Chapter One: ON OUR WAY TO MARMARIS
After a peaceful night in the very impressive anchorage of Mersincik we were up early, had breakfast, got shipshape and were underway at 7.15am. The South-Westerly wind, Force 3-4, was on the nose, but luckily the waves were not too steep or big as we motored along the spectacular coast. We saw a few dark clouds over the mountains with beams of sunshine breaking through them. Ingrid thought it very atmospheric and wanted to take pictures, but Peter reckoned the camera would not cope or show it properly, so nothing came of it.
After 1½ hours we’d made it to the most westerly point of the peninsula, and could turn away from the wind, which allowed us to motorsail on the genoa for a while. We motored again around Knidos which was busy with water traffic, then used a 15 minute opportunity with land-wind to turn off the engine when we approached the last cape just before Datça. The last ½ hour was under engine again, so was the circling around in the anchorage. “Our” spot was occupied, so we settled for a space further away from the harbour and dropped in 5m in sand. There were tyres and a few rocks underneath Cordelia when Ingrid checked, but the chain seemed all clear and we were reassured.
We launched Buddy after a leisurely start to the day, collected our rubbish, packed the empty Turkish gas bottle, and motored to the “Fish” sculpture where we locked him to a lamppost. We were off to the Aygaz station that was marked on Google Maps for an exchange. When we got there we faced an empty and locked shop floor – they’d moved out and on! We continued to the Migros where we consoled ourselves with ice-creams and did our grocery shopping.
The next morning we had a beautiful sunrise to a blustery day with wind in the high 30 knot range, so we stayed on board and busied ourselves with admin and boat work. In the evening we looked at the lunar eclipse before it all changed back to a full moon. Whether that was the reason for not sleeping well and being awake for hours in the middle of the night, we don’t know. We were both up before sunrise and decided to leave without another shopping trip. We stowed Buddy in his place, cleared up, and weighed anchor just after 9.00am.
We still had a North-Westerly Force 4-5, so we unfurled the genoa 5 minutes later. We were heading towards East and had a lovely downwind sail for a couple of hours. We didn’t want to cross over into Greece, consequently we ran near parallel along the border until we could turn South. We’d planned to raise the mainsail, but the wind was blowing hard and there were white caps on the waves, therefore we continued under the genoa alone.
We were averaging just under 4 knots per hour in the strait between Symi and Turkey until the wind disappeared. A gulet that had sailed (!) behind us on three sails had the same idea as us and put the canvas away, and under engine they soon overtook us. We motored round the cape and pulled into Buzukkale Bay where the anchor set on the second attempt. Ingrid went into the water to check on it, but it was so murky she couldn’t find it. We settled in, made the usual observations, didn’t buy anything from the floating little shop, and relaxed. The night was quiet despite there being quite a few boats in the anchorage, including gulets.
At 10.25am we were on our way and motored out of the bay in no wind. We turned to port and followed the coast towards Çiftlik, passing between the mainland and some little islands.
We had the current against us, and we even encountered some whirlpools near what we called “Dragon Island” as it resembled this mythical creature in a resting posture. With a bit of imagination we could even make out its eye and muzzle/nostrils. We made it through, though the progress was slow, and it was not until 3½ hours after we’d set out that we reached the anchorage at Çiftlik.
We hardly recognised the place! It had become a small holiday resort with weekend houses, fenced off beach and a spruced up but seemingly unused large edifice in the background. Maybe we had just forgotten about it all? At least the tavernas and their pontoons still looked like what we’d remembered.
We found a sandy patch near where we’d anchored three years ago in which to place the hook. In the afternoon Ingrid cleaned the keel, but it was hard work with the swell rocking Cordelia. We hoped this wouldn’t affect our sleep too much and indeed we slept fine for a while, but were awake at 4.00am due to rolling and katabatic wind gusts. We read online news and watched YouTube to pass the time till breakfast, then prepared to leave.
We weighed anchor just before 8.00am and motored away in a South-Westerly Force 3-4. Outside the bay the wind changed and blew on the nose. Coming down from the headland it increased to a Force 5, then turned again and decreased again. Whichever way we steered it was always on the nose! Luckily it only took us till 9.15am before we dropped the anchor at Kumlubük/Amos in about 5m. By sheer luck it landed in sand and held well.
We launched Buddy, packed a drink and our shoes, and Peter rowed us to a derelict slip-way on the shore. There we picked up the Carian Trail which in typical Turkish fashion was well marked but on rough terrain. We battled our way uphill through the jungle with the vegetation leaving scratch marks on any bare skin it could detect.
We emerged near a road, but followed the signposts to an acropolis, theatre and temple. We found a lovely path, followed by stairs, that took us to the ruins of Amos, a settlement from the Hellenistic period. We had a good look at the site, then took a stroll on the panoramic path that led above the cliffs out to a viewpoint on the spit. From there the Gulf of Marmaris opened up before us. After a little rest we turned back to the road and carried on along it all the way down to the beach.
Back on Cordie we refreshed with a cold drink and a swim, and decided to stay for the night in this scenic place rather than continue to Marmaris. The wind dropped in the afternoon, gulets and excursion boats came and went, and we sat in the cockpit listening to music. The Coast Guard came by in an orange RIB and looked at our papers, then left seemingly satisfied with what we’d presented. We had a quiet and peaceful night and both slept well. The morning was still calm, with the scent of pine trees in the hardly moving air. It was also heating up quickly after breakfast, so Ingrid went in for a swim in the now very clear water. Shortly afterwards we packed up and motored out of the bay.
It was 10.30am and by now the whole of Turkey was awake and half of its population was out in gulets, excursion boats, pirate ships, motorboats and any other float-able devices, all congregating around the Maramaris Gulf. We dodged them successfully by motoring right through the middle while they were hugging the coastline and looking for their next stern-to mooring location. Just after an hour from when we set off we arrived in the anchorage and dropped the hook in around 11m in mud. Marmaris still looked and sounded the same from the water as it had three years ago, inclusive of jetskis, ringos and parasailors, and noise from the restaurants’ entertainments systems and the traffic on and off the water. It was full of action, and it didn’t look like we’d get a lot of R&R there.
Chapter Two: MARMARIS ACTION
We’d made it to Marmaris, a vibrant town with lots of shops and plenty of chandleries. It also featured hotels, bars and clubs which made it popular with a certain type of tourist. We were there during high season and were exposed to all its liveliness, the buzzing during the day and the shenanigans of its nightlife.
In the evening the restaurants, bars, cafés, tavernas, clubs and discos were all competing on who could play the most deafening music, but it took all night and into the next day before a winner was found. Frustrated, all the other competitors gave up, but not without requesting a re-match for the next night. The winner, suffering from burst eardrums, also stopped, and we could all enjoy the brief period of tranquillity before the muezzin called for the morning prayer at 5.30am. Despite all this commotion we managed a decent night’s sleep and were keen to venture out after breakfast.
This time we motored further along and past the blue bridge with the “Marmaris” sign to a café, and locked Buddy to a ring on the quay. We walked along the esplanade, dumping our rubbish in the bins along it, looked at an exhibit of a honeycomb and a wasp (should that have been a bee?), and crossed the road into ”town”.
As always, Peter was in the lead as he guided us to the Aygaz shop. We exchanged our empty bottle from last year for a full one, then headed to the Migros supermarket. We replenished some supplies, but there were no nice pizzas, which meant we’d have to go out food-shopping again. For the time being, however, we’d had enough and returned to Cordelia.
After a rest and lunch Ingrid cleaned Buddy’s topside which was filthy with sticky goo that was difficult to remove. It didn’t help that the water traffic seemed to have been diverted into our direction, treating Cordelia as a roundabout and causing a lot of waves. Buddy refused to stay still and bounced up and down behind Cordelia like a dirty child trying to escape its bath. It was quite an undertaking, and after an hour both Ingrid and Buddy were soaked. Ingrid jumped into the water to cool off, and when she came back on board Peter had made afternoon coffee.
We spent a couple of days in Marmaris and used its facilities, and after a pump-out of our black water tank we left fully re-provisioned (other than our fresh water tanks). We took a detour via Içmeler and Turunc and motored in no wind back to Kumbulük. It was a Sunday which we took as the reason for quite a few boats being anchored there already. We found a space and dropped the hook at 10.10am. We had coffee and biscuits, a swim, lunch, çay, a snooze (Ingrid), another swim, and plenty of relaxation.
To further our recovery from town life Peter rowed us ashore to a pebbly beach where we arrived at 8.15am. We put on our shoes and walked along the seafront to pick up the Carian Trail. For a change to the usual Turkish walking paths we found what resembled an alpine forest track leading uphill in a nice gradient. Unfortunately we soon had to turn right onto an overgrown track. It wasn’t marked and at times quite faint and indistinguishable from other tracks that took off it into the unknown, but with Peter’s natural scouting skills and his frequent referring to MapOut we managed to follow it as it contoured and led upwards on the hillside.
We were presented with great views over our anchorage and out to the Gulf of Marmaris. It was getting hot as we proceeded, and streams of perspiration cascaded off our bodies. Even Ingrid’s eyeballs were sweating!
After 1½ hours of trudging through thistles and prickly bushes we made it to our highest point (237m) and arrived at the road. We stopped for a drink, Haribos and to catch our breath before we continued on what was supposed to have been a “B” (yellow) road. However, it had lost sections of its tarmacked surface and had become a dirt track before it turned into a road again further down. It then joined the main road which passed various pretty (and) large estates, all fenced off and equipped with CCTV. We made it back to the beach past some redundant hotels, picked up Buddy and rowed back to Cordelia for a cold drink and a refreshing dip in the still warm water.
We had gusts of 34 knots in the night which woke us up and concerned us enough to switch on the anchor alarm. This, however, only lasted about ½ hour, then the wind disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, so we went back to sleep. In the morning Peter rowed us ashore where Ingrid cut his hair in a derelict restaurant. The roof of it looked like it could collapse on us at any time, but Peter found an opening with a broken down column to sit on, so off to work she went. So did the biting flies that also knew of this place, as they dug their fangs into our flesh. Ingrid finished quickly, and despite the hurry the job turned out to be a good’n.
After consulting the weather forecast that predicted strong winds from the North we reluctantly decided to return to Marmaris as it provided better protection. We were ready for departure at 7.00am. Peter weighed anchor and heaved up a lot of fishing detritus on the chain, which he cut off with the scissors. We got away and were hugging the coast to firstly keep out of the windy zone and to secondly avoid a cruise ship that was creeping up on us. We reversed the route via the ugly building site to Turunc and Içmeler to Marmaris to seek protection from the forecast strong North wind. Then, after anchoring too close to a little motorboat we found a place in 8.5m to dig our anchor into.
In the afternoon Ingrid had a go at repairing our gangway mossie net. During a pause she noticed that the boat behind us had moved. She looked around and saw it dragging towards a motor yacht. Peter was ready to jump into Buddy and motor over when he realised that Buddy needed air in his floor, there was no-one onboard the dragging boat and their tender was missing, and he wouldn’t be able to do much on his own. So he stayed put, and instead we used the now empty and extra space behind us to let out another 10m of chain. Then Ingrid saw the dragging boat had halted and their chain had tightened – looked like their anchor had reset.
She carried on with her mending and had nearly finished when she saw it on the move again. This time the crew on the motor yacht also noticed, and one of them launched their RIB and pushed the dragging boat out of harm’s way. We couldn’t quite figure out what was going on as the scene of the action got further away from us, but finally a tender turned up with a bloke circling around the place where the boat had been as though he was searching for something. At that moment the pouch of our binoculars caught a gust and blew into the water. Ingrid jumped after after it and rescued it, and by the time she was back on board the man was reunited with his boat. It didn’t take him long to come back and put his anchor down – right next to us! He looked at us quizzingly, but when Ingrid got dressed and ready to fend him off and shook her head he understood and moved on and further away.
We were relieved, but to say that peace returned would have been an understatement. The gulets were on their way back to their moorings, as were the ferries, water taxis, jetskis, etc., each with their own unique way to cause ruckus and disturbance. A neighbouring catamaran played Turkish pop music which we endured for a while. When we couldn’t stand it any longer Peter put on our music which helped drowning out the noise around us. The evening featured loud music from the beach establishments combined with our own entertainment, as we braced ourselves for another raucous night.
We were tired, so at 10.00pm we got ready for bed. The wind started gusting shortly afterwards and added to the bedlam. At 11.30pm Ingrid got up, having not slept at all, and went below. Peter heard her and woke up, we checked the anchor alarm, and listened to the howling of the still increasing gusts. We decided to monitor the situation from the cockpit and were on our way up when Peter heard the rattling of a chain nearby. He rushed to the bow and discovered that a yacht had come so close that the floating tender on its stern had gotten entangled in our snubber. Peter managed to quickly free it before Cordelia could come to any harm. The two muppets on the boat then circled around right ahead of us, so we switched on the deck light to show them our position. Still they dropped their anchor in front of Cordelia and came closer and closer when they reversed to set it. Ingrid gave them a loud shout and they finally got the message. They pulled up their tackle and motored away as we followed them through the bins. We saw them dragging all the way along the seafront until they disappeared from view into the darkness. Midnight had gone, and yet we were still wide awake and full of adrenalin.
The gusts came in bullets of up to 50 knots, and Cordelia was heeling at anchor. We sat in the cockpit and watched out for any signs of dragging, but Cordelia held firm. Our neighbours with a St. Kitts flagged yacht, however, were not that lucky. Three of their passengers had returned late in the tender, having left one crew on watch on board. Now they were all fast asleep and failed to respond to the sound of our “Jeremy” klaxon. The crew from the motor yacht who had already rescued the dragging boat in the afternoon was alert and noticed the dilemma. He began to shine a flashing strobe into their cockpit and windows. Just before they collided a light came on in the dragging boat and a sleepy crew member emerged from below. They promptly weighed anchor and motored away.
To our horror they turned round and rather than re-anchoring near their empty spot they turned towards Cordelia. Only a holler from Peter prevented them from ramming us, as they consequently moved and sought refuge further away. At approximately the same time the catamaran with the Turkish music earlier lost its footing. The anchor was still in the water when the engine and lights came on. A bit of motoring back and forth cleared it, and off it went. We calmed down with a cup of tea during a short period with gusts only in the 30 knot range. We even considered going to bed, but as the wind gathered strength again we gave up on that idea and returned to the cockpit.
Next, a catamaran turned up from nowhere. By now we knew what to expect, so we turned on the deck light, shone torches into their cockpit and faces, and shouted at them whenever they were too close for our liking. This stopped them from dropping their hook onto our chain when they first attempted to anchor and shooed them into a respectable distance.
At 4.30am Peter adjourned to the cabin while Ingrid stayed in the cockpit, keeping watch. At 7.00am we were both awake and ready for breakfast. The day finally had some light in it and we could better assess what was going on around us. The three dragging neighbouring boats had left a large space around us, and although the wind was still gusting we felt safe, so Ingrid had a lie-down in our cabin and caught up with some sleep while Peter was in the cockpit. After lunch we prepared ourselves and motored ashore for more shopping. We got supplies from Migros and BIM, and were back for çay and biscuits. The wind eased in the afternoon which led to jetskis and ringos roaring to and from their respective playgrounds. We were still tired, so Ingrid had another lie-down in the cabin and Peter snoozed in the cockpit. Soon after dinner we were off to bed as we opted for an early night. After the kerfuffle of the last 24 hours we needed to regain our strength, so we could move on and leave Marmaris behind.