Louis made us a new centre deck awning, to our own design, which shaded the new seating area. This wonderful man became a valued friend, with whom we enjoyed a sociable evening every Friday we were in Larnaca. We would cycle to his shop, where he would mount his bike and ride with us to a roadside shack. The best souvlaki, pitta, sheftalia and iced beer on the island were to be found here. As luck would have it, Panikos, the greatest confectioner in town, had his establishment right across the road. We almost always rounded off our meal with a visit to him for some home made ice-cream or cakes and Greek coffee.
All in all we managed to remove a lot of potential disasters and a number of minor irritations from our worry list during that time. Tin Hau was relaunched on 28th August. This left us sufficient time to make a short cruise to Turkey before winter.
A number of our Red Sea fleet spent all or part of the summer out on the hard with us. Some locked up their boats and returned home for a longer spell. Bob and Dawn Buick of Bonaventure II returned to Australia for well over a year leaving their boat in the marina. Those of us who remained were thoroughly entertained by the arrival, eviction and subsequent re-entry of Passat during the months we were beavering away on our boats. Mike, the owner, had left his boat in the hands of a paid crew to deliver the boat to Larnaca. While in Djibouti, they had been boarded by a stowaway. We don’t know the exact details of his discovery, but Passat was denied entry to Cyprus as a result. We heard later that she had made for Israel where the stowaway jumped ship and caused the crew untold problems. These having been sorted out, they returned to Cyprus where they finally effected entry. The crew were very disgruntled because they had not been paid and the marina staff were looking to them for payment of marina charges. The upshot of this unpleasant saga was that the crew abandoned ship, having first locked the boat and dropped the key in the sea! The next episode in the drama came when Passat was seen to be aground on the shallows in the outer basin of the marina. No one had any idea how she had got there. Tugs were called in to drag her off and it took two whole days to do so. There were all sorts of rumours flying around, but we never got to the bottom of the story. It did appear, though, that Passat was continuing to be an unlucky boat.
2. A Quick Whirl in the Land of the Dervishes
We were joined in Larnaca, two days after relaunch, by our son Mark, who had just finished his A levels and had been planning to take a year out. He arrived with the announcement that he would not, after all, be spending the year with us, but only a six week holiday. This meant that we would be taking him to Turkey and leaving him to find his way back to the UK from there. This news did not significantly alter our plans – though we were disappointed that we were not to have his company for very long.
We were a while longer in Larnaca – tidying up a few loose ends and waiting for suitable weather to set sail for Turkey. On 9th September, there was a gentle westerly wind and as we had no insurance restrictions we were able to take the decision to do the ‘eastabout’ route into Turkey. Many boats had to take the ‘westabout’ route to comply with their insurer’s exemption clauses. The wind held all day and we were able to sail right through till sunset, when the breeze dropped to the point where we had to turn on the engine. This was our first real engine run since relaunch, so David was carrying out a series of important checks on various parts of the system at regular intervals. It is just as well he did because at nine o’clock he discovered the stern gland was leaking heavily. He managed to tighten the plate and reduce the rate of flow, but could not stop it. By midnight we had taken on another two and a half inches of water in the aft bilge. This was a situation which required careful monitoring. In the end, adjustments and occasional pumping sessions kept the water to acceptable levels. By eleven o’clock the next morning we had sighted the coast of Turkey and we had enough breeze to motor-sail. Lunchtime saw us broad reaching at six knots, enjoying the force three to four west-south-westerly breeze and slight sea.
We tied up in Taşucu harbour at three o’clock that afternoon, and awaited the arrival of the authorities to carry out the cumbersome entry procedures. These couldn’t be completed because the only medical officer qualified to deal with such matters was attending a birth in a village some fourteen miles distant. Everything else had been done in spite of the fact that none of the officials spoke English. Although we had been through all the rigmarole and had not stepped out of line, we realised that something about Tin Hau was causing upset among the officials. The problem was finding out what. Eventually we found a local petrol pump attendant who had a smattering of French. He and David managed an exchange in which we learned that they were not happy with our home-made version of the Turkish flag. Apparently I had unwittingly used the Ottoman alignment of the star in the cusp moon. They preferred that we flew a correct four inch by three inch tourist pennant than the incorrectly marked courtesy flag. It took us all weekend to gain entry to Turkey, but the people were so friendly and we were on holiday, so it did not really matter to us. David’s abiding memory of that brush with officialdom will be the arm-wrestling sessions between himself and the doctor.
Yachts seldom enter Turkey as far south and east as Taşucu, partly because of insurance restrictions owing to the proximity of Syria, and partly because this part of the coast is relatively straight with few harbours and anchorages. Although we had made arrangements to meet family further up the coast, we had allowed enough time to amble along and enjoy the peace of this lesser known part of Turkey. As soon as we had permission to proceed, we made a beeline for Agalimani, a small bay on the other side of the Gulf of Taşucu. Here we experienced our first anchoring in heavy weed conditions. Our route then took us on pleasant day sails, sometimes motoring, but mainly either sailing or motor-sailing to places with very foreign sounding names like Ovaçik Adasi, Aydinçik Liman, and Söğüksu. Our next hop was overnight, across the large bay of Antalya to reach the Lycian coast. During my early morning watch I was called on the VHF by a ship closing fast astern, to find out why I was signalling! It transpired that our stern pilothouse window, tilted open, reflected the rising sun as we bobbed up and down on the slight swell. This caused an effect like a flashing light. Having established that we were, in fact, okay, the captain of the ship MV Beograd passed us half a mile to port.
The scenery was very dramatic, with mountains coming right down to the sea. So lovely was our first anchorage at Çineviz Liman that we idled away a couple of days before continuing along the coast to Finike. Here we chose to do some shopping, and take on diesel and water. We were tied stern-to a beautifully clean quay wall alongside two of the smartest yachts we had ever seen. They were obviously either privately owned by very wealthy families or very high class charter boats. The crew were all smartly uniformed, in keeping with the clean, shiny brightwork and dazzlingly polished brassware. Thank goodness Tin Hau had her bright new paintwork to keep up standards at our end of the quay.
Filled to the gunwales with wonderful sweet melons and other fruit, we set off up the coast to the Kekova Roads, a truly enchanting area with so much to see and experience. At the entrance to the bay of Uçagiz stood the village of Kale Köy, with a castle towering above. The surrounding waters contained relics of ages past, including semi-submerged sarcophagi which probably dated back to the crusades. The bay of Uçagiz was virtually surrounded by land and there was a lovely village which was relatively unspoilt as it was difficult to reach by land. The villagers were incredibly kind and very keen that David and Mark should join them to watch a football match. We had visions of them being driven over rough roads to a big town to watch a game. Instead, they were taken to the village square where rows of seats had been arranged round a large television set fixed to an overhead gantry. As guests of honour, the visitors were given the best seats and treated like royalty.
Many of the offshore islands had ruins about which little or nothing had been written. We visited one island in the area where we were able to walk through ruins and explore tunnels, the origin of wh
ich we could only guess. Remains of beautiful mosaic work still covered sections of the floors. The style of building and the decorations were decidedly Middle Eastern in appearance, but the remains of frescos suggested at least some Christian influence. On one small island we were delighted to find an open sarcophagus-type tomb that had been completely decorated with frescos inside. The ceiling was painted a midnight blue with all the elements of the night sky visible. Around the walls were headless figures, but there was sufficient costume detail remaining to see hose, pointed shoes, and well draped mid-calf and full length tunics. This kind of costume suggested the frescos were painted around the early part of the twelfth century. What I would dearly love to know is why someone had gone to such trouble removing the heads of all the figures. I don’t suppose I shall ever know.
We stopped very briefly in Kaş where we managed, at last, to buy a proper courtesy flag for Tin Hau to replace the car aerial pennant we had been flying. Kaş was a pretty town, with less than usual concrete-block building work going on. Five days of short hops, with long stops between, took us to our next big town, Fethiye, which nestles attractively at the foot of some very steep hills. To me it was memorable for its wonderful market. The knitting yarns on sale there were absolutely beautiful. The displays of herbs and spices were unequalled anywhere we’d been before, and the variety of Turkish delight was unsurpassed. Happily we passed Fethiye on several occasions and were every bit as delighted with the market each time. In all our years of travel abroad I have only two shopping regrets. The first is that we did not fill the boat with rugs from the village where we bought the few we acquired. The second is that we did not buy out the wool stalls in the market in Fethiye. This particular part of the Lycian coast was still in the early stages of tourist development when we first went there. Judging by travel guides and reports of holidaying friends, it has been opened up and developed considerably since. David took the opportunity in Fethiye to make enquiries about chartering. It was our intention to try and start chartering the following year. Initially we fancied being tied into a tour company. That way we would have administrative backup and practical support. David managed to find an interested company and got all the information we needed to make our official applications for licences and so on. We only made one further stop between Fethiye and Marmaris, as Mark’s six weeks were rapidly coming to an end and the date for meeting my parents (whom we had not seen since we left South Africa) was fast approaching. We berthed in the unfinished Marmaris new marina.
Mark managed to overlap with my parents by a few hours – they flew in at three o’clock in the morning and he ferried out at eleven. We knew roughly where they would be staying, so Mark cycled over to the hotel to be there when they arrived and spent some time with them. We, meanwhile, prepared the boat for an onward passage we planned to take with Mum and Dad. After seeing Mark off on the ferry, we sailed the boat along the Marmaris waterfront and anchored her right in front of the Koçer Hotel, where Mum and Dad had been installed by their package tour guide. I believe they were somewhat relieved to know that we were taking them sailing along the Carian coast for a large part of their holiday, as their hotel was situated between two further hotels-under-construction, with jackhammers and other noisy implements running all through the daylight hours.
Before we did this, however, we joined them on a round trip inland to see the mineral springs and the beautiful ‘cotton castle’ of Pamukkale. It made a delightful change for us to do something out of the ordinary. That is if you can call a bus trip (albeit four hundred miles worth) extraordinary.
We had six days of glorious weather, lovely sailing and lots of chances to play our newly invented game called out-guletting the gulets. A gulet is a wooden sailing ship peculiar to Turkey, and now mainly used for ferrying parties of tourists up and down the coast on short overnight charters. Every bay or inlet has its prime anchorage position, and we quickly learned that if we headed for it, then in all probability we would pay heavily for the privilege. Gulets would anchor dangerously close (so you couldn’t rest easy at night). They would have noisy parties on board (so you couldn’t hear yourself think). Sometimes their guests would prove to be very intrusive and nosy about privately owned boats if they were within swimming distance. The game, then, consisted of working out where the gulets were most likely to plant their hooks, and then finding a spot where we could be secure but as far away from them as possible. This sometimes led us into funny or difficult situations, but generally worked to our advantage.
Nearing a chosen anchorage late one evening, David decided to attempt a shortcut which presented itself. It seldom pays to change your planned route, as we found out when we became aware of breaking water on a submerged reef spanning the passage between the mainland and a small island. We were about to turn round and pass outside the island, as originally planned, when a local boat overtook us and motioned us to follow. Though, again, not generally considered to be good practice, we decided to chance it rather than negotiate the passage back in the dark. In the event, we were safely guided over the reef at its lowest point and shown the way into the bay we wished to visit. The kindness was repaid with a small bottle of Russian vodka (after establishing that the gentleman who helped did not feel bound by the Muslim anti-alcohol laws). We dined, that night, in the tavern owned by our rescuer. I was particularly interested in the activities of his daughter. She was weaving wool into broad bands or belts using a mobile loom system. I managed to show enough interest to be invited to a full demonstration of her work and methods the following day.
We reached Bozuk Bükü before turning around for the journey back to Marmaris. The winds were very much in our favour on that part of our travels and we had some wonderful sailing for a change.
We based Tin Hau in the marina at Marmaris and used our bikes for the last few days with Mum and Dad. This enabled us to fuel, water and provision again, prior to the arrival of David’s cousins, Heather and Nigel, who were to join us for a short holiday. Our aim was to work our way back down the coast to Fethiye visiting some of those places we had missed with Mark. These included Ekinçik and Baba Adasi, from which anchorage we took a side trip to Dalyan through the reed beds to see the rock tombs built high in the hills. We then visited various anchorages in the area of Kapi Creek, before sailing, once again, into Fethiye.
By this time David was feeling decidedly under the weather with what we took to be flu. After Heather and Nigel had left us to fly back to England, he took to his bed with a raging temperature, and the most appalling headache and stiff neck. This lasted two days and coincided with the onset of very cold weather. There was snow on the mountains close to the sea, and we experienced severe electrical storm conditions with heavy hail. While David was incapacitated, I ferried jerrycans of fuel back and forth from quay to boat, in order to top up the tanks for the return journey. We planned to clear out of Turkey in Kaş, pop over to Greece at the nearest point (three miles distant), and from there set sail for Cyprus. As soon as David felt well enough to be up, we left in near calm conditions to motor down to Kaş. We completed our formalities early the following morning, and sailed in a lovely force three to four on the beam to Kastellorizon.
We spent three nights in Kastellorizon waiting out a series of nasty squalls and frightening ourselves silly by climbing the mountain behind the town to look at the atrocious weather! We met up with several yachts of our acquaintance in the harbour, which helped to pass the time. We also introduced the local taverna owner to Trivial Pursuit, and in exchange for including him in our games were fed the most delicious lobster meals on the house.
We had the easiest possible conditions for the return journey, with mostly south-westerly winds of between forces zero and one. In other words, we motored all the way back to Cyprus. This was not the first time we’d experienced a long passage under motor, but time was not on our side. It was now nearing the middle of November and the conditions were not likely to change in our favour. Cyprus was in sight by morning twi
light and it was then I caught our first Mediterranean fish. I had to play the line for one and a half hours and eventually landed a small swordfish. In fact that turned out to be the only catch we ever made in the Mediterranean.
We bypassed Paphos in order to make use of the still light airs, and finally were headed somewhat short of Limassol. In spite of strengthening wind, we managed to make our way into the commercial port and dropped anchor in seven metres of water out of the way of shipping at twenty minutes past one in the morning. By twenty past six, there appeared to be a northerly force two blowing, so we decided to make a dash for it. Within an hour and a half the wind had veered to east-north-east and increased beyond the point where we could make progress. We were not far off the Sheraton marina a few miles east of Limassol, so we radioed for permission to enter. The entrance is very tricky, especially for a big and difficult to manoeuvre vessel like Tin Hau. We negotiated the tight turns and found ourselves in a snug berth for the next twenty-four hours. We were not the only boat doing this. To our surprise there were several awaiting a change of wind direction.
The desired south-westerly arrived the next morning and we high-tailed it out of the Sheraton, soon cutting the engine and sailing in some style into Larnaca seven hours later. It took that long because we had to make a large detour to avoid naval exercises along the coast. We spent the first night in the outer basin while the staff worked out where they were going to put us for the winter. Our allotted place was between Cusar – an American flagged, Taiwanese-built, ketch of roughly the same length as ourselves, and the somewhat smaller, but nonetheless elegant, White Friar II, a Taiwanese-built motor cruiser flying the red ensign. The poor owners of these two boats looked on helplessly as we cautiously backed our way into the rather tiny-looking space available. Tin Hau, when viewed from the stern, is rather a daunting sight. She towers above other vessels and appears to be about to batter them with her ram-like deck structure. I might add that, although we stopped their collective hearts for several seconds, we managed to get Tin Hau neatly tied up without causing a scratch to either neighbour.
Cutting the Dragon's Tail Page 31