Hope's and Howard's Sailing Adventures

With Howard’s back slowly improving, we set off for Knidos on August 12th.  It was a good sail some of the way but, again, the wind died behind the island of Kos.  This time we didn’t even go ashore in Knidos, just in case the anchor dragged in the somewhat variable and gusty winds that evening.  Instead we enjoyed great swimming off the boat and a quiet evening onboard.

The next day we decided to make the hop across to the next peninsula in one go, a 35 mile trip, rounding the Greek island of Symi to port and thus cutting several miles off our trip to Bozuk Bükü.  It turned out to be a lovely gentle sail, much of it in Greek waters (fortunately nobody seemed to mind, although there were several stern warnings on VHF from a Greek naval vessel to other boats/ships demanding that they immediately leave Greek waters). It certainly was the closest we have been to Greek territory this year!

Our next stop was Ciftlick, within easy reach of Marmaris, just in case the survey had been sorted by the buyer.  The last time we were here was with Jim and Tina last year when we used one of the restaurant jetties.  This time we decided to anchor and found it to be good holding and fun to watch all the comings and goings around us; a few dinghies having a blast, lots of people on the beach and many Turkish yachts arriving even after dark and the restaurants competing for their business using flashlights (instead of the daytime flags) to attract them to their dock.

The next day, Sunday, we decided anchor off the beach in Marmaris.  We discovered that this end of town is where most of the hotels are so, just like Netsel marina, it too was noisy in the evenings with music blaring from the bars along the front.  However, it was good holding so we had a pleasant evening and night, albeit our last one onboard outside a marina.  The in-water survey was scheduled for Monday at midday so we headed into Netsel Marina in the morning and just had time to hose her down before Jes, the surveyor, arrived.  We left him to it while we had a leisurely lunch with Birol, our agent, at one of his favourite local restaurants.  There were multiple dishes to choose from, all homemade, delicious and at a very reasonable price.  We shall miss the wonderful Turkish food!  The rigging inspection and out of water survey was scheduled for Wednesday.  The surveyors only needed a couple of hours to do their thing so the boat remained in the slings, was re-launched and then we took her back to her berth.

Now began our wait for the buyer’s final decision based on the survey report.  Contractually we could not leave the marina following the survey, so we explored a bit more of Marmaris, starting with the castle.  The latter turned out to be more interesting than we expected, well-maintained with small but interesting displays relating to various places around the province and great views of the bay.  We learned that Knidos gained much of its wealth during the third century BC by exporting wine in amphora made in Knidos and easily recognizable as such by their characteristic shape.

It was hot in the marina (+36C) even though there was often a breeze during the day, so we sought a way to cool off and have a bit of exercise.  It turned out that cycling suited Howard’s back, which was continuing to improve slowly. To explore some more we cycled along the shore, about 10km, to Içmeler where we could have a cooling swim off the beach and enjoy a cold drink or two before making the return trip.

It seems the survey report must have been very favorable because just over a week after the survey the buyers sent written acceptance of the vessel, as is.  Now we really had to start getting our act together!  Birol has been fantastic in helping us find a place to rent temporarily in Marmaris and the most suitable way to ship belongings from the boat to the UK. Our current plan is to rent a place for six months to determine if we may eventually want to buy a property there.

Our Setur annual marina contract expired on August 27th and the daily rate they quoted to keep MAZU there was crazily high.  Again, Birol to the rescue; he found a much better deal if we moved the boat to Yacht Marine (YM) further away from the city and what’s more he got the buyer to help with the cost.  We motored there the following day; our last passage in Mazu!  YM offered a pleasant change of scenery, though it was clear we would need to rent a car in order to move stuff off the boat (Birol assisted yet again).

Yacht Marine has a large pool which has been our principal form of exercise since being there.  We tended to swim several lengths towards the end of the day, in order to cool down and hopefully remain cool for the rest of the evening.

We are now in a 2-bedroom apartment.  It suits us well and has permitted us to sort out packing most of our stuff into boxes ready to ship this week.  The apartment also has a couple of smaller pools we can use though up until now we have been using the marina’s bigger pool.  The sale was completed on Friday with the transfer of funds to our account. We will meet the new owner tomorrow evening for the first time.  Hope he likes what he sees!

So, this brings us to the end of some wonderful adventures onboard MAZU.  Who knows if after an interlude on land we may decide we cannot be without access to a floating home as well.  Time will tell.