Envoy In The Med

TURKISH AUTHORITIES MAKE LIFE DIFFICULT FOR CRUISERS

2012-02-08T20:36:00.001+01:00

We’ve heard from friends in Marmaris that a new regulation has been introduced limiting the time visitors can spend in Turkey to 90 days in any period of 180 days, making Turkey similar to Schengen Treaty countries. Previously a visitor could get a 90 day visa, exit for a few hours to a Greek island before the completion of 90 days, return to Turkey and get a new 90 day visa. Considering the amount spent by the cruising community in Turkey on marinas, R&M, supplies and travel this seems to be a crazy decision, and seems certain to both dramatically reduce the number of cruising visitors, and the time they spend in Turkey. Apparently there is a way around this, that if a cruising visitor has a long-term contract with a marina he/she can obtain a residency permit, but no doubt this adds more cost and bureaucracy.
This decision comes on top of already-introduced regulations limiting the time yachts can spend in certain areas, and requiring the purchase of a “Blue Card” (an electronic card) to record the discharge of sewage from holding tanks into shore-based pump-out stations. So far it’s not clear how rigidly this regulation is being enforced, but it’s causing consternation, due to both added cost and the limited number of pump-out facilities. Another regulation is being talked about requiring yachts to have holding tanks for water from showers and sinks (grey water). Most yachts under about 15m simply don’t have the space for additional holding tanks, apart from the huge cost of designing, building and installing the tanks with their required plumbing.
Add to this the huge increase in the cost of casual marina berths in Turkey over the last five years (now typically about 80 Euro per night for a 14m yacht), and the Turks appear to be killing their golden goose.

COST OF THE CRUISING LIFE IN THE EASTERN MED

2012-01-22T01:34:00.000+01:00

During the last two years we’ve kept detailed records of our cruising costs.
Our blog entries dated 16 April 2011 and 10 June 2011 gave quite some detail on this, including an intended cruising budget for 2011 of NZ$90k (approx. US$71k).
As a general statement actual living costs such as food, beverages, “household” supplies and personal spending are about the same for us when cruising as at home back in New Zealand. Maintenance is dearer due to the higher cost of parts and greater distances traveled. What also bumps up costs is travel to and from your boat, additional fuel for the longer distances cruised, and sightseeing ashore – particularly rental cars and accommodation (occasional travel inland away from the boat is well worth the experience in the many interesting, new areas). Casual marina prices are also high, e.g. for our 14m Nordhavn 46 typically about NZ$130 (US$105) per night plus power and water. You pay considerably less (or sometimes even nothing) in town harbours, particularly in Greek waters, but the best option is to anchor wherever possible, which is always free. With a long term marina contract, e.g. for wintering over, costs reduce considerably and we pay NZ$15 (US$12) per night in Marmaris.
Other factors to consider:
- Some costs are fixed and are for the whole year, such as insurance, winter marina, travel, most regulatory costs, some R&M, while most other costs are variable depending on the time spent aboard and the distance traveled (e.g. living costs and fuel).
- R&M and fuel will vary greatly depending on the size, type (e.g. displacement or planing) and the age of boat as well as the distance cruised.

So our 2011 cruising budget was NZ$90k (approx. US$71k).
During 2011 we cruised 2,218NM, spent 31 weeks living aboard, and our actual costs totaled NZ$86.6k (US$68.4k), with the main costs being:
- R&M: NZ$27.4k (US$21.7k). Big ticket items here were re-galvanizing anchor chain, replacing genset fresh water circulating pump, replacing Lugger alternator, repairing Naiad stabilizers, reconditioning guest head, replacing start batteries, antifouling, oil and fuel filters, replacing aircon sea water pump.
- Living costs: NZ$16.6k (US$13.1k). This includes food, drink, “household” supplies and all ashore costs.
- Insurances, marinas (including winter layover), regulatory: NZ$15.5k (US$12.2k).
- Fuel (diesel, lpg, oil, petrol): NZ$8k (US$6.3k).
- Travel: NZ$7k (US$5.5k) for one trip from New Zealand to Envoy and back.
- Communications (phones and internet): NZ$4k (US$3.2k)
WHAT WE LIKED: We thought our living costs were good, averaging NZ$535 (US$423) per week for a quality life style.
WHAT WE DIDN’T LIKE: The maintenance cost was higher than we hoped, but includes maintaining Envoy to a high standard and replacing all spare parts used. We estimate this is about 5 to 6% of Envoy’s capital value, and this has been consistent over the last 4 years.

FIRST POST FOR 2012

2012-01-13T04:08:00.000+01:00

We’re enjoying the summer back in New Zealand, especially meeting up with family and friends, and will arrive back in Marmaris on 31 March.
Envoy is still in our minds though as we renew insurances, and source spare parts. Most importantly we ordered the Lugger parts and insulation to rebuild the dry exhaust system.
Envoy’s battery banks have been load-tested, and both the House and Bow Thruster banks were in poor shape. This is not unexpected - firstly as these battery banks are respectively over 7 & 9 years old, and secondly because when tested last year they weren’t looking good. To replace six x 6V and two x 12V USA-sourced AGM batteries is costly in Turkey, but something we have to do.
Good news for Turkish cruisers is that a new regulation restricting visitors to 90 days in any 180 day period (like the Schengen countries) does not apply mainstream western countries. So the status quo will remain whereby you can stay in Turkey indefinitely provided that every 90 days you leave the country for a few hours. This is easily achieved by making a brief visit by ferry to one of the many nearby Greek islands.
Meanwhile the Greeks zealously police their rule limiting visits by non-EU cruisers to 90 days in any 180 day period. You’d think the Greeks would want cruisers to stay and spend their money. For visitors from most countries the 90 day period is not only for the time spent in Greece, but the total time spent in all Schengen countries. However there is a special exemption for New Zealanders, who are allowed to spend 90 days in each Schengen country.
When planning a cruise these factors have major importance. This year we plan to leave Turkey and island hop across the Aegean, around the bottom of Greece to the Ionian and on to the Adriatic. We hope to spend more than 90 days in Greece by taking advantage of a regulation that professional skippers and crew can stay indefinitely. If that works out we’ll spend most of our time in Greece, visit Bulgaria and Montenegro, and probably end up in Croatia about early November to winter over. If we can only stay 90 days in Greece we’ll end up in Croatia several weeks earlier.

BACK IN MARMARIS MARINA

2011-12-03T03:36:00.010+01:00

We came into the marina on 15 November after 28 weeks away, covering 2,218NM.
It’s a fantastic feeling to finish another season having cruised in great locations with no major problems or issues, bar our accident ashore with the broken glass.
Also to have shared experiences with wonderful family and friends (chronologically) Amy, Morris & Gail, Ian & Patsy, Kevin & Diane, Doug & Sharon, Amy, and Chris.
We have clarified the situation about hospitals in Turkey. When treated for our accident with broken glass we were charged Lira 694 (about NZ$485), and have been told it should have been either free, or considerably less.
Apparently the mistake we made was giving our New Zealand address. If we had given our address as Marmaris Marina for example, we would probably have received free treatment. In any case we don’t want a reason to test this theory!

Envoy in the slings after coming out of the water - the hull was very clean

Envoy on the hardstand in Marmaris, snug under her protective cover

The marina here is only about 70% full. This is partly due to less boats visiting Turkey, and partly due to more marinas having been built. The cost for our 14m boat is Euro 271 (about NZ$475) per month in the water and Euro 488 (about NZ$857) per month on the hard, including the cost of lifting in and out of the water. We spent only six nights in the water and then got lifted out. Envoy has a very good position – on concrete, directly outside the chandlery, and close to toilets, superette and bar. We spent a further six nights aboard Envoy on the hardstand, then returned to Auckland for a New Zealand summer.
Next year we plan to arrive back in late March, and head west via the Greek islands of Simi, Tilos, Niseros, Astipalaia, Ios, Sikinos, Folegandros, Milos and Kithera to Peloponnisos – this is the southern area of Greece, separated from the rest of the mainland by the Gulf of Corinth and the Corinth Canal. From there we will head north into the Ionian to position ourselves to visit Croatia in 2013.
TECHNICAL
On lifting Envoy from the water the hull looked excellent with negligible slime or growth. The difference this year was having two coats of antifouling rollered on rather than sprayed on. The contractor has since told us they have stopped spraying altogether and now only use rollers.

Mechanics assist us with pickling the water maker. This is not difficult, and next time we can do it by ourselves.

With help from a mechanic we inspected the main Lugger engine’s exhaust system, and found there is corrosion and thinning of the metal wall sections of the exhaust elbow and flange. These are the parts closest to the engine’s exhaust manifold. We’ll source replacement parts from Lugger while in New Zealand and replace them in April.

Mechanic Yilmas dismantling Envoy's dry exhaust system for inspection

The forward aircon is not working correctly. Servicemen had a look with no success, so we’ve removed the control unit for checking in New Zealand.
I reported earlier in the year that one of our four diesel tanks was leaking. There is no easy solution to fixing this due to the inaccessibility of the tank, so we’ve decided to leave the tank in ballast (to keep Envoy’s trim) using water in pet bottles. This leaves Envoy with a capacity of 2,900 litres in the other three tanks, and at around 8 litres per hour of usage, that’s plenty.
FINAL LOG FOR 2011: 196 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 2,218NM cruised for 453 engine hours (total engine hours now 5,804).
In the next posting I’ll report on maintenance and cruising costs for this season.

FROM BODRUM TO SIMI AND BOZUK BUKU

2011-11-20T12:54:00.021+01:00

In the last three years of cruising we’ve spent quite a bit of time around Bodrum, so on 1 November when we left Bodrum probably for the last time, it was with a twinge of sadness. However new horizons beckon next year!
Our first stop on our journey south was Knidos with its still-impressive ruins dating back over 3,000 years. At first we were the only boat there, but later two other cruisers came in, and then 12 charter yachts moored to the jetty, making this one of the most crowded anchorages we’d encountered all year.

Envoy anchored in ancient Knidos harbour with sun on the lighthouse to the right

While anchored at Knidos we were joined by a fleet of 12 charter yachts

Laurie examines some remains of the city walls dating back some 3,000 years, and still in good shape (the ruins and Laurie!)

The weather forecast was again for strong northerlies, so we moved on to Kargi Koyu, near Datca, which has excellent shelter and plenty of room to swing. We stayed there three nights until the wind gusting to 25 knots abated.

Kargi Koyu provided excellent shelter from three days of 25 knot northerly winds

Turkey is definitely a blend of the ancient and the modern, and this is well illustrated by this wooden sledge used to pull boats out of the water for maintenance in Kargi Koyu

Wrecked fishing boat ashore in Kargi Koyu

It was then only a couple of miles to Datca, where we anchored off the harbour.

Envoy anchored off the town of Datca

Later an Australian yacht, Kondili, came in and after meeting her owners ashore in a bar, we had a roast lamb dinner aboard Kondili. Plenty of wine flowed and later we had an impromptu music session with guitars and harmonicas. Kondili’s owners, Phil & Robbie, are heading in the same direction as us next year, and we’ll definitely be meeting again.

Laurie aboard the Australian yacht, Kondili, with Karen, Jimmy, Phil, Robbie & Josh

Laurie alongside ancient lion statue in Datca. This was early November and starting to get cooler

These fishermen are peparing to antifoul their boat. There is negligible tide here, so they used a car to pull their boat out of the water, and will later get help from about 10 friends to push it back down the ramp

From Datca we moved on to the Greek island of Simi, which epitomizes everything great about Greek islands with its picturesque harbour and old buildings.

View of Simi's spectacular harbour

Church overlooking Simi harbour

By now time was getting short for our return to Marmaris and we moved back to the Turkish bay of Bozuk Buku, a sheltered bay overlooked by the ruins of an ancient citadel.

Laurie well wrapped up against the cool outside Alibaba’s restaurant at the entrance to Bozuk Buku bay

This picture taken from Alibaba’s restaurant shows how sheltered Bozuk Buku is

TECHNICAL
There is nothing to report except we are now planning Envoy’s winter lay-up in Marmaris. This will mostly be very routine, as we are only leaving Envoy for about 18 weeks, and here in southern Turkey we don’t need to allow for freezing conditions. Envoy will be left on the hardstand with her full cover on, and a reputable guy we know is going to check the boat every two weeks, and charge the batteries and run the dehumidifier monthly. The cost for this service is Euro 60 (about NZ$105) per month.
Envoy has a dry exhaust system, and this has not been checked for at least eight years. On advice from the previous owner we will get some help to strip away the heat insulation from the exhaust system and check it for corrosion and leaks.
LOG (to 8/11/11): 190 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 2,190 NM cruised for 447 engine hours.

THE GULF OF BODRUM

2011-11-04T07:38:00.014+01:00

After going to a café in Bodrum to watch the All Blacks beat France and win the Rugby World Cup, we went to the Bodrum private hospital to have our stitches removed. As we studied a map to find the hospital a Turkish man asked if he could help us, and then guided us the few hundred metres to the hospital. We bought him a cup of tea in gratitude, but he seemed to want to stay with us until eventually he asked if we’d pay him Lire 10 to buy some cigarettes. I was happy to give him Lire 5 and say our farewells. This was rare, and usually the Turkish people are extremely helpful and ask for nothing in return.

Laurie & Chris look on as the atmosphere is readied to watch the Rugby World Cup final ashore in Bodrum

We had decided to explore the Gulf of Bodrum – an area we’d not visited since 2007.
Our first stop was the village of Cokertme, and we had a great dinner ashore in Hasam’s Cokertme Restaurant. This was a nostalgia trip, as we’d had several memorable nights here previously with family and friends. The food was delicious, but we made an old mistake of letting them organise the food, resulting in a bit too much food and cost.

Diane, Chris & Laurie in Hasam’s Cokertme Restaurant

Our next stop was the Snake & Castle Islands, which have impressive ruins dating from ancient times right up to the Byzantine period, as well as a well-preserved amphitheatre. We arrived around 1600 just as the gulets were leaving with their tour groups, so we had the area all to ourselves.

Envoy anchored between Castle & Snake Islands

Chris & Laurie in Castle Island’s amphitheatre

Cleopatra’s Beach on Castle Island is reputed to be where Cleopatra swam with Mark Anthony, after importing galley loads of Egyptian sand. Scientists have determined that the sand is of a special silica type not from this area. Chris is not usually a swimmer, but even he couldn’t resist having a dip here. All swimmers have to shower after their dip to ensure no sand leaves the beach.

Chris after swimming at Cleopatra’s Beach

Diane & Laurie relaxing with Cleopatra’s Beach all to themselves

We moved on to English Harbour, a well-hidden, perfectly sheltered bay used as a base by the British Special Boat Squadron during WW2. We visualized their camouflaged motor torpedo boats anchored in the bay, and their base camp on a flat section of ground nearby.

Envoy anchored in perfectly sheltered English Harbour

Mermaid statue near English Harbour

We had a great two weeks with Chris, and like last year greatly appreciated his assistance with numerous small maintenance jobs aboard Envoy, including the supply and installation of a new DVD player and 510mm wide flat screen. Chris’s nickname of “MacGyver” was once again well justified.

Chris with our new DVD player and flat screen he supplied and installed

We enjoy a BBQ breakfast with Chris on his last day

TECHNICAL
Nothing to report so some comments re communications.
When cruising, communication costs are significant. Typically we spend about NZ$100 per month for internet access (using USB plug-ins), and about NZ$50 per month for phone (separate phone and sim card for each country). Sure you can use free WiFi, but this involves going ashore to find out passwords, and we want to have internet access every day.
“Rebtel” keeps our cost down for international phone calls. We can speak to family in NZ for 30 minutes for a cost of about Lire 2 (about NZ$1.30). We don’t understand how Rebtel manage this, but the system works well, and we highly recommend it for international calls – see their website.
LOG (to 31/10/11): 181 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 2,121NM cruised for 434 engine hours.

CRUISING SOUTH TOWARDS BODRUM

2011-10-31T16:27:00.014+01:00

Just before Chris arrived we had a cold spell with temps down to about 15d, and as we cruised south from Sigacik we encountered a classic cold front with low cloud, lightning, thunder and squally showers. Since then it’s warmed up again into the low 20s with a sea temp of 22d.

Classic cold front passes across Envoy’s bow

While having a walk ashore at Kazikli Iskelesi we noticed a couple of tethered sheep, and a Turkish man told us they were his, and he was fattening them up for Kurban Bayrami. This is a highly important holiday festival for Turks - lasting about four days when the head of a family provides a beast to sacrifice, and for his family and friends to feast upon. According to Lonely Planet about 4m cows or sheep are eaten every year at this festival.

This sheep is being fattened for the festival of Kurban Bayrami

Nearby was a very rough floating platform, which a fisherman and his wife used for sleeping, with their boat moored alongside.

A home away from home

Once you get away from the tourist resorts to where real people live and work, most of the Turkish women dress quite traditionally.

This picture shows a typical Turkish lady selling her goods in a market

This picture shows the new (news reporter on the left), and the traditional (lady with headscarf on the right)

There are many barbers to be found everywhere in Turkey, and I generally pay a very reasonable Lire 12 (about NZ$8). The slightly scary part is where they use a lighted taper to burn the hair from your ears and nostrils!

Here I enjoy a haircut with a traditional razor

Like most of the year, there have been very few cruising boats around, but one day near Altinkum we anchored in a bay where a yacht, Wight Egret, flew the British flag. The next day I went over to meet David & Beverley Evans from the Isle of Wight, and invited them over for a beer. We had a great time and ended up going out for dinner a few days later, the first time we’d socialized with anyone since Sharon & Doug left six weeks ago.

Diane, Laurie, Chris, Beverley & David together for dinner

While in Didim marina we noticed a “Sailors Pub”, so in the late afternoon decided to go and have a drink. We asked the waiter for a beer and a shandy, only to be told they don’t serve alcoholic drinks. We found this highly amusing and feel sure they wouldn’t attract too many sailors. Fortunately they had another bar nearby which did serve beer.

Didim marina’s pub with no beer

After a couple of days around Altinkum with Chris we headed further south to Bodrum, and moored stern-to the dramatic looking Castle of St Peter to spend a few days watching the remaining two RWC matches. In the 15th century the Ottoman Turks gave the Christian knights the opportunity to leave peacefully with their possessions, and they wisely accepted.

Envoy moored to the Castle of St Peter, Bodrum

One day we took the 90 minute ferry trip over to the Greek island of Kos. Here we collected two alternators for the main engine – one new one ex US, and our old one repaired in Piraeus.

Chris & Laurie enjoying an ice cream in Kos

On the return ferry trip the ferry seemed to go rather close to a container ship

More about Chris’s visit on the next post.

TECHNICAL
All going well and no problems, but just one unusual event.
Envoy has a Northern Lights genset M753 used in conjunction with a Freedom Combi inverter / charger. After an engineer at Didim Marina installed a new fresh water circulating pump on the genset something electrical has somehow changed.
Previously I would start the genset, turn ON the Battery Charger breaker and the batteries would start charging.
Now when I start the genset and turn ON the Battery Charger breaker nothing happens. But if I turn ON the Refrigerator breaker, the fridge will run fine, and then the Battery Charger will work too. Nothing happens unless the Fridge breaker is ON first.
This is not a major problem, but it means I can’t run anything from the genset unless the Fridge is ON too.
Obviously in changing over a water pump nothing electrical has been changed (the only electrical aspect to the job was to remove and replace the temperature sensor wires), so this is a bit of a mystery.
LOG (to 22/10/11): 172 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 2,007 NM cruised for 413 engine hours.

AROUND ILDIR AND ALTINKUM

2011-10-17T10:04:00.001+01:00

Our last visiting friend for the year - Chris O'Brien arrives today. Just happens to be the coldest day so far at 15d due to a front coming through - yet another gale warning. Will get back over 20in a day or two.
Our cuts are healing and we hope to get the stitches out tomorrow.
A Turkish gentleman has left a comment on the last posting that if we paid that much money it must have been a private hospital. In fact it was the Didim Public Hospital.
Going ashore in Turkey and Greece is always a bit of an experience, and even mundane things like grocery shopping or having a coffee or a beer can become exciting, especially away from the main tourist areas. We saw an interesting-looking café in Sigacik partially built into the crumbling walls of the medieval castle. It had a décor reminiscent of Gaudi, with basic wooden furniture, the floor being a mosaic of broken pottery, and decorated with marine artifacts and shells. We were the only customers and the owners made a real fuss of us as we had our cup of Nescafe at Lire 2 (NZ$1.40 each). They couldn’t speak any English, but they showed us the huge pumpkins they grow in their garden behind the café. They also showed us an article about their café in a tourist guide, and the owner pointed to a photo of himself. His name was Captain Pasha, a retired sailor, and that explained the nautical flavour of the café.

Captain Pasha’s café in Sigacik

Rustic interior of Captain Pasha's cafe

Nearby was a derelict, rust-streaked, steel-hulled yacht, and we found out the Greek owner had been suspected of using his yacht for smuggling, so it had been impounded. The owner is still fighting a legal battle to get it returned five years later.

Derelict yacht impounded in Sigacik harbour for suspected smuggling

We often see tractors with trailers carrying people and goods around

Herd of goats on the road in Sigacik

Sadly Turkey has a major litter problem despite the provision of numerous rubbish bins

We saw this tortoise crossing our path

Sunset on Envoy in Ildir harbour

Envoy at anchor in Ildir

View from Envoy of Ildir. In ancient times there was an acropolis on the hill

After an early morning swim we left Sigacik in a cool 20dC temperature with dark grey skies, thunder and lightning bolts. All the previous night the sky had been growling with distant thunder, and the portholes illuminated with lightning. This was not close-by, but kept our attention as we know too well how a thunder storm can quickly whip up violent, unpredictable winds.
Five hours later we anchored in Port St Paul, where a boat carrying St Paul is believed to have stayed. This is not in fact a “port”, but a sheltered bay, and once again we were the only boat there.
Later we saw a large Coastguard patrol boat passing outside the bay. It was around 25m long, with a large cannon on the fore-deck, and machine guns on the bridge. It stopped about 200m from our position and the crew seemed to be looking at us. Then we saw them launch their RIB, and soon it was speeding towards us carrying three crew. Their leader, wearing a pistol in a holster politely asked if he could come aboard – who were we to refuse! He wanted to know why Envoy has so many antennas.

View of Envoy’s antennas and radomes

To explain, Envoy has a total of eleven antennas for 3 x VHF, 1 x SSB, 1 x Navtex, 4 x GPS, 1 x Weather fax, and 1 x Satphone. She also has radomes for the 2 radars. We explained that Envoy is an ocean-going vessel and described the function of each antenna. They still seemed mystified, but must have been satisfied that Envoy wasn’t a spy-ship, and after checking all our documentation they left us.
For the last week we've been anchored off Altinkum as they have many sports bars, and we were able to watch some Rugby World Cup matches. Altinkum has a great sandy beach and attracts mostly British visitors. It is south-facing so provides good shelter from the prevailing northerlies.
One day we saw a seagull on the water that was unable to fly, and decided to investigate. We took the RIB over and discovered the seagull had a long-line hook in its mouth. We weren’t able to remove the hook, but cut the monofilament very close to its mouth and saw it happily fly away. Hopefully the hook will eventually drop out.

TECHNICAL
All is still going well. The fresh water circulating pump on the generator, which was repaired with cold weld, lasted for about 70 hours before it failed again. We used an engineering firm in Didim Marina to install the new one that we’d flown out from US. It’s a difficult job due to very limited accessibility, and it took 2 engineers about 3 hours to do the job. They also patched up the failed one for use as a short term spare.
I’m going to talk about cosmetic maintenance.
The most important thing to do in maintaining your stainless steel, gelcoat and varnished teak in good condition is to regularly wash all the salt off with fresh water. Many days we don’t take any salt spray at all, but on the days we do we always wash all the salt off after anchoring, except for the hull topsides.
Every couple of weeks we spend about two hours going over all the stainless steel with a product called “Miracle Cloth”, and this gets rid of any blemishes or rust stains, and brings it up nicely.

Diane polishes stainless steel bow rails with Miracle Cloth

To get stains off gelcoat and most other substrates we use “Power Sponge” – a sponge made up of melamine microfibres, and it’s amazing to see the difference this makes compared to a normal sponge. This also works well on stainless steel.
Our windows are coated with RainX, and this is great for keeping them clear of spray (we never use the pilothouse windscreen wipers). To get any salt residue off the windows we only need to use fresh water with a lamb’s wool mitten.
When we purchased Envoy all of the exterior teak was varnished. We’ve now stripped the varnish from some areas and gone for the natural look. In other areas we’ve maintained the varnish, and find this needs to be re-applied annually. It’s not a big job – we just wash the teak, lightly wet-sand it, wash it again, wipe it over with thinners, and then apply two or three coats of Epiphanes over consecutive days without sanding between coats.
LOG (to 2/10/11): 152 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 1,913NM cruised for 393 engine

GALE IN DIDIM MARINA AND WE SUFFER SOME MINOR INJURIES

2011-10-09T13:59:00.009+01:00

Normally our blog is about 1-2 weeks behind real time, but unusually we’re going to report on events of today.
We have been close to the small Turkish seaside town of Altinkum, north of Bodrum for the last couple of weeks, and a major reason for this has been to go ashore and watch the Rugby World Cup in one of the many sports cafes with satellite TV. Altinkum has a great sandy beach facing south that we can anchor off, sheltered from the prevailing northerly winds.

Altinkum’s superb south-facing sandy beach on a usual day with Envoy anchored in the background

A few days ago the forecast showed a southerly gale approaching us with winds expected to be Force 7-8. There is nowhere to anchor close to here sheltered from the south, so we opted to shelter in the very good Didim marina for a few days, then we’d be able to go ashore and watch the rugby.
Yesterday we prepared Envoy for the blow with extra lines, as Envoy is facing south directly into the gale. Even though we are in a marina, there is about 150m of unprotected fetch between us and the sea wall, while Envoy’s stern is secured to a floating pontoon.
At first light the wind came up to about 35 knots. Our two bow lines stretched, and the sea was quite choppy, even inside the marina, but all seemed OK.
We went to a waterfront café, but with the gale and heavy rain the TV system wasn’t working due to power outages and no satellite reception, so we sat down to have a coffee.
The sea where we had been peacefully anchored just days before was now a mass of large breaking waves and white water. Then the lightning and thunder started, and the wind noticeably strengthened further as chairs, tables, umbrellas, signs and small trees started to blow away.
Suddenly there was a terrific smashing sound and the café’s two plate glass windows facing the sea were blown in. Di & I were the café’s only customers, and we were showered in shards of broken glass, ranging from small to rather large pieces.

Photo of the table where we were sitting after the plate glass window had blown in. In the background note the rough sea

Di received a nasty deep cut to her left arm and a lesser cut to her right elbow, as well as several abrasions on her hands and arms. I received two cuts to my right ear as well as abrasions to my head.
The café staff administered first aid with serviettes and towels to stem the bleeding, and then the owner used his car to take us to hospital. Di needed six stitches and I needed eight. We were very lucky – some of the larger shards of glass could easily have inflicted very severe injuries.
The hospital was efficient, and we were treated quickly and professionally – for a cost of L694 (about NZ$485).

Di with bandaged left wrist and right elbow

Laurie with bandaged right ear

By then the wind had abated considerably and the café owner then took us through the town strewn with debris to another sports café to watch the All Blacks defeat Argentina for a spot in the Semi-Finals. He told us this was the worst wind he’d seen having owned the café for 20 years. In the marina the wind peaked at 60 knots.
All is fine with Envoy, and we’re going to need to stay around here for a few days as we need to make follow-up visits to the hospital.

HEADING SOUTH ON TURKEY’S WEST COAST

2011-09-21T12:14:00.015+01:00

September is a good month for cruising in Turkey, as the temperature is a little cooler, mostly in the high 20s the sea is still a warm 22-24, and the busier season is over. The weather does start to get a bit unstable though, and as I wrote this we were anchored in Sigacik harbour in a thunderstorm and showers – the first rain in weeks.
From the cruising point of view it’s been very quiet. The only boats we see around are local fishing boats, and a few local cruisers. We rarely find another boat anchored in the same bay, or in fact anywhere nearby, and we’ve only seen two other foreign cruising boats in the last three weeks.
Usually there are small local fishing boats setting their nets or long lines, sometimes alarmingly close to where we are anchored. Once we’ve had to cut away a net from our anchor, and several times have snagged long lines. Here they mostly have wooden boats about 6-8m long powered with small diesel engines and using shaft drive. They rarely have mufflers on their exhausts, so we often hear them working during the night.
Sometimes the fishermen will try to sell us some fish, and hold them up for us to see. They have red snapper here in the Med, which look virtually identical to snapper we catch back in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf. When you order fish in a restaurant they charge by the kg and it’s generally about Lire 100 (NZ$70) per kg unfilleted.
After dropping off our daughter Amy, and Diane’s sister Sharon and her husband Doug in Ayvalik, we felt a bit sad staying there so started our journey south towards Bodrum, where we’ll meet Chris in mid-October, and then continue on to Marmaris, about 350NM from Ayvalik. Our plan is to spend a few weeks in the Gulf of Bodrum, which is great cruising, and where we haven’t spent any time since 2007.
Most of the places we will visit during the next few weeks we’ve already been to and covered in previous blogs, so we won’t repeat those details.
Our first stop was Bademli Limani, spending three nights in a great sheltered anchorage with clear water, and just a couple of other local boats.

Typical small fishing boat retrieving a net alongside Envoy anchored in Bademli Limani. In the background is an abandoned resort hotel, one of several nearby

This fisherman is pulling in his longline while Envoy is anchored in Alacati – they come very close

We anchored off Candarli for two days, where they have an impressive 14th century Genoese castle.

We moved on to Foca, where in June we had been in the company of three other New Zealand boats. Now we were the only boat at anchor for the four days there, except for a German yacht one night. Foca is an interesting small town of 15,000 people, and we explored the cobbled back streets away from the fishing boat harbour’s water-front tavernas. We had a meal at a typical basic Turkish café, and each had a plate of rice, eggplant, mince, chicken pieces and potatoes. It was delicious and cost Lire 16 (about NZ$11) each.

Traditional Turkish café in Foca

Antique shop in Foca

Archeological dig on the shoreline in Foca’s harbour

Foca is where the Turkish “Blue Beret” commandos have a training facility, and during the day and into the evening we heard small arms fire as they train.

The Kommandos training centre in Foca

Moving south we spent several nights at Sifne Koyu.
We took a Dolmus (mini-bus) into Cesme, costing Lire 4 (NZ$) per person for the half hour trip. The Dolmus system is great – they have 14 seats but often carry up to about 15 additional people jammed-in standing. Passengers just signal the Dolmus to stop and pick them up, and the driver will drop you anywhere along the route you want to get off.

The Turkish Dolmus (mini-bus) is a great transport system

Laurie finds a small friend while having coffee in Cesme

Kemel Ataturk is loved and revered by the Turks, and every town or village has an “Ataturk Boulevard”

The water in Sifne harbour is beautifully clear

TECHNICAL
All going well – nothing to report.
LOG (to 19/9/11): 139 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 1,774NM cruised for 365 engine hours

GALLIPOLI

2011-09-06T12:51:00.013+01:00

As Envoy cruised up the narrow buoyed channel towards Ayvalik a RIB was heading directly bow-on towards us. When it was about 30m away we could see it was a Turkish Coastguard RIB, and the officers were signaling us to slow down. I checked our speed as 5.5 knots, and Envoy doesn’t put up any wake at any speed. We thought that being told off for “speeding” in Envoy was highly amusing, and noticed that Turkish boats traveling much faster with sizeable wakes were not approached by the Coastguard.

A Turkish-style rough and ready beach house near Ayvalik

We had originally planned to cruise about 80NM north from Ayvalik through the Dardanelles to Cannakale to visit Gallipoli, but the gale had not abated so we decided to leave Envoy in the Ayvalik Marina and take a rental car to Cannakale. The marina cost here was Euro 86 (about NZ$148) per day including power and non-potable water. In fact the gale lasted for 11 days, and although the wind in our area only reached about 30 knots, it was stronger in the open sea, and would have been decidedly uncomfortable.

Rough sea in the Dardanelles in a gale. We were pleased to have made the journey by car

The marina staff assisted us with the procedure for clearing-in to Turkey, and took me to visit the Port Police. The officer in charge, who looked very busy on his computer, asked me to come around to his side of the desk to see his screen. He was in fact busy playing a racing car game, and insisted on me watching his (lack of) driving skills for twenty minutes or so.
Back in Turkey we quickly got used to the Muslim calls to prayer again. These last about two minutes and are broadcast from loudspeakers at the top of a mosque’s minaret. They can be clearly heard in most places - the first is at dawn, and the last is two hours after sunset.
Driving in Turkey is always an experience. No notice is taken of speed limits with cars commonly driving 50km/hr or more above speed limits. Nor is there any regard for no-overtaking double lines, and vehicles overtake very dangerously, forcing oncoming traffic to pull over onto the shoulder. As we followed a car along a hilly winding road, we saw a large truck coming towards us on our side of the road overtaking another, forcing the car in front and ourselves to take evasive action. Later we saw a major accident where an articulated truck had lost it’s trailer into a roadside ditch.
We arrived safely in Cannakale and checked into the Hotel Helen – named after Helen of Troy, as Troy is close-by. This was the first time since leaving Marmaris in early May that we’d slept ashore.

This reproduction of Troy’s wooded horse was used during the making of the movie

We had decided to book a day tour of Gallipoli (the Turks call it Gelibolu), and this turned out to be the right decision as we would never have found the various interesting sites by ourselves. Our Turkish guide, Murat, was very passionate and gave moving accounts of great bravery on both sides. He described one incident where a wounded British Captain was moaning with pain in no-man’s land, and nobody could reach him due to the intensity of fire. A Turkish soldier put up a white flag of truce, walked unarmed to the wounded soldier, and assisted him to safety. We were all greatly moved, and then he asked if there were any questions. One insensitive member of our tour group replied, “yes I have one, are there many fish in the sea around here?”

Statue of heroic Turkish soldier rescuing wounded British soldier from no-man's land

Our visit was extremely worthwhile and we were deeply moved by the sites we visited, and the hardships that men on both sides had to endure. It was particularly interesting to get the Turkish perspective of this battle, and the extraordinary ineptitude of the British Command – the first fundamental mistake being landing the Anzacs about one mile north of the intended spot where there were high cliffs instead of the intended quite flat countryside.

Anzac Cove where the ANZAC troops were mistakenly landed by the British

At the time the area was only defended by 160 Turks. Most of them were killed, and the Anzacs reached the high ground on the first day. Due to lack of orders they vacated it to re-supply, and after Turkish reinforcements arrived on the second day they were never to reach it again, except for New Zealanders who later reached the high ground of Chunuk Bair for a couple of days before they were driven back.

Chunuk Bair – the highest ground – was breached only by New Zealand’s Wellington Regiment, and here is a statue of Kemel Ataturk and the memoral to fallen New Zealanders

Total casualties during the campaign were around 500,000, roughly half Turkish and half Allied forces. As Murat phrased it the Turks died in defense of their country, and the British, Australians, New Zealanders (2,721 killed), French and Indians died for nothing.

Memorial to the ANZACS

This battle was the largest that the Turks fought in modern times, and it was the event that put Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (the father of the Turks) to the fore as an extremely shrewd commander, who later founded the modern Turkish Republic. Ataturk is still revered by the Turks in a way that’s difficult for us to understand. Every single house and shop has a picture of him. Every village and town has his statue, and an Ataturk street.
The Turks highly respected the ANZACS who fought so bravely and Ataturk penned this famous tribute in 1934:
“To us there us no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets … You, the mothers, who sent your sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom … after losing their lives in this land they have become our sons as well”.

We had a great time back in and around the town of Ayvalik, and nearby village of Alibey, until it was time to farewell our daughter back to London, and Sharon & Doug back to Auckland.

Sharon & Doug, Laurie & Amy in Alibey

On Sharon & Doug’s final night we had dinner ashore, but had difficulty finding a restaurant as it was the public holiday of Ramazan Bayramy -there was a carnival atmosphere and everywhere was full. At one place three musicians were playing traditional Turkish music quiet loudly, and there were several empty tables. We sat down at one, but after a few minutes decided that the music, discordant to our ears, wasn’t for us and moved on to another quieter place, that turned out to be one of the best restaurants we’d been to in Turkey.

Laurie takes Sharon & Doug ashore at Ayvalik to catch the bus to Istanbul

By ourselves again we’re gradually heading southwards.
TECHNICAL
Nothing to report for a change
LOG (to 1/9/11) 121 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 1,626NM cruised for 333 engine hours.

THE ISLANDS OF SKYROS AND LESVOS, AND OUR RETURN TO TURKEY

2011-09-06T12:44:00.022+01:00

While doing this posting I’ve also added photos to the last one.
Skyros, the largest and eastern-most isle of the Northern Sporades, proved to be our favorite of the Group. It’s much quieter, and has much of the charm of the Cyclades with older style whitewashed stone houses with blue trim, and the Chora (hilltop village) of Skiro. Here were fewer tourists, and the pace more to our liking.

Skiro’s ancient monastery and castle

We try to avoid mooring in harbours, not only due to the cost and the formalities, but also because we like to swim several times a day, and you mostly can’t do this in harbours. Skyros had a superb bay for anchoring just a few hundred metres from the main harbour of Linaria, and at anchor we could hear bells ringing on the collars of the goats as they foraged for food. Their meat is a delicacy here, and one night ashore in a taverna Doug and I enjoyed a delicious goat casserole.

The picturesque Linaria harbour in Skyros

Another night we had local lobsters and met an English couple who have lived here for 40 years, and he was the lobster fisherman, telling us that in Skyros they catch lobsters using nets rather than pots. In appreciation of us buying his lobsters he bought us a jug of delicious local wine.

We enjoy a dinner of local lobsters - Laurie, Doug & Sharon in photo

There is also a very interesting handcraft shop run by an Austrian lady artist called Monika, and Sharon & Diane found plenty to interest them.

Monika’s quaint handcraft shop in Linaria

From Skyros we had a cruise of about 70NM eastwards to Sigri on Lesvos, taking about 12 hours. The Naiad stabilisers performed well with a 18 knot wind and 1m seas on our beam most of the way. This passage took us across the main shipping route to the Dardanelles, and several times we needed to keep a close radar watch on ships, and make course alterations to avoid them. About 57,000 ships pass through the Dardanelles annually (160 per day) mostly carrying petroleum products.

We had to alter course to allow this ship to pass safely half a mile ahead of us

There is also a current setting south, and at times we needed to steer 15 degrees to port of our required course to compensate.
We spent a couple of nights in Sigri, and while anchored there a large yacht of about 25m anchored with his chain across ours. When we wanted to leave I asked the yacht’s captain if he would mind moving so we could retrieve our anchor. He was very cooperative but preferred to don his scuba gear to free our anchor – easily done in only 8m of sparkling clear water.

We anchored in Port Sigri and a large yacht ran it’s anchor chain over ours

Diver being towed above our fouled anchor

The yacht’s skipper dived in the clear sparkling water to free our anchor

A great restaurant overlooking our anchorage had a huge selection of Ouzo

At this time the weather forecast was warning of another Meltemi gale of several days duration – very common in the Aegean during July and August, so we needed to find good shelter. As Amy was flying in from London to Lesvos’s capital of Mithilini we decided to moor in the harbour there for the duration of the gale, and spend some time touring Lesvos by car.
Mithilini is a great and sheltered harbour to stay in, except for one thing – the quay is adjacent to the main street and the noise of traffic, particularly motor scooters, car horns and car “boom boxes” drives you mad after a while. This noise continues without interruption all night long, and it seems that Greeks don’t drive more than a few metres without sounding their horns.

Envoy moored Med-style in Mithilini

We took a rental car and visited the coastal villages of Plomarion, to the south-west, one day, and Mantamados and Molyvos, to the north, the next day. All three destinations proved to be just great, with atmospheric narrow cobbled streets, elderly Greeks sitting around drinking coffee and ouzo, and just a smattering of tourists.

Two shots of the atmospheric streets of Plomarion

Laurie & Doug check out butcher’s shop in Plomarion

Although it was hot we were able to stop and have swims along the way to cool ourselves down.

Laurie & Amy cooling off in a rock pool

Two shots of the village of Mantamados on Lesvos, famous for yoghurt and cheese

Doug, Laurie, Sharon & Amy in this one

Quaint harbourside restaurants in Moyvos

Early on Sunday morning we heard the sound of a military band and jumped out of bed to see a parade of soldiers marching along our street with the traffic banked up behind them. They stopped at a nearby flagpole, hoisted the Greek flag, saluted and then marched off. In the late afternoon they marched back again, and lowered the flag. We had encountered this previously in Kavala on the mainland, and it’s interesting that there is a military presence on most of the Greek islands.

Parade of soldiers saluting the Greek flag

On the 24th we loaded 900 litres of diesel at Euro 1.42 per litre (about NZ$2.45) cleared-out of Greece, and headed over to Ayvalik, just 15NM away on the Turkish mainland coast.

TECHNICAL
Nothing much to report. The main Lugger engine had still been having occasional starting problems, twice needing six attempts to start. I was pretty sure it was the starter solenoid, so last time it didn’t start I tapped the solenoid sharply with a rubber hammer, and it’s been fine since. We have a spare solenoid on board, but in any case the solenoid terminals can be bridged to start the engine.
LOG (to 24/8/11): 113 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 1,588NM cruised for 324 engine hours.

WE GET A SEAWATER SHOWER IN BED, AND RETURN TO THE NORTHERN SPORADES

2011-09-06T12:42:00.010+01:00

The morning of Doug & Sharon’s arrival we got a rude awakening. We were anchored off a village called Ay Yeoryios, and fishing boats up to about 20m work from there. About 0600 we hear a boat pass close by and then a deluge of water came through our two cabin portholes and soaked us, our pillows, mattress, and books etc stored around the bed. Obviously the fishing boat either on purpose, or just not thinking, had passed far too close with too large a wake – our portholes are 0.7m above sea level. At the time we had our flopper-stoppers down, so maybe the fishing boat captain was just curious and came close to look.

View of Ay Yeoryios from where Envoy was anchored. A fishing boat came too close and we took water through the portholes above our bed

Doug & Sharon arrived having flown from Auckland to Dubai to Athens. Their plan was to get a taxi from the airport to the bus terminal, and catch a bus to Ay Konstandinos in the Gulf of Evia to meet us. Firstly they had the same problem as Ian & Patsy encountered – their NZ phone didn’t work in Greece, so they couldn’t contact us to confirm their arrival. Secondly all the taxis were on strike, so they got a bus into Athens but then couldn’t find the correct bus terminal for Ay Konstandinos. They found that people weren’t very helpful until a taxi driver on-strike heard their plight, and offered to drive them for Euro 200. As the distance was about 180km, Doug & Sharon thought this a fair price, and we finally all met as planned.

Doug buys beautiful fresh vegetables from a street vendor in Ay Konstandinos

The next day we started heading towards the Northern Sporades, and our replacement Lugger alternator stopped charging. I phoned A1 Yachting and they confirmed there was an electrician in Skiathos, so we decided to continue on our way using the genset for charging.
Skiathos is a major centre for charter boats, and was very busy with these, as well as many tourists shopping and patronizing the many waterfront tavernas. It’s also where the movie “Mamma Mia” was filmed. The N Sporades are very green, as they do get some rain all year round. They also have great beaches, even if mostly crowded, but they don’t have those classic Greek villages of white and blue stone buildings, or very much of historical interest.
There was no room for Envoy in the harbour, but we managed to find space in a crowded anchorage outside. Later we found out we were only about 200m from 15 discos competing with each other for maximum decibels until four in the morning.

Very sleek car ferry in the crowded Skiathos harbour

While Diane, Doug & had a walk around Skiathos the electrician arrived, tested the alternator, and confirmed there was no charging. He took it away, and attempted to repair it – without success. Next day we had breakfast in a taverna ashore and watched the All Blacks beat the Wallabies in rugby to retain the Bledisloe Cup. I suggested the electrician try to make one good alternator out of the two failed ones. This worked, and the electrician was confident the resulting alternator was a good one. Nevertheless we’re buying a new Balmar alternator from the US for a spare asap.

Diane & Doug enjoying lunch in Skiathos

Skiathos is interesting, but too busy to be a great cruising destination, and that afternoon we moved on to the much quieter Nissos Skopelos and had a great night ashore in a taverna.
Then another problem struck. During my daily checks I found the genset out of coolant, and on investigation found a rust hole in the body of the water circulating pump, from where all the coolant had leaked out. Although we can use our Yanmar wing engine as a genset, we need the higher capacity of the genset when running the watermaker. So back to Skiathos where A1 Yachting organised an engineer to repair the hole (with cold weld) – and all ok again. Must say by this time I was getting a bit tired of spending my days in the engine room, but as the saying goes, “Cruising is fixing your boat in exotic locations”. We have since received a new spare water pump from the US.
Back to N Skopelos again and found a wonderful bay called Limnonari. This was only large enough for a few boats, had good shelter, wonderful clear, clean water with small fish swimming around, and a taverna ashore owned by the same family for 400 years.

We stayed one night in this idyllic sheltered bay called Limnonari

We would have stayed there more than one night but had to find shelter for a gale due to arrive around midnight - we were warned by locals to expect winds up to 40 knots.
We cruised across to Nissos Alonnisos, and after checking various options decided on a bay called Ormos Milia as being our best option. This was a large bay about 800 m across, with good depths of 8-13m, no rocks or reefs, and no other boats. So we dug our anchor in, put out 100m of chain, and waited. Sure enough the forecast wind arrived about 2100 and did blow up to high 30s for several hours, but Envoy held position and we had no problems.
As I wrote this we were doing a 45NM cruise SE to Skyros, the largest of the N Sporades.
TECHNICAL
See above re Lugger alternator and genset water pump.
LOG (to /8/11): 89 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 1,196NM cruised for 255 engine hours.

COMMENTS
Frank said: Hi Laurie, seems like you are having a plethora of running repairs at present. I'd fit the new water pump and keep the old one as a spare. The locations sound wonderful. Can't believe there are places like you describe with no other boats. Cheers

Chris said: Now I kow why you needed that belt tightener - and I am not referring to eating less in the restaurants. See you soon.

Namik said: What can I say after reading all. Seeing what you have been experiencing with the kindness of the sea I am envious but proud of you both. Enjoy!!

EVIA ISLAND, THE GULF OF VOLOS AND SMOKE IN THE ENGINE ROOM

2011-08-21T09:06:00.006+01:00

The island of Evia at about 90NM long and 10NM wide is Greece’s second largest island after Crete. Unlike Crete it’s very close to the mainland coast, being mostly about 5NM away, but at the town of Chalkis separated by a bridge only 39 metres wide.
Considering the area’s proximity to populous areas (Athens is only 1-2 hours drive away), it is surprisingly quiet and unspoiled, and most of the anchorages we’ve been in have been shared with only one or two others.
This area doesn’t get the notorious Aegean “Meltemi” NW wind, but in late July a wind was forecast of 20 knots S, turning 20kn NW, so we found a bay with good all-round shelter and “dug in” for the night with 80m of anchor chain out in a depth of 10m.

Photo: We don’t always get a great view but this bay offered ideal shelter for a big blow

When the wind arrived it peaked at 34kn within half an hour, putting up a half a metre chop even with the limited fetch in our bay. Because the wind was from the S it was very warm, and the temperature reached 39d, despite its strength. About 5 hours later it completely died away and the bay was flat calm again within half an hour.
We’ve spent the next 10 days or so looking around various bays in the Gulf of Volos, north of Evia Island, and doing various routine maintenance jobs as we await the arrival of Doug & Sharon.

Photo: This taverna caught my attention for some reason

We stayed a couple of nights in a very sheltered circular bay, about half a mile across with a narrow entrance called Ormos Vathikelon. It reminded us very much of Auckland’s Port Fitzroy area, with a dead flat sea, and high green hills. We were anchored in 17m, and all was good with a mirror-like sea, and no wind. At 2300 we were about to go to bed, when we saw lightning. Within 10 minutes we had a wind up to 30 knots that turned Envoy around, pushing us towards shore. Then it started to rain too – the first rain we’ve seen since late April. Don’t feel too sorry for us as it was welcomed to give the topsides a good freshwater wash. The anchor held, but we were now in a much shallower 7m, and only 30m from shore. We started the engine, and kept it running in case we had to power away from the shore and re-anchor. After half an hour the storm abated as suddenly as it started, Envoy returned to its original position, and all was well.
As we were anchoring late one afternoon we heard a loud beeping noise which we soon tracked down to the smoke detector in the engine room – not what you want to hear! Carefully going into the engine room I could smell something like burning rubber, although there was little smoke. Leaving the engine running I grabbed my infra-red thermometer to see what was too hot and it was the main engine alternator – at 88dC it was about 25dC above normal. As I looked at it closely I could also see the occasional spark being thrown out through its front. For the non-technical, an alternator is what charges your batteries.
We were safely anchored so I shut the engine down.
Envoy can run without a main engine alternator – in that case we need to run the Genset or Wing. However we carry a spare alternator so the next morning I fitted that. I was a bit nervous as this was the first time I’d ever done this, and there are 11 wires connected to it. However all went well and now we’ll send the failed unit in to be reconditioned. Unfortunately this was not the end of this issue, as you’ll read in our next posting.

Photo: This is the failed alternator we replaced with our spare

TECHNICAL
Apart from alternator issue above, nothing to report.
LOG (to 31/7/11): 89 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 1,196NM cruised for 255 engine hours.

WE ASSIST A YACHT AGROUND ON A REEF IN THE NORTHERN SPORADES AND ENVOY GETS HER NAIAD STABILISERS REPAIRED

2011-07-25T15:35:00.009+01:00

We’re well into our 2011 cruise now with over 1,100NM covered. Summer has set in with daytime temperatures of about 36d, and the seawater at 27d. Fortunately the humidity is not high here, which makes the heat manageable.
The Northern Sporades group consists of about eight main islands, with numerous other islets. We spent just four nights there as we needed to keep moving to Chalkis on Evia Is about 85NM away, where we would meet the Naiad technician. This short visit gave us the chance to scope out the N Sporades for our longer visit next month with Sharon & Doug.
One late afternoon we anchored off a fantastic sandy beach on the small uninhabited nature reserve islet of Nissos Tsoungria. Lush green forest came right down to the beach, and the islet was deserted except for a great little rustic taverna on the shore with home-built tables and chairs, and fern leaves over a makeshift frame to provide shelter from the sun. The staff don’t live there, but when the last patron leaves they go home to Skiathos each night on their fishing boat. They just lock everything up, and leave it all unattended. Can you imagine doing that in New Zealand?

Envoy anchored off Nisos Tsoungria

The great taverna on Nisos Tsoungria

We watched the sunset, and spent the night sharing the bay with three sailing yachts and a high-powered six metre RIB, the occupants of which were camping ashore. We had a tranquil night, with just enough motion to remind us we were anchored off an exposed beach.
In the morning I went up to the pilothouse, and noticed that one of the yachts had departed – but not very far, as 200m away she was stuck fast on an underwater reef that protruded out from the end of the bay. The yacht was a Beneteau 385 sloop, flying the Greek flag, and with 3 people aboard. I watched for a few minutes, and nothing was happening except one of the occupants was in the water checking the depths around the hull.

The yacht Bonnie aground on a reef

There was no swell, and there is virtually no tide here. My Coastguard training kicked-in, and I jumped in our small dinghy, and went over to see if I could help.
The skipper’s wife spoke some English, and it was apparent they had little idea what to do, although he was able to tell me that only the keel was aground, they were not taking water, and the deepest water was astern. I suggested that I take the skipper ashore to ask the owner of the six metre RIB for assistance to tow him off, and to ask the skipper of a nearby Greek yacht to lend a hand with his large dinghy by tilting the Beneteau over using a halyard attached to the top of the mast. This would lessen the yacht’s draught, and make it easier to free from the reef. The owner of the RIB was only too happy to help (after we’d woken him up), but the other skipper didn’t want to know. Consequently we used our own small RIB with the 2.3HP Honda to tilt the yacht over, and were surprised how little power was needed with the amount of leverage provided by the line to the halyard. On the second attempt the RIB slowly pulled the Beneteau off the reef and was able to tow her to deeper, safe water.

The RIB takes the strain - you can see the reef under the water in foreground

After the skipper checked that there was little damage apart from scrapes to the keel, and to his pride, he gave us a bottle of Greek chardonnay for our help. In NZ & Australia we’re so lucky to have Coastguard to assist us out of boating mishaps, and at negligible cost. The Coastguard here is much more concerned about enforcement, people/arms/drug smuggling, and anti-terrorism than in providing assistance, although they are responsible for SAR at sea.

TECHNICAL
On 18 July Wim Verkoelen, a Naiad engineer based in Holland, visited us in Chalkis, about an hour’s drive north of Athens airport. With him were two engineers from Naiad’s Greek agents. Wim brought with him a new Control Unit (cost Euro 1,881 or about NZ$3,400), and a Display Panel – both of which had been tested and were working well.
It’s great to see a talented and knowledgeable guy like Wim at work, and within about two hours he had checked the whole system over and installed the new Control Unit. We did a sea trial, and everything seemed to be working OK I only say “seems” because where we are currently the sea state is very flat, and there was no chance to test the system in waves. Wim found there were some errors made by the Turkish agent’s staff during re-assembly of the system after they changed the seals for the fins, one wrong polarity possibly causing the failure of our own Control Unit. Since then we’ve used the Naiads for about 20 hours and all is well so far. We’ve yet to encounter any waves above about half a metre to really test them, but inevitably will.

Wim from Naiad Holland (3rd from left)fixed our stabilisers - I'm smiling

I forgot to mention that a couple of weeks ago we had a fresh water leak into the bilges. I was talking with Kevin in the pilothouse, and noticed the amp meter was running a bit high, there were no lights on, and there were no faucets open, but when I switched off the fresh water pump breaker the amps dropped. It turned out that the outlet hose from the fresh water pump had come off the inlet to the water filter. If this had happened at anchor we would have heard the water pump running, but under way we can’t hear the fresh water pump. It was a simple matter to re-connect, and shows the importance of keeping an eye on the instruments. On Envoy we do a full check hourly, but also watch things in between.
LOG (to 19/7/11): 77 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 1,132NM cruised for 229 engine hours.

Photos taken during Kevin & Diane's visit

2011-07-20T10:46:00.015+01:00

Part of the fish market in Kavala

Envoy in Kavala with castle in background

Porto Koufos was a narrow sheltered anchorage that reminded us on NZ's Whangaroa

There are 20 major monastaries on the Akti Peninsula

One of the many monastaries near Mt Athos - women are not allowed within 500m of the shore

Beautiful fresh cherries in the weekly market

The fascinating weekly market in Kavala - where local people shop

Laurie with Kostas, who was very friendly and a great help to us in Kavala

Kevin makes the traditional pikelets

Kevin, who was a senior fire officer explains a hydrant to Laurie

Kevin & Diane in relax mode aboard Envoy

2011-07-20T10:35:00.006+01:00

Envoy moored among the busy fishing boats in Kavala Harbour coming and going all hours

Aqueduct in Kavala built by the Turkish Suleyman the Magnificent in 16th century

THE THREE FINGERS AND THE INCREDIBLE MONASTERIES NEAR MT ATHOS

2011-07-13T13:57:00.002+01:00

On 27 June with Kevin & Diane we left Kavala after a very enjoyable stay there. It’s great to see destinations where normal local people live and work, without hordes of tourists. Those tourists who do visit this area mostly drive down from eastern Europe. Our Greek friends from Blue Cruises wished us “kales thalases”, meaning “have favourable weather and a safe voyage”, and left us their contact details in case of any problems – they are professional skippers and engineers.
We cruised over to the area of Chalkidiki or “The Thee Fingers”, so-called because there are three peninsulas, each about 25NM long, forming two gulfs between them, and another gulf with mainland Greece. The easternmost peninsula is Akti, and at its southern end is the spectacular “holy mountain” of Mt Athos, rising to 2,033m, with ice flows still visible near the cloud-shrouded summit. The Virgin Mary is said to have visited here after the death of Jesus. The Akti Peninsula is a semi-autonomous region of Greece ruled by the monks who inhabit 20 large monasteries, some dating back to the 9th century. Some of these are the size of large villages, and of course over the centuries have been attacked and ransacked numerous times by various pirates and invaders. Access to the peninsula is sealed off, and only 110 visitors (who must be Christian) are allowed each day, after gaining permission which can take up to six months. No females are allowed to visit, and any boat containing a female is not allowed to approach closer than 500m to the shore. Because of this limitation we had to make the 61NM voyage around the peninsula in one day, and several times we were joined by schools of dolphins frolicking around Envoy’s bow. It was really spectacular to see not only the monasteries, but also numerous other monks’ huts and retreats perched on the sides of cliffs, some in the most inaccessible of positions – they sure like their isolation.
Here for the first time we’ve seen a few other cruisers – one night nine other boats in the same perfectly protected bay of Ormos Kriftos, about half the size of Auckland’s Islington Bay. Four of them were rafted together so there was ample space.
In retrospect we should have stayed another night or two there, as the area has several beautiful and secure anchorages.
It’s a tradition when we go boating with Kevin & Diane that Kevin makes pikelets, and this time he made a lunch of them which we enjoyed at anchor off Ormos Sikias.
We finished our time with Kevin & Diane in Porto Koufo, a very protected bay that reminded us of Northland’s Whangaroa Harbour, with its narrow entrance, high rugged cliffs and perfect shelter.
We took on fuel for the second time this year, buying 750 litres at Porto Carras marina at Euro 1.57/L (about NZ$2.86). Here was a large resort with plenty of facilities including a doctor I visited to get an ear infection looked at. She gave me some antibiotic ear drops and asked me to come back 2 days later to have my ears cleaned out. She did an excellent job, and the two visits cost a total of Euro 80 (about NZ$146), which was excellent considering the time she spent.
Nearby we met some British cruisers aboard a yacht called Rosa di Venti, and it turned out they know our friends Alan & Anne from Sula-Mac. Once again a small world.
We did a 49NM cruise south to the Northern Sporades, where we are now en route for Chalkis, on Evia Is near Athens. There we’ll meet the Naiad serviceman coming from Holland to try and fix our stabilisers. He says it will be a 2-3 hour job so here’s hoping he’s right!
There are more boats around now as the holiday season kicks in, but nowhere has it been crowded. The temperature is now in the low 30s with the sea a very warm 26. Although the Aegean is notorious for it strong NW wind – the Meltemi – it doesn’t often reach this NW section, and we’ve had light winds up to about 15 knots.
There is little observance of boating regulations, or common sense here by small boat users, and speedboats, RIBs and jet skis roar around at high speed, very close (5 metres distant) to anchored vessels. This is annoying and of course highly dangerous, especially as there are often people swimming from anchored vessels.
TECHNICAL
Kevin is very knowledgeable about rigging, and he inspected ours, and took some measurements of the mast and boom so that he can calculate if it’s safe to lift our large RIB, weighing about 250kg, up out of the water behind Envoy’s transom using the boom winch The purpose of this would be to avoid barnacles growing on the RIB, which is not anti fouled. Our initial conclusion is this would not be a good idea, at it would place too much strain on the lifting tackle. It would be possible to design and build an A-frame support for the boom so this lift could be done, but I think we’ll just continue to lift out our RIB for a day or two once a week. In any case when Diane and I don’t have visitors we use our smaller RIB, weighing only about 50kg, which we do lift out at the transom without any problems.
LOG (to 10/7/11): 68 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 929NM cruised for 190 engine hours.

Photos relating to last blog posting

2011-07-13T12:52:00.011+01:00

These days wild deer roam the Myrina Castle grounds

View of Envoy anchored in Myrina harbour from the castle above it

View of Myrina's hilltop castle from Envoy's anchored position in the harbour

Ian wheeling the shopping trolley full of supplies

Ian & Patsy enjoy some time ashore

Envoy anchored at Skala Marion, Thassos Is

2011-07-13T12:42:00.004+01:00

Greek oil rig between Thassos Island and Kavala

Di, Ian, Patsy & Laurie enjoy a traditional dinner ashore in Myrina

ENVOY VISITS LIMNOS, THASSOS & KAVALA

2011-07-01T13:58:00.001+01:00

We arrived at the island of Limnos a day before Ian & Patsy, who were arriving from Malta late at night and staying in a hotel, and sent them a text from our Greek phone with our location, so they could meet us the next day. On the next day, mid-morning turned to early afternoon, and we still hadn’t heard back from them, so I sent further texts using both our Greek & NZ phones. They only got the text from our NZ phone, and it turned out that our original text hadn’t been received at all (it did arrive a day later), so Ian & Patsy had no idea where we were, or how to get to us. Ian & Patsy did finally join us after some consternation - panic over, and we enjoyed a great six days together.
Limnos is a very fertile island, with many farms, but rather devoid of interesting features compared with islands further south. The first night we spent in Moudros Bay - very large and sheltered, but unappealing. This bay was the base for the Allied fleet during the First World War’s disastrous Gallipoli campaign. We met Ian & Patsy at the much nicer, totally unspoiled Ormos Kondio.
Limnos has a strong Greek military presence due to its proximity to the Dardanelles, and we frequently saw fighter jets soaring loudly overhead during their training runs. One night we saw large light flashes on the horizon, and heard distant rumbles as the navy practiced gunnery.
The highlight at Limnos was spending a couple of days anchored in the port of Myrina. In ancient times Limnos was ruled by Amazon warriors, and Myrina is named after one of their Queens. It’s reputed that the beach we anchored off is where the Amazons cut the throats of husbands they had tired of. Although Ian and I were sure Patsy & Di weren’t tired of us, we took the precaution of making sure all Envoy’s sharp knives were well out of sight. Jason and the Argonauts called at Limnos about 1300BC on their way to the Black Sea in search of the Golden Fleece. They spent two years dallying with the Amazons, who by that time had killed all the men on the island, and continued on their quest with their throats intact, though probably somewhat underweight and exhausted - a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do!
Myrina is overlooked by the inevitable hilltop castle – this one dates from very early times, was rebuilt by the Byzantines in 1186, and then by the Venetians in 1214. Now it is home to about 200 tame deer who freely roam the interior grassy hillsides.
We had to keep moving as Ian & Patsy were spending only five nights with us, and we had over 100NM to cruise to their departure point. Further north is the island of Nissos Thassos, and finding very little shelter, we anchored off ocean beaches for two nights, using our flopper-stoppers to reduce rolling. We enjoyed one very picturesque fishing village called Skala Marion, and went ashore there, but it wasn’t sheltered enough to stay overnight. Overall we couldn’t recommend N Thassos as a cruising destination, although we believe it’s great for land-based touring.
Between N Thassos and the mainland Greek coast of Macedonia are several active oil rigs, looking rather incongruous against a Med backdrop.
It’s always a bit stressful arriving in a strange harbour for the first time, not knowing if berths are available, where to berth, whether bow lines are provided or we need to use our anchor, if water and power is available, where the authorities are located etc. Some harbours have signs at the entrance advising VHF radio channels to use. Others send a guide boat out immediately a visitor arrives. At Kavala Harbour on the mainland coast there was none of this, and we glided in trying unsuccessfully to call Harbour Control on the radio. We saw a guy standing on the foredeck of a motor yacht. We headed over to him, and I asked Di to go out and ask him where we could berth, figuring he’d be more helpful to Di than to me. Sure enough, he told us it was OK to berth right next to him, and he helped us with our lines.
We berthed stern-to a busy quay which backs on to Kavala’s main street.
Apparently very few foreign boats visit Kavala, and we were the only cruising boat among a harbour filled with fishing boats, and local pleasure boats, so we attracted quite a lot of attention (in fact we’d not seen another cruising boat since leaving Limnos.)
An elderly lady came to see us, having noticed our NZ registration. She was born in Kavala, lived for 50 years in Wellington, and recently returned here to live, preferring the Greek weather to that of Wellington (can’t say I blame her – why wait 50 years!). She still gets a weekly copy of “The New Zealander” delivered. This newspaper is published in Australia for expat Kiwis, and the next day she brought a copy for us. She used to work for Mobil Oil, and knew one of our close friends – Don – who also used to work for Mobil – a small world!
Kavala is an interesting city with quite a history, having been inhabited since Neolithic times – that is the period from 10,000 to 3,000BC. Even St Paul came to visit here, so we were in good company. A prominent feature is a large aqueduct built by the Turks in the 16th century, and still in good repair. The castle here was originally built in the 5th century BC, and modified by subsequent invaders.
The guy who helped us with the lines is called Kostas, and he was really friendly and helpful with advice. Power and water is always an issue in these harbours because of poor maintenance, and Kostas let us connect into his power and water supply. He also gave us a large basil plant, telling us it’s excellent for keeping away mosquitoes. Time will tell on that.
Having spent some time in Greece waters again we’re reminded how cheap the restaurants are here – we’re getting excellent meals for about NZ$30 per head. That includes wine, all you can eat, great atmosphere and service, and even food for the numerous cats who invariably congregate around us. Very often wandering musicians come through the restaurants to serenade the patrons, but this is not for free, and when the tambourine is passed around some contribution is expected.
Ian & Patsy left us here, and the next post will cover Kevin & Diane’s visit.
We’ll be spending the next few weeks heading west along the mainland coast, until we head south to The Sporades.
TECHNICAL
Our fresh water system problem was resolved. It turned out to be that a seal on one of the replaceable filters had moved enough to block about half of the water flow. Now all OK.
We had some further starting issues with the Genset. A local (and seemingly very competent) engineer checked the connections to the relays again, left us with a spare and made up a wiring loom to bypass the state relay if we can’t start the engine. I also learned from him never to touch a capacitor, even with the engine off, as they store enough voltage to give a nasty shock. No other issues right now.
LOG (to 26/6/11): 54 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 689NM cruised for 143 engine hours.

2011-06-26T11:30:00.005+01:00

We load supplies for Morris & Gail's visit in Foca. Groceries are about the same price in Turkey as in NZ. A separate trolley contained the beer and wine!

Morris buying fruit in Foca, Turkey where fruit is varied, fresh & cheap

Photos from Turkey

2011-06-26T10:57:00.010+01:00

Ship at the end of its life awaiting break up for scrap. In the background are ships ashore

Morris trying to catch fish by trolling - no luck, but you've gotta try

Fisherman selling his wares in Candarli. Thousands of commercial fishing boats venture out daily in the Med

PHOTOS

2011-06-23T15:28:00.010+01:00

Castle being renovated at Candarli

Morris, Gail & Laurie having a cooling ale in Candarli

Four out of the five boats at anchor in Foca are from NZ

Eating the small fish Morris bought

Tanker refuelling Envoy with 750 litres of diesel at Mytilini

Gail & Diane enjoying natural hot pool at Bademli Limani

ARRIVING IN LESVOS, GREECE

2011-06-21T15:21:00.000+01:00

From Ayvalik in Turkey it’s only about 20NM to Mitilini on the Greek island of Lesvos, and here we cleared-in using our friends from A1 Yachting as agents. A Greek Transit Log costs Euro 100, and we also had to pay Euro 30 to the Port Police, Euro 30 to Immigration and Euro 165 to A1. We moored stern-to the town quay which is both atmospheric and supposedly cheap at about Euro 7 per night. A1 charged us Euro 48 for three days, and when I queried this they said the extra Euro 27 was paid as a tip to ensure we obtained a berth. This was strange as there were plenty of berths. We were also charged a hefty Euro 50 for “mooring assistance” for ten minutes assistance on arrival, and none on departure.
One of Mitilini’s main roads passes along the quay so we had lots of noisy motor scooters and considerable pedestrian traffic close-by. Several Australians of Greek descent living in Lesvos noticed our NZ flag, and stopped to say hi to us, and give us tips about things to see.
Lesvos is a beautiful, largely unspoiled island, and of course is famous for being where lesbianism was originated by the poet Sappho in about 600BC. We had read that lesbians from around the world converge on Lesvos, like Muslims to Mecca, and this was very apparent.
In Mitilini we bought our first diesel of the year paying Euro 1.48 (about NZ$2.69) per litre for 750 litres. There is no fuel dock, so the diesel gets delivered by tanker.
We anchored off a small village called Tsonia, and all was peaceful until about midnight when the taverna ashore started playing really high volume music, which lasted until 4am. The Greeks sure know how to party, and we now know a few more Greek songs.
We moved to Sigri, anchoring in a bay overlooked by the picturesque remains of an 18th century Ottoman castle. Sigri is famous for its Natural History Museum, and displays of ancient petrified tree trunks. We found that in prehistoric times, Greece, the Greek islands, and Turkey were all joined to Africa, and even after they separated African mammals roamed the islands. About 20 million years ago intense volcanic activity took place on Lesvos, decimating the forests and eternally preserving many of the tree trunks.
In Sigri there was a very slight swell in our anchorage, so we were able to demonstrate our “flopper-stoppers” to Morris & Gail – it is remarkable how they cushion the rolling motion.
At this stage Diane & I had cruised nearly 500NM, and the sea conditions had so far been so calm that we’d not needed to deploy our paravane stabilisers. This changed when we cruised from Sigri to Mithimna in a 20 knot wind and approximately 1.5m choppy sea. Envoy was going well heading into the seas at an angle of about 30 degrees, but when we needed to change our course and Envoy became parallel with the waves we rolled quite severely, and certainly needed the stabilisers. While Morris held Envoy’s bow to the waves Diane and I winched the “birds” over. They took effect immediately and made for a comfortable trip.
Mithimna is an absolute gem of a harbour, with loads of character, interesting cafes and shops, and of course the inevitable hill-top castle. Most of these castles are on strategic hills that have been fortified for thousands of years, with new civilizations adding to them over time. The fortress of Mithimna is known to have been restored by the Genoese in the 1370s, and taken over by the Ottomans in the late 15th century.
There was no safe anchorage nearby so we berthed in the harbour for a cost of Euro 6.50 per day – with no “mooring assistance charges”. A local stray cat befriended us, and was probably the luckiest cat in Mithimna after Diane had fed it a few times.
Morris & Gil were departing from Mitilini, about 90 minutes drive from Mithimna, so Morris hired a rental car for the last day, and we toured the island and left Morris & Gail to catch the ferry. There are many beautiful mountain villages in Lesvos’s interior, and this made a perfect end to Morris and Gail’s stay.
The next day we made an early start for the 35NM cruise NW to Limnos –the island of the Amazon warriors - to meet Ian & Patsy. The forecast was for 20 knot NE winds so we started off with our stabilisers deployed, and this proved to be a good decision as we had 1.5-2m breaking seas on our beam most of the way handled comfortably. We had to pass across the track used by ships coming from or going to the Dardanelles – to Istanbul and the Black Sea. We monitored them closely on radar, and in one case had to alter course to avoid a tanker approaching us from starboard, requiring us to give way.
TECHNICAL
Our fresh water system has a problem – the water flow suddenly reduced by about half. We’re working through this, and suspect there’s a partial blockage between the water tanks and the 12V pump. We don’t think it’s a pump problem as we can select either of two identical pumps, and the problem is the same with both of them.
LOG (to 15/6/11): 43 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 554NM cruised for 117 engine hours.

ENVOY DEPARTS FROM TURKEY

2011-06-16T16:17:00.000+01:00

This post covers events up to 5 June, and we’ll post relevant photos within a day or two.
Summer is doing it’s best to arrive, and although the weather hasn’t settled we’ve had temperatures in the mid 20s to low 30s, with the sea mostly about 22d but up to 25d.
We met Morris and Gail, our first visitors for 2011, in the Turkish town of Foca. Our NZ friends Bruce & Leslie arrived there aboard Midi, and amazingly there were also two other NZ yachts there – Silver Fern & Largo Star. It was a real Kiwi anchorage shared with just one Turkish motor yacht.
After replenishing our supplies in Foca we cruised north to Akca Limani, and on the way passed an area where the Turks break-up ships for scrap metal. We counted 27 ships either ashore or at anchor including the British aircraft carrier HMS Invincible. According to the Internet she would take eight months to break-up.
Akca Limani is a sheltered, shallow harbour about 2NM across, with maximum depths of about 6m. We entered using the southern entrance with a depth of only about 3m, and there is a northern entrance with reported depths also of 3m. Morris & I thought the water looked much shallower, so we explored it using the RIB. Sure enough we found it was only about 1.5m deep with many rocks, so we decided to exit using the southern entrance again On arriving at our next destination of Candarli, a small Turkish Coastguard patrol boat roared into the bay, and came alongside. The two occupants came aboard, and after checking our passports and Transit Log, told us they’d had reports of us acting suspiciously with our RIB in Akca Limani. I don’t know what they thought we might have been doing, but after we explained that we were simply checking the depths they were satisfied, and confirmed that the northern entrance was indeed dangerous.
Morris is keen on fishing and while ashore at Candarli we bought some new trolling lures. These have so proven unsuccessful, but Morris also bought some small local fish for dinner. Small is the operative word here, as 10 whole fish weighed 1.5kg before cleaning, and they were similar to NZ sprats or small yellowtail. Morris and I cooked these whole (they were far too small to fillet) wrapped in foil on the BBQ, and although they were tasty it was very hard to remove the bones from the flesh. We definitely prefer NZ snapper.
Morris is a very experienced boatie, and helped me greatly, including anchoring duties. He had the bad luck to strike a couple of the muddiest bays we’ve ever encountered, where the anchor chain was so caked with sticky mud that it looked like a cable. Gail had also volunteered to flake the chain into the anchor locker, and ended up with very muddy hands.
Further north we anchored at the sheltered and delightful Bademli Limani. Here are natural fresh hot water springs along the shore, and some hedonistic souls have built stone baths around some of them. Of course we had to go and enjoy our evening drinks in the hot springs.
Our last Turkish port was Ayvalik, where there is a series of almost land-locked and very sheltered bays. Here we cleared out of Turkey – visiting the Port Police, Customs and Harbour Master, taking nearly five hours but costing only nine Lire (about NZ$7.50). I had been told it was necessary to use an agent to clear out, costing in the range of Euro 30-50, but this proved not necessary.
TECHNICAL
Our guest head is working fine, but the vacuum motor re-charges about every 30 minutes, and should not be doing so more than every approx 2 hours. This indicates one or more of the duckbill valves may need replacing. We’ll do this later because at the moment we get around this by turning the power to the head off after each use. I’m reluctant to pull things apart right now in case we break a pipe fitting or similar.
LOG: 33 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 392NM cruised for 86 engine hours.

A REALISTIC MED CRUISING BUDGET

2011-06-10T15:07:00.001+01:00

We are now in the Greek island of Lesvos with Morris & Gail. All is going well, and I’ll advise more on this in a few days.
Since we posted an article on our blog in early April about the costs of cruising , I’ve had a few off-line requests to advise our views on the actual dollar costs of cruising – so here goes.
In general we find that actual living costs such as food, beverages, household supplies and personal spending are about the same when cruising as when at home, and the cost of owning a boat in the Med in terms of maintenance and insurance is also similar to New Zealand. What bumps up the cost is the travel to and from your boat, meeting regulatory requirements when moving between countries, sightseeing and associated costs ashore – particularly rental cars and accommodation, and the fuel cost resulting from cruising longer distances.
A recent Seven Seas Cruising Association newsletter advised of an American couple cruising on a modern 53ft sailing yacht, who originally estimated they could cruise on a budget of US$35,000 (approx. NZ$44,000) per year. They describe themselves as frugal by nature, and rarely ate ashore or went into marinas. They kept detailed day-by-day records of spending, and their reality was an average cost of US$43,000 (approx. NZ$54,000) per year over a period of four years up to April 2010, cruising the Caribbean, the Pacific, New Zealand and South East Asia. But that was over a period which ended over a year ago, and everywhere costs have significantly increased since then. The Med is no longer a cheap place to cruise, and most people are not frugal, so our advice to any intending cruiser would be to budget to spend not less than NZ$90,000 (approx. US$72,000) per year, not including any costs incurred back home.
I can imagine some readers thinking “that’s far too high an estimate”, so let me elaborate. That includes allowances of NZ$10,000 for diesel, lpg and petrol for your outboard, NZ$20,000 for repairs and maintenance, NZ$15,000 for all insurances, winter berthage and meeting regulatory requirements, and NZ$7,000 for return travel for two. That’s a total of NZ$52,000 (US$42,000) before you tour your first castle, eat a kebab or drink your first Efes (Turkish beer). Bear in mind too that a major technical problem could blow the $20,000 r & m figure out the window.
TECHNICAL
Most importantly we’ve used our water maker five times now for a total of about 17 hours, and all is good. As an example of costs, this was about NZ$5,000 to repair. No other issues to report.
LOG: 38 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 437NM cruised for 95 engine hours.

ENVOY ARRIVES AT FOCA, GULF OF IZMIR

2011-06-05T07:03:00.001+01:00

We arrived at Foca, about 320 NM from our departure point of Marmaris on 1/6. This is really great, as firstly it’s here that we meet Morris & Gail, and secondly everywhere from here on is new territory for us.
We’ve been cruising loosely in company with NZers Bruce & Lesley Tebbutt from Kawakawa, who have a beautiful sailing catamaran called Midi. Like us they enjoy playing 500, and we’ve had some good contests with the boys winning of course. We’ll cruise further north together to Ayvalik, then we head west to the Greek island of Lesvos, and they head up the Dardanelles. It seems that we have similar plans next year of heading towards the Adriatic.
We went into the marina at Alacati for a couple of days to allow easy access for the engineers fixing our water maker. The cost there is Euro 80 per night including power and water. On Saturday night we went into the very pretty town of Alacati for dinner, and while waiting for a bus, some guys stopped and gave us a lift. This happens quite regularly, including a couple of days later when an old sewage pumping truck stopped, and Diane & I jumped up into the cab for a ride to Cesme. I doubt that I’d be getting lifts if Diane wasn’t with me! Alacati has probably got a bit too trendy and expensive now, and I noticed a bottle of NZ Sauvignon Blanc on the wine list for TLK120 (about NZ$100). I’m not going to go into details re Alicati & Cesme as they’re well covered in last year’s blogs.
TECHNICAL
While we were in Alacati three engineers drove up from Marmaris with our watermaker. It’s quite a distance and the drive took them six hours. To recap, last year we had to cruise without our water maker, because it needed new high pressure membranes, and the delivery time was very long. The service agent then ordered them to arrive in Marmaris early this year, but they ordered the wrong size. So finally we have the right size.
Two of the engineers installed our unit, while the third one watched, until tiring of that he had a sleep in their car. The installation seemed to go OK, and we made fresh water for two hours. We said our thanks and goodbyes, and the guys left to drive back. Then about 30 minutes later, I noticed water starting to leak from the water flow control housing. I phoned the engineers, and they came back. They stripped the leaking housing and checked the seals, finding that four of them were defective – two were old and flattened, while two had physical damage. As the engineers couldn’t speak English I didn’t find out how this happened, but think it happened during re-assembly of our unit in Marmaris. Then we ran it for a further two hours and all was OK with the guys finally leaving about 7pm for the long drive back. Since then we’ve used the unit twice for a total of six hours, and so far so good. This is absolutely great for us, as it’s quite a pain finding and getting water, most of which is not drinkable.
LOG: 28 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 320NM cruised for 71 engine hours.

2011-06-01T14:05:00.004+01:00

Di standing by a runabout with three 220hp outboards - small boat, lotsa engines!

Jars of pickles stored in the open outside a Taverna

The wake from the Sea Princess provided a change from the glassy calm conditions

ENVOY CRUISES TO ALACATI

2011-05-26T09:35:00.002+01:00

As I write this we’re cruising 50NM from the Samos Strait to Alicati, near Cesme. 50 miles in one day is a bit longer than our usual routine, and takes us about nine hours, but with Envoy on autopilot there’s nothing we need to do except keep a lookout, and do hourly engine-room checks. This will put us in the right area to meet our first guests, Morris and Gail on 2 June.
The Samos Strait is under a mile wide, and separates the Greek island of Samos from the Turkish mainland making it the closest point Turkey and Greece come together except for their land border near the Black Sea.
We started our journey this morning in still and misty conditions. The normally sparkling turquoise sea was as grey as the mist, making the horizon difficult to detect. So far since leaving Marmaris we’ve not used our paravane stabilisers at all, and again today the sea is glassy calm with the wind under two knots. A cruise ship – the Star Princess has just passed close by (photo to be posted shortly), and it’s wake provided a change from the flat sea. There are very few boats around, and the only other boats we’ve seen in three hours are two Greek fishing boats. All day yesterday, when we cruised 33NM we saw only Coastguard and Navy patrol boats. One of the Coastguard boats called us on VHF to check our name and destination.
The weather has still not settled into summer, and yesterday we even had a brief shower, but the temperature is now in the mid 20s and sea water 21d.
TECHNICAL
Our parts for the water maker have finally arrived in Marmaris, and the engineer is re-assembling our unit in the workshop today, and driving to Alicati tomorrow to meet us and install it. This will be very welcome, as it’s a bit tough on the body obtaining water using jerry cans, although to make it easier we’ve only been filling the 30L containers to 25L. If the water maker works OK we’ll definitely be celebrating!
Our Naiad stabiliser control system has now been tested by Naiad in Holland, and an engineer from Holland is going to meet us in Greece mid-July to get our Naiads operational again.
While anchored off Altinkum’s Didim Marina we got three problems rectified.
All last year we had occasional problems starting our Northern Lights generator. I assumed this was battery-related (as it was with our main Lugger engine), but this proved not to be the case, and this year the starting issue became more common. I checked all the obvious (to me) things like connections to the battery isolating switch and starter motor, but with no improvement, so got a diesel engineer to have a look. Within five minutes he went into the electrics inside a protective box, and found a relay had loose wiring, probably shaken loose with constant vibration. So this was an easy fix.
Our guest head – a Vacuuflush has been playing up again. The bowl did not always hold water, causing the vacuum pump to hunt, and the pump that sends waste into the holding tank had a failed piston and seal. This was all fixed OK too, mostly using spare parts we had on board.
The other job was simply a replacement of the faucet in the main head sink, as the hot water flow had reduced to a dribble.
A couple of weeks ago I noticed our hot water tank had signs of a very minor water leak. The water is heated either by the Lugger engine’s heat exchanger, or electrically using the generator or wing engine. I noticed the leak only occurred when running the Lugger. We belong to the Nordhavn Owners Group, where members exchange information about technical and other matters relating to Nordhavns. I put out an enquiry regarding our leak, and got a reply advising that the coolant level in the Lugger engine may be too low. I topped it up, and after about a week so far so good – the slight leak has gone. I don’t quite understand how this fixed the problem, but it did.
Log: 23 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 203NM cruised for 50 engine hours.

2011-05-21T11:38:00.006+01:00

Relaxing ashore at Turk Buku

Checking our navigation on the MaxSea system. Envoy's position is the red blip on-screen

Diane doing her lifejacket drill

Envoy anchored in a quiet bay at Pirensun Koyu - note resorts in background

Camels coralled in a disused tennis court

Camels resting, awaiting riders at Camel Beach

Envoy arrives at Didim

2011-05-19T09:33:00.003+01:00

When starting cruising again we always make sure we do the basics like testing bilge pumps, man overboard drill and lifejacket drill. Everybody must know where to find their lifejacket, how to put it on and how to inflate it. It’s all too easy to think “we’ll never need these”, but I’ve seen too many unlikely situations happen to believe that.
I recall an incident one fine Saturday morning where a brand-new forty foot motor vessel was on her maiden voyage. Only about a mile from Auckland’s Half Moon Bay Marina she hit a well-marked rock, and was quickly awash to her gunwales. When we arrived on-scene the occupants were waist deep in water drinking beer, as if in some macabre celebration of their own incompetence, and without a lifejacket to be seen.
It’s warmed up during the last week to mid 20s, with sea water at 20 making swimming conditions pleasant. No more need for parkas and jeans.
We went ashore for a walk at Camel beach, near Bodrum, and like a lot of Turkish resort areas it’s pretty scruffy with poor quality, pot-holed roads, few footpaths, and badly maintained properties. Although they provide plenty of rubbish bins here, nobody seems to use them as the roadsides, grassy areas and beaches are strewn with litter.
In some areas the Turks have over-provided facilities in expectation of tourist numbers that haven’t materialised, and some resorts have been mothballed. Here at Camel Beach is one of those, complete with a large fenced-off area that originally was four tennis courts. Now the bar and dressing rooms are locked up, and the courts are overgrown and now used for corralling the camels! I’m sure this is not what the original architects had in mind!
We spent a few days cruising around the north side of the Bodrum peninsula and today we’re heading further north to Didim. Still no news of our water maker parts arriving.
We mostly cruise at about 1400-1500 rpm on our Lugger, 6 cylinder, 143hp, 6.8L, normally aspirated (i.e, non turbo’d) diesel engine, and this gives us about 6 knots with a fuel economy of about 8L/hr. If our paravane stabilisers are in use our speed decreases about 10%. This rpm range (although commonly also used by other owners to achieve good fuel economy) is a bit low, as the engine is under-loaded and doesn’t reach full operating temperature. It’s recommended (in Passagemaker) that diesel engines be run at about 75% of max rpm for 75% of the time. Failing this it is recommended that the engine be run at about 75% of max rpm for at least half an hour after reaching normal temperature, and again for at least half an hour one hour before switching the engine off. Running for periods at higher rpm, and consequent higher temperatures, reduces soot & carbon build-up, keeps the injectors cleaner and reduces condensation within the engine. Incidentally for this reason it’s not a good idea to run your engine for a few minutes when going down to your boat on the marina during periods of non use. It’s no problem for a diesel engine to be left unused for several months at a time with clean oil.
So why am I saying all this? Because on our cruise towards Bodrum we increased the rpm to 1800rpm, and above 1700rpm felt some heavy vibration – everything on board was rattling. At the same time the autopilot went a bit haywire, and we started going off course about 20d from side to side, leaving an “S”-shaped wake. As mentioned in a previous post we checked the engine vibration levels before leaving Marmaris and they were great - I mean virtually no vibration at any rpm setting. When we reduced rpm to about 1500 again all was OK. After a couple of days at anchor near Bodrum sitting out a gale warning we motored to anchor off Bodrum, and this time there was no vibration at higher rpm at all, and the autopilot was fine too. I can only guess that when we encountered the vibration there was something like a plastic bag or piece of fishing net on the propeller or rudder, and when we anchored it dropped off. Another one of life’s unsolved mysteries.

Celebrating my birthday with Amy in Marmaris

2011-05-12T19:58:00.000+01:00

Gulets moored in Bozburun waiting for tourists

2011-05-12T19:56:00.000+01:00

Envoy anchored off Bozburun with mosque in background

2011-05-12T19:55:00.000+01:00

At Bozburun - a boat that didn't survive the blow

2011-05-12T19:53:00.000+01:00

It's still a bit cool in evenings, but we are BBQing

2011-05-12T19:51:00.000+01:00

FOLLOW BY EMAIL added to Blog

2011-05-11T14:11:00.001+01:00

We’ve added this blogger feature, so now by entering your email address you can receive all future blog updates by email, without the need to look up the blog.
Cool eh!

ENVOY HEADS NORTH-WEST UP THE COAST OF TURKEY

2011-05-11T13:31:00.004+01:00

We left Marmaris on 4 May and headed to Bozburun for a few days, where the village is pleasant, and there’s good shelter – needed as there was a Gale Warning of Force 6-8 winds. In our location the wind didn’t get above about 23 knots, and we spent some time cleaning up Envoy from the marina dust, and moving into cruising mode.
The weather still hasn’t settled yet, currently low 20s, cloudy and with cool winds. We’ve started daily swimming, but in a chilly 19d.
Nearby is the Greek island of Simi. Cruising boats have been known to call there without checking out of Turkey to buy bacon, pork, ham, nice cheeses & yoghurts - all of which hard to get in Turkey, plus spirits and wines where there is a larger and cheaper selection.
We met Alan & Jean Ward from the NZ yacht Tuatara. They are a retired couple from Hamilton living their dream and doing a westward circumnavigation. They plan to return to NZ end of 2013, and then circumnavigate NZ.
We also met some Australian friends, Simon & Bronwn, who are visiting friends Rob & Kerry on their yacht Pablo Nuruda. Rob & Kerry have spent nearly 10 years cruising the Med, and are now on their way back to Australia via the Atlantic. We first met them in Melbourne through Simon & Bronwyn before we bought Envoy, and they provided a lot of useful information about the cruising life. Up to now we haven’t carried charts for navigation, relying solely on our electronics, but we came to a good arrangement with Kerry to buy her charts of Turkey, Greece, Croatia, Italy & France. It’s always a good back-up to have a paper chart in front of you (see Technical).
Yesterday we did a nine hour cruise, and anchored off Baglar Koyu, otherwise known as Camel Beach – and yes there are two camels on the beach. This is about five miles west of Bodrum. From here we just keep heading NW.
TECHNICAL
There’s “never a dull moment” on this subject.
Naiad have been in touch re the stabilisers, suggesting they may send an experienced Naiad engineer from Holland to meet us in Greece in July to install the new control box and calibrate the system, so this sounds promising.
I’m going to need to replace the pump that supplies sea water to cool the Naiad hydraulics as the current one is leaking. Fortunately we can fit our spare, and can then get the replaced one rebuilt.
We’ve had a little fresh water in the bilges and seem to have a slow water leak in our aft fresh water tank. Last year we replaced our two forward tanks, but not this one, which is located under the cabin sole in our sleeping cabin. I’m not greatly concerned, as the leak is slow so we can still use the tank, but next winter we’re probably going to need to repair or replace it. Envoy is 21 years old, and now we’ve had problems with all three water tanks, and one of the four diesel tanks.
We’re expecting to hear about water maker parts any day.
On leaving Marmaris I noticed our Northstar GPS wasn’t working properly. This is one of three GPS units that can supply data to our MaxSea laptop-based navigation system. I think the problem is antenna-related, and checking this with Northstar.
A couple of days ago I had problems with our Raystar GPS – it would not provide position information to the MaxSea. After thinking on this for a couple of days I found that a toggle switch that should be in the DOWN position had been accidentally flicked to the UP position, and when this was corrected all was OK.
Our current thinking is that we’d like to fix the Northstar, but also buy a separate GPS/Plotter, so that we have a totally separate system to the MaxSea. Ideally we’d like to find a portable GPS/Plotter that plugs into a 12V power supply, and interfaces with a laptop (to give us a larger screen size) - if anyone can recommend one please do so. Now we have the charts too if all else fails, and can use one of our three still-working GPS units to give us a lat/long to plot on the chart.

ENVOY LEAVES MARMARIS MARINA

2011-05-03T19:24:00.000+01:00

We’ve just had a great three days with our daughter Amy, who flew in from London to be with us for my birthday (I’m counting backwards now!). Amy will join us again in August for a week. While Amy was here we got a rental car, and used the opportunity to stock Envoy up with groceries etc. The car was cheap at L50 per day (about NZ$42), but petrol is so expensive here that the 1300cc car cost L190 (about NZ$158) to fill up with 45L of petrol.
It’s getting a little warmer – now in the low 20s, but the weather hasn’t settled, and lots of boats have delayed their departure because of that. This has led to a shortage of berths in the marina, and the travel lift is now only launching boats that have an imminent departure date – making quite a few people p’d off.
Tomorrow we do some final shopping, and leave the marina on the start of our 2011 cruise – heading north to meet our first guests Morris & Gail somewhere near Izmir.
TECHNICAL
Today we had a sea trial with a couple of engineers aboard from Demir Marine. This is the very first time we’ve had engineers aboard Envoy under way. The objective was to ensure they were happy with the alignment of the prop shaft with the gearbox – we don’t want a repeat of last year’s gearbox problems. Anyhow Yulmaz is a competent engineer, and he said there was very little vibration, and all is good – so here’s hoping he’s right!
We’ve had no progress with the Naiad stabilisers. The new electronic control system was installed, but the hydraulic system would not centre the fins, and after several hours of experimentation I said “enough is enough”. I spoke with Naiad USA, and they said they would never get this kind of work done except by a factory-trained electrician. We had a competent, and well meaning electrician who’d never worked on Naiads before, and had little information supplied to him. This is not a major issue as last year we cruised safely and comfortably relying on our simple paravane stabilization system, and we’ll do the same this year. The new control system was going to cost over US$4,000 so I just said disconnect it, take it out, and when we can get a factory-trained electronics person to install it, and then if it works, we’ll pay for it.
The relay for the inverter I mentioned in the last post didn’t work – it couldn’t take the high current the inverter puts out. Actually all I wanted was the present isolator switch to be moved from under our bed, where it is obviously hard to access, to the outside of the bed, where I could access it. The electrician recommended the relay – who am I to disagree? Anyway his idea didn’t work so we’re back to my idea which is now working fine.

Newly anti-fouled & polished, Envoy is ready for launching

2011-04-25T18:16:00.000+01:00

2011-04-25T18:15:00.001+01:00

In London discussing our 2011 cruising plans with our daughter Amy

2011-04-25T18:11:00.003+01:00

ENVOY BACK IN THE WATER AT MARMARIS

2011-04-24T08:31:00.001+01:00

Envoy went back into the water on the 20th, just nine days after our return.
The marina is very busy at this time of year, and that day about 30 boats were launched. Ours was at 2200hrs, and it was dark, chilly and drizzling. After Envoy had been hoisted in the slings, and the wooden supports removed we had to apply two coats of antifoul in the areas where blocks had supported the hull. In the water the trusty Lugger engine started in a second, and then we followed a guide boat to our marina berth.
It’s great to be floating again as we can use our own shower, washing machine etc: life on a boat on the hardstand is not much fun at all.
Di has made several trips in to Marmaris town using the Dolmus (bus) to replenish our supplies from the supermarket, as the shop here at the marina has limited availability, and is expensive.
It’s not “summery” here yet – one day will be sunny and low 20s, while the next is overcast, blustery and 16, but we’re happy knowing that we’re moving into summer.
Berthed on the same pier is a 1989 Nordhavn 46 called “Frog Kiss”, and this is hull number one - the first Nordhavn passagemaker ever made. It was great to meet Christine & Patrick, to look over their boat, and compare layouts, storage systems etc. I have already implemented one of their ideas – having a forestay to support the mast during heavy weather. Frog Kiss is the boat that started the Nordhavn domination of the passagemaker market, cemented in place by the fact that of 10 production power boats that have circumnavigated, 8 are Nordhavns (and most of those are 46s). Although we are coastal cruising not passage making, it’s great to know we have a boat that came across the Atlantic and is capable of going anywhere in the world.
TECHNICAL
We’ve ticked off many jobs now, and getting close to being ready to leave – probably in about a week. Everything that was working when we left Envoy is still working.
Before we arrived back here Demir Marine installed two new start batteries – these are Deka brand from USA, AGM Start batteries. These are not Deep Cycle (DC) as DC are recommended only for House Batteries, not for Start. Our electrician friend and battery expert Doug Gooch says that Deka are among the best batteries you can buy, so here’s hoping our occasional engine starting problems last year were battery-related and over now.
The antifouling went well and this time we got two coats rolled on instead of one coat sprayed on, hoping it will give us more thickness and last better. Next year we’ll do this ourselves as it’s nothing very complicated, and we’ll have more time.
We got the above-waterline areas of the hull polished and it came up beautifully. This is a tough job, working on scaffolding and we’ll continue to get Demir to do it, however we’re going to do all of the topsides (watch out guests!).
We removed the gearbox of our Maxwell windlass for a 3-yearly oil change, and that’s all working well – very important to have a reliable windlass.
That brings us to the HRO water maker and Naid stabilisers.
The new high pressure membranes for the water maker were here, but just before installation the engineer, Muradhan, found they’re the wrong size – too big. He phoned me and said, “Laurence we have a problem, you’d better come up to the workshop”. Membranes have to be kept moist until they’re installed, and then the water maker needs to be used straight away. That’s why they couldn’t do the installation until Envoy was in the water. We looked at trying to adapt the unit to accept larger membranes, but without success. The membranes go into a tubular manifold made of Kevlar to resist the high pressures, and there’s no way to duplicate that here. So the correct tubes have been ordered ex USA, and supposedly will be here in two weeks. We’re not going to wait here - Muradhan will meet us somewhere further north to install the membranes. In the meantime we’ll get water from harbours, both directly into Envoy’s tanks, and using our 30L containers if necessary, just like last year.
The new electronic control box for the Naiad stabilisers was also here waiting, and yesterday the electrician, Ozan, installed it. There was progress as the system powered up OK, the hydraulics worked, the cooling system worked – none of which happened before. But the control system still isn’t giving commands to the hydraulics. Ozan has emailed a US Naiad engineer with an outline, and hopefully we’ll make progress in the next few days. Otherwise, like last year we’ll just use our simple, bullet-proof, and effective paravane stabilisers, and save quite a few dollars in the process, as we haven’t paid for the new control box so far.
In the next few days I’m going to change the primary and secondary fuel filters on all three engines, check the fan belts, and replace the Genset impellor (with help).
I’m also getting a Demir electrician to fit a relay ON/OFF isolating switch to our inverter, because when we turn the inverter OFF at it’s control panel, it occasionally somehow switches itself back on. This is not desirable as it could deplete the house batteries, depending on what equipment is ON.

INDEX TO ENVOY’S BLOG TO END OF 2010

2011-04-19T15:56:00.003+01:00

As our blog has now been running for over four years we decided to provide an Index of major cruising destinations and interesting subjects or events, cross-referenced to the blog dates for the period up to end of 2010. This will make it easier for newer readers to find content of the blog which most interests them.
The Index is in chronological order with most recent posts at the top, and does not include all posts. Generally there are photos related to the post close to it.

2010
- 25 November: Back in Marmaris for the winter, Marmaris marina
- 14 November: Cruising south, Torba, MacGyver, Bozburun
- 28 October: We drag anchor during a gale, Ephesus
- 24 October: Monitoring weather, Eskifoca, Ildir, bilge management
- 7 October: Eskifoca
- 29 September: Cruising north up Turkey’s west coast, Sigacek, Dalyankoy, Cesme,
Chios
- 13 September: Clearing out of Greece and into Turkey, repairs to our Yanmar
- 1 September: Santorini, Astipaelia, Kalimnos, the Schengen Treaty
- 25 August: Rethimno, cruising north to Santorini, improvements to Envoy’s charging
system
-16 August: Chania, German war graves
- 5 August: Gramvousa Is
- 28 July: Ormos Milati, Soudha Bay, NZ war graves
- 20 July: Cruising west along Crete’s north coast
- 11 July: Impressions of Crete
- 3 July: Agios Nikolaos, resolution of gearbox problem
- 27 June: Crete, Sitia, Spinalonga, gearbox problem
- 17 June: Rhodos, Greek cruising tax, Lindos, Karpathos
- 26 May: Vodafone internet connection, unexpected problems with water maker and
hydraulic stabilisers
- 14 May: Envoy finally back in water after 28 months on the hard
- 4 May: Fresh water tanks removed
- 27 April: Problem with leaking fresh water tanks
- 25 April: Life living aboard on the hardstand, about Marmaris Yat marina,
progress on re-commissioning work
- 18 April: Diane’s impressions of Marmaris and current Turkish prices, dentists,
progress on re-commissioning work
- 11 April: Envoy slowly comes to life as jobs get ticked off the list
- 8 April: Impressions of Envoy after our 27 months absence and work needed to start
cruising again
- 31 March: Link to a map showing Envoy’s cruising using Click2Map
- 25 January: Summary of Envoy’s cruising to date and plans for 2010

2009 – Envoy not used so no blog activity

2008
- 25 January: Turkish cruising regulatory requirements, summary of 2007’s cruise
- 6 January: Technical details of leaving Envoy on the hard at Marmaris for a
long period

2007
- 24 November: Guest blogger Frank Curulli’s impressions of turkey, Envoy & Simi
- 10 November: our 2007 cruise ends in Marmaris, Gemiler Buku and visit to ruined
Greek village of Kaya Koy, Envoy accidentally discharges sewerage in Ekincek
- 28 October: Coastguard accuse us of scuba diving in restricted area at Knidos
- 14 October: Gerbeske, Arap Adasi, prices in Turkey, Simi
- 9 October: Gemler Adasi, Fethiye, we catch our first Med fish, Ruin Bay,
first rain in five months, the Endless Summer ends, Ekincek, Dalyan & Caunos
- 1 October: Finike, Kekova Roads, origins of Santa Claus, Kastellorizon,
Kalkan, repairs to our water maker
- 21 September: Antalya, Tekirova, routine engine room checks
- 10 September: Origins of the Turkish flag, Symi, Kokova Roads
- 2 September: Guest blogger – our daughter Amy re the Gulf of Gorgova
- 30 August: The Gulf of Gokova
- 16 August: The Gulf of Gokova, Snake & Castle Island, Cleopatra’s Beach, English
Harbour, getting LPG bottles filled in Greece & Turkey
- 8 August: Cruising in Turkey, Knidos, Datca, Keci Bucu, Bozburun, Bozuk Buku,
Ali Baba’s restaurant, we meet Turkish cruising couple – Ilkay & Meta and make
comparisons with displacement v planing vessels
- 29 July: Poros (Greece) to Bodrum (Turkey), Amorgos, the Monastieri of the Panayia,
Kos, Med weather, bureaucracy of clearing out of Greece and into Turkey
- 16 July: Serifos, sitting out a gale in Paros
- 9 July: Sounion, the Western Cyclades – Kithnos, repair of our
hydraulic stabilisers
- 1 July: Poros and the Gulf of Hydra, a near collision with a ferry, Piraeus
- 18 June: Piraeus, daily routines when cruising, Med marine life, repairing
our gearbox oil leak, planning repairs to our hydraulic stabilisers
- 10 June: Gulf of Corinth – Itea, visit to Delphi, Porto Germano, the Corinth Canal
Aigina
- 31 May: Levkas Canal to Cephalonia – Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Paxos
- 23 May: Santa Maria di Leuca to Corfu – smoke in the engine room and our hydraulic
stabilisers fail
- 5 May: Aeolians to Calabria
- 27 April: Cefalu - Sicily
- 15 April: Description of Palermo, Sicily
- 9 April: Return trip from Palermo to Ustica
- 5 April: Cruise planning and our overnight cruise to Palermo
- 1 April: Problems berthing in Capri and further problems sheltering from a gale
in Cetraro
- 28 March: Our first cruise from Ostia to Capri
- 20 March: A gale in Ostia marina
- 8, 12 & 17 March: Joining Envoy for the first time in Ostia, our familiarisation
process and preparations for cruising

2006
- December 5: Full description of Envoy

BACK ABOARD ENVOY IN MARMARIS, TURKEY

2011-04-16T08:50:00.001+01:00

We arrived back in Marmaris on Tues 12th after spending a great weekend with our daughter Amy in London in beautiful sunny weather.
TRAVEL
We flew to London using Emirates and were impressed - food and service great, roomy economy class seats, and a generous 30kg per person luggage allowance. This trip we wanted to break our journey rather than go the whole distance non-stop. We had in mind that flying to Dubai was something like halfway, however it’s actually 19hours from Auckland - making for a long flight. Stopping over in Singapore or Seoul might be a better half way option in future. We had a day and night in Dubai – probably enough in our humble opinion. We saw the world’s tallest building – the Burj Khalifa tower at 828m and 160 stories high, and enjoyed looking around the museum in an early 19th century fort. We also had an interesting trip on a ferry down the creek and saw a lot of quite primitive looking dhows – still a major means of importing and exporting goods. Then we went to the Spice Souk (market) and the Gold Souk – where they have the world’s largest gold ring weighing a cool 64 kg. The Gold Souk has over 300 shops, and has been operational since the 1940s – no security in sight, and not even bars on the shop windows. The really amazing thing about Dubai – like it or not - is that 17 years ago there was nothing much there but desert. While you can certainly marvel at the amazing development, there is very little to see of historical interest. However, people based in Dubai are well located to travel elsewhere.
The current population of 1.5m is expected to double by 2025. In Dubai they mostly have immigrant workers on 3 year visas, not only for manual work, but in tourism & hospitality and right across the spectrum. In most cases they cannot get Dubai citizenship. Construction workers earn about US$200 per month and live in huts housing about eight or ten to a room. There’s quite a bit of discontent about the way that low-paid manual workers are treated.
There are no taxes in Dubai, and very few Dubai citizens actually work (because they are so rich and don’t need to – they traded in their camels on Porsches & Ferraris). The government is trying to encourage them to work, and pays them double wages if they agree to take a job. Very sensibly Dubai does not sell any land to foreigners but leases it for 99 years.
Di wanted to make a cup of tea in our hotel room but the kettle didn’t work. She found a saucepan but it was full of rice – not only rice but weevils as well. Put us off our tea (we didn’t need the protein)!
We were going on an afternoon city tour , and being a bit jet-lagged had a lie down for a couple of hours. We awoke to the phone ringing and the concierge saying “your bus is waiting down here”, jumped up from the bed and made it downstairs in three minutes flat.
We flew from London to Dalaman on Thomas Cook airline. This is very much a budget holiday airline with cramped seating, and you have to pay extra for checked luggage, meals and drinks. The cabin baggage allowance is ridiculously small at 1 bag of strictly 5kg, with bag measurements much smaller than other airlines. Also you are only allowed one cabin bag whereas most other airlines allow one bag of 7 kg plus a laptop, plus a ladies handbag.
MARMARIS AND ENVOY
Arriving back aboard Envoy we found everything basically OK except the bilges awash with diesel. I traced the leak to the starboard forward fuel tank, and transferred the remaining diesel from that tank to another using our fuel filtration pump. Then I removed the inspection cover on top of the leaking tank to remove fuel left below the level of the transfer pump inlet. After the tank was dry the drip stopped confirming that this tank was indeed the source of our problem. We borrowed a pump to clean about 60 litres of diesel out of the bilges, and then I had to clean up the residue firstly with a sponge, then with paper towels – quite a long, messy, smelly job. After Envoy is back in the water, and we have changed the fuel filters (which normally results in a bit of diesel in the bilge after bleeding the engines) I’ll need to give the engine room a good clean out with detergent. We plan to leave Marmaris in a couple of weeks, so for now we’ll just not use this leaking tank, but I need to plan for getting the tank repaired during the Turkish winter.
There’s no way this tank can be removed so we’ll either have to get it repaired in-situ, or get a flexible bag to put inside it.
Yesterday our steering system was re-assembled after the bearings had been reconditioned, and the stuffing box cleaned up – all OK there. We also had to get our boom winch control repaired, as that wasn’t working. Our 130 Amp inverter, which provides 110V power from the house battery bank keeps turning itself on - whether we want it or not. It does have an isolating switch located in the storage area under our bed, but that’s obviously difficult to access, so Demir suggested installing a power switch with a relay in an easily accessible location.
Today we expect to start antifouling, and need to get a move on as we only have three working days before launching. After launching we hope to get our Naiad stabilisers and HRO water maker working again – all parts here.
Diane & I are well, and at this stage very busy ticking things of our lists.

NEW FEATURE ON ENVOY BLOG

2011-04-09T12:31:00.003+01:00

Thanks to our friend Drew Davies we have an exciting new feature on our blog - now you can get all blog updates via RSS avoiding the need to check the blog for updates. Go to the right side of the blog and click on the chicklet, "Subscribe in a reader". From there you can select your preferred means to receive Envoy blog updates to your RSS reader, and of course this is no cost. Try it & thank you Drew!

A favourite photo of Envoy anchored off Cefalu in Sicily, epitomising the cruising life of a great boat, and exotic locations

2011-04-03T20:12:00.002+01:00

REGULAR ENVOY BLOGGING STARTS FOR 2011

2011-04-03T05:53:00.004+01:00

Diane & I will arrive back in Marmaris on Tuesday 12 April. Envoy goes back into the water on 20 April, and we hope to start our cruising by 1 May. We have confirmation that the parts to (hopefully) fix our HRO water maker and Naiad stabilisers are waiting for us.
A reminder that by clicking the Link on the lower right of our blog “Map of Envoy’s Travels” you can see where we’ve been and where we are. When you get to the map you can use the zoom function on the left side, and the navigating arrows above the zoom.
COSTS OF CRUISING
Diane & I kept an accurate record of our costs during 2010 to assist our writing projects with Pacific Motor Yacht magazine. Different folks have different philosophies about their cruising lifestyles and associated costs, so what we are saying is not what’s “right”, but simply our own experience. Our 2010 costs are listed below in order of magnitude, expressed as a percentage of total costs, and with some comments. We only included cash costs, and not depreciation.
As a general statement actual living costs such as food, beverages, household supplies and personal spending are about the same when cruising as when at home, although spending on clothing is less when cruising. The cost of owning your boat in terms of maintenance and insurance is also similar. What bumps up the cost is the travel to and from your boat, meeting regulatory requirements moving between countries, plus sightseeing and associated costs ashore – particularly rental cars and accommodation.
Maintenance (42%): A commonly mentioned “rule of thumb” about annual maintenance costs is they will be about 10% of the value of your boat. We have always found our costs much less than that on average. During 2010 our costs were very high representing 42% of our total, but there was little maintenance done in 2008 & 2009 –we only had Envoy’s below waterline gelcoat stripped, the hull thoroughly dried using the Hotvac process, and a new epoxy gelcoat laid on. We decided to do this because Envoy was 20 years old, showed signs of minor osmosis, and was not being used so the timing was good. If Envoy had been used during 2008 and 2009 I very much doubt the maintenance cost would have increased, in fact it may have decreased. The cost includes replacement of spare parts used, and keeping Envoy in tip-top condition. If we take the whole period 2008-2010 the total maintenance cost was about 6% of the estimated capital value.
Food, Beverages, Household (13%): This includes all consumables, galley and head cleaning supplies. Food is generally about the same price or slightly cheaper than in NZ while alcoholic beverages are dearer in Turkey.
Going ashore (10%): Includes refreshments, meals, buses, rental cars, petrol for rental cars, accommodation and entry fees. Some tips here are to have drinks ashore to soak up some atmosphere, but eat back aboard. Select restaurants that locals use, back from the expensive water-side ones. Always select from the menu and never allow the waiter to “organise a nice meal for you” without knowing the cost. Shop around for cheap rental cars, or better still use the many bus services available.
Insurance, Marinas, Regulatory (10%): Includes the cost of storing Envoy on the hard for four winter months. Also here are marina costs, cruising permits, immigration fees and vaccinations.
Travel (7%): Travel always costs more than you expect – why?
- the very special fare deals are generally not obtainable for return dates more than 6 months from departure dates
- we got penalised for changing our return date
- we had excess luggage which is both an expense and a major inconvenience
- we stayed overnight on the way there and back, incurring additional hotel, food and transportation charges (as well as more general spending)
Fuel (6%): This included diesel for the three engines, petrol for two outboards and lpg for cooking. We could have reduced this a little by purchasing more diesel in Greece where diesel is cheaper than Turkey – we’ll do that this year.
Misc (5%): Comprised costs such as boat medical supplies, phone & internet, some laundry (in marinas we cannot always use our washing machine), and postage.
Personal (4%): Included buying clothing, cosmetics, medical, dentistry, gifts and similar. This is a cost that would vary enormously depending on the individual.
On-Board Improvements (2%): Making improvements to Envoy as opposed to maintaining existing equipment. Replacing equipment is categorised as maintenance.
NZ Costs (1%): These comprised bills such as house & car insurance, alarm monitoring fees and similar.
Looking ahead this year we expect our maintenance cost (and therefore our total costs) to significantly reduce.
Our next blog will be around 16 April with first impressions after our return.

Envoy’s plans for 2011.

2011-02-07T21:32:00.001+01:00

SUMMARY OF 2010 AND THOUGHTS ON ANCHORING
We had a great 252 days aboard Envoy in 2010 and cruised about 1,800NM.
After we left Marmaris the only major technical problem we had was the failure of the main gearbox in Crete. This was repaired in about two weeks, involving sending the gearbox to Piraeus by ferry. The cause of this turned out to be improper alignment of the drive train following the installation of a new propeller shaft before we departed.
The only real emergency we had was dragging the anchor in Ildir during a stormy night with thunder, lightning, hail and over 50 knots of wind. After starting the engine I found that our navigation computer was showing our lat / long, but the chart was not coming up on screen to show our position, so we had to wait for the radar to warm up to find our way back to a safe anchorage in the poor visibility.
Since then I’ve done some more research on ground tackle and Envoy’s chain diameter at 3/8 inch is a little light for a 14m vessel weighing over 30mt. Next time the chain needs re-galvanizing we will in fact replace it with ½ inch chain.
I’ve also thought about some of the “rules of thumb” concerning anchoring. The common rule of thumb is to put out chain equivalent to 5-7 times the depth from the bow roller at high water (bear in mind in the Med there is no tide to worry about). In my opinion this rule provides insufficient chain in winds above 25 knots, and I will be laying out 7-10 times the depth, although this is not possible above about 14m depth due to the length of chain carried. I think it’s important to have a significant weight of chain (about 40m length) laying on the bottom regardless of depth.
Research has shown that using an all-warp rode, the anchor efficiency at 4:1 is 54%, 7:1 is 75% and 10:1 is 85%. These figures significantly increase using all-chain.
I’m not in favour of deploying 2 anchors due to the difficulty in retrieving them quickly in an emergency; many times we have had winds shift significantly during gales, turning Envoy completely around – which would surely tangle 2 anchor chains and make them difficult to retrieve in adverse conditions and darkness.
On our return I plan to experiment with shackling a free length of chain weighing about 15kg to the main chain, about 30m from the anchor to act as an “anchor buddy”. I will use a light shackle that can be cut with bolt cutters in emergency.
RETURN TO MARMARIS
We are now in New Zealand enjoying some sun during the northern winter. Most people who “live aboard” typically choose to return home to their own country once a year for a few weeks - it’s not only about seeing family and friends, but also attending to medical needs, replenishing hard-to-get spare parts, sorting out business matters and a mountain of mail etc.
We will arrive back in Marmaris 12 April, and launch Envoy 20 April. We expect to leave Marmaris about 1 May heading west to Bodrum, and then north along Turkey’s west coast to meet our first guests Morris & Gail early June somewhere north of Izmir. From there we’ll be going further north to the Ayvalik Archipeligo, then to the Greek Islands of Lesvos, Limnos and Thasos. Near here we'll meet Kevin & Diane, and cruise east along Greece's coastline to the "Three Fingers" and later down to Evia Island. In August we'll meet Sharon & Doug at Skiathos and explore the Northern Sporades continuing north-west back to Limnos, then through the Dardanelles into the Sea of Marmara. We hope to have time to see a little of the Black Sea before returning by mid November back to Marmaris.
As we’ll only have been away from Envoy for under 4 months, we’re not expecting a lot will need doing and main jobs are:
- installing the new high pressure membranes on the watermaker, and getting this unit working
- repairing the Naiad hydraulic stabilisers by installing the new main electronic control card
- installing 2 new start batteries
- rolling on 2 coats of antifoul
- changing primary and secondary fuel filters on all three engines
- fitting new shaft sealings onto the main propeller shaft
- having Envoy’s hull, deck and topsides professionally polished (we decided to get this done annually)
Next blog update I plan to comment about the costs of the cruising lifestyle.

Happy New Year 2011

2011-01-01T20:38:00.002+01:00

Envoy came safely out of the water in Marmaris, and is now under cover on the hard.
We’ve heard that the regulation about discharging water containing detergent into the sea has been canned, and it’s great to see common sense prevail.
This relates to water used for washing down boats, dishes and showers – known as “grey water”. Most cruisers are very environmentally aware, use eco-friendly soaps, and don’t need that kind of bureaucracy – especially when most of the pollution comes from shoreside. Originally boats were going to need grey water tanks of 100 litres capacity for each berth. The problems with this idea were:
- most boats don’t have the space to fit tanks of this size – i.e. a minimum of 400 litres (as there are few boats with less than four berths).
- it would be expensive and take a long time to get such tanks built and installed with the necessary plumbing, as in most cases they would need to be of custom design and construction to fit an available space
- there are not enough pump-out stations to cater for even a fraction of the cruising boats, even if they did have tanks (boats were going to be required to pump-out at shore stations and not at sea)
Shortly I’ll be mentioning our cruising plans for 2011, and some thoughts about anchoring.
Technical
When Envoy came out onto the hard everything below the waterline was looking good. The rudder movement was inspected, without any excess play in the bearings. We got the Yanmar wing engine’s propeller shaft seal replaced with the Volvo system as mentioned in the last posting. As the Yanmar gearbox had to be removed to do this job we got that checked over, and replaced the gearbox seals to eliminate a very minor oil leak.
While we’re away Demir Marine will be doing some work for us:
- the batteries will be charged and the dehumidifier run once a month.
- the rudder stock’s top bearings will be removed, cleaned and greased, and a new rubber sleeve fitted
- scratches on the hull from our encounter with a large iron mooring buoy in Santorini will be repaired
- an unused seacock which leaked slightly will be removed, and the hole filled
- the support lines for the paravane stabilisers will be replaced

Marina life and Merry Christmas

2010-12-07T17:30:00.005+01:00

The weather here stayed surprisingly warm and fine, and only this week has started to be wintry with temperatures under 20dC. We haven't turned a heater on yet, and the sea water is still 21dC.
All is well with us at the marina, which is said to be the largest in the Med, and one of the largest single marinas in the world having 650 berths, and 1,000 hardstand spaces. They are still expanding and will next year install a new 1,000 tonne travel lift.
There are lots of facilities here, and activities organised – both by the occupants, and the management. Di and I partake in some of them, but not many – we just prefer to do our own thing. Every day there is a vhf radio net advising everybody what’s happening in and around the marina. Most technical services are resident here, and they have to pay the marina operators 15% of their labour charge – of course this means the boat owner pays in the end. Contractors coming into the marina have to pay Lire 30 per person per day, even if only coming in for half an hour. This is a real bone of contention among the cruisers.
There’s not a great deal more to do on Envoy until we come out of the water on Friday. Then our storage cover gets put back on to protect Envoy during the winter months. It’s such a large cover it will take 2 guys most of a day to fit it.
As we’ll only be off Envoy for about 4 months there is nothing like the work involved compared to last time when we left her for an expected 2-3 years.
This will be our last post for 2010: we hope you enjoyed the blog this year and wish you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Next posting will be 1st week of 2011.
Technical
The parts for the watermaker have not arrived yet – so we’ll have to wait until April. Same situation with the stabilisers. In both cases I know the parts are now coming – they weren’t organised before we arrived back, despite the promises and our regular checking to ensure they were organised.
When Envoy comes out of the water we’re also going to check the rudder movement to see if that’s OK. In any case the rudder stock’s top bearing needs to be removed and checked, and the rubber sleeve replaced, as it has a tear.
Our Yanmar “wing” engine has a PSS dripless shaft seal for which the bellows needs to be replaced every six years or so, and now due. The local engineers suggest to change this system to the Volvo shaft seal system, which they say is more reliable, and for which parts are readily available here, so we’re going to do that. The PSS system has always worried me a bit, because it seems over-complicated, and if the rubber bellows should rip or fail, a considerable amount of sea water can enter the boat in an area which is very difficult to access.

Safely back in Marmaris marina

2010-11-25T18:37:00.002+01:00

Di and I are really well, and on Monday 15 we berthed in Marmaris marina for the winter, ending our 2010 cruise of 168 days and 1,782 nautical miles. It’s a great feeling to have returned safely without any major dramas - the only serious technical problem encountered with Envoy during this time was our gearbox failure, which held us up at Agios Nikolaos marina for two weeks. There’s no sadness about our cruise ending; we’ve had a great time, we’ve got lots to look forward to during December to March, and then we’ll be returning in April.
The marina fees are still quite reasonable for long term occupants – Euro 1,969 for five and a half months including lift in/out, and pressure washing. Power is charged at Euro 0.32/kw (we use 11kw/day), and water at Euro 2.50/tonne.
We had a farewell dinner with Chris and he departed for Istanbul on Tuesday 16 – we know that he enjoyed himself and, like our other guests he was a pleasure to have on board.
Here at the marina there are only about 8 kiwis, although a number of other NZ boats where the crews have returned to NZ for the winter.
On our marina finger is also the very first Nordhavn 46 built – “Frog Kiss”.
Since our arrival here the weather has been near perfect up to a couple of days ago when we got some overcast weather and strong winds. Certainly it’s no problem to cruise up to mid November in this area.
One development here is that it’s now totally banned to put any detergents into the sea – not only in the marina (understandable) but in all coastal areas (ridiculous). A Euro 250 fine applies if any bubbles are found eminating from your vessel.
We have a delightful English couple next to us, David & Jill who have lived aboard their English Daaglas design, 19m overall length, 40 year old motor yacht for 24 years cruising the Med. David is a retired boatbuilder / engineer / diver / captain, and a mine of interesting information
Last Saturday we went with a group to a local restaurant to watch the All Blacks play Ireland, and this week will watch the Wales game – Go Blacks.
Log
Days aboard Envoy this trip: 168 - Marmaris to Marmaris, 234 - total
Engine hours and distance this trip: 361hrs, 1,782NM
Technical: We’ve had two major disappointments as neither the HRO watermaker spare parts nor the Naiad stabiliser spare parts are here as promised. The watermaker parts are due in January, so will be ready for our return in April. The Naiad parts are supposed to arrive next week – but we’ll see. In both cases the agents initially promised the parts would be here, had nearly five months to arrange them, and reassured me in subsequent phone conversations that they would be here.
Since arriving back we’ve got both aircon units working again. This will be useful as they are also reverse cycle heaters. Aircon is a bit of a waste of time at sea, because you have to run a Genset to use it, but it is useful when on shorepower. The aft unit just required an air bleed valve fitted to the cooling water pump outlet. The forward unit needed a new cooling water pump fitted from our inventory of spares. We now have 3 failed 110v water pumps on board, and as they cost about NZ$1,000 each I’m seeing if they can be repaired – anybody know about this?
We’ve also stripped, cleaned and greased our Maxwell windlass, and it’s all good for the next season.
The brightwork on the teak has been given another couple of coats, and looks great.
We’ve had intermittent starting problems on the main Lugger engine during the year, so just had the batteries tested under load. The Start Bank is on the way out, and will need to be replaced next year, while the House Bank will probably need replacing the following year. Both Banks date from 2004, and leaving them for 27 months would not have helped them.
Apart from that we’ve been quietly sorting Envoy out for haul out on 10 December, however as we’re only leaving Envoy unattended for four months, and she will be fully covered again there’s no major work to do – unlike 2008.

Photos on blog

2010-11-20T06:48:00.001+01:00

Photos on the blog are quite small to see, but you can enlarge them to full screen size by left clicking on the photo. The "Charles Atlas" photo was a bit of fun from Chris using his photo edit skills.

Ancient harbour of Knidos - note calm water!

2010-11-19T16:59:00.000+01:00

Envoy with stabilisers

2010-11-19T16:57:00.000+01:00

Chris and 'Charles Atlas' at Bozuk Buku!

2010-11-19T16:55:00.000+01:00

Castle at Bozuk Buku - How did they build this?

2010-11-19T16:53:00.001+01:00

Castle at Bozuk Buku

2010-11-19T16:52:00.000+01:00

Gulet under construction in Bozburun

2010-11-19T16:50:00.000+01:00

Bozburun sunset- Gulets in background laid up for winter

2010-11-19T16:46:00.000+01:00

Turkish “Indian summer”

2010-11-14T07:53:00.001+01:00

We’ve been steadily heading south, and two weeks ago we anchored off the quaint village of Torba in perfect conditions – blue skies, no wind and temperature in low 20s, and here Chris O’Brien joined us. The weather went this way following a couple of weeks of overcast skies and strong winds, and has remained since. Funny how quickly you forget the strong winds and rain - we’ve been back to swimming every day, BBQs at night, and the sea has been so calm we haven’t needed to use our stabilizers. This seems to confirm that our decision to cruise until mid November was the right one.
From Torba we cruised around the Bodrum Peninsula to Bodrum, and anchored off the spectacular St Peter’s Castle. It’s now very quiet; the holiday season is long over, many shops and restaurants are boarded up for the winter, and fresh supplies are harder to get.
Chris is a self-confessed “Geek”, and very knowledgeable about computers, cameras, mobile phones, stereo systems etc. Apart from that he’s also very practical, and has been helping us out on a range of jobs. Chris is a keen freedom caravaner, and in the caravan community has the nickname “MacGyver” due to his fix-it capabilities.
When Di got her Turkcell USB stick for internet access several weeks back her computer was reprogrammed, and during the process her file containing all our photos disappeared. Chris was able to find and restore that for us (and of course it’s now backed up!)
Chris gave us an incredible torch. This is a small LED torch, only 105mm long, brand is “Cree”, powered by 3 x AAA batteries, in black aluminium. The light it puts out is brighter, with a longer range than our spotlight powered by 8 x D batteries. It also has 3 power settings plus 5 zoom options for different conditions. These torches are just amazing and a must for boating, camping etc. Frank – you need one of these! We laughed over our evening “Efes” beers about Chris being a “Geek bearing gifts”.
We spent a couple of days in Keci Buku where Marti Marina is located. This is a very sheltered anchorage, and we went there as winds of 20-30 knots were forecast. These winds never eventuated though, and we only got a few gusts up to 18 knots for a couple of days.
Having a drink at a shore-side Taverna we met a British guy who’s been living alone aboard his yacht alongside the Taverna’s jetty for 12 years without moving. This seemed rather a shame when there are so many delightful places along this coast to cruise and explore. We decided to have a snack and ordered some calamari. Although it was delicious, we were surprised to be charged Lire 30 (about $25) for it – we thought it was worth Lire 10-15, and this reminded us – if you don’t have a menu always ask the price before ordering.
We went to Bozburun – a charming small Turkish village. Chris and I took six 30 litre water containers to fill – for the last time this trip! Next year we should have our watermaker operational and hunting for water, and lugging around heavy containers will be a distant memory.
We had thought about visiting the Greek island of Simi for a day or two, but the bureaucratic requirements are too great for such a short visit, so we moved on to Bozuk Buku instead. This is the site of the ancient city of Loryma, where the ruins of the mighty citadel, constructed 2,300 years ago still dominate the hilltop, and provide for an interesting exploration. Barbarossa’s restaurant, where we had a great evening with John and Frank & Marie in 2007 was boarded-up and deserted, with two donkeys on the deck overlooking the bay.
Log
Days aboard Envoy this trip: 222
Engine hours and distance this trip: 353hrs, 1,743NM
Technical: No problems or issues, but Chris has provided a lot of help. He managed to get our spare navigation laptop running C-Map with Envoy’s position icon showing on the chart (this icon was missing previously). It turned out to be a simple matter of starting the computer before connecting it to the GPS, and it’s very re-assuring to have that spare system working. He was also able to fix our sea water wash-down tap (actually repairing the internal tap cartridge), fix our remote switch for the boom winch, re-hang our bedroom cabin door to make it close properly, level our BBQ so the oil doesn’t run to one side, make an Ipod connection for our Salon stereo system, and make a connection for laptops to the same system so we have great “surround- sound” audio when watching movies on laptops. Our DVD player is an older one, and only plays single region American DVDs. Chris is going to organise a new multi-region player for us to bring back and connect into our system.
I had several unusual tools on board with no idea what they were for, or how to use them - and Chris was able to put me right there too.
Apart from that we’ve had deep and meaningful discussions on a whole range of technical issues, with me learning a lot in the process.
We bought 750 litres of diesel in Didim to ensure our fuel tanks are about 40% full when we leave Envoy for five months in Marmaris. This cost Lire 3.06 / litre – about $2.80.
We have always used SAE30 oil for all three engines, two gearboxes, and the Yamaha outboard. Both Lugger and Yanmar now recommend 15W40 instead of SAE30, so I’ll use that for our next oil change. Lugger still suggest to use SAE30 for the Borg Warner gearbox. The manual says either SAE30 or ATF can be used, but Lugger advise for low revving applications like ours, SAE30 is better.
We’re changing the Lugger engine oil every 200 hours. The Yanmar manual says to change every 100 hours, but a Yanmar mechanic told us that using the engine every day as we do, 150hrs between oil changes is OK. I think I still prefer to change at 100 hours as the Yanmar (as with the Genset) is used for quite short periods – typically 90 minutes and doesn’t have the chance to get up to a good working temperature.
The Turkish antifoul we used – “Seajet” is not performing well. After five months in the water some slime appeared, followed by some light weed in places, even though Demir Marine said the Seajet would keep our hull clean for the season. My brother warned me about this, and next year we’ll try Interlux Micron Extra.
Some months back, in Crete we found the Start Battery Bank wouldn’t always turn the Lugger over to start it. We got around this by trying again (and it would start on the 2nd or 3rd attempt) or using our Parallel Switch to connect in the House Bank to the Start Bank. Since Doug improved the Lugger charging system this problem has resolved itself, and the Lugger has always starts fine, except once – when it started fine on the 2nd attempt. Chris has suggested we further improve our battery system by fitting a “Megapulse” de-sulphating unit to each Bank.

Ephesus - the Great Theatre, constructed by the Romans in AD41, finished AD117 - seated 25,000 people & still used!

2010-11-07T11:10:00.004+01:00

Library at Ephesus.

2010-11-07T11:08:00.000+01:00

Laurie, Steve & Di "spending a penny" at the ancient public toilets at Ephesus

2010-11-07T09:57:00.006+01:00

Laurie, Amy and 'friend' in Cesme

2010-11-07T09:49:00.001+01:00

Di, Laurie, Steve & Jane outside the library at Ephesus, erected AD114

2010-11-07T09:47:00.003+01:00

Steve, Laurie & Jane sitting in the odeum (theatre used for council meetings) erected AD150.

2010-11-07T09:42:00.004+01:00

Amazing Ephesus - The Stoa.

2010-11-07T09:37:00.002+01:00

Di & Amy on castle walls at Sigicik - we anchored outside here

2010-11-07T09:33:00.003+01:00

Vegetables at Alacati market, so fresh and so cheap!

2010-11-07T09:29:00.002+01:00

Laurie and Amy in Envoy's Salon

2010-11-07T09:27:00.001+01:00

Amy’s and Steve & Jane Wilson’s visit

2010-10-28T14:42:00.002+01:00

We had planned to enter Dalyan harbour for the period of Amy’s visit, and for Steve & Jane’s arrival, but at the last moment were advised there was no room. It’s preferable to be in a harbour when leaving Envoy for several hours at a time, but we anchored in the picturesque bay off the village of Ildir where there is reasonable shelter, water available from a hose at a shore-side hotel, and a dolmus (bus) to Cesme.
The dolmus network is very interesting. They use mini-buses seating about 15, with standing room for about another 10. You can hail them down to get on, and they will drop you off anywhere along their route. There are no tickets – you just pay cash to the driver, a typical fare for a 30 min ride being about $2.50. From the remote village of Ildir there was an hourly service to the regional town of Cesme
We needed to go into Cesme to get a rental car to pick up Amy from Izmir airport. While waiting about 45 minutes for the dolmus a waiter from a nearby taverna brought us out a couple of chairs and a table, then a coffee and a pastry to enjoy during our wait. He refused payment, saying it was “Turkish hospitality” - this is typical of the kindness we encounter from Turkish people.
Driving to Izmir we encountered very heavy rain, and partial flooding of the autobahn. Izmir is a large city with a population of 2.25m, but the autobahn took us directly to the airport. By the time we got back to the boat at 1am the rain had eased, though the RIB was half-full of water. Amy’s visit was absolutely great, and the four days went in a blur. Although the guys at the hotel were helpful with giving us water, their eyes just about popped when Amy came ashore to help with the water, and from then they couldn’t do enough for us. With Amy we had swims, caught up on family conversation, dined well, enjoyed some wines, further explored Cesme, Alicati & Sigacik using the rental car. In Sigacik we were able to visit the weekly market, and then had a great lunch at a small & typical taverna with traditional kebabs. Then all too soon it was time to take Amy back to Izmir airport. When we left Envoy there was torrential rain, so we had to get our full wet weather gear on, and put Amy’s bag in a plastic rubbish sack to keep it dry. This was never going to be a sad farewell as we’ll see Amy in just a few weeks time for Christmas.
After seeing Amy off we picked up Steve & Jane Wilson. It was still raining heavily as we drove back to Ildir, but fortunately eased off while we took the RIB out to Envoy.
As we chatted after dinner the wind picked up, and we had a severe electrical storm with copious thunder and lighting. The wind increased unexpectedly to mid-30 knots with gusts into the low 50s, and Envoy started to drag her anchor. Dragging is unusual as I mentioned in the last posting, and I think this time was due to quite soft mud on the bottom in Ildir, probably combined with only having about 50m of chain out in 8m of depth; for a blow of 40kn+, I would normally put out around 70-80m. Quickly Envoy moved a couple of hundred metres, from 8m to 18m depth, and as the fetch increased the choppy waves grew to over a metre. The heavy rain turned to hail and Steve’s first night back on board (Steve & Jane joined us in 2007) was partially spent getting soaked to the skin on the foredeck operating the anchor winch while I used the engine to take the strain off the anchor chain. Our navigation computer chose this time to play up, and with the poor visibility I had to use radar to get back into a good anchoring position. That night the wind came from all points of the compass, sometimes 5 knots, and sometimes 35, requiring me to maintain anchor watch for a good part of the night – by far the worst night we’ve had during this year. It wasn’t much of a first night for Steve & Jane, but the following day the weather cleared, and mostly stayed that way for the rest of their visit.
We wanted to leave Envoy for a day to go to Ephesus, so moved to a more secure anchorage at Sifne - a larger, shallower bay with more swinging room. Ephesus was great, and a “must-see” for people visiting Turkey. We’d been advised to use a guide to fully explain what we were seeing, and this proved to be very worthwhile for an investment of L90 (about $80). Our guide was a mine of information, presented in a charming manner – his favorite word seemed to be “exactly”, which he used every time one of us made a comment.
I’ve mentioned before that a lot of the ancient ruins you see are little more than piles of rubble, however Ephesus has been quite well preserved. Ephesus was a prosperous city by 600BC, and later became the capital for the Roman province of Asia. Ephesus then had a population of 250,000, but declined after 600AD, when the harbour had fully silted making sea access no longer possible. Nowadays Ephesus is about eight miles from the coast. Ephesus also features the largest ancient Great Theatre – built by the Romans in the 1st century, capable of seating 25,000 people, and still used for performances.
We wanted to take Steve & Jane to Sigacik, and on the way anchored two nights in Alicanti. Here we had yet another gale warning - not as serious as the last one, but the wind shifted from S to N so we had to re-anchor. When we pulled up our anchor, we had a fishing net tangled in the anchor chain, and I had no hesitation in cutting it free our – it is easy to get a fishing net tangled in your propeller.
We had a great farewell dinner in Sigacik; we’ve mentioned before about the Turkish sense of humour – well; we were correctly using the word “Tessekur Ederim” for “thank you”, when the maitre de said we could use a shorter word “ashkim”. So whenever our young waiter brought food or drink we said “ashkim”. Then we noticed some of the other staff and guests were chuckling away. Later the maitre de explained he’d been pulling our leg and “ashkim” actually means “my beloved”.
We had a great time with Steve & Jane who left very early on a balmy morning in complete contrast to their baptism of fire arrival.
We’ll post some photos with Amy and Steve & Jane in a day or two.
We have now moved further south to Akbuk Limani, near Didim, and not far north of Bodrum. During the trip we had one passage of eight hours, covering about 45NM. This was a passage into a southerly wind of 15-20kn, putting up seas of about 1.5m. Apart from our passage to Rhodes in June we have yet to make one with a following sea! A pod of dolphins joined us and swam alongside for 15 minutes or so, jumping and cavorting.
Approaching the Samos Channel (separating mainland Turkey from the Greek Is of Samos) we encountered a classic katabatic wind with thick clouds peeling down from the tops of the mountains on the Turkish coast. The wind came up to over 40kn blowing water off the sea surface and kicking up a 1.5m “washing machine” chop for about 30 minutes until we cleared the channel.
Yesterday we had another gale warning – which is still valid, although we are on the fringes of the gale area with winds in our position only up to high 20s. It looks like a chane to a period of light northerlies within a day or two.
On Monday we meet our last guest – Chris O’Brien, who is cruising to Marmaris with us for two weeks.
Log
Days aboard Envoy this trip: 206
Engine hours and distance this trip: 319hrs, 1,482NM
Technical: Nothing much to report. The C-Map on our navigation computer had a problem – the on-screen chart was somehow replaced by large cubes (probably I accidentally activated a Fn key). Steve managed to find a fix for this within the Display function. We have a spare C-Map program loaded onto a different laptop, and although the chart displays fine, the gps position icon doesn’t show. I’ll investigate further when Chris is here.

Waterfront at Eskifoca

2010-10-27T09:20:00.001+01:00

Byzantine Castle at Eskifoca

2010-10-27T09:14:00.001+01:00

Activities up to 14 October

2010-10-24T14:05:00.003+01:00

I had an email from a business friend – Owen Embling, saying he thought the photos on the blog were great, so I wanted to mention that Diane takes all the photos, and does the first edit, then we sit together and decide what photos to put on the blog. These are generally the same photos as get published in Pacific Motor Yacht magazine with our regular articles.
Turkey is a wonderful country, and we in NZ could learn a lot from the Turks. People smile and laugh a lot, and are courteous to each other – and to visitors. You never see “threatening-looking” people or drunken idiots around, and people go about their daily business without fear of being mugged or bothered. Although the driving is atrocious, there is no road rage or people giving the fingers etc, everything is just taken in good humour. Yes NZ could learn a lot. One negative though is the considerable litter everywhere (similar in Greece), they are not as “green”, as we are in NZ.
While in Gerence Koyu we received a gale warning of Force 7 NE winds. Weather patterns and forecasts are very important when you’re living on a boat, so we monitor the weather in four different ways;
- by what we can see happening “Mark 1 eyeball”
- listening to Greek and Turkish VHF English weather bulletins
- on the internet – checking four main sites
- by Navtex – which receives text messages put out by Coast Radio Stations (we get about 20 per day).
We decided to head back to Eskifoca where there is good shelter from the wind, no swell coming into the bay, and plenty of room. We anchored in 7m with 50m of chain out, but the gale was both short-lived and mild with the strongest gusts around 33kn. Of course the wind would have been much stronger in open waters. This was more like what in NZ we call a “strong wind warning”, issued when gusts are likely to exceed 33kn. An actual gale on the Beaufort Scale requires mean winds in the range 34-47kn, bearing in mind gusts can be around 40% greater than the mean wind speed. At those levels “mean” is the right word!
It is always a bit daunting in gales anchored during night time; the wind seems to howl more, and you obviously can’t see what’s happening so easily. Envoy has good ground tackle – a 40kg Delta anchor with 120m of 9.5mm BBB chain, and very rarely drags, but we do need to be cautious of major wind direction shifts, and we’ve seen these happen during gales. We always set the audible Anchor Alarm on the GPS at 0.03NM, which is 55m. For non-boaties this means if Envoy moves more than 55m from where we anchored, the alarm sounds. In strong winds anchored boats do move around a bit, and if we set the alarm the next step down at 0.02NM, or 37m, it goes off too frequently. We can’t easily hear the alarm in our cabin below, so we bought a Philips baby monitor, and we put the transmitter (the baby end) near the GPS, and the receiver alongside our bed. This works really well, and saves me getting up several times during the night to check that all is OK. However in severe conditions (40 knots+), or in the rare case we are close to other boats in strong winds I doze up in the Pilothouse, where I can keep an eye on the situation.
Estifoca is an ancient town, founded around 600BC by Phocaeans, and now a quaint village. I already mentioned this is where the Commandos have their training centre. Naturally Estifoca has a castle, and this one was originally built by the Byzantines, and subsequently maintained by Genoese, then Ottoman Turks.
We left Estifoca on 10th and cruised back to Ildir. We had arranged to go into the Dalyan Harbour for a few days while we picked up Amy, but on arrival there were told there was no room (despite a booking). So we stayed at Ildir.
In a couple of days I’ll do a post about Amy’s visit and Steve & Jane’s visit, including a gale on the night Steve & Jane arrived – when Envoy did drift!
Technical: Again nothing much to report, so I’m going to talk about bilges.
This won’t interest everyone, in fact probably no one!
All leaking liquids end up in a boat’s bilges. This includes:
1. Seawater - from the Lugger prop shaft stuffing box (intentional), from the Yanmar “dripless” prop shaft, and from any leaks in seacocks, through hulls, sea water hoses, the bow thruster or stabilizer seals. Also in heavy sea conditions a little spray can end up in the bilges.
2. Fresh water – from the Fridge/Freezer compressor (intentional), from the Aircon compressors (intentional although rarely used), from any leaking fresh water tanks, hoses or hose connections, or from an engine cooling system. Note – if there is a leak from the fresh water plumbing system we can tell as the fresh water pump will operate to maintain pressure, if an engine cooling system is leaking we can tell from daily checks of water levels. Also when it rains very heavily some rainwater ends up in the bilge.
3. Sewage – from the toilets, holding tanks, hoses or hose connections if they leaked (not happened so far)
4. Oil – any leakage from the three engines, two gearboxes, windlass, or watermaker
5. Hydraulic fluid – any leakage from the steering system or stabilizers (not happened so far)
6. Fuel – if a fuel tank or hose or connection were to leak (not happened so far)
Envoy has five bilge compartments, one forward - housing the bow thruster and various sea water pumps, one in the aft section of the Guest Cabin, one under the main Lugger engine, one aft of the engine, and one further aft again under the prop shaft. They are connected by a limber hole running the length of the vessel, and water will eventually make its way to the deepest bilge – aft of the engine.
In 2007 Envoy had a “wet bilge system”, and always had about 100mm of water in the bilges, which we pumped out daily to keep the level constant. This was mostly due to seawater coming in the Lugger prop shaft gland as intended. But the problem was you could never tell if the water in the bilge was sea or fresh water, whether it was supposed to be there or not, or the source of the water.
This year we’ve gone to a “dry bilge system”; we’re using containers to collect the water from the prop shafts and the Aircon, and the Fridge/Freezer compressor so the bilges are always dry, and this means if you see water or other fluid in there you know there is some issue. All the bilges have an old towel in them so I can tell if there is any leakage into that particular bilge. I check the bilges daily at anchor, and hourly under way, and if there is water there (which is very rare) I can check if it’s fresh or salt, and much more easily resolve any problem. Also this keeps the three bilge pump inlets free of contamination, and makes it easier to see any thing that drops into the bilge, like a nut or bolt (often an early portent of a pending problem).
So to give a practical example, a few nights ago we heard the fresh water pump activate for a few seconds several times. As no taps had been left dripping this indicates a fresh water leak. When I did my engine room check I found about 2mm of water in the bilge aft of the engine. A taste test found it was fresh – that’s a good start, and it tied in with the fresh water pump running. Going to the forward bilge I found the towel in the bilge was wet – so the leak is into there. I check all hoses in the area, and found a slightly loose hose clamp on the supply to the Guest sink. Tighten it, observe and check, and now all OK.

Map of Envoy's Travels

2010-10-12T20:39:00.006+01:00

This is a reminder that if you go the bottom of the right hand column, and click on "Map of Envoy's Travels" you will see a map of where Envoy is, and all the places we've been to. When you get to the map you can zoom in to see the places in minute detail using the + and - buttons, and use the directional arrows to navigate around the map. Point to a blue marker to get some commentary, especially concerning visitors we've had. Scroll down to the bottom of the list of places on the right hand side of the map to be able to see where we are now. This is wonderful technology, and I want to ensure all our blog readers are aware of it.

Gulf of Izmir

2010-10-07T09:18:00.000+01:00

We now have only five weeks cruising left before we go back into Marmaris marina for the winter. Quite suddenly about two weeks ago the temperature dropped to low 20s day time, and high teens at night. Checking the log for 2007 I see that the same timing happened then. The days are getting shorter, and the sea temp has dropped to 22d, but we’re still swimming every day. We had a couple of showery days in late September, but none since. Many of the tavernas are now shut for winter, and the remaining ones will close by end of October, to open 1 May.
After Don & Kerrin left, we spent a few days anchored off Dalyankoy before heading further north. I found a water tap ashore and took seven empty 30L drums ashore to fill. Believe me this is !*&?#% hard work (read “jolly” hard), as 30L weighs 30kg. I loaded the drums aboard Envoy, and started to siphon water into one of our tanks when shock horror – the water tasted salty (I get a taste when I stat sucking the water through the siphon). All the effort was wasted, and I’d filled 7 drums with salt water, so I had to empty them all and find a new source of water the next day in Dalyan harbour. Lesson: always taste the water first.
After leaving Dalyankoy we went to the small quaint village of Ildir, previously Greek until all Greeks were relocated in 1922. Most of the really attractive Turkish villages are where Greeks once lived. There are still a lot of fish farms around the area, and a lot of people line fishing from small boats.
We cruised up, and across the top of the Karaburun Peninsula to Eskifoca in the Gulf of Izmir. We had a NE wind up to 30 knots with short breaking seas up to 2m on our port bow throwing up considerable spray, but we were nice and dry in the pilothouse listening to music, and drinking tea as we caught up with our emails.
When we arrived off Eskifoca a Coastguard helicopter buzzed us again, just like a few weeks ago. This one called us on VHF 16 and asked us “what we were towing in the water”. We explained about our stabilizers and the CG seemed happy, but about 15 minutes later a CG RIB approached us. As we headed to our anchorage they circled us and took some video camera footage. After our anchor was down they came alongside and two officers came aboard. They were perfectly friendly, and after I explained about our stabilizers, and raised one of the birds from the water for them to see they happily departed.
Eskifoca is a great spot; it has a Genoese castle, and like Ildir narrow cobbled lanes and many architectural remnants of the former Greek residents. It’s also a military town with a major Commando training centre for the “blue berets”, and immediately behind Ildir is some rugged hill country the army uses for assault training. All day and into the night you can hear small arms fire as the soldiers do their target practice.
We couldn’t find a water supply on the quayside – the taps were all locked, so I asked a fisherman about water. He couldn’t speak English but went off to find someone who could (sort of). I explained that I wanted to bring some containers ashore and get 300L of water, and they wanted to charge me L50 – about $50. The price for bulk water is about $0.50 per tonne, and this was my first experience of a Turk trying to overcharge. They were friendly, and I offered L5 before we agreed on L20 – still a rip off, but what’s twenty bucks to replenish your water supply. They were baiting a 300 hook long-line, and said on average they land about 5kg of fish per setting of the line. Back home we’d be disappointed with a catch like that on our 20 hook long-line. Envoy has intermittently towed a lure around, and had a couple of strikes but nothing caught so far.
We cruised south down the Gulf of Izmir. Parts of the Gulf are a military zone and a warship was patrolling around two islands which boats are not allowed to approach.
We anchored in a sheltered bay called Gerence Koyu, and this time we didn’t have our paravanes out. Small fishing boats passed close to us, and gave us friendly waves as they came in and out of the bay. About two hours later a Coastguard RIB came into the bay, circled us taking photos, returned our wave, and then roared off. Envoy must be the most photographed boat in Turkey.
There are very few cruising boats around, and in the last couple of weeks we’ve only seen three yachts.
Amy arrives next Thursday, and we plan to cruise south back to Dalyan to meet her. From here back to Marmaris the route is all south and east, so we’ll be heading into slightly warmer weather with the wind and seas behind us.
Log
Days aboard Envoy this trip: 185
Engine hours and distance this trip: 273hrs, 1,280NM
Technical: Again nothing much to report, in fact since leaving Marmaris 1 June we’ve only had one major issue – the gearbox. When we get back to Marmaris we have to get the HRO watermaker and the Naiad hydraulic stabilizers working again. I’ve checked with the service guys, and the parts will be there.
We now lift our smaller RIB out of the water suspended against our stern using the boom winch. This RIB only weighs about 50kg all up, so there’s no strain on the boom or winch, and it’s a big advantage to keep the RIB out of the water overnight and when cruising as opposed to lifting it onto the foredeck. Our friends Steve & Jane Wilson arrive in a couple of weeks, and Steve’s an engineer so I’ll get his help working out whether it’s safe to lift our larger (350kg) RIB out the same way.

The newly engaged very happy couple - Alice & John

2010-10-05T12:02:00.000+01:00

A burnt out plug - this is what happens when you draw too high a current

2010-10-05T11:15:00.003+01:00

A rustic old derelict building in Cesme - a typical scene

2010-10-05T11:12:00.002+01:00

Don & Laurie getting water - a regular ritual with our watermaker not working

2010-10-05T11:10:00.001+01:00

Fishing boats in Sigavik harbour - even at a small village there are over 60 fishing boats

2010-10-05T11:08:00.001+01:00

Pirgi on the island of Chios. The buildings have this unique decoration

2010-10-05T11:06:00.001+01:00

Moni Nea monastary on Chios. The skulls of Greek monks massacred by Turks in 1822 are on a macabre display

2010-10-05T11:04:00.001+01:00

With Don & Kerrin in Cesme. Hasan Pasha was a slave who became Grand Vizier, and kept a pet lion

2010-10-05T11:02:00.002+01:00

Enjoying a beer with Don & Kerrin in Alacati

2010-10-05T10:58:00.001+01:00

Cruising north up the west coast of Turkey

2010-09-29T20:17:00.003+01:00

Well our big news since the last update is that on 13/9 we had a call from our son John with the great news that he and Alice, his girlfriend of three years, have become engaged. They are working on a superyacht called Imagine on the East Coast USA, and plan to continue that for the time being. We first met Alice in 2007, and many times since. She is really super, and Di and I are over the moon with this news.
We’ve been heading north up Turkey’s west coast. One small remote bay we stopped at for a night was Port St Paul. There is nothing there except a sheltered anchorage, but the apostle St Paul stopped over here about two thousand years ago, giving his oarsmen a rest as they rowed north against the prevailing Meltemi. Just north of Port St Paul we passed through the Samos Strait, where the distance between the Greek island of Samos and the Turkish mainland is under a mile.
As we neared the coastal town of Sigacek we pulled into a sheltered bay to retrieve our stabilizer birds. Just as we lifted one using our block and tackle a military helicopter passed overhead. It must have seen us lifting something out of the water and got very curious, hovering about 100m away close to sea level for about 20 minutes watching us. We think they might have suspected us of lifting relics off the sea bed. We thought a Coastguard vessel might turn up, but when the helo went off that was the last we heard.
Sigacik has a marina but the area outside the harbour is very sheltered and we anchored there. This brings me to the subject of marina prices – they have increased enormously, and to the point that they are now a blatant rip-off. For a boat of Envoy’s size a typical casual rate is about Euro 80 per night plus water and power. That’s about NZ$140 per night. Consequently we avoid marinas and look for good anchorages - which are free.
Some towns have harbours where a visiting boat can moor, these used to be next to no cost, but now charge about Lire 50 per night (about $45). When you stay at a marina for a long period of the course the rate reduces dramatically.
Don & Kerrin arrived 18/9 in very good shape after their non-stop trip from Auckland, and the final leg of their journey was a RIB trip from the Sigacik wharf to Envoy.
Sigasik is an interesting small town with a large part of it contained within the walls of (yet another) medieval castle. Nearby are the ruins of the ancient Ionoan city of Teos, with the highlight being the remains of a temple erected for our favourite Greek God; Dionysus – the God of Wine. That reminds me – Don & Kerrin very kindly brought over two bottles of NZ white wine. The Greeks have been making wine for 3,000 years, but they don’t seem to have learned as much as NZ winemakers have learned in the 40 years wine has been popular in NZ.
Within the walls of Sigasik there was a market, and we had a traditional Turkish lunch of Gozlemes – similar to pancakes - for a very reasonable price of Lire 14 in total.
We had decided to visit the Greek Island of Chios for a day by ferry, and needing a safe place to leave Envoy headed for Dalyankoy. On the way we experienced a bit of rough water when we headed for a couple of hours directly into some very short, steep 1.5-2m breaking waves. One larger wave broke over Envoy’s bow (2.3m above sea level), and swept across the foredeck.
We anchored off Dalyankoy harbour, and all went ashore to try to organize a berth for Envoy. We needed to find the Harbourmaster, so we stopped at the Coastguard jetty and asked them. They couldn’t speak much English but invited us ashore for a cup of tea, and a few minutes later the Harbourmaster arrived. We arranged a berth for Lire 50 per night including power and water, and as common with berths like this, we were berthed right by a restaurant – diners literally 5m from our cockpit.
From here we were able to get a dolmus (bus) to the nearby port town of Cesme, interesting because of its mix of architecture, and because there are few tourists there.
Here is some input from Di.
On Don and Kerrin’s last day with us we decided to go to the Greek Island of Chios. This involved a 45min ferry ride from Cesme, where we bought the tickets the previous day, departing at 10am and returning 5pm. We turned up at 9am, strolled through customs and had a lovely trip across with a full ferry of people. When we arrived we wondered why everybody was in such a hurry to get off until we discovered there was only one customs officer to check and stamp our passports for the whole ferry! One hour later we finally got through and went to find the car rental place. With our limited time we decided to concentrate on three places that Lonely Planet had recommended in the southern part of the island. The village of Pyrgi had been described as one of the most extraordinary villages of the whole of Greece. What makes it unique are the building facades decorated with intricate grey and white designs, and fascinated, we wandered around the narrow, labyrinth streets to the main square beside the 12th century church, and had lunch. We then moved onto the 14th century village of Mesta, completely enclosed by massive fortified walls, and where entrance was through one of five gates. This was for protection against pirates and marauders. Fortunately they still let us in, and we walked through narrow cobbled streets with bare stone houses and archways that hadn’t changed since the 14th century. It was absolutely amazing to see people still going about their everyday life in such a setting. This area was (and is) famous for the production of mastic from mastic trees. A major use of mastic was the production of chewing gum. In 1822 the Turks massacred most of the population of Chios, but left the villages producing mastic alone as the Turkish Sultan and his concubines didn’t want to interrupt the supply of chewing gum.
We then drove through the centre of the island to the Nea Moni, an 11th century World Heritage monastery. In 1822 it was set on fire by the Turks and the skulls of the massacred monks are still on display in the chapel! As we were running out of time we made a hasty trip back down to the port and ferry. It had been a great day and a wonderful way to finish Don and Kerrin’s time with us.
We had a farewell dinner with Don & Kerrin on 25/9, and late evening there was a shower for the first time since early May. Since then we’ve had several slight showers and overcast days.
For the last few days we’ve anchored near Dalyankoy while we re-supply, and make some future cruising plans.
Log
Days aboard Envoy this trip: 178
Engine hours and distance this trip: 253hrs, 1,210NM
Technical: Nothing much to report, and that’s the way we like it!
I’ve changed the filter on our Racor filter based diesel pumping system as the vacuum gauge was getting up over 24 bar (should be about 20).
I had to do some more work on the anchor light as even after changing the bulb it was intermittently going off & on. In fact the bulb was not the problem, but the spring loaded +ve & -ve pins on the light fitting have got weaker, and not making constant contact with the terminals on the bulb. I soldered some extra length on the bulb terminals to make a more positive contact, and all now OK.
While in Dalyankoy I had a reminder that it’s necessary to monitor on-board power usage against power available from the shore. I was running our fridge/freezer and hot water heater at the same time when the 2-pin 220v plug melted. In retrospect I think the power available was only about 10amps and I was trying to draw about 20.
Di was cleaning our loo, and the brush broke in half with one half disappearing down the loo. I unbolted the toilet from the deck, and fortunately found that the macerator pump body has an inspection cover. It was a simple matter to remove the brush from there.

A very patriotic Turkish fisherman with 8 flags flying from his interesting boat

2010-09-28T19:12:00.001+01:00

One of the many hundreds of Turkish holiday hotels - note the beach with all the sunbrellas. We took photo from our anchorage.

2010-09-28T19:10:00.003+01:00

This is one of the holiday villages - there are hundreds of these on the Turkish coast

2010-09-28T19:08:00.000+01:00

A Turkish fisheman's house near one of the fish farms - like a batch at the Barrier

2010-09-28T19:05:00.002+01:00

Envoy has cruised over 1,000NM since 1 June, and now back in Turkey

2010-09-13T21:03:00.002+01:00

Since leaving Marmaris 1 June, and cruising to Rhodos, Karpathos, Crete, Santorini, Astipalaia, Kalimnos, and Bodrum in Turkey we’ve now logged over 1,000NM.
We cleared out of Greek waters on 2 September at the island of Kalimnos. This involved first visiting the Coastguard to get our Transit Log stamped, then going by taxi to the Police Station to have our passports stamped, then back to the Coastguard to show our passports, then to the Port Office to pay 5 Euro, and finally back to the Coastguard to get our departure form. As you can imagine, you have to allow a little time for this. The Coastguard office and the Police Station looked like something out of an old movie set, being very dilapidated buildings with shabby paint, old furniture, and jumbled electrical wiring on the walls. No computers were to be seen, and everything was written down using carbon paper to make copies, but all the officials were friendly and helpful.
In Kalimnos we also got some more water using our 30 litre drums. We are always on the scrounge for water, and only need two drums per day. There’s plenty of water available if you go into a port, but that’s generally a hassle. You not only have to pay the port fees, but also for the water. So we take the drums in our dinghy, and find a free source. Sometimes there are grocery stores on the wharf, and we buy some supplies and ask for water from their hose – never a problem. The water here is mostly not suitable for drinking, and we go through about three 1.5L bottles per day for drinking, making tea (most important), and cooking.
Clearing in to Turkey requires an agent nowadays – a change since our last visit. So we cruised the short 20NM distance from Kalimnos to Bodrum, anchored off the marina beneath the Crusader’s castle, and went ashore to find an agent. This was no problem, and two hours later, and Euro 185 poorer we were cleared in. Now Envoy can stay fairly indefinitely in Turkey, but Di & I can only stay 90 days. That means in early December we’ll need to get a ferry from Marmaris to Rhodos for the day, then re-enter Turkey.
After the barren Greek islands, it was great to see the greenness of Turkey again.
We went to see Vodafone to buy more internet air-time for our USB. For some reason the USB stick wouldn’t work on Di’s laptop (although it was fine when we left Turkey), so we went to Turkcell, which is their equivalent of Telecom, and bought another USB stick, and that works fine. This now gives us the security of two sources of internet access. Although phones are fairly straight forward here, it seems to be a constant hassle getting internet access, and we need to do more research on this. Would be good to have a system where you could get economical internet access wherever you are without having to change USBs and SIM cards, and having to go to Vodafone, Turkcell etc to buy more time.
Since Bodrum we’ve cruised north covering some new territory. One interesting place is Kazili Iskelisi in the Gulf of Korfezi. This is an estuary, not unlike the Mahurangi; very calm and not many people around. In fact there was only one yacht there plus some fishing boats, then seven charter yachts came in, but all went together on one restaurant jetty. In the last couple of weeks we’ve only been in one bay where there was more than one other boat overnight. In some bays the local “gullets” come in with day-trippers, but they’re all gone by 1800 hours.
In this area there are many large fish farms. Some cruisers complain that the farms take up too many anchorages, but you’ve got to look at it from the Turks’ point of view; the fish farms provide food and lots of employment.
We have been surprised by the level of development of holiday resorts and hotels along the coast, and have seen dozens of them, many quite large and usually consisting of 100 or so identical villas set back from the beach. In many cases it seems that little thought was given to style, or to landscaping around the developments and some of them are ugly concrete boxes, and blots on the landscape. Considering the population of Turkey is 75m, with a growing standard of living, they’ve gotta holiday somewhere.
As I complete this we’re anchored off a new and very flash marina at Altinkum, and during the next four days we’re cruising about 60NM further north to Cigasik to meet Don & Kerrin, flying into Izmir on 18th.
Log
Days aboard Envoy this trip: 161
Engine hours and distance this trip: 220hrs, 1,060NM
Technical: Again I’m pleased to say no major issues.
In Bodrum the Vacuflush guest toilet was fixed by their local service agent. The pump needed rebuilding, but this took only a couple of hours, and it’s now working fine again, and holding vacuum. Toilets are a regular problem on boats, and I can remember many years ago when Frank Curulli was so enraged by constant toilet problems on his boat that he ripped it out, and threw it into the Motuihe Channel before replacing it with a more reliable unit.
A few days ago the temperature alarm on the Yanmar wing engine sounded. I stopped the engine, and found the sea water strainer had some weed in it, but I was not sure if there was sufficient weed to stop the water flow. After clearing this weed out, and restarting the engine there was still no water coming out of the exhaust. I thought the water pump impellor was probably damaged from running dry for the time it took for the engine to overheat and sound the alarm. The Yanmar’s water pump is very hard to access (because it’s low on the rear of the engine, and there’s not much space between the bulkhead and the engine), and the impellor has to be replaced by feel – a bit beyond me. Fortunately there are Yanmar service agents nearly everywhere, and we had it fixed by a guy, Savas, who does only Yanmar engines based at Didim Marina, Altinkum. Even he said the pump was difficult to access. It turned out the pump itself had worn out (nothing to do with any weed in the strainer). The pump’s vee-belt pulley is held on a keyway to the water pump drive shaft. It was the keyway which had failed, so the pulley was not driving the pump.
As often mentioned we have considerable spare parts aboard, wait for it - including a brand new complete Yanmar water pump. This was fitted and all fine, the failed pump is being rebuilt to become the new spare.
I changed the Lugger’s oil at 200 engine hours. This is quite easy on Envoy, as we have an oil-change pumping system connected to each engine via a manifold. You simply remove the old oil filter, open the valve on the manifold to connect with the engine you want to change, start the pump, and then pump the oil out into an empty drum. Normally the new oil is then pumped back out of a 20L drum, but this time I couldn’t buy a 20Ldrum, so had to pour in 20 x one litre packs manually. Then you fit the new oil filter, and all done.
We’ve now used the last of the diesel from 2007, and are running on new fuel bought in Rhodos in June. Because we’re not doing huge distances I’m not keeping the tanks full; firstly there’s no point in carrying the weight, and secondly it’s best to have fresh fuel. We have four tanks, each holding about 940L, for a total of 3,773L. I like to always have some fuel sloshing around in each tank to keep the inside of the iron tanks coated with diesel, but today we were down to about 1,000L, so bought another 1,200L to give us 2,200L -about 275 hours, or two months running. Cost here is TL 3.01 per litre – a little under NZ$3.00 litre.
This trip we’ve been more conscious of Envoy’s cosmetic care. Keeping on top of this requires only a little time, but regularity is the key. The most important thing is to always wash the salt off with fresh water. Salt soon puts rust stains on stainless steel, and on the topsides gelcoat the salt attracts dirt. It also deteriorates the varnish. A wash down sometimes needs doing daily if we’ve been through heavy spray, or sometimes every few days. There’s a great product called “Miracle Cloth” made by Seafit, USA. After removing salt from the stainless, we let it dry, and then use the Miracle Cloth to quickly bring up the stainless like new. It also leaves a slight trace of waxy coating which gives some protection - highly recommended!

An original design of small boat. If we hadn't already bought our 2nd RIB we might have made an offer!

2010-09-10T11:56:00.001+01:00

The village of Hora in Astipalaia dominated by the Venetian castle, taken from Envoy at anchor below - great spot!

2010-09-10T11:52:00.002+01:00

Doug & Mary and we celebrate the famous Oia sunset at Santorini

2010-09-10T11:50:00.002+01:00

Oia, Santorini looking into the Caldera

2010-09-10T11:48:00.000+01:00

Typical scene in a Cretan mountain village - very serene and beautiful

2010-09-10T11:45:00.000+01:00

Beach adjacent Rethimno marina where after a gale we did some bodysurfing

2010-09-10T11:42:00.002+01:00

Mary cuts Doug's hair on Rethimno wharf beside Envoy. I was next, but Di chickened out.

2010-09-10T11:39:00.001+01:00