Life on the Hard

We have made the transition! Our daily life used to be a fluid experience. Our world, our view spun and twisted according to the winds and tides. Our sleep was punctuated by rocks, slaps, bumps and bounces. Our ears were attuned to the myriad of sounds that a boat makes while in the water.

No more, everything is still, nothing moves. It is strange to be moored on dry land. It is eerie that things are flat and level, that we are not constantly using our balance to stay upright. Our world view is fixed and limited. We miss the beauty that had surrounded us.  Everything now feels static. We don't like it!

Beginning the haul out.

Pavlov emerges

The boat yard is a primitive place. No modern travel lifts and marinaro's with Ph.D's.  We are lifting out on a skid, a low flat trailer that uses hydraulic struts to lift the sides of the boat. This is a problem, as the pads don't apply an even pressure. We were very alarmed when our floorboards popped out of place as the hull deformed under the pressure. Luckily, it all came back into shape when the pressure was released.

Inch by slow inch

The skid emerges.

The yard is very slow. They can manage 2 boat movements a day. We spent our first night on the skid, waiting for them to prop the boat.

What rough beast...

this way...

comes!

The boat looks rather vulnerable, sitting on a few sticks wedged against the hull.

New dwelling has an elevator!

Pavlov's new winter resting place

Suspended in thin air?

We need to cross brace the props.

So, we are adapting to our new domicile. Without water, we can't use the fridge since its water cooled. We feel like we're living in a tree house, like Swiss Family Robinson. We're aware of all the people who have fallen from boats on the hard, as did the previous owner of Pavlov. Its also a long way to go for a pee in the middle of the night.

The long drop!!!

The local mosque, so we will have music

Our only shop

But again we are demonstrating our adaptability. We've been welcomed into the family of workers at the boat yard. Jamim, the care-taker, has taken to Megan like a love-sick puppy. We've been allowed to use the private shower and toilets, invited to eat lunch with the workers. We can use the fridge in the worker's kitchen.  I like the family care aspect of Turkish businesses. Every-one sits down together for lunch, every-one does all the jobs. It feels like a big family.

Its only a 15 minute bike ride into Bozburun, which is a charming little village. A dolmus will take us to  Orhaniye markets and to Marmaris for serious shopping. We will see how the coming cold changes life aboard, and if our tree-house becomes untenable, then we may need to rent a small apartment in the village.

Remember the beauty

But for now, the new rhythm asserts itself. We work on the boat, life is simple and strangely satisfying. And we can just gaze over the bay to remember our life at sea, and to recall the beauty of that life.

Our new winter home

Cruising is definitely a bi-modal lifestyle. The first mode is usually called 'The Season' and consists of travelling constantly, discovering new ports, living at anchor, swimming and diving on the anchor, and all the other activities related to moving about in a yacht. The second mode is called 'Wintering', and involves finding a safe (and hopefully warm) place to secure the yacht over winter. It may be in the water, at a marina for example. Or it may be on the hard, in a boat yard.

Our last port of call during 'The Season' was Marmaris, a town well known to us. Its a great source of chandleries and has a wonderful saniya (Turkish small industry centre) where you can get anything made, and buy most industrial things. We paid to stay on the dock at Pupa Yacht Hotel for a few days, while various trades-people visited, then we anchored out in front of the hotel.

Anchorage outside Pupa yacht hotel

Marmaris is the centre of yachting activity in Turkey, and has many large marina's. The most famous and popular is Yat Marin, which is the winter home for many cruisers. It has a large, vibrant community that functions all through the dormant winter. However, it is expensive to stay there, and we choose a cheaper option.

View from the mooring over to Yat Marin

This winter, we will be staying on the hard in a primitive Turkish boat yard at Bozburun. So we said good-bye to our friends, Eddy and Hilde, and travelled south to Bozburun.

Farewell meal with Hilde and Eddy

Pavlov departing Pupa anchorage

Our sail-past Jabirou, Eddy & Hilde's yacht

Leaving yet another anchorage

Bozburun will be our winter home. Its a delightfully beautiful bay enclosed by several islands. It is a small town, and will be very quiet over the winter months.

The enclosed bay of Bozburun

A very calm and protected winter anchorage

The town is quiet small, mainly tourist accommodation.

We pulled in for one night to the municipal dock. These docks charge to stay there (50 TL per night here) but do not provide all the amenities of a marina. In this case, just electricity and water were provided.

Megan, arming the Bromptons, dockside

Picturesque dock at Bozburun

Next day, we cycled around to the boat yard, Locaturk Marin. Its around a small headland, about 4 km by bike. Its a primitive boatyard, employing hydraulic skids to drag the boats out from the water.

Pavlov will go somewhere here

This empty hardstand will be packed with gulets over winter

Primitive come-along to haul the boats out.

A Gulet being dragged out on the skid

Tomorrow, 10th October, we will haul out, so we had a good look around the 'extraction point' first. Its a little scary, not like the travel lifts we are used to.

We will moor here before being dragged out.

This gulet is waiting to be hauled

View from the 'jetty' back to the boatyard.

Poor little jelly fish trapped in the debris.

There was a huge new boatshed in the corner of the boat yard. We wandered over, and the security guard allowed us to look inside.

Brand new boat shed.

Its absolutely enormous!

This is the front entrance

The boat shed was built by one man to build one boat. The boat is to be the largest gulet ever built in Turkey. It will be 140 m long and will cost initially over USD$100,000,000. It will be one of the largest wooden ships built.

Large ship is on the left, hidden by scaffolding. This is the tender!

We weren't permitted to take photos of the large ship. Currently only the ribs and keelson are completed. The framework of the ship is enormous, surrounded by massive scaffolding. Standing on the keelson, I imagined that this must have been how Jonah felt in the belly of the whale. Clearly, money is no object. The immaculate purpose-built boatshed even had marble detailing along the foundations. An extreme example of Turkish one-upmanship.

Stillness at dawn

Looking towards the municipal dock and mosque

We vacated the municipal dock just before twenty or so flotilla boats pulled into the anchorage. Flotilla's are expeditions organized by the charter companies for people who want to sail but do not have much experience. So half a dozen boats all sail around together, led by an experienced skipper. These flotilla's are a definite hazard if they anchor near to you, and in a small harbour, they mean endless crossed chains and hung up anchors. We escaped just in time, to enjoy a day of quiet before we haul tomorrow.

Still and calm, a perfect anchorage.

So we enter our winter mode, throw off the exuberant and extraverted activities of 'The Season' and enter into the reflective meditations of 'Wintering'. Its a time of repairing and making good, travelling home for weddings and celebrations, family and friends. We are looking forward to it.

Back to the beginning

We've been slowly completing our circle from Fethiye, across to Crete, up through the Cyclades and down through the Dodecanese, and now we are arriving back where it all started, our 'spiritual home' in Turkey, Orhaniye. The season is winding down, yachts are thinning out, the weather is cooling and we're starting to look forward to the inward time of winter. It seems appropriate that we're arriving back at some places we've been before, seeing some old friends and closing the loop on our experiences.

Megan in Datca.

Datca harbour 

We had a wonderful down-wind romp from Mersincik, along the wild coast between Gorkova and Hisaronu bays. We discovered a yacht up on the rocks in a very isolated headland. No survivors were evident, but several calls to Turkish Coast Guard illicited no response. I guess Turkey is not a good place to expect rescue efforts. We later saw news of the yacht, the Turkish coast guard abseiled down the steep cliff to provide shelter to the yachtsmen rescued on the rocks. After the storm, the yachtsmen were rescued by sea.

Megan with head-dress

Rounding the headland into Hisaronu Korfesi, we were hit by strong winds. The long line of wind turbines on the hills forwarned us that Datca was going to be a windy place. It was comforting to be tucked in secure in a marina after a long time of anchoring out in wild and isolated places, while the wind howled around us.

The ever present Attaturk

We travelled by dolmus to the old village in Datca. The high quality of the masonry work evidenced the on-going renewal of the older villages, which appeals to the tourists who flock to see the 'old Turkey'. The income so generated allows the traditional life-styles to continue. Sometimes, tourism allows the old to continue, rather than destroying it.

The old village at Datca

Beautiful stone-work

Village street

We left the sanctuary of Datca and kept heading east along the peninsula. We explored a lovely long fjord at Birsek, a scenic and protected anchorage.

Little anchoring nooks in the fjord

Rock sentinels to Birsek fjord

After returning to our starting place at Dogan hotel, and enjoying some afternoon teas and British company, we headed to the end of the bay and found a very safe and secure anchorage. We met up with Eddy and Hilde, some Belgium friends that had been sailing a parallel route with us.

Hilde and Megan at the Iskele restaurant

Hilde and Eddy

Friendships are often made during fleeting moments of contact while cruising. So it's wonderful to meet up with these friends further along the path. Our journeys intertwine and mingle, as do our recollections and tales of them, shared with our fellow travellers. Cruisers share a common language, full of nautical references and constant comments about THE BOAT, that silent but demanding partner in all our adventures.

Bev and Megan in Symi

Bev, a teaching colleague and good friend of Megan's, came over to spend some time with us. After a few days in Orhaniye, we thought it would be good to sneak back into Greece, so that Bev could see island life from a sailing point of view.

On the way over, we anchored for lunch in a small cove at Maratonda. Megan and I had ridden a motor scooter to this small taverna on a pristine pebble beach 3 years ago when we first chartered in the Med. We remembered the delicious goat that we'd eaten then, so we thought Bev would enjoy a lunch stop there. The water was that crystal clear Mediterranean azure blue, and the food was fantastic.

 Our Shengen time limit (3 months in any six) had expired, so we anchored in a small bay to the south of the island, outside a Greek Orthodox monastery. We hoped to avoid the Port police in this back water bay.

Pavlov at anchor at Paranormiti

View of the monastery from Pavlov.

Pav from the monastery courtyard

The monastery at Paranormiti looks out onto an almost enclosed bay, its a wonderfully protected anchorage. We rowed over to look over the monastery, and took advantage of the bakery with its wood fired oven.

Pebble floor of the monastery courtyard

Accommodation for the monks

Moorish flavour to the architecture

The monastery has an almost moorish quality, with arabesque staircases, bougainvilla draped corridors and gaudily painted church steeples that would be right at home on a Hindu temple in India.

The gaudy steeple would not be amiss on a Hindu temple

View through the monastery door.

Moorish flavoured staircase

The eternal flame still burns.

We caught the local bus into the main town of Symi. The colours of this town continue to amaze me. At dawn and sunset, particularly when sailing in, every building seems to glow with an inner 'peach' colour.

Clock tower and Symi harbour

Buildings and rock intermingle.

The blue on blue colours of the Greek islands

Another harbour photo...

 Symi, along with Kalymnos, was one of the principle sponge diving islands. Both Megan and I enjoyed reading Charmain Clift (wife of George Johnston), who wrote 'Mermaid Singing'  about her experiences living amongst the sponge divers on Kalymnos  The trade still exists, but only for local tourist commerce. Interesting to think that this was once the major export and earner for the island.

Symi sponge shop.

 Hilde and Eddy had anchored in the main port, not having any Schengen restrictions, one advantage of EU membership. So, we crossed paths again.

Hilde holding forth.

Hard to miss those bright Belgian's.

So, we'd returned to several places that we had explored on our first travels in the Med. Orhaniye,  Symi and Maratonda still charmed us. I had a sense of returning, of seeing these places with more seasoned eyes. They still had the capacity to charm and seduce us, confirming to me that we have not yet become jaded with travelling, and seeing the world slow-style. Returning allowed us to feel more at home, the familiarity was comforting rather than dulling.

What's next? We are now in Marmaris, completing a few last jobs on the boat. We will haul the boat out of the water in 10 days, preparing her for winter and our departure back to Australia. Bozburun, near Orhaniye, will be our home for 5 or so hectic weeks as we clean off a year of barnacles, flush out all our nooks and crannies, and lay Pavlov down to hibernate until we return.