Lost at Sea: The Rocky Road to Rhodes

Megan arrived on the 13^th of August. Knowing how I felt after 40 hours of jet flight and facing another 2 bus rides, I hired a car to pick her up. I was just so glad to see her, tears were streaming down my face.

Are we there, yet?

We endured another night in the backpack dive that I’d rented as a temporary home while Eugene and I sorted out the last details of Pavlov’s purchase. The next morning early, we were to leave for Rhodes.

'This is not my beautiful life!'

This was not without drama, we had to bunker the boat (took on only 50 litres of diesel as fuel is cheaper in Greece), and await the agent who was working out our departure check-out. Bulan (who we’d been chatting to for a week) was sick and another agent did the deed, but then wanted to charge us TL 450 for the checkout fee (which is normally only around TL 20). We hassled, and Eugene called Bulen who said he would work it out when we returned. We shall see!

The Changing of the Flag

We finally got away around 1000 and sailed 35 nm to Ekincik, a Turkish village (really just a pier and a restaurant) near the Karnos ruins. This was a good overnight spot for the next leg to Rhodes. Eugene took us to a grand meal and was a very generous host on our last night in Turkey.

Ta Dah!

Wednesday the 15^th, we set sail for Rhodes, a simple 28 nm sail, but interesting with the formalities for entry in Greece to be observed. We employed an agent again (Stravros Roditis) who would also serve as a witness for the Bill of Sale.

View of Rhodes harbour from the old town

Rhodes has a fabulous medieval castle that extends to the old Mandraki port. Reputedly, the Colossus of Rhodes (a huge sun god statue) bridged the port entry. It was breathtaking to sail into this ancient port under the battlements of a truly beautiful Knights Templar castle.

Pavlov moored in the old harbour

A bazouki player in the old town

We signed the Bill of Sale that day, and Pavlov became completely ours. (Of course, everything now started to break down, but that’s another story!). We spent Thursday provisioning the boat from a Lidl grocery store. It was easy getting a taxi to the store, but we were just unable flag one down going back to the port. Standing there in the 37 degree heat, our goods perishing before our eyes, even Megan’s shapely legs failed to attract Greek notice. Mind you, the 3 young girls who walked out onto the road 15 minutes after I had started waving cabs down secured a ride in minutes. Finally, we pleaded with the security guard who most graciously called a cab for us. Friday was spent exploring the castle and discussing Greek politics with a store owner, who offered us shady seats to discourse on the economic woes of the Greek people.

We had planned to stay in Rhodes over the weekend, but the agent was not able to secure our berth. We hastily bunkered the boat (learning that Pavlov likes to be burped, and if not, tends to regurgitate litres of diesel all over our teak decks!).

'Forgot to burp the baby, again?'

We took on 208 litres, and then transferred to an anchoring site just outside the inner harbour walls. We spent an idyllic night outside a beautiful mediaeval city, our first night at anchor. Huge cruise boats and ferry’s glided past like monolith monsters in the night, but we slept soundly.

Check out the neighbourhood

Next morning, a leisurely 25 nm sail bought us down to Lindos, another city with medieval and classical ruins. We had a series of panics as we successively thought

1. The generator has broken down (the light stayed on the whole trip).

2. The battery bank was exhausted (we did seem to use a huge number of amps on the trip down and overnight)

3. The generator started (hurray, wouldn’t start last week) and then promptly started running rough.

Old castle at Lindos, Rhodes

I was madly reading manuals trying to come to grips with Pavlov’s complex systems. We did find that the sea-cock for the generator (which I hadn’t known about before) was closed, it ran fine after opening it. We could then charge the battery bank, and it seems that the alternator on the engine might need a service. But we got on top of it all, even with failure contingencies worked out.

Pavlov moored in Lindos harbour

A bigger puzzle was the inflatable tender that we needed to deploy to get us into Lindos. We never managed to get the floor into the dingy, I need to rtfm but couldn’t find one onboard. Nevertheless we rowed to a small taverna who were happy to allow us to beach our dingy.

Mediaval for tower in Lindos

We wandered happily over the temple and castle ruins, wandered around the unspeakably quaint little lanes and alley’s of Lindos, shopped with the help of Greek grocers who were curious about us being from the ‘New World’. A quiet feeling of joy was spreading over me, I kept saying to Megan ‘well, we live here now, this is not a vacation’, or ‘We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto’, or ‘pinch me, pinch me’.

Classical temple inside medieval castle

We had a late lunch at the taverna where we left the dingy, some tsatziki, frits de mere, greek bread and an icy cold beer to wash it down. We’re in heaven!

The famous donkey's at Lindos

Little alley's to explore

Where might this go?

A leisurely return to the boat, a long swim in the azure blue sea, some trip planning for tomorrow (when we will make a 60nm crossing back to Turkey – will be a long day) and readying the boat for a 0600 departure concluded a very long day. Bliss!