no notice of the forecast, gradually backing and bringing a large swell into our little haven. The boat bounced merrily in swell all night. As the wind changed, the port stern line became slack and the boat moved close to the rocks on our starboard bow. Nigel re-tensioned the port line at some point in the middle of the night to re-centre the boat in our cove. That upset the anchor alarm, which thought we must have moved and so 30 minutes later the alarm sounded. Time to get up again. The joys of boat life.

Friday 14 June

Sunrise seemed to flatten the sea so we managed a few boat pictures from the dinghy before recovering the stern lines and anchor one last time and enjoying our fastest sail yet as we headed back to Marmaris.

We enjoyed the sail so much that we ended up being late into the marina. It did not seem to cause any problems and we happily handed over the controls to the SK Yachting team who demonstrated how easy it was to dock a boat. We watched and learned a little bit more.

From the marina we took a taxi into Marmaris to collect Jonathan’s wallet that had been found in his bedroom at the hotel. Sue and Claire went shopping for genuine fake handbags and we ended the day enjoying a meal at the same restaurant we had visited a week ago. A great end to a fabulous week.