It’s the second week of November and we are still in shorts and sandals, although it does cool down at night and the days are becoming a lot shorter. The pace of life here is quite slow and, accordingly, quite pleasant. The tourist season is over and traveling to explore our local environs is without hassle. Many of the ‘boat people’ have also departed, returning to their cold northern homes,.. Read More
Kekova is a long island separated from mainland Turkey by a stretch of water known as Kekova Roads. There are multiple well protected anchorages off Kekova Roads, two of which we have tried. From Kas, it was an uneventful 3.5 hour trip to Üçagiz Limani, which has a relatively narrow entrance off Kekova Roads but then opens up to a huge fairly shallow bay. We dropped the anchor in 12.. Read More
With the afternoon wind being southerly, we had to beat out of Gocek. Being cruisers we usually try our best not to go to windward but here we had plenty of time and a nice wind so we did put in a few tacks and had some very pleasant close-hauled sailing. However, tacking Mazu, a cutter-rigged boat, was a very different experience from that onboard Melodrama, a modern sloop, in.. Read More
When we were planning our cruising of the Turquoise coast, Jim suggested we could easily spend at least 4 nights in Fethiye Bay. He was right and we can certainly understand why Jim and Tina love to come back year after year to cruise these waters. This bay in particular, surrounded by vast cliffs and tree-lined terrain, has an indented coast and islands on either side of it but with.. Read More
For our first sail with Jim and Tina, we chose Ciftlik, less than 12 miles south of Marmaris, but we ended up logging 16 miles after beating into the wind. It was an interesting sail. We started off at about noon with about 1.5 knots of wind and ended up with 15 – 20 knots by 3pm. We have come to realize that late morning/afternoon onshore winds are the norm.. Read More
It is hard to believe that we have been in Turkey for about three weeks now …. time has flown by, probably because we have been having such a lovely time. The 25nm sail across from Rhodes to Marmaris was fairly fast with wind a bit aft of the beam most of the way until we were within a few miles of Marmaris. Checking into Turkey was made simple for.. Read More
The passage from Pigadhia, Karpathos to Lindos, Rhodes was about 57 nautical miles so we set off earlier than usual, shortly after 8 am. We still had to make good speed in order to arrive and be settled well before dark. Initially, it seemed the wind was teasing us as we thought it was filling in so we would turn the engine off and set the sails for downwind sailing,.. Read More
The original plan after leaving Fri was to head for Tristomo (a lagoon with a narrow entrance at the NE end of Karpathos), Chalki (an island off the W coast of Rhodes), and then Mandraki (at the NE end of Rhodes), following the western coasts of Karpathos and Rhodes. However, after further review of the forecast and consultation with the cruisers Greece sailing guide we decided to follow the eastern.. Read More
We are happy with our decision to stay in Siteia until the strong Meltemi wind receded. It seems the eastern end of Crete tends to be windy because the northerly winds funnel around the end of Crete between the two southernmost Dodecanese islands, Kasos and Karpathos. Sunday was the peak so we stayed onboard most of the day, checking and rearranging our lines and fenders to minimize chafe from the.. Read More
We are now in Sitia, our last stop in Crete, before heading NE to Rhodes. Yesterday we took a bus ride back to Agios Nikolaos, a very pleasant town with a good marina (overwintering potential) and lots of restaurants. The mountain views on the switch-back road there were spectacular. The ride back in the dark was like a roller coaster as the driver was trying to make up time. Crete.. Read More