In this episode of Sailing A B Sea our buddy boat Acheron ends up towing a Turkish boat to Datca. We visit several Turkish anchorages and while we are moored...

Closed Captions (CC):
We've just had Jim put his tablet with

his sim card up the mast so we get 18

metres of elevation and he's actually

picking up a signal from the island of

Rhodes which is Greek way over there.

The gopher's come out!

Well the wind gods

played with us and eventually the wind

just dropped down to nothing

as you can see it's almost like a mill

pond out here very glass like. We're

about an hour and a half away from our

destination of Bozukkale

the little bay there with three

restaurant jetties available to us we're

going to one we've never been to before

at the farthest end inside the bay. Jim's

been there before and he says it's very nice.

Aannsha's down below having a little

nanna nap. Yeah I think it'll be great

to get to Bozukkale. There's a big

blow meant to be coming in tomorrow and I

think this is the calm before the storm

It's very overcast and

it's got that stillness, the clouds are just

those grey flat clouds so will

hopefully be nicely securely tied up by

the time the blow comes in. And it

shouldn't bother us, we can get some work done

Five o'clock Saturday afternoon we've

just arrived at Bozukkale. It's been a mixed

bag of weather today it's now very

overcast and it looks like it might even

rain tonight so who knows. We're tied

up side to there's only Acheron here with

Jim and Alex on board so even if we take

up enough space for five boats it really

doesn't matter. I don't think they're

gonna get any more visitors any time

soon and if there are a couple of

there's plenty more spaces so tonight we

will be dining in the restaurant here as

is the protocol when you use the

restaurant jetties and then tomorrow its

head down, bum up, nose to the grindstone

as we bang out a few more videos because we've got to get some breathing space. Yeah we're behind again. So

then we can stop and smell the roses

if like. Yeah

Final touch is putting the boat to bed

and then we're gonna check out what's

happening around here. Yeah. it's nice we

were here before but we were in a

different little restaurant jetty so

it's nice to be in a different a

different. This one's got a beach, a

pebble beach

yeah and there are lots of little sort

of ruins of houses around here from

ancient times which I'm looking forward to exploring. And allegedly some donkeys

Yes. In the evening we put on some warm

jackets and went to have dinner in the

open-air restaurant

So it's a wet blowy Sunday and we've just

had Jim put his tablet with his SIM card

up the mast so we get 18 metres of

elevation and he's actually picking up a

signal from the island of Rhodes which

is Greek obviously, way over there. It's

very very - I mean we're on the edge of

that signal I would guess, the speed

is slow almost in reverse

but we are getting things done which is

great, we've managed to reply to a lot of

comments on our YouTube video

Aannsha is speedy stitching a little

piece for something we'll show you later

on. It's one of those days where you just,

you can't go outside because it's

blowing a gale, actually the winds just

dropped off and so say that, we're just

gotta try and work with what we've got

to try and get things done and this is

just the reality of living life on a

boat and trying to run a YouTube channel

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, everything

else, the web page. So yeah you work with

Nature it it - this lifestyle

teaches you that you're not really in

control. No! Whatever you think you're

wrong.

You can manage things and you can work around

things and you can troubleshoot things

but Nature is bigger you know,

rain, wind, sea. We just had a look at the

weather as well. We'll hang on here today

and tonight probably make a run for

Datça tomorrow before more wind and rain

comes in. There's nothing wrong with wind

we like wind, it's just cold at the

moment it's still cold even though it's

it's May

So we'll - We'll stop whinging now. Yes! We almost sound like whinging Poms didn't we? We did.

Talking of whinging Poms

we've got our Aussie flag up now on our

port side spreader.

Okay well I'm gonna get back to replying to

Facebook comments now, Facebook is so slow to load.

And I need to focus on this yeah this

otherwise I'll poke myself

This restaurant jetty at the end of Bozukkale Bay is a perfect place to tie up

and take some chill time and even

yesterday when we had 30 knot winds

coming straight in through the entrance

of the bay and technically pushing us

back against the jetty the lazy lives we

had held firm and we were kept well off

contact with the jetty. If the jetty is

full you can drop your anchor here the

bottom is sandy with patchy weed so the

holding is quite good and the guys will

come out on their little boat and bring

you to the restaurant if need be. Toilets

and showers here are fantastic very

modern very clean very nice so all in

all a great place. Put it on your bucket list

Hopefully the camera is going to

pick up this without too much wind noise.

Last night while we were sitting here

having dinner, Aannsha, Jim and myself, in

the distance of the entrance of the bay

we saw the flashing blue and red lights

of coast guard vessel towing in a very

small yacht which is now tied up on the

dock over there

The guy had apparently had engine

problems and with the wind blowing

the way it was it was blowing him

towards Greece. Here we are a day on and

we're now sat down again for dinner.

Jim and Aannsha have just gone back to Acheron to

get gin and tonics, very civilized,

meanwhile I'm just gonna have an Efes beer,

how strange. Anyway moving on with the story

we are going to Datça tomorrow which is

the 20 mile hop that way. The wind should die

down it's predicted to die down. This guy

with the broken engine on this boat

needs to go to Datça. Jim has offered to

tow him to Datça so our original time

of leaving was 9 o'clock

I think we've now brought that forward

probably to 8 or somewhere around 7

because obviously when you're towing a

vessel you can't go at full speed so

it's going to be interesting and exciting

agenda tomorrow let's see what happens

as we tow about 20 miles to Datça

The adventure continues

So the line that Jim is using is

floating line which is a lot safer

because it won't get caught up under any

propellers or anything.

So there's Jim on

Acheron beginning to tow the little

15-foot boat all the way from Bozukkale

to Datça. It's about a four-hour trip

We went on ahead first to Datça so that

we could be ready to assist Jim when he

arrived at the anchorage.

We deployed the

dinghy so that Baz could tow the

little yacht from Acheron into the

harbour

Do you guys have your dinghy deployed yet?

We do, we've just let it now. Baz is just taking it round to the side over.

Okay I'm gonna swing past the harbour and have a look but if it looks tricky I'll just

come out and if you can take the tow line in your dinghy that would be awesome

After that heroic and successful mission

Jim anchored Acheron close to A B Sea.

This morning we are waking up to a slightly

overcast day here in Datça in Turkey. We

dropped anchor here yesterday afternoon

and for the first time ever our Mantus

didn't dig in and actually dragged a

little bit. We had read in the pilot guide

that the holding here in this particular

Bay, this is the South Bay of Datça, is

patchy to say the least so because we're

in such shallow water and had a huge

amount of rode out we just managed to

gently bring the boat backwards and then

the the Mantus eventually found purchase

and dug in nice and solid

We do have 40 metres of chain out again

because apparently if the wind

prediction websites are correct, coming

from over there on those mountains will

be a large amount of wind today, possibly

gusting up to 30 knots sustained around

about 20 to 25 knots so as I said we

drop the anchor over there in 4 metres 5

metres with 40 metres of chain out so

that's plenty for us. Should we drag we'll

be dragging that way so plenty of space

for us to get the situation back under control.

Where are we off to today

captain. Today we are upping anchor in Datça

in Turkey and taking a short

20 nautical mile trip to Knidos where we will anchor

overnight I think maybe one or two nights it

just depends on what the wind is doing

so it's a great day we've actually got

some wind so it could be sails up and

actual sailing today. Yes cool breeze

it's picking up

Yup, yeah so I think a couple of jackets

a couple of layers today, yeah

It's the way the furling line is going

into the drum it's not stacking neatly, it's actually

gathering in one spot. Oh

so it gets thick in one place - yes - and it catches on the inside. Oh okay

So the wind is 15 knots from behind and we're

still doing about 5 knots of speed over

ground which is not too bad

It'll be interesting to see what happens

when we get to this point and turn to

starboard because then theoretically it

should be a beam reach which will be a

heck lot better for us so we're less than a mile

from the starboard turn

Is she dragging?

She's in

Yeah so you're at 20? We're in nine

metres let it out to 30 and then snub it

Right let's sit here

Well that was an interesting sail of

sorts. The wind was kind of behind us

then we turned the corner and there was

no wind, then as we went further around

the corner the wind picked up but it was

mostly on the nose so we kind of did a

bit of a head sail thing and the wind

picked up to around about 17 18 knots

which was nice and we got up to six

knots of speed and then all of a sudden

the wind just decided to go away again.

So the wind gusts were very playful

today. Here we are now in

Knidos. There is a well marked entrance

with a red and green channel marker if

you come through there you're perfectly

safe if you go outside of the channel

markers you are likely to bang into some

underwater obstructions some ancient -

it's the ancient walls of the old harbour yeah

The reported holding here was bad. It's a

mixture of weeds, sand and rock and we

dropped anchor in five metres of water

up to the the north west and it didn't hold at all. It didn't

go in at all

so we gently motored back and we could

feel the anchor dragging along the

bottom. I reckon we must have moved a

couple hundred metres before eventually

the Mantus dug in and held us in

position. So we're currently in 9 metres and we've got 35-38 metres of chain out

So we're just gonna put

the boat to bed. Yeah we're gonna track

it though yeah we will track it and what

we're gonna do is because the water here

is crystal-clear when we drop the dinghy

we'll take a dive mask stick that on

poke poke our head over the side and

have a look at the anchor just to

visually check whether it's gone into

sand or whether it's just hooked on

rocks but I think maybe it's in sand. Let's hope.

Yeah we'll take a look. If not we'll pick

it up and we'll start again. Yeah. All

right let's get this boat put to bed

Join us next week on sailing A B Sea as we

head for Didim, our last anchorage in

Turkey before we leave for Greece.

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