Update From Marmaris
Here in Yacht-Marine, things are looking good. The cheapest marina in Turkey, it has grown rapidly in the last few years, and this year is packed with boats from end to end. We arrived on Friday, and got one of the last free places- probably partly because everyone wants to be in front of a TV for the World Cup final!
From Finike we sailed the short distance to Gokkaya, a little bay near Kokuva.
After a few days spent swimming, fishing and lazing about, we carried on to Kas, where we anchored in our favorite spot, ’round the back’ . Kas seems very smart this year, but essentially the same nice little town, and we had the good luck to catch the weekly market. Vegetables, eggs, locally made cheese and fruit, all at rock bottom prices and right next to the place where we tied up the kayak!
We wanted to get on westward, so steeled ourselves for a longish leg to Fethiye. Luckily for us, the meltemi hadn’t really got into full swing, and we managed to make reasonable time, sailing quite a lot of the way. We took a long tack out to seawards, then tacked back rather than try to push our way against waves and wind, and this made the passage quite comfortable. Sunshine, another Israeli yacht which set out the next day, had less luck, with a fierce meltemi and rough seas, but eventually got round the infamous Seven Capes too, and rejoined us in Fethiye, where we visited the market, again luckily arriving on the right day!
After two days getting our breath back, we set out in the direction of Marmaris, intending to anchor in a convenient cove at the edge of the enormous bay of Fethiye and set out the next day. Indeed we did find a lovely place to anchor, and after an entertaining evening watching charter boats collide with each other and drunken Germans trying to start outboard motors, we turned in and slept well, unaware that as we anchored, our shaft had slipped about 10 cm out of place.
The first intimation that all was not well was, luckily, not the clank of a propellor hitting the seafloor, but the fact that we had no propulsion when we tried to leave our anchorage in the morning. After reanchoring, Oren had a look inside the engine room, and discovered that the bolt holding the shaft in place had snapped, and left the shaft completely free to move. He then dived under the propellor and tied it so that the shaft couldn’t come out, and we decided to sail to Gocek, five miles away, where we could get Chasamba out of the water fairly quickly if we needed to. We were helped by a fellow cruiser to tow Chasamba out of the bay, since the wind was blowing straight in, and sailed up to Gocek, where we managed to come alongside at the shipyard under sail. There we felt a little safer, and Oren got to work trying to rig a repair, while I took Sheva for a walk and made sandwiches.
In a few hours Oren had managed to do an emergency repair, enough to get us onward to the much better facilities of Marmaris, and we cast off and anchored again in a convenient cove until morning. That evening we caught 26 fish, and fried them in batter, while a bemused millionaire family in a superyacht sat and watched us, amazed.
The journey to Marmaris was good. We set off at about 8 o’clock in the morning, with no wind, and made enough ground to be at a good angle to catch the meltemi and use it to make most of the distance. It was a strong meltemi, and got to more than 30 knots, pretty scary at times. We got up to 7.2 knots, and most of the time Sheva and I were wishing it would get less windy! Even reefed quite heavily we got the windows washed.
As we got close to Marmaris bay, the wind swung to blow directly against us, still at more than 20 knots at times. With no real choice, we started to motor against the wind, and made slow but steady progress. More worrying was the noise of ‘chinkety chink’ coming from the shaft, although I for one tried to ignore it in the hope that it would go away. Eventually we hauled ourselves round the corner and entered the bay, and in a few minutes triumphantly entered Yacht-Marine, answering the calls of ” but we are full! no place!” with a cheery ” well we’ll just anchor here then, in the middle shall we?”. Somehow a place was carved out for us, and as Oren put the gear into reverse to back in, the shaft slipped out again, leaving us stranded in the middle of the marina. No problem, the marina tug pushed us into our berth, and we heaved a sigh of relief. So meantime we are here, and Oren is in the engine room!
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