ADVENTURING WITH SV HAMAMAS!: Cruising along the Turkish Coast, July 2015

15 July 2015
After returning from our Russian and Baltic states trip we worked very hard in the extremely hot weather preparing Hamamas and ourselves for the upcoming cruising season. There were a number hiccups during this process and sometimes we felt we were doing the "zero steps forward and 10 steps backwards dance!" especially when our Turkcell Mifi dongle would not work even though we had just loaded it. It took 3 days for the Turkcell representative to fix it!
Then just as we were about to leave Tom discovered a leak from the main engine fuel injector pump! This took another 3 days to sort out including long SKYPE calls to the UK plus having to pay for extra time in the Marina.

Finally, on 15 July we were able to slip our lines from Finike Marina to begin our journey westward. So we did, as most folk do when they leave Finike, we turned RIGHT heading for the great anchoring spots in Kekova Roads 20 nm away. This is where one can sort everything out and transform ones winter home into a cruising yacht again. However, as we motored along (there was no wind as usual) we found that we had to " hand steer" all the way as our auto pilot had us was wandering all over the ocean. We had had this problem before with our "drunken sailor" and knew that his settings had somehow been " scrambled"

So while we were in Kekova Roads we set about trying to work out what had caused the problem. Eventually we found that it could have been that either his switches had been bumped or the steel tank in a nearby locker had upset him. Our next objective was to do a "dockside set up "in order to reset all his information. Of course we were on anchor but fortunately the water was calm enough for us to do this. The last time we had to do this we were in the Indian Ocean (refer to previous Post, look in Labels find "Cruise -2011-Indian Ocean"

Once the dockside set up was completed we had to recalibrate the compass. This involved sea trials by first going round and round in circles.After a few hours we finally had FRED ( our auto pilot) back on track.
(Remember to Click on the photos to enlarge them)

Hamamas in Kekovo Roads

Although the mornings were calm the afternoon sea breeze often reached 27 kts then it was back to 0.0 kts in the evenings. Sometimes it was so quiet that we could hear the folk talking in the restaurants on shore. On one magical evening Tom took this photo with the IPhone. That's boating for you

Our only problem while here was that hoards of carnivorous Bees were driving us crazy. At first we gave them their own plate of "steak scrapes"! However, we soon learnt our lesson and had to hide down for our evening meal It was our own fault really but who would have thought that bees have great memories. The final straw came one evening just on dinner time.The bees arrived in such force that we had to swat them away in order to get our meals back down below and lock ourselves in. They were so persistent that Tom had to flick them off his dinner plate as he handed it back down to me. Meanwhile, I was swatting away as I tried to serve the dinner. After locking ourselves down below with the air con on we had a relaxed meal and meanwhile the bees gave up and I imagine they flew off to another yacht!

Carnivorous Bees

21 July,2015 We decided it was time to leave our peaceful Kekova Roads anchorage sow we weighed anchor and motored 28nm to an anchorage near Kalkan. We anchored in the bay at Kalkan and the wind was gusting a bit so much so that a catamaran dragged anchor into us no damage done) so we decided to do anchor watch just in case. The wind settled at 1.30 am and we finally went to bed only to be awoken at 5 am by a huge gullet who thought we might be over his anchor chain. He was extremely careful thank goodness and inched by us carefully. After that we also decided to leave as we were doing the next leg on our journey.

22 July,2015 After hours of motoring through lumpy seas we arrived in beautiful Fethiye Bay at 11am We are pleased to report that all systems are working well on Hamamas and our "drunken auto pilot " has mended his ways.On arriving here we were just a tad disappointed that most of our cruising pals were further North. So we will celebrate on our own at the moment.

We love Fethiye Bay!

The first friends to arrive in the anchorage were fellow Australians,Bev and Malcom on Chappie who wintered with us in Finike. Over the next week or so we enjoyed a number of fun get-togethers. We were sad to say goodbye to them this year but hope to catch up with them next cruising season.

No sooner had we said goodbye to Chappie, Maggie and John (Caledore) arrived in the anchorage. Once again we enjoyed a few fun times with them before they sailed back to Finike. Hopefully we'll catch up with them next season.

Caledore

We felt very privileged when Mary Kay and Russ (Once Around) travelled by car all the way from Finike to have a catch up lunch with us. We had wintered together in Finike in 2013 but hadn't seen them since April 2014. It was such fun to see them and hear of their past travels and plans for an around the world land tour for the next too years!

Mary K and Russ looking happy and healthy.

In addition to enjoying our weeks in the anchorage We spent a number of nights at the lovely Yacht Classic dock where we were able to fill our water tanks and give the refrigeration a boost with the 240 volt power. However, best of all was the delicious meals we had in the restaurant.We also met a few other Australian sailors on the dock and one time our neighbour was this enormous gullet!