Wednesday, 11th July 2018 Goodbye Turkey (late) / Hello Greece (never left)

We had one further week in Turkey. The storm didn't materialise and we took a Dolmus (little local bus about the size of a small van) into Marmaris town for a look around the castle and bazaar area. We were glad to be tucked up where we were as although it wasn't stormy, there was sufficient wind to kick up lumpy waves in Marmaris bay itself. From here we headed steadily west and north - I love the names - stopping in Gerbeske Koyu (re-named Wasp cove), Oglanboguldu Adasi, Kisil Adasi, Kuruçu Bűkű and Datça. Koyu's are coves, Bűkű's are bays, and Adasi's are islands. Datça was en fête with their annual swimming races for all the young local boys and the greasy pole competition. A greased pole sits out angled over the water with a Turkish flag at its end. Whoever can climb up it, make it to the end and grab the flag wins. Needless to say, dozens of attempts ended in unceremonious and often spectacular falls and splashes into the water below. But a winner there was to take the crown - see pic.

A fitting end to our Turkish visit. The following morning we paid Serhat our TL100 for clocking out, had our passports stamped and our transit log cleared. The Port Police wandered over to have a look at us as we were preparing to leave. We decided to take a chance and sailed to the end of the Datça Peninsula to anchor overnight under the ruins of Knidos - one of the Dorian Hexapolis and leading Carian maritime trading city that moved here from further up the peninsula in 4th C BC. This is not strictly following the rules as we had been stamped out already, but no-one challenged us and apart from it being a bit gusty overnight, all was well and we were well placed for the next leg.

So, a day late, but finally Goodbye Turkey and Hello Greece. We had a lumpy, gusty sail - tacking and hard on the wind for about 30nm between Greek island of Kos and the Turkish mainland, finally dropping anchor in a bay on the east of the island of Pserimos. En route, our passerelle decided to work itself loose through waves crashing over it - W suffered yet another of her scrapes. As I went forward to secure it, somehow the guardwires attacked my wrist, causing the blood vessels to engorge and the lot to swell up. It looked a bit odd, but we decided it did not warrant a difficult detour into Kos and a doctor. There is a value in going to deserted little places. We never properly clocked out of Greece (and therefore the EU, although we did leave Cyprus properly - how does that one work?). But when finally reaching civilisation like Pothia on Kalymnos (a large ferry & fishing port) we could honestly say to Yannis and Kalymnos Yachting that our previous port or ports had been in Greece….. As we still have our Greek Dekpa (transit log - we didn't give it up as we didn't clock out), who was to gainsay us? This happens a lot

We have progressively beaten our way north in strongish winds and lumpy seas. Having stopped briefly in our "home port" of Lakki, where R successfully re-soldered our little flexible solar panel, I did a few mundane maintenance jobs and we caught up with the itinerant sailing lot. Today we had a nice sail (unusually, normally it's a crash, boom, bang job) to the top of Leros and are now anchored off Archangelos, preparing the boat before being lifted first thing Thursday morning and flying home on Friday. Back to small planes…

But for now it is baking hot, we have blue skies, warm seas, craggy island scenery, bleating goats and a motley international sailing community for company. TBC beginning September after a few home adventures first….