Anchor's Aweigh

The weather has turned a corner in Fethiye. The pulse is quickening with spring around the corner. It seems to wake up the town, activity is returning to the streets, the storekeepers and stall vendors are painting and making neat, stocking the shelves. The 'Season' is about to start, and everywhere, people are preparing.

On Pavlov, we've been infected with the same fever. We're ready to take down the winter tent and open up our little world to the outside. The chain and anchor have been re-galvanised.

Pavlov's winter tent.

Megan, erstwhile First Mate and Admiral Below Decks, has a particular and fervoured relationship with the anchoring system. She owns that sucker, is she-devil boss of it. Anyway, she's been training the anchor chain into colourful submission, so that it will now tell her faithfully the depth of anchor deployed.

Megan's depth scheme

Chain boss and First Lord Admiral

The saloon cushions have all been re-upholstered, new mattresses fitted to the front and rear  berths.

New Lounge

The mast has been taken down so that all the standing rigging and much of the electrical wiring in the mast can be replaced. It was an excited crew that tied Pavlov up to the main dock so that we could bring in a crane to do the take-down.

Preparing for lift off!

Our rigging crew.

Look what I can lift!

Down she goes

Ready to be re-rigged.

The naked Pavlov

We've also fitted some new creature comforts inside. LED TV (wired up to the computer network) with a nifty arm so we can swing it out of the way.

Pavlov's new media centre.

Our list is about done (at least for now, but there is a new list waiting in the wings!!) . We have a pretty long string of guests visiting this year, starting with Michelle in mid-April. That means some new linen and work to make the boat look really ship shape. 

Everyone's 'appy when the admiral is 'appy.

The new sails arrive next week, so after they're fitted and commissioned, we'll probably take a sea trial down to Gorkova Roads, a fascinating anchorage about 100nm down the Turkish coast.

Life is good.

When in Rome...

To escape our winter confinement, we decided to take a quick flit to Rome. We booked a very cheap flight direct from Dalaman to Rome and stayed for 10 days.  Here's a whirlwind sample.

Megan in Tardis, our friendly lift box

We found a great hotel (Hotel PABA on Via Cavour, if you're in the area) for E 48 per night, right next to the Forum.

Part of the Forum from the outside

The Colosseum was just down the lane.

No need for a title.

... but you could feel the power of old Rome.

We walked for miles and miles (in fact, I wore out my feet, they became quite damaged), just gob-smacked with the richness of history's tapestry here.

Inside the Forum

Viaduct on Palantine hill

However, there's a point where this richness becomes over the top, just too much for the senses to accomodate. The next photo is from the ceiling of the corridor leading into the Sistine Chapel.

Ceiling detail from the corridor to the Sistine Chapel

Great art, you might think, but how do you deal with each individual work of art when it's in the context of this:

Corridor to the Sistine Chapel

How can you assimilate and appreciate each work when your eye is just overwhelmed by the sheer amount of art. We visited amazing churches and museums which seemed to compete to be the most lavish and overwrought.

Pantheon ceiling

Megan with the angels in St Peter's

Vatican art collection

Vatican ceiling

It came to a head when we walked through an unremarkable and drab door off a small piazza, to be confronted with an overwhelmingly beautiful church. We saw a poster advising us of a Michaelangelo sculpture, and we almost didn't bother to walk the length of the abbey to see it. We'd OD'ed on beauty. Well, we forced ourselves, it's terrible to treat Michaelangelo in such a cavalier fashion.

Michael Angelo's 'Christ carrying the cross'

We learned how to operate the roman buses and metro, and our 7 day pass saw very heavy use. To clear our overloaded senses, we took a trip out to Ostia Antica, the original port city of Rome.

Amphitheatre at Ostica Antica

Bathhouse mosaic at Ostica Antica

Mussolini planned a utopian city, EUR ( Esposizione Universale Roma),  to commemorate 20 years of Fascism and to portray the glory of Rome. We were astonished by the grandiosity and pomposity of the architecture, vainglorious beyond comprehension.

Front door to the EUR museum, must be 100' high

Covered walkway of the museum

Everything in Rome seems larger than life, huge, in the realm of the immortals. Even this foot!

A bit toey in Rome

Of course, the view from the top of St Peter's is just breath taking, the Trevi fountain defies simple description, and the sheer scale of the monumental architecture threatens to sink Rome to its pre-civilized foundations.

View from the top of St Peter's cathedral

Trevi Fountain - Bernini

Vittoria monument - stupendo

We loved Rome, it was stupendous, breath-taking and romantic. But in the end, it was like going to a 'Death by Chocolate' restaurant; good things in moderation can become nauseating when overblown. Rome felt indulgent, too much, over the top.

It was all an impossible trick...

Indian levitators in the Corso

But we did our best to imbibe, because when in Rome...

When in Rome... do as the romans.

Pavlov gets new wings

Most people may not realize that boats actually fly through the water. Being a long time glider and general aviation pilot, I am acutely aware that boat sails are exactly like wings, they generate lift to enable a boat to sail to windward.

Here's a photo of a sister ship of a glider I used to own in the USA, a german ASW 19. I just loved the purity of function defining form, the sheer sensuousness of the lines, the delicate thin wings curving upwards as they responded to thermal lift.

ASW19's in cruise formation

A yacht's sails should have the same purity of form. Pavlov's sails are well used, yellowed with age and sea miles. They are the original sails and are over 20 years old. We thought it was time Pavlov was given the gift of new wings, so that she too could fly to windward.

We enlisted the help of UK sails to design a new wardrobe of sails for Pavlov. We wanted a new mainsail, a new yankee and a new furling staysail. Pavlov is a true cutter, which means that she was designed to fly two head-sails, a yankee and a staysail.

Pavlov's new tri-radial yankee

Here's a computer generated design of Pavlov's new yankee. This computer file will drive the cutters that cut the cruise laminate fabric to form the sail panels. This style of panels is called a tri-radial cut, the panels are lined up with the lines of force carried by the sail. The new staysail will be a smaller, cross cut design and mounted on a new furler. This will allow us to reef both the yankee and the staysail from the cockpit. Being able to put the sails away or to reef them down without a trip to the fore-deck, and to not have to deal with hanking on and storing heavy sails in high winds will be a huge advantage.

The new mainsail will be full-battened and have Rutgerson cars up the luff. These reduce the friction of the sail attachment slugs in the mast track. It will make it easier to drop the sail in a hurry and reduce the effort needed to raise the sail. We have also ordered a new lazy bag. This catches the sail when it falls so that it it neatly flaked on top of the boom.

All of these features will make sail handling easier and quicker. We both felt that these will make sailing the boat much safer. Being able to reef the main quickly, and to avoid having to go onto the fore-deck in high seas will make sailing in strong conditions much safer. As our experience grows, we're finding that Pavlov can handle stronger weather very well. Sailing from Serce to Fethiye in 25 knot winds demonstrated her good sea manners. For once, the wind was in the correct quarter, so we averaged about 7 knots home, even hitting 8 knots surfing down some of the swells. We did break a few battens from an involuntary gybe. We had a preventer rigged so the boom was fine, but the twisting off main broke 3 battens. Lucky we've a new sail ordered!

While all this work is going on, we've been making short forays into Turkey. The following photo's are from Serce, a very welcome hidden anchorage that provided a safe haven for an overnight stop as we travelled from Orhaniye to Fethiye. The winds were really up in the Rhodes channel, but after we sneaked into this little hidden bay, they dropped right off, and we found ourselves in a very tranquil anchorage, whilst outside the heavens howled.

Megs and Pav at Serce anchorage, a respite from the storms.

The anchorage was totally sheltered from quite heavy weather outside.

Looking out to the main bay.

Pavlov's mast intruding on the tranquil scene

When we settled back into Fethiye, we decided to break up boat maintenance tasks with local side trips. We made a trip to Kayakoy, a Greek village abandoned in 1923 after the Lausagne Treaty when Turkey deported many individuals of Greek descent back to Greece. The village was a sad and desolate place, just left abandoned. Megan is writing a more extensive piece on the history of this place.

Kayakoy ruins

Abandoned Greek Orthodox church

We also tried to take the dolmus (a local mini-bus) up to the ski-fields near Fethiye. We got to a village called Seki, but there was no available transport to the ski-fields themselves.

Snow capped mountains outside of Seki

Village square in Seki

So we spent a quiet few hours exploring the non-existent delights of Seki while waiting for the bus to take us back to Fethiye, a 2 hour trip. A circumcision ceremony watched over by a brooding Attaturk helped pass the time.

Circumcision ceremony

Quess who?

Ramshackle house in Seki

So in between the endless boat maintenance tasks (Its all about the boat, Steve....), we've been making short trips by local bus. To break up the patten, we decided to spread our wings a little. Pavlov should not get all the gifts, so we bought tickets to Rome, and will spend 10 days in the city in a week or so. Next blog should be rather italianate in flavour.

Tough life, isn't it!

Kayakoy- the ghost village near Fethiye

View of the village from the bottom of the hill

After our return from Orhaniye we decided to become tourists again. There is still so much to see
around Fethiye. One place I had wanted to visit is Kayakoy- village of stone. It is the village which
is the backdrop to the novel "Birds without Wings" by  Louis de Bernieres.

After WW1 Greece expected to receive territory as the result of the break up of the Ottoman Empire.
Britain had negotiated this agreement with the Greeks during the war, but once the war ended all such agreements were broken. The collapse of the Ottomans and the rise of Ataturk and the new nation of Turkey meant that Greek ambitions in the region were to be fought. A war between Greece and Turkey was fought and in 1923 at the Treaty of Lausanne a peace was brokered.


The relationship between the Greeks and the Turks has been stormy. Cyprus is a good example. The Greek /speaking or Greek orthodox people had lived in Asia Minor for generations. Greek speaking people had settled this coast in ancient times. So a Greek presence has existed here for thousands of years.
When you read information at the site of Kayakoy here and why it happened, it is hard to distill the truth. It is confronting to imagine the impact of agreements made by politicians on the ordinary people.

The impact of forced repatriation of Greek orthodox people back to Greece must have been

horrendous. The Greeks refer to this as the "Catastrophe". In Turkish literature and other sources it is recorded that the governments of Greece and Turkey agreed to this movement of people- moslems back to Turkey, Greek orthodox back to Greece.  Some documents even try to limit the numbers affected. One source says 180,000 Greeks and over 300,000 moslems. Another says 1.5million Greeks were forced to leave their homes in Turkey. It was suggested that the majority were forced to leave before the treaty was made. I found shards of china in homes. Were these the remains of a families dinner set lost in their forced removal?
 At Kayakoy a local historian has written on a notice that no physical force was used to force the people to leave yet Turkish people would not live there because they feared that the Greeks had
poisoned the wells. How does this make sense?  Was this more anti Greek propaganda or did the Greeks have good reason to want to make the perpetrators of their removal from their homes suffer?
Again trying to find the truth is difficult.

I have read about atrocities in the Greek -Turkish war on both sides.  It seems that the Turkish source would have you believe the action was not based on race but religion. What does this really mean?

In 1932 the Ataturk led government passed laws which restricted the professions or work that Greek citizens in Turkey could engage in. Some Greeks had been allowed to stay in Istanbul after 1923. They were barred from from a series of 30 trades and professions from tailor to carpenter to medicine, law and real estate.

In 1955 the Istanbul Pogrom occurred leading to many Greeks leaving Turkey. So surely the forced removal of Greeks from Turkey in 1923 was targeting them as Greek- as the evidence of anti Greek racism in latter years would attest.


Kayakoy is famous because a whole village was forced to leave Turkey and the buildings were just left to decay. 

You can see in the photos, houses , shops , streets, churches and chapels; a 
ghost town or as the name suggests, a village of stone.  I was amazed at how large it was; rows and rows of houses covering the whole hill side. 

My friend in Australia Sophie told me that her family had been forced to leave Turkey after WW1,  part of the"catastrophe". Her grandmother's experiences of this forced removal were horrific.  It is no wonder that forgiveness has been hard if not impossible for many Greeks.  In both countries different stories are told to explain or justify what happened in Turkey at this time

Now I have another research project: to find out what really happened in villages like Kayakoy and why it happened.

Ground Hog Day

Well, Ground Hog Day has come around again. That's the day when, once again, we try to leave Orhaniye.

Sure, you know, its ground hog day... again

First time we came to Orhaniye, on a charter boat 'Papalagi'  in 2011. We stayed just a few days longer than we planned. We loved the Bee festival, ate honey cakes and drank chai. Next time was a planned 2 day visit in Pavlov, 2012. We ended up staying for a month, and had lots of canvas and stainless steel work done on the boat, and the decks re-caulked.

View over Marmaris from the bus

This time, we planned to lift out at Marti Marina for 2 weeks (at an exorbitant price). We ended up staying on the hard for 2 months, major hull work and rudder repairs, engine overhauled, plumbing re-jigged. Finally back in the water, we thought we could get away back to Fethiye (where we have a contract at the marina for our berth).

Check the mosque poised on the cliff

We made our first attempt 2 days ago. We snuck out of Goekova Bay, only to get hammered by 40 knot winds and horizontal driving rain. Our forward progress dropped to 2 knots, so we decided to beat a hasty retreat, and headed back to Orhaniye.

Desperate for something to do, we jumped on a couple of busses up to Mulga, the administrative capital. It was a wet rainy sunday, but the bus ride through the mountain passes was spectacular.

A rather proud Attaturk adornment

We saw our first Turkish demonstration. About 30 placarded demonstrator were holding a peaceful but vociferous meeting. Totally outnumbered by the police, including a riot van, SWAT team, water cannon and crowd dispersing tank. Tight rein indeed.

Old Ottoman building sandwiched by modernity.

We wandered around till it was time to catch the bus home. We've just ridden out 2 more days of gale force winds. We'll try to depart again today, but I have the sneaking feeling that ... 

its still ground hog day!!

Mulga side street

I think I'll teach the theory of 'Eternal Recurrence'