18th October 2010 Packing up
We have been thanking our lucky stars that Deep Blue survived and neither of us suffered a direct hit with the lightening. We have no electronics but this is all replaceable and the insurance will cover it. It is an inconvenience because it is now not a simple matter of packing up and leaving but could be so much worse!
Andy has a full list of all the failed devices and it is a very long one! The most puzzling and inconvenient is the fridge and the most disastrous is our total lack of alternator without which we cannot cruise. We need to check our rigging - because of the direct hit at the top of the mast we are worried the shroud terminals may be damaged.
However, having said all the above, I must report that we have had the most weird two or three days - much of it involving rotting flesh. We began to wonder if actually we had been transported to another dimension in the storm.
It started in Bozborun, the place we were making for when we were stuck by the lightening. We had gone there to catch up with our unusual friends Richard and Charles - last seen on Kalimnos buying the worlds annual production of gold after being expelled from Turkey. Charles at the time had something in his foot after diving bare footed and was refusing to go to the doctor. Since then he has had to have his foot amputated and we wanted to see how he was. Well the saga of our friends’ woos continues.
R.... is living on his boat in Marmaris and C...... is staying with a Turkish / Scottish couple Lynn and N who run a small restaurant on the front at Bozborun. Actually they are looking after C... as he has been very poorly and has just come out of hospital. Poor C.... is really not looking after himself. His foot stump has never healed properly after a year and he thought he was going to loose the lower part of his leg. Then he got extreme food poisoning and ended up in hospital only because the Lynn insisted. She said he literally looked like death and was passing out when the ambulance collected him.
He was pumped full of antibiotics, re-hydrated and not only did he recover but his stump also felt the best it has ever been. He continues to take the antibiotics and is now optimistic about his leg. However, he is definitely depressed and Lynn voiced the concerns we felt last time we saw him. “He has no one. No wife, children, parents or home.”
Now we are back in Marmaris - the weather is terrible with continuous storms passing over us making us glad we are safely in port. The insurance company sent us a surveyor and here starts the next chapter of weird things happening to us.
John M-T described himself as looking like Father Christmas but the man who arrived looked more like an emaciated tramp. We already knew that he was 71 but the white haired and long bearded man that presented himself looked 100 years old. He was extremely frail, with filthy clothes, a pipe in his mouth and his left arm heavily bandaged and in a sling. He is very well spoken and obviously 100% sharp but very disabled. We helped him aboard and were immediately hit by a terrible smell. Andy gagged and had to rush below. I took a closer look at the bandage which looked recent but was badly stained from a weeping wound, as was the sling and his clothing. “what happened?” “it is a long story..” and then he proceeded to tell it.
Some years ago he got a growth on his hand. He obviously left it and it grew. Eventually he actually visited a doctor and after being passed around has been told that it is not cancer but a fungal infection. However his fingers have started to “disappear” as he put it. Two weeks ago a doctor told him he needed 15 blood transfusions as his blood is poisoned but as he could not reassure John that the blood was free of HIV and hepatitis, John refused (though it may have been more the cost that stopped him at 150TL each transfusion). We are convinced that he has gangrene and that his situation is very serious.
We had no food on board except biscuits which he ate with relish and he also downed two very strong and sweet mugs of tea. Andy gave him his report of damage on board and loads of photos so he did not have to do too much work but he still insisted on struggled below to have a look before sitting down and there he stayed. Eventually he left the boat after talking to us for 4 hours! I felt bad that we were so pleased he had left but once he had gone we HAD to get off the boat ourselves - it stank so badly I was not sure I wanted to go back on board … ever!
We sprayed the boat with perfume, burnt mosquito coils … anything with a strong smell. We took all the cushions out and beat them clean and stayed off Deep Blue as much as possible for the next day or two. However, we now had a moral dilemma. John was destitute and needs the survey money but he really is not in a fit state to help us properly. We decided that once he had put in his report and the insurance company had Oked the claim we would report the situation to the insurance company. We are sort of helped by the fact that John, as of Monday, does not even have a Turkish residents visa. I have (heroically) offered that he should come back to the UK with me next week (did I really mean to say that to him?) and also offered to lend him some money. So far his stiff upper lip will not allow either but I think our concern has galvanised him into action and he is talking about getting back to the UK. There are many reasons why he is reluctant - he will probably lose his home of 14 years, he may not be allowed back into Turkey, he has no relatives in the UK except a sick 80 year old cousin and two nephews (on whom he could not possibly impose), he has very little money and he never paid taxes in the UK.
Makes you realise how lucky we are! We have our health, our wonderful extended family, some money in the bank and somewhere to live.
I had to ignore most of the advise John gave us as it turned out to be out of date. I also got rather more involved than I wanted with the marina politics (mainly because John was trying to help us) but I have managed to find a good team of workers who are doing their best to sort Deep Blue out before I leave next week. Andy has been tied up with a job on Spirit and then goes to Nice for another job and, although the insurance company has offered to pay him, he cannot be involved very much. His view is that so long as all the wires are chased and the equipment is fixed in place he can sort out mistakes later in his own time.
So our life continues to be one big adventure!
Showing posts with label cruising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cruising. Show all posts
Sunday, 24 October 2010
Direct Lightening Strike
Lightening strike 16th October 2010
This is turning into one of the most eventful 2 weeks of my life - certainly Deep Blues most eventful two weeks. First we got water in the diesel, then line around the anchor and prop and now poor Deep Blue has had a direct hit by a lightening strike and simultaneously we had acrid smoke coming off the top and bottom of the mast.
The day started gloriously. We were in Knidos with Cenk and his writer friend. Last night Cenk cooked us a most delicious meal and we shared a bottle of Kos Rose which we had slipped into Kos to buy en-route from Bodrum. This morning we woke to the magic of Knidos - an ancient Roman site - and swam in the clear waters as the sun rose. We were not hungry, so after a shower, we upped anchor and motored towards Simi en-route to Bozburun, a trip of nearly 40 miles. We motored for a couple of hours before the wind got up just enough to hoist the Genniker, auto helm on and a bit of sunbathing while we sailed along at 5-6 knots. All was good in the world.
As we approached Simi we could see clouds gathering - very black clouds - and could hear rumblings of thunder. We decided that it would be prudent to take down the Genniker as it gets a bit of a handful above 10 knots. Andy went below to have a snooze and I watched the gathering clouds. Simi, now behind us, slowly disappeared from view as the clouds got lower and nearer. Thunder crashed around us. Then the rain came - I had my olies on but still the water crept up the arms. Now the lightening was flashing around us just seconds before the claps of thunder. It was getting quite scary. Andy told me to stay in the cockpit. Stupidly I ignored him because I wanted to use the lovely clean water to clean the decks and was on the side deck when CRASH…. I felt a jolt right through me and smelt burning. The top of the mast was smoking like a fired gun and I thought the sail was on fire. Down below, the main cabin light was blown off its fixing and brought down the head-lining. Smoke filled the cabin and then dissipated. It was dramatic to say the least and I was very shaken.
Not aware of the disaster below I called to Andy to help me on deck. We rolled the foresail on the Furlex in the pouring rain as the wind increased. We looked up the mast - the aerial was gone as was the navigation light and the wind-ex. Andy was soaked and went back down below to see what else was broken.
Well basically everything is f****d. We have no self-steering, no depth-sounder, wind speed or direction, no AIS, VHF radio, radar and no navigation lights. The main cabin light is gone, stereo and fridge are all blown up. It is total devastation. By some miracle the chart plotter and GPS have survived, the boat batteries seem OK and our computers survived despite being plugged in. We needed the chart plotter as we were now completely surrounded by cloud and were approaching rocks and islands.
We limped into Bozburun as the skies cleared and arrived here to find that the storm had missed them and life was normal just 5nm away from where we were struck by the lightening!
This is turning into one of the most eventful 2 weeks of my life - certainly Deep Blues most eventful two weeks. First we got water in the diesel, then line around the anchor and prop and now poor Deep Blue has had a direct hit by a lightening strike and simultaneously we had acrid smoke coming off the top and bottom of the mast.
The day started gloriously. We were in Knidos with Cenk and his writer friend. Last night Cenk cooked us a most delicious meal and we shared a bottle of Kos Rose which we had slipped into Kos to buy en-route from Bodrum. This morning we woke to the magic of Knidos - an ancient Roman site - and swam in the clear waters as the sun rose. We were not hungry, so after a shower, we upped anchor and motored towards Simi en-route to Bozburun, a trip of nearly 40 miles. We motored for a couple of hours before the wind got up just enough to hoist the Genniker, auto helm on and a bit of sunbathing while we sailed along at 5-6 knots. All was good in the world.
As we approached Simi we could see clouds gathering - very black clouds - and could hear rumblings of thunder. We decided that it would be prudent to take down the Genniker as it gets a bit of a handful above 10 knots. Andy went below to have a snooze and I watched the gathering clouds. Simi, now behind us, slowly disappeared from view as the clouds got lower and nearer. Thunder crashed around us. Then the rain came - I had my olies on but still the water crept up the arms. Now the lightening was flashing around us just seconds before the claps of thunder. It was getting quite scary. Andy told me to stay in the cockpit. Stupidly I ignored him because I wanted to use the lovely clean water to clean the decks and was on the side deck when CRASH…. I felt a jolt right through me and smelt burning. The top of the mast was smoking like a fired gun and I thought the sail was on fire. Down below, the main cabin light was blown off its fixing and brought down the head-lining. Smoke filled the cabin and then dissipated. It was dramatic to say the least and I was very shaken.
Not aware of the disaster below I called to Andy to help me on deck. We rolled the foresail on the Furlex in the pouring rain as the wind increased. We looked up the mast - the aerial was gone as was the navigation light and the wind-ex. Andy was soaked and went back down below to see what else was broken.
Well basically everything is f****d. We have no self-steering, no depth-sounder, wind speed or direction, no AIS, VHF radio, radar and no navigation lights. The main cabin light is gone, stereo and fridge are all blown up. It is total devastation. By some miracle the chart plotter and GPS have survived, the boat batteries seem OK and our computers survived despite being plugged in. We needed the chart plotter as we were now completely surrounded by cloud and were approaching rocks and islands.
We limped into Bozburun as the skies cleared and arrived here to find that the storm had missed them and life was normal just 5nm away from where we were struck by the lightening!
Friday, 15 October 2010
Stormy Weather
Stormy Weather
Andy declared himself officially mad - and I had to concur. We had just arrived in Turgutreis Marina, North Bodrum when we had planned to sail to Simi which had been in completely the opposite direction and he had just been told the extortionate cost of the marina. But we now had no choice - it was blowing dogs of chains and getting dark.
The day seemed to start of as normal. We had been staying for a couple of days in one of our very favourite places on the Datca Peninsula, Palamut, where they still grow almonds and olives and where two summers previously we had watched them build the villages’ first road out of bricks. Our very friendly German neighbour warned us that there was a storm forecast but after checking three different sources where only lots of rain but little wind was predicted we decided we would stick to the plan. We left just before lunch to raucous laughter as my German lady friends understood my comment about Andy lifting the anchor by hand just for me (it builds his muscles and flattens his stomach) while Andy complained that he had 50 metres of chain to lift because I had told him to drop the anchor too soon . We made an impressive exit - fenders were tidied, warps coiled and sails were already up as we left the harbour.
Once clear of the harbour we realised very quickly that the wind was beaufort 3-4, blowing on our nose plus, and this was much more serious, the swell was building from the East. Nothing like any forecast. The wind was not an issue but the swell was. Our plan was to sneak into Simi town, stay until the storm passed over the next two days while buying gifts of Greek Rose wine and eating pork before sailing to Knidos to meet Cenk and his friends who were sailing from Bodrum, and for whom the gift was intended. However, Simi town faces East and we realised that the swell inside the harbour there would be untenable. Andy made a decision “you know what we have always said B, never sail into the wind. Lets put the spinnaker up and sail to Bodrum - Cenk is there and it is the same distance as Simi.”
We turned round, put up the spinnaker and were soon sailing at over 7 knots with the wind directly behind us, surfing occasionally down the waves at over 8 knots. I then went below to measure the distance. It was not 15nm but well over 25nm. Well if we could keep our speed up we would still arrive before dusk.
It was a fun sail and we made good time. As we sailed past Kos Andy was texting Cenk. We had 12 miles to go when Cenk sent a message asking to which marina we were going “there are four in Bodrum, I am in Turgutreis”. We checked the chart. This was much further West than we were heading. A quick phone call to the Marina to check there was room and we changed course for the second time that day.
By now we had the spinnaker down and as we rounded the headland for our last 2nm to the entrance to the marina, wham… the wind hit Deep Blue. Unfortunately our wind speed is under reading (I need to make a trip up the mast to service it) so we do not know the wind speed but it was over 30 knots. We had to put the engine on full throttle so we could turn the boat through 90 degrees to get the sails down and in. We were very relieved to get inside the marina around half an hour before dark.
Cenk came to see us bearing gifts of music, perfume and sweets and we shared Santorini white wine with him and gave him our last bottle of Santorini rose to take away. He is such an interesting man and we had a wide ranging discussion. He is with a friend ”a very famous Turkish writer” - who writes sailing books and articles. They are making an amateur documentary about Halikarnas Balikç isi who was a Cretan fisherman, poet and philosopher who moved to Turkey in the 50’s and was banished to Bodrum after becoming a political activist. He loved Bodrum and was very happy to be banished here! He died in 1973. Cenk loves to read and discuss philosophy so I understand why he is enjoying this project so much.
Talk turned to the ARC party, as it always does. As I have already said - the more educated Turks are very afraid that if the ARC party get elected again (and they have already been in power 8 years so far) that democracy will be eroded. He says they have been very clever in the way they are subtly changing the country, starting in the East where people are much more religious and generally uneducated and slowly slowly exerting their Islamic rules as they move West, putting detractors and political opponents in prison on trumped up charges which they hold up and say “look what you get if you vote for these guys”. Cenk feels also that the problem is that there is no visionary leader or party as an alternative which means the opposition vote is split, allowing ARC to win even if the majority do not want them. We compared Old Labour with the Ataturk Party and the need for a Tony Blair figure to turn it into a New Ataturk Party!
Andy declared himself officially mad - and I had to concur. We had just arrived in Turgutreis Marina, North Bodrum when we had planned to sail to Simi which had been in completely the opposite direction and he had just been told the extortionate cost of the marina. But we now had no choice - it was blowing dogs of chains and getting dark.
The day seemed to start of as normal. We had been staying for a couple of days in one of our very favourite places on the Datca Peninsula, Palamut, where they still grow almonds and olives and where two summers previously we had watched them build the villages’ first road out of bricks. Our very friendly German neighbour warned us that there was a storm forecast but after checking three different sources where only lots of rain but little wind was predicted we decided we would stick to the plan. We left just before lunch to raucous laughter as my German lady friends understood my comment about Andy lifting the anchor by hand just for me (it builds his muscles and flattens his stomach) while Andy complained that he had 50 metres of chain to lift because I had told him to drop the anchor too soon . We made an impressive exit - fenders were tidied, warps coiled and sails were already up as we left the harbour.
Once clear of the harbour we realised very quickly that the wind was beaufort 3-4, blowing on our nose plus, and this was much more serious, the swell was building from the East. Nothing like any forecast. The wind was not an issue but the swell was. Our plan was to sneak into Simi town, stay until the storm passed over the next two days while buying gifts of Greek Rose wine and eating pork before sailing to Knidos to meet Cenk and his friends who were sailing from Bodrum, and for whom the gift was intended. However, Simi town faces East and we realised that the swell inside the harbour there would be untenable. Andy made a decision “you know what we have always said B, never sail into the wind. Lets put the spinnaker up and sail to Bodrum - Cenk is there and it is the same distance as Simi.”
We turned round, put up the spinnaker and were soon sailing at over 7 knots with the wind directly behind us, surfing occasionally down the waves at over 8 knots. I then went below to measure the distance. It was not 15nm but well over 25nm. Well if we could keep our speed up we would still arrive before dusk.
It was a fun sail and we made good time. As we sailed past Kos Andy was texting Cenk. We had 12 miles to go when Cenk sent a message asking to which marina we were going “there are four in Bodrum, I am in Turgutreis”. We checked the chart. This was much further West than we were heading. A quick phone call to the Marina to check there was room and we changed course for the second time that day.
By now we had the spinnaker down and as we rounded the headland for our last 2nm to the entrance to the marina, wham… the wind hit Deep Blue. Unfortunately our wind speed is under reading (I need to make a trip up the mast to service it) so we do not know the wind speed but it was over 30 knots. We had to put the engine on full throttle so we could turn the boat through 90 degrees to get the sails down and in. We were very relieved to get inside the marina around half an hour before dark.
Cenk came to see us bearing gifts of music, perfume and sweets and we shared Santorini white wine with him and gave him our last bottle of Santorini rose to take away. He is such an interesting man and we had a wide ranging discussion. He is with a friend ”a very famous Turkish writer” - who writes sailing books and articles. They are making an amateur documentary about Halikarnas Balikç isi who was a Cretan fisherman, poet and philosopher who moved to Turkey in the 50’s and was banished to Bodrum after becoming a political activist. He loved Bodrum and was very happy to be banished here! He died in 1973. Cenk loves to read and discuss philosophy so I understand why he is enjoying this project so much.
Talk turned to the ARC party, as it always does. As I have already said - the more educated Turks are very afraid that if the ARC party get elected again (and they have already been in power 8 years so far) that democracy will be eroded. He says they have been very clever in the way they are subtly changing the country, starting in the East where people are much more religious and generally uneducated and slowly slowly exerting their Islamic rules as they move West, putting detractors and political opponents in prison on trumped up charges which they hold up and say “look what you get if you vote for these guys”. Cenk feels also that the problem is that there is no visionary leader or party as an alternative which means the opposition vote is split, allowing ARC to win even if the majority do not want them. We compared Old Labour with the Ataturk Party and the need for a Tony Blair figure to turn it into a New Ataturk Party!
Monday, 11 October 2010
Rescue at sea and water in diesel
Village Life
We arrived back in Turkey on Wednesday 29th September 2010, sailing into Karaça Sögüt on the 1st October - one year to the day since we left Deep Blue for our “new” life in the UK. It was so lovely to be back in such a familiar place with people we knew around us. This time we decided to use the village pontoon rather than Global Sailing Club where we over wintered 2008-9 with Halluk, Chris and Deniz. This meant it was easier for us to see all our friends and be part of village life.
We have never been to K-S in the summer and we had our first taste of what it is like to have a constant stream of gullets filled with tourists invading the village - but more of that later. It was also our first taste of the village in season - ie two in season only “supermarket”, two new summer only restaurants and some of the houses occupied and both pontoons full of visiting yachts . K-S is a small village where usually there is one restaurant and sorry shop run by Melek (Angel) and her daughter-in-law. We have eaten at Meleks restaurant several times in the past and decided we would go and see her on our first night back.
Melek is probably my age, uneducated and married to a VERY unpleasant man, she is mother to two grown-up sons and works day and night to the point of exhaustion. She is a good Turkish cook and her meals are generally well priced and perfectly acceptable. Not Cordon Bleu but very edible. Her only help is her smiley daughter-in-law. The guys on “China Town” pontoon (where we were staying) have had to take her to hospital in the past after her husband beat her up and she has several broken teeth. Her husband wears a very large gold ring (knuckle duster to break teeth) and waddles around shaking the hands of important customers then disappears. I had the misfortune of having to decide if I really wanted to shake his fat hand.
When I arrived at the restaurant she recognised me and took me into her kitchen to see what she was cooking tonight. An older Turkish man with a ponytail was already in the kitchen and he spoke English. She had obviously asked him to translate. “She says you can have the three fish for 25TL - cooked with salad and bread”. “OK” I say, “but these are frozen, can I have those?” pointing to a bowl of small but fresh fish. “No, they are mine! You can have anything but those - I caught them”.
Later we sat eating the (accidentally) frozen but now delicious fish and the same guy walks to our table and brings two more cooked fish as a gift. How very Turkish that was. He also gave us a message from Melek, pleased she had a translator. Earlier we had shown that we actually only had 35TL cash. 25 for her meal and 10 for the dolmus to get to town to get more cash in the morning. Her message was that if we wanted a beer or anything else then - no problem, we can pay tomorrow. Again - only the Turks would do that. What a huge contrast to the Greeks. We of course, took her up on the offer!
As we finished our meal we wanted to know the time of the morning dolmus. Melek needed a translator and this time, as the fishermen had left, she asked the only other customers - two elderly men. We fell into conversation and were invited to join them for a beer. It turned out they were brothers, the older had lived and worked in the USA as an oil geologist and the other still owned interests in a UK based arms business. The older (Turkish / American) guy was 79 and looked good for a few more years while his younger (British / Turk) was not a well man though only in his late 60s. It turned out that the older brothers American wife had recently died - very sad - while the younger had had two English wives. They both now lived in Ankara (“not a nice place”) and owned a holiday house in the village. Talk turned to politics and their view reflected all our other educated (but in the minority) Turks view that the current government is turning to Islam and that the next election was going to be a turning point that seriously concerned them. “Our father fought for the freedom, Westernisation, of this country”. They were particularly concerned about issues that pointed to the direction the current president was going like the wearing of the scarf (his wife wears full burka to official events though it is currently illegal to wear even a scarf in Universities but this law is about to be repealed). “Imagine it being illegal for us to be sitting here having this conversation and drinking this Raki”.
The dolmus is a service that has always puzzled us a bit. Our friend Byram had explained to us that the three or even four drivers, who all own their own van, share the school contract money but any money they earn from extra passengers or transporting of vegetables and bread was their own. Often we were the extra passengers and this was the case when we took the dolmus into Marmaris to visit Spirit of the East - the superyacht Andy has some work on later this month. We didn’t have the right money and the driver didn’t have change so told us not to worry but to pay later. It really doesn’t occur to anyone that we may not pay. On our return journey he did not ask for the money - just waited for us to offer it. On the way back to K-S and after a broken English conversation about his children his mobile phone rang and we could tell it was bad news. He stopped the van and started shouting in a frantic way down the phone. The only words we understood were Karaç a Sö gü t and Marmaris. He made several calls - apologising to us but explaining it was indeed bad news. His English was very basic and we found it hard to understand all he told us but we are sure that he told us that the school contract had just been taken from the dolmus’s “no more dolmus” he kept saying. Poor man. He had just been telling us how he had two young children - a daughter of 13 and a boy of eight and how he was hoping to take his son to visit his brother who lives in New York next year. Later next day I saw him and the other dolmus drivers talking earnestly together in the car park off the pontoon. I hope it works out for those guys. What will they do?
We had a rather major mishap with Deep Blue. We had run out of water and Andy, who had his mind on preparatory work for Spirit of the East, was not concentrating while he topped up the tanks. I was cooking below as we had dinner guests arriving in about 1 hour - I smelt fuel and leapt up on deck to see - horror - the water hose in the half full FUEL tank and diesel just starting to spill out. We now had 25 litres diesel and 20 litres water in the same tank. We discussed whether to cancel Peter and Barbara or leave sorting it out to the morning. We decided the later course - besides we needed a pump and they may have one.
I had got talking to Peter on the day of our arrival when I needed to borrow his glasses to read a menu of one of the “summer” restaurants. He was a Kiwi on crutches and I quickly learnt he had damaged his back and was about to return to NZ by air for an operation. He and his wife Barbara were in their 4th year of a 7 year round the world trip and according to their timetable they were supposed to be in Gibraltar. Sadly Peter damaged his back earlier this year (carrying 50 litres of water and missing his step on a typical Greek quay) and he had been hoping that rest would sort the problem so they had taken it easy this summer. They had a passenger on their yacht - a Turkish one - a feral cat called Wifi. as, like the wifi signal in Yat Marine the cat kept coming and going! WiFi is the proud owner of a European passport, is spayed, got all her jabs and defleaed. Cost a fortune. They al live on a serious, cross oceans 52 foot yacht.
They were surprised Andy admitted to the water/ diesel problem but then Barbara admitted that she had done the same thing but their fuel tanks are somewhat larger than ours. Necessity is the mother of invention and they had built a pump and water separator. Peter would bring it in the morning. FANTASTIC!
I was mortified that we had spilt some diesel in the water here (less than 1 litre but it looks terrible as it spreads. Ironically we put Ecover washing liquid on it to make it sink). I decided that the only way to do our penance was to do something for the community. The ç op (waste) area of the village was in a horrid state. People had been dumping their rubbish on the ground instead of putting it in the bins and there was plastic, rotting food and an unspeakable mess spread by the cats over a wide area. I decided to clean it up so I spent a not very happy hour picking up the rubbish and putting it in the bins while holding my breathe. I also waded and swam to pick up floating plastic. However by the end I was pleased with my efforts.
Next day Peter and Andy worked on separating the diesel from the water and after 3 hours the job was done and the engine worked fine. I had made a young friend on the pontoon called CJ - 20 something cool dude who spoke English with an American accent and dressed a bit like an American gangster to show off his muscles. He kept coming to see how we were getting on - I think he liked practicing his English though he was supposed to be helping repair Eric’s old motor boat and his work colleagues had told him we wouldn’t want to talk to him “leave them in peace”. Later, when Deniz - Halluks daughter, looking very beautiful with her blond hair flowing, wearing a pretty summer dress - came to visit he took a even bigger interest. He was surprised she was called Deniz (a Turkish name meaning sea) and his eyes got even bigger when I told him about her strict Turkish father. I think this appealed to him especially after his experience with an English girl-friend who he told me turned out to be a whore. (We find women in many Turkish films are depicted as either “loose” and are dressed like prostitutes or saints who never have sex, even in marriage.)
All that day gullets were coming and going, several stayed the night with their cargo of American, German and English tourists. We had another meal at Meleks and a peaceful night knowing our water and diesel were now separated. We decided that after 5 days in K-S it was time to go before we stayed for ever (and anyway the holding tank was full!). We needed a couple of things from the shop before we left and I wandered early morning to the shop, past the gullets and past the ç op. Imagine how I felt when I saw rubbish strewn everywhere on the ground while the bins were empty! I was spitting feathers and the first person I saw was a gullet crew member ashore to buy ekmek (bread). I laid into him. I was so angry. He admitted putting rubbish in the ç op but “in the buckets”. I was so angry I spoilt a few tourists breakfasts because I went to each gullet and told them where their crew had put the rubbish and what had happened to it! I wonder if it made a lasting impression - a wild haired, mad English woman angrily talking about rubbish! To give him his due, the first guy I accosted tried really hard to calm me down and be friendly.
We left early, waving au-revoir to Peter, Barbara and Wifi and Halluk on Balina as we passed by. We were on our way to seek wind and windsurfing spots.
Rescue
Yesterday was a traumatic day. It started off well - it was windy and Andy of course wanted to go windsurfing. We moved DB from her shallow, sheltered anchorage near a small fishing settlement in a long inlet called Kü ç ü k Ç ati out into the windy bay. While Andy was windsurfing I thought that the anchor had started to slip but after monitoring it for a while and testing it I decided it was holding, but I would keep my eye on the situation. Windsurfing over, and what a brilliant windsurf it was, we decided we had better use the remaining light to move DB back inside. The shipping forecast was for more gales and we were not 100% certain that the anchor was holding.
So for the second time that day Andy hand winched up the anchor. He was puzzled because the anchor, though obviously not on the ground, was not falling straight down but pulling back even though it could no longer be on the sea-floor. He told me to slow down - which I did from 2knots to a chug, chug 1 knot move forward. We were just approaching the narrow entrance to our sheltered inlet when, chunk, the engine stopped and I noticed something streaming out of the back of DB. We were surrounded by high rocky cliffs and submerged rocks - not a good place to be without an engine on a stormy night. Andy immediately re-dropped the anchor in 14 metres of water and dived into the sea to look underneath at the prop. I luckily had the presence of mind to activate the Man Over Board button on the GPS so I could monitor the holding of the anchor. Disaster - there was a HUGE fishing net tangled round the prop - so much that our rope cutter on the prop had broken, unable to cope. The MOB indicated we had moved 0.01nm - roughly 20-30m but appeared to have stopped and I put this down to the anchor chain tightening in a gust. The nearest rocks were less than 100m away and the depth had gone down to 7m.
We dug the kedge anchor out of the large stern locker to be at the ready and found a sharp knife. Andy dived back in with the knife while I kept a watchful eye on him and the rocks. Andy surfaced to say that the prop was so full of tightly twisted line it was almost impossible to cut through and I couldn’t get the engine into neutral so the prop wouldn’t turn freely to help untwist it. He went back under the water. There was less than an hour until dark and we seemed to be in a pretty hopeless situation. I noticed the anchor had slipped again and we were now 0.02nm from our original position and the rocks were now 50m away. We needed to deploy the kedge anchor. But just then a miracle happened. Allah truly came to our assistance in the form of two (holidaying?) Turkish guys fishing for their dinner in a little boat. I waved at them frantically and held up some of the fishing net Andy had managed to remove - a large bundle of the stuff and pointed at Andy in the water. They understood immediately and said in very good English that they would get help.
Within 10 minutes the fishing village arrived in an armada of little boats to rescue us. They took our tow rope (which we had hoped we would never need but had just in case) and Andy had, for the third time, to hand lift the anchor. I was thinking the poor guy must be exhausted after an hour of windsurfing, by now hand winched 150m of chain and been diving to cut the net. Then suddenly the truth of the matter became clear. The anchor was tangled with meter upon meter of dumped fishing net. When he had lifted the anchor in the windy bay the net had streamed from the anchor and made contact with the prop. He hacked at the net on the anchor but was unable to pull it aboard as it was still attached to the boat. Hopefully no one else will get it round their propeller as the net is now (hopefully) at the bottom of the channel into the inlet.
The flotilla towed us into the far corner of the inlet - we would never have dared anchor there without the local knowledge. We dropped our anchor in 3m water and they helped us with a very long shoreline before leaving us to “have a good nights sleep and sort it in the morning, captain”. They would not take anything from us.
Next morning Andy was able to finish cutting the net off the prop using a long hose to breathe underwater and free the jammed gears. Just as we were about to test the engine Fikret came over to see how we were doing. Fikret was the guy with the good English and it turned out he was and electronic engineer, now retired from NATO! He retired nine years ago at the age of 48 and has a small apartment in Marmaris and a small wooden gullet like motor yacht and he and his wife shares their time between them. Not only would he not accept any money or my gifts he invited us to his boat for drinks to meet the rest of his friends. He wanted to watch us test our engine in gear. It worked perfectly.
We arrived back in Turkey on Wednesday 29th September 2010, sailing into Karaça Sögüt on the 1st October - one year to the day since we left Deep Blue for our “new” life in the UK. It was so lovely to be back in such a familiar place with people we knew around us. This time we decided to use the village pontoon rather than Global Sailing Club where we over wintered 2008-9 with Halluk, Chris and Deniz. This meant it was easier for us to see all our friends and be part of village life.
We have never been to K-S in the summer and we had our first taste of what it is like to have a constant stream of gullets filled with tourists invading the village - but more of that later. It was also our first taste of the village in season - ie two in season only “supermarket”, two new summer only restaurants and some of the houses occupied and both pontoons full of visiting yachts . K-S is a small village where usually there is one restaurant and sorry shop run by Melek (Angel) and her daughter-in-law. We have eaten at Meleks restaurant several times in the past and decided we would go and see her on our first night back.
Melek is probably my age, uneducated and married to a VERY unpleasant man, she is mother to two grown-up sons and works day and night to the point of exhaustion. She is a good Turkish cook and her meals are generally well priced and perfectly acceptable. Not Cordon Bleu but very edible. Her only help is her smiley daughter-in-law. The guys on “China Town” pontoon (where we were staying) have had to take her to hospital in the past after her husband beat her up and she has several broken teeth. Her husband wears a very large gold ring (knuckle duster to break teeth) and waddles around shaking the hands of important customers then disappears. I had the misfortune of having to decide if I really wanted to shake his fat hand.
When I arrived at the restaurant she recognised me and took me into her kitchen to see what she was cooking tonight. An older Turkish man with a ponytail was already in the kitchen and he spoke English. She had obviously asked him to translate. “She says you can have the three fish for 25TL - cooked with salad and bread”. “OK” I say, “but these are frozen, can I have those?” pointing to a bowl of small but fresh fish. “No, they are mine! You can have anything but those - I caught them”.
Later we sat eating the (accidentally) frozen but now delicious fish and the same guy walks to our table and brings two more cooked fish as a gift. How very Turkish that was. He also gave us a message from Melek, pleased she had a translator. Earlier we had shown that we actually only had 35TL cash. 25 for her meal and 10 for the dolmus to get to town to get more cash in the morning. Her message was that if we wanted a beer or anything else then - no problem, we can pay tomorrow. Again - only the Turks would do that. What a huge contrast to the Greeks. We of course, took her up on the offer!
As we finished our meal we wanted to know the time of the morning dolmus. Melek needed a translator and this time, as the fishermen had left, she asked the only other customers - two elderly men. We fell into conversation and were invited to join them for a beer. It turned out they were brothers, the older had lived and worked in the USA as an oil geologist and the other still owned interests in a UK based arms business. The older (Turkish / American) guy was 79 and looked good for a few more years while his younger (British / Turk) was not a well man though only in his late 60s. It turned out that the older brothers American wife had recently died - very sad - while the younger had had two English wives. They both now lived in Ankara (“not a nice place”) and owned a holiday house in the village. Talk turned to politics and their view reflected all our other educated (but in the minority) Turks view that the current government is turning to Islam and that the next election was going to be a turning point that seriously concerned them. “Our father fought for the freedom, Westernisation, of this country”. They were particularly concerned about issues that pointed to the direction the current president was going like the wearing of the scarf (his wife wears full burka to official events though it is currently illegal to wear even a scarf in Universities but this law is about to be repealed). “Imagine it being illegal for us to be sitting here having this conversation and drinking this Raki”.
The dolmus is a service that has always puzzled us a bit. Our friend Byram had explained to us that the three or even four drivers, who all own their own van, share the school contract money but any money they earn from extra passengers or transporting of vegetables and bread was their own. Often we were the extra passengers and this was the case when we took the dolmus into Marmaris to visit Spirit of the East - the superyacht Andy has some work on later this month. We didn’t have the right money and the driver didn’t have change so told us not to worry but to pay later. It really doesn’t occur to anyone that we may not pay. On our return journey he did not ask for the money - just waited for us to offer it. On the way back to K-S and after a broken English conversation about his children his mobile phone rang and we could tell it was bad news. He stopped the van and started shouting in a frantic way down the phone. The only words we understood were Karaç a Sö gü t and Marmaris. He made several calls - apologising to us but explaining it was indeed bad news. His English was very basic and we found it hard to understand all he told us but we are sure that he told us that the school contract had just been taken from the dolmus’s “no more dolmus” he kept saying. Poor man. He had just been telling us how he had two young children - a daughter of 13 and a boy of eight and how he was hoping to take his son to visit his brother who lives in New York next year. Later next day I saw him and the other dolmus drivers talking earnestly together in the car park off the pontoon. I hope it works out for those guys. What will they do?
We had a rather major mishap with Deep Blue. We had run out of water and Andy, who had his mind on preparatory work for Spirit of the East, was not concentrating while he topped up the tanks. I was cooking below as we had dinner guests arriving in about 1 hour - I smelt fuel and leapt up on deck to see - horror - the water hose in the half full FUEL tank and diesel just starting to spill out. We now had 25 litres diesel and 20 litres water in the same tank. We discussed whether to cancel Peter and Barbara or leave sorting it out to the morning. We decided the later course - besides we needed a pump and they may have one.
I had got talking to Peter on the day of our arrival when I needed to borrow his glasses to read a menu of one of the “summer” restaurants. He was a Kiwi on crutches and I quickly learnt he had damaged his back and was about to return to NZ by air for an operation. He and his wife Barbara were in their 4th year of a 7 year round the world trip and according to their timetable they were supposed to be in Gibraltar. Sadly Peter damaged his back earlier this year (carrying 50 litres of water and missing his step on a typical Greek quay) and he had been hoping that rest would sort the problem so they had taken it easy this summer. They had a passenger on their yacht - a Turkish one - a feral cat called Wifi. as, like the wifi signal in Yat Marine the cat kept coming and going! WiFi is the proud owner of a European passport, is spayed, got all her jabs and defleaed. Cost a fortune. They al live on a serious, cross oceans 52 foot yacht.
They were surprised Andy admitted to the water/ diesel problem but then Barbara admitted that she had done the same thing but their fuel tanks are somewhat larger than ours. Necessity is the mother of invention and they had built a pump and water separator. Peter would bring it in the morning. FANTASTIC!
I was mortified that we had spilt some diesel in the water here (less than 1 litre but it looks terrible as it spreads. Ironically we put Ecover washing liquid on it to make it sink). I decided that the only way to do our penance was to do something for the community. The ç op (waste) area of the village was in a horrid state. People had been dumping their rubbish on the ground instead of putting it in the bins and there was plastic, rotting food and an unspeakable mess spread by the cats over a wide area. I decided to clean it up so I spent a not very happy hour picking up the rubbish and putting it in the bins while holding my breathe. I also waded and swam to pick up floating plastic. However by the end I was pleased with my efforts.
Next day Peter and Andy worked on separating the diesel from the water and after 3 hours the job was done and the engine worked fine. I had made a young friend on the pontoon called CJ - 20 something cool dude who spoke English with an American accent and dressed a bit like an American gangster to show off his muscles. He kept coming to see how we were getting on - I think he liked practicing his English though he was supposed to be helping repair Eric’s old motor boat and his work colleagues had told him we wouldn’t want to talk to him “leave them in peace”. Later, when Deniz - Halluks daughter, looking very beautiful with her blond hair flowing, wearing a pretty summer dress - came to visit he took a even bigger interest. He was surprised she was called Deniz (a Turkish name meaning sea) and his eyes got even bigger when I told him about her strict Turkish father. I think this appealed to him especially after his experience with an English girl-friend who he told me turned out to be a whore. (We find women in many Turkish films are depicted as either “loose” and are dressed like prostitutes or saints who never have sex, even in marriage.)
All that day gullets were coming and going, several stayed the night with their cargo of American, German and English tourists. We had another meal at Meleks and a peaceful night knowing our water and diesel were now separated. We decided that after 5 days in K-S it was time to go before we stayed for ever (and anyway the holding tank was full!). We needed a couple of things from the shop before we left and I wandered early morning to the shop, past the gullets and past the ç op. Imagine how I felt when I saw rubbish strewn everywhere on the ground while the bins were empty! I was spitting feathers and the first person I saw was a gullet crew member ashore to buy ekmek (bread). I laid into him. I was so angry. He admitted putting rubbish in the ç op but “in the buckets”. I was so angry I spoilt a few tourists breakfasts because I went to each gullet and told them where their crew had put the rubbish and what had happened to it! I wonder if it made a lasting impression - a wild haired, mad English woman angrily talking about rubbish! To give him his due, the first guy I accosted tried really hard to calm me down and be friendly.
We left early, waving au-revoir to Peter, Barbara and Wifi and Halluk on Balina as we passed by. We were on our way to seek wind and windsurfing spots.
Rescue
Yesterday was a traumatic day. It started off well - it was windy and Andy of course wanted to go windsurfing. We moved DB from her shallow, sheltered anchorage near a small fishing settlement in a long inlet called Kü ç ü k Ç ati out into the windy bay. While Andy was windsurfing I thought that the anchor had started to slip but after monitoring it for a while and testing it I decided it was holding, but I would keep my eye on the situation. Windsurfing over, and what a brilliant windsurf it was, we decided we had better use the remaining light to move DB back inside. The shipping forecast was for more gales and we were not 100% certain that the anchor was holding.
So for the second time that day Andy hand winched up the anchor. He was puzzled because the anchor, though obviously not on the ground, was not falling straight down but pulling back even though it could no longer be on the sea-floor. He told me to slow down - which I did from 2knots to a chug, chug 1 knot move forward. We were just approaching the narrow entrance to our sheltered inlet when, chunk, the engine stopped and I noticed something streaming out of the back of DB. We were surrounded by high rocky cliffs and submerged rocks - not a good place to be without an engine on a stormy night. Andy immediately re-dropped the anchor in 14 metres of water and dived into the sea to look underneath at the prop. I luckily had the presence of mind to activate the Man Over Board button on the GPS so I could monitor the holding of the anchor. Disaster - there was a HUGE fishing net tangled round the prop - so much that our rope cutter on the prop had broken, unable to cope. The MOB indicated we had moved 0.01nm - roughly 20-30m but appeared to have stopped and I put this down to the anchor chain tightening in a gust. The nearest rocks were less than 100m away and the depth had gone down to 7m.
We dug the kedge anchor out of the large stern locker to be at the ready and found a sharp knife. Andy dived back in with the knife while I kept a watchful eye on him and the rocks. Andy surfaced to say that the prop was so full of tightly twisted line it was almost impossible to cut through and I couldn’t get the engine into neutral so the prop wouldn’t turn freely to help untwist it. He went back under the water. There was less than an hour until dark and we seemed to be in a pretty hopeless situation. I noticed the anchor had slipped again and we were now 0.02nm from our original position and the rocks were now 50m away. We needed to deploy the kedge anchor. But just then a miracle happened. Allah truly came to our assistance in the form of two (holidaying?) Turkish guys fishing for their dinner in a little boat. I waved at them frantically and held up some of the fishing net Andy had managed to remove - a large bundle of the stuff and pointed at Andy in the water. They understood immediately and said in very good English that they would get help.
Within 10 minutes the fishing village arrived in an armada of little boats to rescue us. They took our tow rope (which we had hoped we would never need but had just in case) and Andy had, for the third time, to hand lift the anchor. I was thinking the poor guy must be exhausted after an hour of windsurfing, by now hand winched 150m of chain and been diving to cut the net. Then suddenly the truth of the matter became clear. The anchor was tangled with meter upon meter of dumped fishing net. When he had lifted the anchor in the windy bay the net had streamed from the anchor and made contact with the prop. He hacked at the net on the anchor but was unable to pull it aboard as it was still attached to the boat. Hopefully no one else will get it round their propeller as the net is now (hopefully) at the bottom of the channel into the inlet.
The flotilla towed us into the far corner of the inlet - we would never have dared anchor there without the local knowledge. We dropped our anchor in 3m water and they helped us with a very long shoreline before leaving us to “have a good nights sleep and sort it in the morning, captain”. They would not take anything from us.
Next morning Andy was able to finish cutting the net off the prop using a long hose to breathe underwater and free the jammed gears. Just as we were about to test the engine Fikret came over to see how we were doing. Fikret was the guy with the good English and it turned out he was and electronic engineer, now retired from NATO! He retired nine years ago at the age of 48 and has a small apartment in Marmaris and a small wooden gullet like motor yacht and he and his wife shares their time between them. Not only would he not accept any money or my gifts he invited us to his boat for drinks to meet the rest of his friends. He wanted to watch us test our engine in gear. It worked perfectly.
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Exploring the Cyclades
Astipalaia
We fairly romped on a beam reach to Astipalaia via an overnight stop in a fab inlet on Amorgos after being storm bound on Sikinos for two days. Not that we were complaining about being stuck in Sikinos because it is now down as a favourite of ours. We had met a lovely young American couple Brian and Doreen there who had chartered a yacht for their honeymoon but were finding the Med slightly scary after learning to cruise in the BVI‘s. We left them with the promise of less wind by Friday so that they could return the boat and on cue the wind did die just as we approached Astipalaia.
Richard and Pippa recommended Astypalaia and the island does look intriguing from the chart. It is almost two islands attached by a narrow strip of land and has numerous inlets and mountains. From the sea it looks very bleak and is obviously very sparsely populated. We decided to make for the Hora and main port. When there are several other cruisers in port you get talking but do not always introduce yourself. This time there are an interesting variety of nationalities. Next door is a beautiful 48 foot Wiequiez with Mr and Mrs French - later we learnt he is Jean-Yves - and the other side a scruffy 34 foot Italian boat with four on board. Next door but one is Dutch and then German, Swedish and another French. You get the picture. You sort of get territorial when the wind and swell increases and last night was a case in point.
As the wind increased yesterday we all started to adjust our lines and secure the boats safely against the surges we were experiencing. Andy and I decided to go for a walk and drink before dark coincidently at the same place as Jean-Yves and his wife, and on our return had found that a 44 foot boat had squeezed in between us and the beautiful Wiequiez. We would not have minded except big 44 foot had attached himself to us - little 35 foot - relying on our stanchions! As you can imagine, we were not happy and immediately started to sort his lines out as no one was on board. At this point Jean-Yves arrived. Now he is a serious sea-dog and was aghast at the unseamanly way Mr 44 foot had tied up! Our audience grew - the four Italians were on the case too. Just then Mr 44 foot turned up - I had his untied lines in my hands and probably looked like we were about to cast him adrift with the whole quay watching!
It turned out Mr 44 foot was also French and Jean-Yves took things in hand by jumping onto said 44 footer and moved the boat for them to a place where they could tie up properly. It turns out Mr and Mrs 44 foot had only just picked up the boat and were scared of the wind and swell.
After that bit of excitement we all settled down again to our own little lives on board our boats but an hour or two later - in the dark - a 60 foot boat arrives. Heads start popping out of hatches. There is a swell and an increasing wind. The quay is comfortably full. We do not want him to disturb us but we are aware that there APPEARS to be a space next to us. We all watch as he circles, wondering where he will choose, why he plans things so badly that he arrives in the dark and willing him to go away but also feeling some sympathy that there appears to be no space for him. He goes away - probably to the ferry quay. But an hour later he is back (the next day we saw why - the swell on that quay was untenable) and this time he is determined. We all start adjusting our lines to make room - supervised by J-Y. Andy nearly fell into the water as he crossed our pasarelle - the swell and his rush after a couple of drinks did not help - and he had to be rescued as he sprawled across the length of our plank with his glasses landing on the quay, poor guy.
We all settled down until an hour later another yacht arrives. Like Meercats we all poke our heads out of our companion ways but this time keeping low, watching. The yacht circled. We waited. This time the poor yacht had to give up and anchor.
We hired a scooter for the day - we wanted to understand why P+R had recommended this island. The Chora was pretty with its 8 windmills and castle but nothing exceptional. What was exceptional was the friendly locals. What wasn’t was the EC funded “renovation” on the intriguing castle which was actually a cluster of ancient houses and was dangerously crumbling. The new buttresses were literally clinging to the old structure by the skin of their teeth and in severe danger of falling on a passer by!
The island s a maximum of 10 miles long and at its widest 5 miles, has one tarmac road and nine dirt roads. We rode every single one and had the most wonderful time. The island is very sparse - just bare rock and a few goats. In particular we loved the North Eastern tip with its well sheltered inlet where several yachts were anchored. We, embarrassingly, ran out of petrol here and had to scrounge from a Norwegian couple who carried petrol for their tender otherwise we would have had a very long and dusty walk back to Deep Blue as we were as far as we could be from the one petrol station on the island. They were very kind and wouldn’t take any money.
Driving back to the Hora we stopped at a beautiful isolated sandy beach which actually was more plastic than sand, with two couples sunbathing in among the rubbish. I could not believe that they had chosen to drive there and stay. Andy stopped me doing a beach clean - how could we carry the plastic to a bin on our little scooter? The Western “wing” of the island was more lush and we passed through several thriving villages. At one we stopped for coffee and cake before returning to DB after a very satisfying and dusty day.
Nisos Nisiros
What an amazing island Nisiros is. The whole island is an active volcano and we hired a bike and were able to climb right down into its growling and hissing crater! The volcano is about 10kms diameter and just under 700m above sea level. The crater itself is nearly 5 kms diameter and is a seriously hot place! We loved this island and had a fascinating day exploring it. The museum described how the island formed with eruption after eruption, one every 20,000 years or so. On past record the next one is due in the next 5,000 years!
We raced Jean-Yves to Nisiros, a distance of 42nm, both with our spinnakers up. He gave us a 2 hour start but didn’t catch us up until the wind died and we had swapped to our Cruising Shute and he resorted to his engine. He was even more friendly now that we had proved our sailing credentials! While we were chatting to J-Y Andy saw an old friend - Kenneth. We met Kenneth, Melanie, baby Fritzy and their two dogs in November 2008. They write German cruising pilots and we were very pleased to see each other again. Sadly one of the dogs has died and the other they decided to leave with Melanie’s mother - probably for the best as they live on a 31ft boat with a growing child. Fritzy is delightful and now 2 years old. We compared notes about the Greeks - it was a very interesting conversation especially as they agreed with us! Sad really but like us they do not have any ordinary Greek friends and miss the easy hospitality of the Turks.
Turkey again
And so we sailed back “home” to the Datca peninsula. We had a dinner date with Wilfred , Sabina and dog Don of Wisa. Amazingly we arrived at the same time in an isolated inlet, from different directions and hours earlier than the appointed time, where a naked Swiss man tried to direct us away from his motor catamaran. Really … he should have put it away before shouting at Wilfred, it is very hard to take a man seriously when he is a stranger in his birthday suit! As soon as the boats were secure we all dived into the clear water and swam to hug each other - quite funny as we all ended up spluttering!
It was a lovely sociable evening with Don joining in and behaving very well - he had a real explore of Deep Blue’s deck , having a look down below, before settling down and watching us eat. We arranged to catch up again later in the month.
So now we are in Karaca Sogut - the place where we spent winter 2008/9. We arrived on 1st October exactly one year after we left Turkey to return to the UK. Most of our friends were not here but we have never the less a stream of people passing Deep Blue to chat - including Byram who used to be our dolmus driver and has just started a new job as skipper of a Turkish style super-yacht after passing all his exams just as we left here in the spring of 2009. This is a big deal for him as his wife was very resistant to him studying as it meant he spent a lot of time away from the family but he told me things were good with his family now.
We fairly romped on a beam reach to Astipalaia via an overnight stop in a fab inlet on Amorgos after being storm bound on Sikinos for two days. Not that we were complaining about being stuck in Sikinos because it is now down as a favourite of ours. We had met a lovely young American couple Brian and Doreen there who had chartered a yacht for their honeymoon but were finding the Med slightly scary after learning to cruise in the BVI‘s. We left them with the promise of less wind by Friday so that they could return the boat and on cue the wind did die just as we approached Astipalaia.
Richard and Pippa recommended Astypalaia and the island does look intriguing from the chart. It is almost two islands attached by a narrow strip of land and has numerous inlets and mountains. From the sea it looks very bleak and is obviously very sparsely populated. We decided to make for the Hora and main port. When there are several other cruisers in port you get talking but do not always introduce yourself. This time there are an interesting variety of nationalities. Next door is a beautiful 48 foot Wiequiez with Mr and Mrs French - later we learnt he is Jean-Yves - and the other side a scruffy 34 foot Italian boat with four on board. Next door but one is Dutch and then German, Swedish and another French. You get the picture. You sort of get territorial when the wind and swell increases and last night was a case in point.
As the wind increased yesterday we all started to adjust our lines and secure the boats safely against the surges we were experiencing. Andy and I decided to go for a walk and drink before dark coincidently at the same place as Jean-Yves and his wife, and on our return had found that a 44 foot boat had squeezed in between us and the beautiful Wiequiez. We would not have minded except big 44 foot had attached himself to us - little 35 foot - relying on our stanchions! As you can imagine, we were not happy and immediately started to sort his lines out as no one was on board. At this point Jean-Yves arrived. Now he is a serious sea-dog and was aghast at the unseamanly way Mr 44 foot had tied up! Our audience grew - the four Italians were on the case too. Just then Mr 44 foot turned up - I had his untied lines in my hands and probably looked like we were about to cast him adrift with the whole quay watching!
It turned out Mr 44 foot was also French and Jean-Yves took things in hand by jumping onto said 44 footer and moved the boat for them to a place where they could tie up properly. It turns out Mr and Mrs 44 foot had only just picked up the boat and were scared of the wind and swell.
After that bit of excitement we all settled down again to our own little lives on board our boats but an hour or two later - in the dark - a 60 foot boat arrives. Heads start popping out of hatches. There is a swell and an increasing wind. The quay is comfortably full. We do not want him to disturb us but we are aware that there APPEARS to be a space next to us. We all watch as he circles, wondering where he will choose, why he plans things so badly that he arrives in the dark and willing him to go away but also feeling some sympathy that there appears to be no space for him. He goes away - probably to the ferry quay. But an hour later he is back (the next day we saw why - the swell on that quay was untenable) and this time he is determined. We all start adjusting our lines to make room - supervised by J-Y. Andy nearly fell into the water as he crossed our pasarelle - the swell and his rush after a couple of drinks did not help - and he had to be rescued as he sprawled across the length of our plank with his glasses landing on the quay, poor guy.
We all settled down until an hour later another yacht arrives. Like Meercats we all poke our heads out of our companion ways but this time keeping low, watching. The yacht circled. We waited. This time the poor yacht had to give up and anchor.
We hired a scooter for the day - we wanted to understand why P+R had recommended this island. The Chora was pretty with its 8 windmills and castle but nothing exceptional. What was exceptional was the friendly locals. What wasn’t was the EC funded “renovation” on the intriguing castle which was actually a cluster of ancient houses and was dangerously crumbling. The new buttresses were literally clinging to the old structure by the skin of their teeth and in severe danger of falling on a passer by!
The island s a maximum of 10 miles long and at its widest 5 miles, has one tarmac road and nine dirt roads. We rode every single one and had the most wonderful time. The island is very sparse - just bare rock and a few goats. In particular we loved the North Eastern tip with its well sheltered inlet where several yachts were anchored. We, embarrassingly, ran out of petrol here and had to scrounge from a Norwegian couple who carried petrol for their tender otherwise we would have had a very long and dusty walk back to Deep Blue as we were as far as we could be from the one petrol station on the island. They were very kind and wouldn’t take any money.
Driving back to the Hora we stopped at a beautiful isolated sandy beach which actually was more plastic than sand, with two couples sunbathing in among the rubbish. I could not believe that they had chosen to drive there and stay. Andy stopped me doing a beach clean - how could we carry the plastic to a bin on our little scooter? The Western “wing” of the island was more lush and we passed through several thriving villages. At one we stopped for coffee and cake before returning to DB after a very satisfying and dusty day.
Nisos Nisiros
What an amazing island Nisiros is. The whole island is an active volcano and we hired a bike and were able to climb right down into its growling and hissing crater! The volcano is about 10kms diameter and just under 700m above sea level. The crater itself is nearly 5 kms diameter and is a seriously hot place! We loved this island and had a fascinating day exploring it. The museum described how the island formed with eruption after eruption, one every 20,000 years or so. On past record the next one is due in the next 5,000 years!
We raced Jean-Yves to Nisiros, a distance of 42nm, both with our spinnakers up. He gave us a 2 hour start but didn’t catch us up until the wind died and we had swapped to our Cruising Shute and he resorted to his engine. He was even more friendly now that we had proved our sailing credentials! While we were chatting to J-Y Andy saw an old friend - Kenneth. We met Kenneth, Melanie, baby Fritzy and their two dogs in November 2008. They write German cruising pilots and we were very pleased to see each other again. Sadly one of the dogs has died and the other they decided to leave with Melanie’s mother - probably for the best as they live on a 31ft boat with a growing child. Fritzy is delightful and now 2 years old. We compared notes about the Greeks - it was a very interesting conversation especially as they agreed with us! Sad really but like us they do not have any ordinary Greek friends and miss the easy hospitality of the Turks.
Turkey again
And so we sailed back “home” to the Datca peninsula. We had a dinner date with Wilfred , Sabina and dog Don of Wisa. Amazingly we arrived at the same time in an isolated inlet, from different directions and hours earlier than the appointed time, where a naked Swiss man tried to direct us away from his motor catamaran. Really … he should have put it away before shouting at Wilfred, it is very hard to take a man seriously when he is a stranger in his birthday suit! As soon as the boats were secure we all dived into the clear water and swam to hug each other - quite funny as we all ended up spluttering!
It was a lovely sociable evening with Don joining in and behaving very well - he had a real explore of Deep Blue’s deck , having a look down below, before settling down and watching us eat. We arranged to catch up again later in the month.
So now we are in Karaca Sogut - the place where we spent winter 2008/9. We arrived on 1st October exactly one year after we left Turkey to return to the UK. Most of our friends were not here but we have never the less a stream of people passing Deep Blue to chat - including Byram who used to be our dolmus driver and has just started a new job as skipper of a Turkish style super-yacht after passing all his exams just as we left here in the spring of 2009. This is a big deal for him as his wife was very resistant to him studying as it meant he spent a lot of time away from the family but he told me things were good with his family now.
Water
Water
Apart from minor inconveniences like laundry a bigger issue for us is drinking water for the boat. Bottled water is a big no no for reasons that hopefully will come clear - and this can be bought anywhere - but more worrying tap water is much more scarce. We have never had an issue before this year and perhaps it is because we previously sailed bigger islands but today’s tale is a cautionary one.
We have not filled up with water since Marmaris - more than 10 days ago. We carry 150 litres with a 25 litre emergency portable water carrier. Bear in mind that in the USA the average water usage per individual per day on mains supply is SEVENTY GALLONS - this is 265 litres!!! We have used our emergency water now but still cannot find potable water. We tried to get some delivered here on Sikonos before we left for Ios but could not get hold of the waterman. We were not too concerned then as we thought we would have no problems getting water on a well developed tourist island. But having failed to get water on Ios for reasons discussed below, we are back here on Sikinos and yesterday were told that the island has run out of water!
We did not really gell with Ios but were glad we went there as we made some friends - in particular Peter, the recent previous owner and designer of 30m SY Spirit of the East who, with paid crew, were delivering her to Marmaris for a refit. When Peter heard who Andy was he invited us on board and asked Andy to quote for some work! So that bit was good.
Ios is known as the backpackers island though they are trying to become more up market - for instance, after we swam in the morning we asked a man washing his sunbeds if we could borrow the hose to shower ourselves (in an attempt to save boat water) and he refused saying he was not allowed to - we realised on discussing why he was not allowed that this was an attempt at stopping people sleeping on the beach by withdrawing facilities. However, the whole place has a sort of Disney feel - they are trying to be something they are not. We had the MOST AWFUL meal here, choosen purely on cost (big mistake) - in fact so bad we picked at it and left hungry so had a second meal later which actually was fab! Another problem Ios has is rubbish and every night they burn it above the main port hoping, I suppose, that the wind blows the smoke and ash out to sea. Unfortunately it doesn’t always and all the yachts get covered in black ash every morning. The place is otherwise spotlessly clean - very little litter - but what is an island to do with all the waste the tourist industry generates (especially plastic water bottles by the tonne). But that is another story.
Anyway back to the water. Our pilot says that the water van brings good drinking water to boats in Ios port so we found the phone number for the waterman and called him. His English was basic and our Greek is non-existent so when we asked him if it was sweet water? Drinkable? And he answered yes we were pleased. However we had been overheard by an Athenian on a charter yacht close by and he told us the water was not good to drink “washing water only” at the moment. I went into my usual “everyone says that and we always drink it” spiel but he said “no, it is yellow - I won’t even cook in it”. So we had to turn the waterman down.
I started to think about the problems of a small island supporting a disproportionate population (for instance, Santorini has a population of 11,000 in the winter but 300,000 summer population). Tourists use a lot of water. In one day we swim and then shower, swim again and shower again, get hot on the beach so shower and wash our hair for the evening, wash out a few clothes perhaps, flush the toilet rather often etc. All without thinking (1) where does the water come from and (2) where does it go after the plughole? Obviously on a boat you become much more connected to all this and use water very differently but the average tourist is unaware. Before the tourist industry came to dominate the islands economy the small population of islanders used ground water, tended their crops on the terraces that now lie abandoned but still cover the island and lived in tune with the elements. But the ground water is no longer being used - either it has dried up or it is polluted. Were the abandoned terraces due to better jobs in the tourist industry or simply a lack of water for their crops?
The tourist trade is predominantly run by people who come to the islands for the season and then go back to the mainland for the winter. Georgio, who we met in his café in the Hora of Sikinos, and our pony-tailed shopkeeper from last week are both from Athens and when questioned closely do not seem to have much of a “feel” for the island on which they spend most of their time. Our young friend Greek / English Alex on Folegandhros was a bit more in tune but even he, it turns out, is wrong about the water on that island. He told us that the island water was good and it was what he always drank. But now we doubt that that is what he drinks these days.
Remember our horrid anchorage in Folegandhros? And how a big tanker like ship had arrived in the night and managed to negotiate Deep Blue and another anchored yacht to get to the quay. Well we met the captain last night as the same ship arrived at Sikinos and he recognised us. And his ship turned out to be the long awaited water boat, topping up the islands water tanks. So things started to become clear - we now realise that the yellow Ios water must come from the bottom of the holding tank due to the low level of water left on the island. The holding tank on Folegandhros was being topped up that night - so they no longer drink the ground water and on Sikonos they were waiting for the water tanker and did not want to give their precious last drops to a visiting boat. The guys in the mini-market here remembered me from our last stay and had told me that we could not have water because (1) it has not rained since January and (2) the water boat had not been since August. They were very kind and filled our 25litre water carrier from their tap so we were not without completely. But to be so dependant on a water tanker coming from Athens cannot be good - that is seriously expensive water. I asked the shop-keeper what the people 100 years ago drank but I did not get a satisfactory answer - he also was disconnected, it was something he had not thought about.
I had a discussion with my French sister Judy about water and she shed some interesting light on the subject. Over 20 years ago she and her husband Jean-Paul were on holiday in Corsica and started to talk to some farmers there. They were complaining that their water supply had dried up and they blamed the tourist industry. It seems that priority was being given to the visitors over their crops. Those farms are abandoned now. Over the last 3-4 years in S France she and JP are renovating an old house and they have made two discoveries - they have a well in their garden and the waste water from the house empties into this same well! The house has mains water and a previous owner (along with all the other villagers probably) thought it saved money to use the now disused well as a sewer! How many people are there out there who have this disconnect between clean drinking water and waste?
"Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water by Peter H Gleick. A must read.
The scariest of his statistics:-
“Every second of every day in the United States, a thousand people buy a plastic bottle of water, and every second of every day a thousand more throw one of those bottles away. That adds up to more than thirty billion bottles a year and tens of billions of dollars of sales.”
Apart from minor inconveniences like laundry a bigger issue for us is drinking water for the boat. Bottled water is a big no no for reasons that hopefully will come clear - and this can be bought anywhere - but more worrying tap water is much more scarce. We have never had an issue before this year and perhaps it is because we previously sailed bigger islands but today’s tale is a cautionary one.
We have not filled up with water since Marmaris - more than 10 days ago. We carry 150 litres with a 25 litre emergency portable water carrier. Bear in mind that in the USA the average water usage per individual per day on mains supply is SEVENTY GALLONS - this is 265 litres!!! We have used our emergency water now but still cannot find potable water. We tried to get some delivered here on Sikonos before we left for Ios but could not get hold of the waterman. We were not too concerned then as we thought we would have no problems getting water on a well developed tourist island. But having failed to get water on Ios for reasons discussed below, we are back here on Sikinos and yesterday were told that the island has run out of water!
We did not really gell with Ios but were glad we went there as we made some friends - in particular Peter, the recent previous owner and designer of 30m SY Spirit of the East who, with paid crew, were delivering her to Marmaris for a refit. When Peter heard who Andy was he invited us on board and asked Andy to quote for some work! So that bit was good.
Ios is known as the backpackers island though they are trying to become more up market - for instance, after we swam in the morning we asked a man washing his sunbeds if we could borrow the hose to shower ourselves (in an attempt to save boat water) and he refused saying he was not allowed to - we realised on discussing why he was not allowed that this was an attempt at stopping people sleeping on the beach by withdrawing facilities. However, the whole place has a sort of Disney feel - they are trying to be something they are not. We had the MOST AWFUL meal here, choosen purely on cost (big mistake) - in fact so bad we picked at it and left hungry so had a second meal later which actually was fab! Another problem Ios has is rubbish and every night they burn it above the main port hoping, I suppose, that the wind blows the smoke and ash out to sea. Unfortunately it doesn’t always and all the yachts get covered in black ash every morning. The place is otherwise spotlessly clean - very little litter - but what is an island to do with all the waste the tourist industry generates (especially plastic water bottles by the tonne). But that is another story.
Anyway back to the water. Our pilot says that the water van brings good drinking water to boats in Ios port so we found the phone number for the waterman and called him. His English was basic and our Greek is non-existent so when we asked him if it was sweet water? Drinkable? And he answered yes we were pleased. However we had been overheard by an Athenian on a charter yacht close by and he told us the water was not good to drink “washing water only” at the moment. I went into my usual “everyone says that and we always drink it” spiel but he said “no, it is yellow - I won’t even cook in it”. So we had to turn the waterman down.
I started to think about the problems of a small island supporting a disproportionate population (for instance, Santorini has a population of 11,000 in the winter but 300,000 summer population). Tourists use a lot of water. In one day we swim and then shower, swim again and shower again, get hot on the beach so shower and wash our hair for the evening, wash out a few clothes perhaps, flush the toilet rather often etc. All without thinking (1) where does the water come from and (2) where does it go after the plughole? Obviously on a boat you become much more connected to all this and use water very differently but the average tourist is unaware. Before the tourist industry came to dominate the islands economy the small population of islanders used ground water, tended their crops on the terraces that now lie abandoned but still cover the island and lived in tune with the elements. But the ground water is no longer being used - either it has dried up or it is polluted. Were the abandoned terraces due to better jobs in the tourist industry or simply a lack of water for their crops?
The tourist trade is predominantly run by people who come to the islands for the season and then go back to the mainland for the winter. Georgio, who we met in his café in the Hora of Sikinos, and our pony-tailed shopkeeper from last week are both from Athens and when questioned closely do not seem to have much of a “feel” for the island on which they spend most of their time. Our young friend Greek / English Alex on Folegandhros was a bit more in tune but even he, it turns out, is wrong about the water on that island. He told us that the island water was good and it was what he always drank. But now we doubt that that is what he drinks these days.
Remember our horrid anchorage in Folegandhros? And how a big tanker like ship had arrived in the night and managed to negotiate Deep Blue and another anchored yacht to get to the quay. Well we met the captain last night as the same ship arrived at Sikinos and he recognised us. And his ship turned out to be the long awaited water boat, topping up the islands water tanks. So things started to become clear - we now realise that the yellow Ios water must come from the bottom of the holding tank due to the low level of water left on the island. The holding tank on Folegandhros was being topped up that night - so they no longer drink the ground water and on Sikonos they were waiting for the water tanker and did not want to give their precious last drops to a visiting boat. The guys in the mini-market here remembered me from our last stay and had told me that we could not have water because (1) it has not rained since January and (2) the water boat had not been since August. They were very kind and filled our 25litre water carrier from their tap so we were not without completely. But to be so dependant on a water tanker coming from Athens cannot be good - that is seriously expensive water. I asked the shop-keeper what the people 100 years ago drank but I did not get a satisfactory answer - he also was disconnected, it was something he had not thought about.
I had a discussion with my French sister Judy about water and she shed some interesting light on the subject. Over 20 years ago she and her husband Jean-Paul were on holiday in Corsica and started to talk to some farmers there. They were complaining that their water supply had dried up and they blamed the tourist industry. It seems that priority was being given to the visitors over their crops. Those farms are abandoned now. Over the last 3-4 years in S France she and JP are renovating an old house and they have made two discoveries - they have a well in their garden and the waste water from the house empties into this same well! The house has mains water and a previous owner (along with all the other villagers probably) thought it saved money to use the now disused well as a sewer! How many people are there out there who have this disconnect between clean drinking water and waste?
"Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water by Peter H Gleick. A must read.
The scariest of his statistics:-
“Every second of every day in the United States, a thousand people buy a plastic bottle of water, and every second of every day a thousand more throw one of those bottles away. That adds up to more than thirty billion bottles a year and tens of billions of dollars of sales.”
Sunday, 19 September 2010
The Cyclades, football teams and washing
45. Greek Islands and fishing - Vlikadha, Santorini, Cyclades, Greece
We are in the “marina” of Vlikadha, on the South side of Santorini. In fact, as happens with most Greek marinas it has been taken over by the fishermen and they take priority over us yachts - so as they come in we get shunted around to make room for them. Here, as in Turkey, families live on board these small boats and we have been watching them land their tiny haul of fish and sort their nets. It is a tough live and in the desperate search for ever smaller fish the boats are scouring the seabed and much of their catch is the rockbed of the ocean.
The women here in Greece are as involved as the men - in fact on the two boats next to us I would say the women are the skippers. Both are attractive women but very different in character. There is the Amazon with a wild mop of very long curly hair, talking continually to her men folk (husband and sons perhaps) and then the quieter lady with her rubber gloves on and neat swept back dark hair and her two sons I guess. Both women are perhaps 40- 45 years old. They are well dressed and well fed. So different to their Turkish counterparts where the women appear to be subservient assistants and the fishing is much more subsistence level - perhaps no help from the government in Turkey while many of the Greek boats fly the European flag. Our Turkish custom officer friend told us that the Turkish fishing families live on the boats for the summer then take the money they have earnt (he believed quite a lot at the equivalent of €5,000) and live off the land in the winter. However, when we over-wintered in Karaç a SÖgù t there were fishing-families living on their boats with their small children, so he does not necessarily know all the story.
Yesterday we visited Thira - the Hora (main town) of this island. We walked some of the way in the heat of the afternoon until we found a bus stop and luckily the bus stopped for us. There is a very good bus service on the island though the ticket seller was very surly - in fact up to this point we had not met one friendly local. Even the lady from whom we bought coffee at the bus-stop was unfriendly and could not tell us if the bus would come soon despite her friend getting on the bus with us 5 minutes later!
Santorini is a volcano which blew between 1460BC and 1450BC. It must have been some explosion and put an end to the civilisation that lived here at that time. Now all that can be seen of the still active volcano is a half moon rim and the plug in the middle. The crater is filled with sea water and Thira sits high above this crater. The view is spectacular with the town a dense covering of white buildings cascading over the rim. 300m below there is a port of sorts where the cruise liners pick up buoys and discharge their vast cargos of people. We were very lucky that there was only one liner in port so the town was relatively empty. The cable car or donkeys are the easiest way from port to town and there were certainly a lot of donkeys!
We found a LOVELY restaurant with the friendliest family running it and the nicest food we have eaten out in Greece, overlooking the crater which faces West. While we ate our meal and drank the delicious local (homemade) wine we watched the sunset. We caught the 10pm bus back along the main road and walked the half hour back to the boat. When we got to Deep Blue we were seriously smelly after a day of sweltering heat so decided the best way to wash off was in the sea. The phosphorescence made the experience even better! Our motor yacht neighbour thought it “cool” that we had been swimming in the middle of the night.
At last we were beginning to meet some friendly Greeks. Today I climbed the cliff to the road above the marina and it was like a switch - everyone was so friendly and helpful. We needed to buy some stores and the lady in the Demitris taverna organised a shopkeeper to come and collect and return us with our shopping while we drank coffee. A really nice guy came to collect us - big and fit with a long, well kept ponytail. He told us that the shop belongs to his uncle and he runs it for him in the 8 summer months then joins his wife and daughter in Athens in the winter. He does some buying for the shop during that time but otherwise concentrates on his family. His daughter and wife join him during the 4 month school holidays and we met them and also his mother who lives with his uncle. A true family business. His wife was a very tall lady - and it turns out she used to play basket ball for Greece and we could see why! The whole family were smiley friendly people. We also spent a lot of money there so it was well worth his while collecting us.
That night we ate tapas in the very friendly Demitris Taverna and watched another spectacular sunset before retiring to bed aboard the good ship Deep Blue.
Santorini - Vlycadha to Nisos Thirisia
We wanted to spend a night or two in the crater of Santorini itself and so we motored the 6nm round (not worth getting the sails up!) and ate lunch while looking up at the Hora of Sanorini / Thira itself before picking up a buoy at the base of the Western crater rim island of Thirisia. Tourism has passed this place by despite very regular Gullets stopping here off loading its cargo of people. It is very down-trodden but there is a spectacular walk up to the Hora and sunset - good exercise if you decide not to take the donkey, and being the fit-family of course we did not.
We shared a beer (luckily we took our own) in the sad garden, strewn with rubbish, of a once grand and now abandoned hotel. What is it about the islanders here - there were signs for this hotel which indicated that neighbours had tried to stop people going to it. It was the only big building in the tiny village and could have brought prosperity to the place - or maybe I am missing something here. It certainly had a prime position with views both East into the crater and over to Thira and West to the sunset. It made us wonder what made an island successful as a tourist destination and what the critical mass of investment was. It cannot be difficult really as they have the essentials of sun, beautiful (warm by the way) water and spectacular views. All they need to provide is clean accommodation and a smiling face. Sadly the smiling face is largely missing with very notable exceptions.
We spent a further night anchored in the crater but this time under the town of Oia, at the Northern tip of the main island of Sanorini / Nisos Thira. Again it was a steep and long climb up the crater rim but we were so glad we had made the effort because it must be the prettiest town on the island and probably in the whole of Greece to date. Whitewashed churches, shops, boutique hotels and restaurants and houses, cobbled walkways and not a car in sight. Granted it was PACKED with tourists watching the sunset (what another one!!) but we found our way to a piece of hidden wasteland (even here they managed to let this field remain coated in plastic with a forlorn looking donkey tethered in the centre - but hey, out of sight, out of mind) to drink our boat beer and watch the sky once again turn red.
Nisos Folegandros
On Tuesday 14th September we set sail for Nisos Folegandros. We had a brilliant sail at high speed in a building Meltemi. Another pretty island and very different to the last one. There is a small part completed “marina” but no where safe for us to tie up so we decided to anchor. It took a while for the anchor to bite and even though we were not quite where we wanted to be we decided to stay put. We had an interesting time. The harbour walls - such as they were - did not protect us or any other boat from the swell and it turned out to be somewhat busier harbour than we were expecting!
First a Gullet arrived and manoeuvred around us so close I had a conversation with a crew member who assured me we were not in the way but then proceeded to drop its anchor just where ours was before reversing onto the quay. You have to bear in mind the tiny size of the harbour but height of a very hard quay which had put us off tying up PLUS a strong wind gusting across the mountains in a very unpredictable direction and a large swell. The gullet crew had a lot of difficulties getting their stern lines ashore - they tried lassoing the mooring bollard! And no-one came to help. Once secure they rocked and rolled just like us and in the night they slipped away without us noticing. We had a big shock when we woke the next morning, despite a broken sleep checking DB at regular intervals as we were blown around our anchor. There was the biggest fuel barge meters away from us alongside the quay - how on earth had it negotiated around us, another yacht also anchored, the quay and shallows without us hearing him!!
The previous evening we had walked the 3 km to the Hora - another pretty, pretty place. We somehow couldn’t face cooking on board a small boat bobbing around its anchor so we ate hearty rabbit and vegetable stews at a small family restaurant before returning to the beach and deciding to stay ashore for a drink. We were glad we did because we met a lovely (and handsome) young man who told us his take on the Greek situation. Alex has an English mum (Helen who we also met) and a Greek father who was also in evidence but not feeling sociable. Alex is dark with goatie beard, long dark hair pulled into a tie and like his mum tall and slim (actually he looks very like his English mum) - he told us that in Athens he has been picked up several times as a suspected Arab terrorist. Until he said he was schooled on the island I thought he must have gone to an English public school! Alex grew up on the island, his father was born on the island but he told us he was always an outsider, the English boy - even the school kids used to taunt him about being English.
He told us about catching his first octopus - in his hands - in the sea just by our table. “The sea used to come right up here but the sea walls changed the whole bay. It was badly designed and the sand moved from over there to over here. But it would have been very nice never-the-less. But a rich man on the island did not want it so he fought it through the European courts and the European funding was withdrawn”. What is left is a mess of huge concrete blocks and yet another part European funded part built marina. We hope that the man in question is happy with the sight.
But he felt that the Greeks were changing.
His theory is that the financial crisis has got through to the everyday Greek and the culture of everyone for their own is changing. Note, he said, how everyone gives you a receipt now (true). The link between taxes and service has got through to people at last . Some corrupt politicians are being put in jail too, making the culture of stealing European money and taxes less acceptable. Slowly, slowly he believes the Greeks are changing. They are angry with the old political elite and so perhaps the politics will change too.
Alex was helping his parents out at the bar though we got the impression he now lives in Athens and has certainly been an English teacher there. He is a nice guy and it was interesting to get his perspective as a near insider.
Sadly we could not stay - another night like that one on anchor and murder would have been committed so the next morning we sailed East to Nisos Sikinos and a sheltered tiny harbour on yet another pretty little island - this time with a fantastic beach.
Nisos Sikinos, Cyclades, Greece
We needed our laundry washing. 10 days without being able to wash clothes and bedding had left us scrabbling for clean things. We asked at the local mini market – the lady there seemed to be the font of all knowledge – but on this point we drew a blank. She knew of no-one who would put a wash into a washing machine for passing sailors.
We walked to the hora. Actually it was a walk that turned into our usual scramble and clamber cross country until we found the old donkey way. Two hours later we found our way into the hora and I was seriously low on the blood sugar front. We had the devils job to find ANYWHERE that sold ANYTHING. The place was beautiful, clean but devoid of people. We wandered the empty walkways until we eventually found the cutest bar with a seriously cool dude running it who spoke excellent English. I cross examined him ... where was he from, did he know the island. Well he was not local, he was from Athens, he did not know the whole island as he had only lived there 10 years (!) (Sikinos is only 5 kms by 10 kms max) but we could try him. Did he know anyone who could do our washing! Actually yes he did know a lady who took in washing he would go and ask her how much and if she could do it.
So it came to pass that we were introduced to a dower looking lady who seemed pleased that she may have some work but was not going to make too much of a fuss about it. We told her we would be back in the morning. Luckily there is an amazing bus service between the port and the hora because we ended up getting to know the bus driver and the bus route pretty well!
Next morning, relevant to this story is the fact that we were the only boat left in the port (actually small village harbour) until an hour before we left for the bus, when a small ferry boat moored behind us – we thought it was a party boat because it was full of mainly male young men - emptied noisily. The boat stayed and the party got on the early bus to the Hora.
Anyway, walking boots on and two large bags of washing in hand we caught the 9.15 bus to the hora and dropped the bags of laundry to our washer woman. She barely acknowledged us but said “afternoon” when we asked when to collect.
We went for a fabulous walk and returned at 12.30 to find a few pieces of our washing looking very well wrung on the line. I started to worry about how our washing would look when it was eventually returned to us. We hoped it was still work in progress. There was a bus at 1 and another at 2. We rather optimistically asked her if the washing would be ready in half an hour and for a moment thought we were in luck until we realised that no, she was asking us to return at 6pm!! We caught the 1 o’clock bus back to the boat.
There was a bus back at 5.45, so after lunch, some work and a swim we caught the bus back to the hora. The bus is an old coach which rarely gets out of 2nd gear due to the steep road (the only road on the island) between port and hora. There appear to be two bus drivers that take alternative days and then drive backwards and forwards the 10 minute but 2 hour walk distance about 8 times a day. We were getting to know today’s fit driver in his wrap round glasses pretty well! The washing was waiting and when we gave her the money, a fortune for us both, she actually started to smile very broadly! We were all happy – we had clean clothes and she had €30 euros!
We decided to go back to Georgeo’s bar for a beer to celebrate. We were greeted like old friends by all the regulars (old men drinking coffee) though Andy thought it may have been more to do with the low neckline on my dress than the fact that they recognised us from yesterday. We decided to catch the 7pm bus back, our fifth bus journey in less than 24hour! We duly got on the bus early because the Greek buses always leave early - but just to prove me wrong this one did not! He then took a road we had not previously seen. This was going to be a magical mystery tour! Imagine our amazement when we stopped at an Astro-turf football pitch complete with flood lights on the only flat piece of land on the island in the middle of absolutely no-where!
The bus driver got out of the bus and said “5 minutes”. We all followed thinking he was going to join the game and that this was going to be an elastic 5 minutes. All ages were playing from a tiny boy who was like Beckham to a seriously old man - a proper motley crew. To the amusement of the other passengers I start to shout “come on the orange team” but it meant they came to talk to me. It turned out that the footballers were a mix of islanders who had come by the “party” boat to play an inter-island football game. The bus was waiting to take them back to the boat moored behind us which in turn was due to leave any moment.
Eventually the happy footballers piled into the bus and we were on our way to the port. We waved them goodbye as their boat left and we were left the only boat in port to sort our clean washing.
We are in the “marina” of Vlikadha, on the South side of Santorini. In fact, as happens with most Greek marinas it has been taken over by the fishermen and they take priority over us yachts - so as they come in we get shunted around to make room for them. Here, as in Turkey, families live on board these small boats and we have been watching them land their tiny haul of fish and sort their nets. It is a tough live and in the desperate search for ever smaller fish the boats are scouring the seabed and much of their catch is the rockbed of the ocean.
The women here in Greece are as involved as the men - in fact on the two boats next to us I would say the women are the skippers. Both are attractive women but very different in character. There is the Amazon with a wild mop of very long curly hair, talking continually to her men folk (husband and sons perhaps) and then the quieter lady with her rubber gloves on and neat swept back dark hair and her two sons I guess. Both women are perhaps 40- 45 years old. They are well dressed and well fed. So different to their Turkish counterparts where the women appear to be subservient assistants and the fishing is much more subsistence level - perhaps no help from the government in Turkey while many of the Greek boats fly the European flag. Our Turkish custom officer friend told us that the Turkish fishing families live on the boats for the summer then take the money they have earnt (he believed quite a lot at the equivalent of €5,000) and live off the land in the winter. However, when we over-wintered in Karaç a SÖgù t there were fishing-families living on their boats with their small children, so he does not necessarily know all the story.
Yesterday we visited Thira - the Hora (main town) of this island. We walked some of the way in the heat of the afternoon until we found a bus stop and luckily the bus stopped for us. There is a very good bus service on the island though the ticket seller was very surly - in fact up to this point we had not met one friendly local. Even the lady from whom we bought coffee at the bus-stop was unfriendly and could not tell us if the bus would come soon despite her friend getting on the bus with us 5 minutes later!
Santorini is a volcano which blew between 1460BC and 1450BC. It must have been some explosion and put an end to the civilisation that lived here at that time. Now all that can be seen of the still active volcano is a half moon rim and the plug in the middle. The crater is filled with sea water and Thira sits high above this crater. The view is spectacular with the town a dense covering of white buildings cascading over the rim. 300m below there is a port of sorts where the cruise liners pick up buoys and discharge their vast cargos of people. We were very lucky that there was only one liner in port so the town was relatively empty. The cable car or donkeys are the easiest way from port to town and there were certainly a lot of donkeys!
We found a LOVELY restaurant with the friendliest family running it and the nicest food we have eaten out in Greece, overlooking the crater which faces West. While we ate our meal and drank the delicious local (homemade) wine we watched the sunset. We caught the 10pm bus back along the main road and walked the half hour back to the boat. When we got to Deep Blue we were seriously smelly after a day of sweltering heat so decided the best way to wash off was in the sea. The phosphorescence made the experience even better! Our motor yacht neighbour thought it “cool” that we had been swimming in the middle of the night.
At last we were beginning to meet some friendly Greeks. Today I climbed the cliff to the road above the marina and it was like a switch - everyone was so friendly and helpful. We needed to buy some stores and the lady in the Demitris taverna organised a shopkeeper to come and collect and return us with our shopping while we drank coffee. A really nice guy came to collect us - big and fit with a long, well kept ponytail. He told us that the shop belongs to his uncle and he runs it for him in the 8 summer months then joins his wife and daughter in Athens in the winter. He does some buying for the shop during that time but otherwise concentrates on his family. His daughter and wife join him during the 4 month school holidays and we met them and also his mother who lives with his uncle. A true family business. His wife was a very tall lady - and it turns out she used to play basket ball for Greece and we could see why! The whole family were smiley friendly people. We also spent a lot of money there so it was well worth his while collecting us.
That night we ate tapas in the very friendly Demitris Taverna and watched another spectacular sunset before retiring to bed aboard the good ship Deep Blue.
Santorini - Vlycadha to Nisos Thirisia
We wanted to spend a night or two in the crater of Santorini itself and so we motored the 6nm round (not worth getting the sails up!) and ate lunch while looking up at the Hora of Sanorini / Thira itself before picking up a buoy at the base of the Western crater rim island of Thirisia. Tourism has passed this place by despite very regular Gullets stopping here off loading its cargo of people. It is very down-trodden but there is a spectacular walk up to the Hora and sunset - good exercise if you decide not to take the donkey, and being the fit-family of course we did not.
We shared a beer (luckily we took our own) in the sad garden, strewn with rubbish, of a once grand and now abandoned hotel. What is it about the islanders here - there were signs for this hotel which indicated that neighbours had tried to stop people going to it. It was the only big building in the tiny village and could have brought prosperity to the place - or maybe I am missing something here. It certainly had a prime position with views both East into the crater and over to Thira and West to the sunset. It made us wonder what made an island successful as a tourist destination and what the critical mass of investment was. It cannot be difficult really as they have the essentials of sun, beautiful (warm by the way) water and spectacular views. All they need to provide is clean accommodation and a smiling face. Sadly the smiling face is largely missing with very notable exceptions.
We spent a further night anchored in the crater but this time under the town of Oia, at the Northern tip of the main island of Sanorini / Nisos Thira. Again it was a steep and long climb up the crater rim but we were so glad we had made the effort because it must be the prettiest town on the island and probably in the whole of Greece to date. Whitewashed churches, shops, boutique hotels and restaurants and houses, cobbled walkways and not a car in sight. Granted it was PACKED with tourists watching the sunset (what another one!!) but we found our way to a piece of hidden wasteland (even here they managed to let this field remain coated in plastic with a forlorn looking donkey tethered in the centre - but hey, out of sight, out of mind) to drink our boat beer and watch the sky once again turn red.
Nisos Folegandros
On Tuesday 14th September we set sail for Nisos Folegandros. We had a brilliant sail at high speed in a building Meltemi. Another pretty island and very different to the last one. There is a small part completed “marina” but no where safe for us to tie up so we decided to anchor. It took a while for the anchor to bite and even though we were not quite where we wanted to be we decided to stay put. We had an interesting time. The harbour walls - such as they were - did not protect us or any other boat from the swell and it turned out to be somewhat busier harbour than we were expecting!
First a Gullet arrived and manoeuvred around us so close I had a conversation with a crew member who assured me we were not in the way but then proceeded to drop its anchor just where ours was before reversing onto the quay. You have to bear in mind the tiny size of the harbour but height of a very hard quay which had put us off tying up PLUS a strong wind gusting across the mountains in a very unpredictable direction and a large swell. The gullet crew had a lot of difficulties getting their stern lines ashore - they tried lassoing the mooring bollard! And no-one came to help. Once secure they rocked and rolled just like us and in the night they slipped away without us noticing. We had a big shock when we woke the next morning, despite a broken sleep checking DB at regular intervals as we were blown around our anchor. There was the biggest fuel barge meters away from us alongside the quay - how on earth had it negotiated around us, another yacht also anchored, the quay and shallows without us hearing him!!
The previous evening we had walked the 3 km to the Hora - another pretty, pretty place. We somehow couldn’t face cooking on board a small boat bobbing around its anchor so we ate hearty rabbit and vegetable stews at a small family restaurant before returning to the beach and deciding to stay ashore for a drink. We were glad we did because we met a lovely (and handsome) young man who told us his take on the Greek situation. Alex has an English mum (Helen who we also met) and a Greek father who was also in evidence but not feeling sociable. Alex is dark with goatie beard, long dark hair pulled into a tie and like his mum tall and slim (actually he looks very like his English mum) - he told us that in Athens he has been picked up several times as a suspected Arab terrorist. Until he said he was schooled on the island I thought he must have gone to an English public school! Alex grew up on the island, his father was born on the island but he told us he was always an outsider, the English boy - even the school kids used to taunt him about being English.
He told us about catching his first octopus - in his hands - in the sea just by our table. “The sea used to come right up here but the sea walls changed the whole bay. It was badly designed and the sand moved from over there to over here. But it would have been very nice never-the-less. But a rich man on the island did not want it so he fought it through the European courts and the European funding was withdrawn”. What is left is a mess of huge concrete blocks and yet another part European funded part built marina. We hope that the man in question is happy with the sight.
But he felt that the Greeks were changing.
His theory is that the financial crisis has got through to the everyday Greek and the culture of everyone for their own is changing. Note, he said, how everyone gives you a receipt now (true). The link between taxes and service has got through to people at last . Some corrupt politicians are being put in jail too, making the culture of stealing European money and taxes less acceptable. Slowly, slowly he believes the Greeks are changing. They are angry with the old political elite and so perhaps the politics will change too.
Alex was helping his parents out at the bar though we got the impression he now lives in Athens and has certainly been an English teacher there. He is a nice guy and it was interesting to get his perspective as a near insider.
Sadly we could not stay - another night like that one on anchor and murder would have been committed so the next morning we sailed East to Nisos Sikinos and a sheltered tiny harbour on yet another pretty little island - this time with a fantastic beach.
Nisos Sikinos, Cyclades, Greece
We needed our laundry washing. 10 days without being able to wash clothes and bedding had left us scrabbling for clean things. We asked at the local mini market – the lady there seemed to be the font of all knowledge – but on this point we drew a blank. She knew of no-one who would put a wash into a washing machine for passing sailors.
We walked to the hora. Actually it was a walk that turned into our usual scramble and clamber cross country until we found the old donkey way. Two hours later we found our way into the hora and I was seriously low on the blood sugar front. We had the devils job to find ANYWHERE that sold ANYTHING. The place was beautiful, clean but devoid of people. We wandered the empty walkways until we eventually found the cutest bar with a seriously cool dude running it who spoke excellent English. I cross examined him ... where was he from, did he know the island. Well he was not local, he was from Athens, he did not know the whole island as he had only lived there 10 years (!) (Sikinos is only 5 kms by 10 kms max) but we could try him. Did he know anyone who could do our washing! Actually yes he did know a lady who took in washing he would go and ask her how much and if she could do it.
So it came to pass that we were introduced to a dower looking lady who seemed pleased that she may have some work but was not going to make too much of a fuss about it. We told her we would be back in the morning. Luckily there is an amazing bus service between the port and the hora because we ended up getting to know the bus driver and the bus route pretty well!
Next morning, relevant to this story is the fact that we were the only boat left in the port (actually small village harbour) until an hour before we left for the bus, when a small ferry boat moored behind us – we thought it was a party boat because it was full of mainly male young men - emptied noisily. The boat stayed and the party got on the early bus to the Hora.
Anyway, walking boots on and two large bags of washing in hand we caught the 9.15 bus to the hora and dropped the bags of laundry to our washer woman. She barely acknowledged us but said “afternoon” when we asked when to collect.
We went for a fabulous walk and returned at 12.30 to find a few pieces of our washing looking very well wrung on the line. I started to worry about how our washing would look when it was eventually returned to us. We hoped it was still work in progress. There was a bus at 1 and another at 2. We rather optimistically asked her if the washing would be ready in half an hour and for a moment thought we were in luck until we realised that no, she was asking us to return at 6pm!! We caught the 1 o’clock bus back to the boat.
There was a bus back at 5.45, so after lunch, some work and a swim we caught the bus back to the hora. The bus is an old coach which rarely gets out of 2nd gear due to the steep road (the only road on the island) between port and hora. There appear to be two bus drivers that take alternative days and then drive backwards and forwards the 10 minute but 2 hour walk distance about 8 times a day. We were getting to know today’s fit driver in his wrap round glasses pretty well! The washing was waiting and when we gave her the money, a fortune for us both, she actually started to smile very broadly! We were all happy – we had clean clothes and she had €30 euros!
We decided to go back to Georgeo’s bar for a beer to celebrate. We were greeted like old friends by all the regulars (old men drinking coffee) though Andy thought it may have been more to do with the low neckline on my dress than the fact that they recognised us from yesterday. We decided to catch the 7pm bus back, our fifth bus journey in less than 24hour! We duly got on the bus early because the Greek buses always leave early - but just to prove me wrong this one did not! He then took a road we had not previously seen. This was going to be a magical mystery tour! Imagine our amazement when we stopped at an Astro-turf football pitch complete with flood lights on the only flat piece of land on the island in the middle of absolutely no-where!
The bus driver got out of the bus and said “5 minutes”. We all followed thinking he was going to join the game and that this was going to be an elastic 5 minutes. All ages were playing from a tiny boy who was like Beckham to a seriously old man - a proper motley crew. To the amusement of the other passengers I start to shout “come on the orange team” but it meant they came to talk to me. It turned out that the footballers were a mix of islanders who had come by the “party” boat to play an inter-island football game. The bus was waiting to take them back to the boat moored behind us which in turn was due to leave any moment.
Eventually the happy footballers piled into the bus and we were on our way to the port. We waved them goodbye as their boat left and we were left the only boat in port to sort our clean washing.
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