With Frank & Marie

With Frank & Marie
Couple of things I meant to mention earlier.
While we were anchored in Bozburun a fisherman motored up to us and offered us a snapper about 5 kg for sale for Lire 200 (about $200). We didn’t buy it but were impressed that there are some decent size snapper around !
In Greece & Turkey there are loads of feral cats in the streets, on the marinas and in the restaurants. Of course Di & I are “cat people” so no problem and often we’ll feed cats on the marina with a tin of tuna. Recently we ate ashore in a restaurant and we had 15 cats around our table all wanting a share.
Also one morning recently we awoke to find a cat we had fed asleep on the dinette seat. Cute as she was there was no way we could keep a cat on board.
I have mentioned before the weather is very stable and predictable in the Eastern Med. There is a weather predicting system here called the “Coptic Calendar”. Developed by the Copts – a Christian sect living about 500 BC it predicts the dates of all major gales expected during the year which are the same for every year according to their Calendar. Rod Heikell (the author of the major Med Cruising Guides) says this is about 60% accurate and in our limited experience we have found it also accurate and not to be ignored.

After leaving Datca we made our way back to Bodrum Marina arriving Weds 17/10. On the way we landed our 2nd tuna and again lost something quite big showing there are fish to be had by trolling. Since then we have had several strikes without success until yesterday when we landed 3 small tuna.
While in Bodrum we did the 1 hr ferry trip across to the Greek Is of Kos for the day so that we left Turkey, re entered and got new 90 day Visas.
Here we also met Richard & Jane from “Curved Air” who we had first met ashore on Simi. We had drinks and dinner one night and then on Sat 22nd had dinner and watched South Africa win the World Cup. That was the night our son John joined us in Bodrum so he came along too. That night the weather turned very rainy with blustery winds (predicted by the Coptic Calendar).
On Sunday 21st Frank & Marie arrived so of course it was “party night”.
But this was also the night a full gale and electrical storm arrived, fortunately not worrying us too much as we were safely secured in the marina.
Not a good intro to the Med for Frank & Marie though. The gale continued thru Monday and where just days before people had been dining under sun umbrellas on the waterfront, waves were now crashing and drenching the promenade with spray.
On Tuesday 23rd we departed Bodrum in about 20-25 knot headwinds and up to 2m waves heading for Knidos. On arrival the anchorage was safe but blustery and we were the only boat there – a stark contrast to our last visit.
We were feeling a bit sorry for Frank & Marie as the weather was overcast, showery and windy and not the idyllic scenario they had been reading about on the blog. On Wednesday 24th we went ashore to walk around the ruins of 5thC BC Knidos – which has been described in an earlier posting. While we were ashore a Coastguard cutter came roaring into the bay and after circling Envoy a few times sounded it’s siren. We guessed they were looking for someone from Envoy and I left Di, John, Frank & Marie and made my way back down to the jetty. They asked me to come aboard their vessel and said they thought we had been scuba diving (which is not allowed around much of the Turkish coast due to the historical relics laying in shallow water). With 5 of them standing around me I assured them we had not been and they eventually accepted my word, asked me to sign a statement and all was fine. At the time we had the paravanes extended out and possibly they look like arms of a crane.
Anyway all ended well after probably our 6th or 7th “encounter” with Coastguard in the Med.
Next stop was back to Pedhi on the Greek Is of Simi. I have mentioned this delightful place already on a previous posting and we had a great walk over to the very picturesque town of Simi and back. We spent 2 nights there and Friday 26th was the first time Frank & Marie awoke to truly fine weather. Frank is a keen tramper and so Frank, John & I had a quite tough 2 hour hike to the summit of a nearby hill. We also took on some diesel there as the price at Euro 1.07/litre is cheaper than in Turkey.
Later that day we made the short 8 mile trip to Bozburun, back in Turkey. Once again this has already been described. Yesterday we were in Bozuk Buku where our favourite Ali Babas restaurant is located and the owner – Barbarossa – was very pleased to see us as there were only we five and two others there. With the season coming to a close the numbers are really thinning out.
As I type this we are en route back to Ekincik.

Technical. All going well & no changes since last update. Have completed oil & filter changes on all engines while in Bodrum.

3100 miles covered in 234 days on board with 647 engine hours.
Fuel purchased 5,977 litres.