Nostalgic Sail–part 2

19.9.2023 – Tuesday – Out of Sogut to Kargilibuk, five and a half miles to the entrance. Stretching your imagination a bit you would say it has the shape of a shoe. You go inside and turn right to a narrow and shallow part of the bay.

As you turn right you see boats that came in before you, med moored to the restaurant’s dock and near it.

We tied to the dock too but thought that the noise from the Gulets would be more than we wanted, so left the dock, anchored and tied to trees on shore. During that operation the starboard webbing was caught by the prop and luckily was released easily. When I tried to tighten the anchor chain I found out that it ran out of too far and the rope connected to it got tangled in the gypsy. It took an hour of labor to disentangle it and pull back the chain into its place.

I went back to the restaurant to make sure they took credit cards. (they did). The man in charge, Ali, wanted me to order whatever we would want to have for dinner in advance. A bit strange but it seemed to be a sort of adventure and I accepted.

As I motored back to our boat I saw a monohull that  came in and a lady on it motioned to me to come. “Can you please tie us to shore?” she said : “I do not know how to do it”. Doing it with the dinghy was not an option due to the shape of the bottom but with a push from Gili I did it swimming.

At 2000 we showed ourselves at the restaurant, the only guests. Ali received us in a pleasant way and all of the food was brought at once to the table.

Ali is the manager, the host, the waiter and also the cook.

This is not a gourmet place but the food was OK and the price not inexpensive. Ali does services to yachts including filling up water and has a small mini-market.

. 20.9.2023 – Wednesday – The day’s target was Yedi Adalari, seven islands, and the anchorage we chose was East Creek. You can anchor on the south of the entrance where a small headland will protect you from the westerlies or go on into the inlet, pass carefully through a bar about 2 meters deep into an area of 5 meters and anchor with lines to shore. The forecast was for winds from the west increasing in the afternoon to 15-25 knots but I was sure we would be well protected in there.

As we entered the inlet we saw a woman fishing from the bank, standing in the water where no trail could be seen. We anchored at 1130, went for a disappointed swim, the water was not clear, saw a few fishing boats tied to the end of the bay and went back to the boat to have lunch. At 1400 the forecast became a reality; we did get gusts of 20 knots but the combination of the anchor and webbing tied to shore kept us safely in place. After our afternoon rest, as we went out of the cabin, we were surprised to see that woman still fishing, taking out very small fish. She only left at 1700, a long working day!

As the sun went down the wind abated, a new moon was seen descending to the west. It should be a quiet night.

Dinner by Chef Gili – Fajitas, far from middle-eastern food but it is good changing your habits.

21.9.2023 – Thursday – Out of the bay we motored seven miles to Buyuk Cati. Looking at it on Google Earth it seems ideal, especially the bay with the red dot.

As we went in there we were repelled by the number of vessels, most of them small fishing boats. We turned to the bay with the yellow dot which was empty and tied stern to to the north shore. Light wind from behind, peace and quiet.

Having seen signs in Turkish with the words “market” and  “Amazon Cafe”  we took the dinghy to the “red” bay. None of the promised establishments were there. Looking at it from the north it did not seem so bad but the area near the dock we tied the dinghy to was full of garbage.

This part of the bay could have been a gem had someone taken care of it. What a pity.

22.9.2023 – Friday – 17 miles from Buyuk Cati to Cokertme. In the beginning some western wind allowed us to sail with no engine, on our left we could see white horses but in front and on the right the sea was light blue and completely flat. Very soon the motor was started, a bit later the jib was furled and we continued to our target. Once in, remembering that in the evening relatively strong wind would blow from the north, we anchored and Gili tied our webbings to the west-northwestern shore.

We tried a different taverna, not Ibrahim’s, for lunch and were not really satisfied. Tomorrow we go west in order to reach Bodrum marina on Sunday, where our friends Irit and Yoshi will join for a few days.

23.9.2023it  – In the quiet of the early morning I sat at the laptop to recheck the plan for the next four days. I very quickly found out that I made a mistake measuring the distance between two night anchorages; I thought it was around 20 n.m and in reality it was 40 which is possible but not likeable by the ladies, especially with the forecasted northerly wind.Then I had an idea; we’ll tell our friends to come to Gumusluk, which is only 10 minutes more than the ride from the airport to Bodrum and save the distance.

We sailed (that is motored) to Bitez and tomorrow to Gumusluk to meet our friends.