In this episode of Sailing A B Sea we take you on a six months Mediterranean sailing story in 17 minutes. We sailed from Turkey to Greece over six months tra...

Closed Captions (CC):
Yeah we thought it was a bit dodgy a few

times but A B Sea came through, the anchor came

through, our plans came through and yeah

it just seems really strange that we've

only got 18 days left on the water

before we spend four months out of the water

Good morning everyone today is the day

we are departing Kas harbour and heading

off on our seven day shakedown cruise to

Kekova so things are a little bit haphazard

and not shipshape on board A B Sea at the

moment. After five months of waiting out

the winter storms and doing maintenance

work on A B Sea in Kaş harbour in Turkey we

slipped the lines for a week-long

shakedown cruise to Kekova just four

hours to the east.

Unfortunately our newly installed

pre-owned autopilot failed three hours

into the trip but it wasn't a big deal

as we knew the area and had charts and

GPS positioning on our phones as backup

At anchor we spent 16 hours getting

buffeted by 25 knots of winds gusting to

35 knots.

Fortunately the holding in Kekova is

outstanding in nice thick mud.

After the shakedown we went back to Kaş Harbour

tweaked a few little things and then

headed around to Kaş marina to fill up

the diesel tank before saying goodbye to

our friends at Kaş on Friday the 26th of April 2019.

Well this is it we are

officially beginning the next step of

our journey, a

little short hop here now about four hours

Our first Anchorage was near Kalkan

only four hours to the northwest where

we spent a pleasant and uneventful night

anchored near to our buddy boat Acheron

with Jim and Alex on board. The

following day we continued further north

to Karacaören. It is without doubt the

most picturesque place we've ever stayed

at. John the restaurant owner has mooring

balls laid out in the small bay and as

we came in he was standing in his tinny

waving us over to an unoccupied one. They're

free of charge as long as you've done at

his restaurant.

We stayed two nights

waiting for some wind then went further

west and north to anchor in the bay at

Küçük Kargı Koyu. This Bay is

really just an overnight stopover point

There is nothing there as an attraction

again with no wind we moved on to Buyuk Aga Koyu where team A B Sea would perform

our first line ashore anchoring manouevre.

It went quite well and this very

pleasant bay offered us all the

beautiful clear water, hiking trails,

ancient ruins and wondrous views we could need

Oh my god it's cold!

Alex asks if I need help.

It's alright, no I want to have a go!

The following morning we checked the

weather forecasts which showed strong

wind from the north on its way. We

decided that we take a 6-hour hop

further Northwest and anchor up in

Marmaris Bay. This was also the place we

were going to get our non-functioning

autopilot repaired. After just three days

in Marmaris we continued following the

Turkish coast line. This time in a

Southwest direction we were heading to

Bozukkale

another beautiful anchorage that has

three restaurant jetties that you can

choose from to tie up to. The first time

we'd visited Bozukkale we'd stayed

at the first jetty to port as you

enter the bay. This time we thought

we'd try the jetty at the head of the

bay. We stayed a couple of nights and

then headed four hours northwest again

to Datça

After two nights of anchor in Datça it

was another 4-hour hop to the ancient

Harbour of Knidos. There is a restaurant

jetty there but the owner is renowned

for his grumpiness so we decided to just

anchor in the protected bay. The next leg

of our journey would be the penultimate

before we checked out of Turkey and

headed to Greece. The 4-hour trip from

Knidos to Gümüşlük was uneventful

and we dropped anchor in the small and

crowded bay just as the wind was

beginning to pick up

Our final Turkish hop was three hours

to the north to Didim, our Turkish

checkout town.

We've just dropped our

anchor in 4.5 metres of water and let

twenty metres of chain out here on the

outside of this Bay here at Didim. We are

pretty much as close as you can be

without being an obstruction to the

entrance to the D-Marin marina at Didim. We couldn't really get any further

into this bay because it's it shallows

off quite quickly. It is a dead calm flat

day and hopefully it's going to stay

that way. There are other options should

the wind, weather and waves change

Anchoring in the sandy bay just outside

the entrance to the D-Marin marina we

drove our dinghy into the marina to find

out what the check out formalities were.

We spoke to a guy at the agent's office in

the marina and for 50 euros he said he'd

manage all of our paperwork and as we were

coming in to refuel he'd meet us at the

fuel dock in 45 minutes

Too easy.

It was a sad moment leaving

Turkey and all of the friends we'd made

behind in our wake but there was also

excitement of what lay ahead. We were

heading for Greece, in particular a town

called Pythagorio on the Greek island

of Samos where we'd be checking in. To

break up the journey we anchored

overnight at the island of Agathonisi

before dropping anchor in Samos the

following day. Checking into Greece at

Samos was a fairly straightforward

procedure which took us an hour to

complete. We then spent the next four

weeks at anchor where we were heads down

and bums up writing blogs, editing videos

exploring Samos, filming more footage and

doing some minor maintenance on A B Sea

With a ton of work done the summer beckoned

us but before we could leave Samos we

needed to tie up at the town quay to get

fresh provisions and fill up with water

It had been 44 days since we last topped

off our water. As we were unsure what

facilities were available in the Greek

islands ahead of us we also went into

Pythagorio marina to top off the fuel tank

Our first planned stop was the island of

Fourni but with 30-knot winds and

crowded anchorage there was no room at

the inn. With the sun quickly heading to

the horizon we made a snap decision to

go south to the island of Patmos. It was

this first forcing of our hand that

determined our route for the remainder

of the summer. You can make as many plans

as you want on a boat but sometimes when

when you get there you find that the bays are

already full with other yachts, the

forces of nature are working against you and

you end up somewhere where you didn't

think you were going to be. Where are we?

Patmos. Where should we be? Fourni.

Figure that one out!

It's a nice place though!

Our biggest challenge in the early part of summer

was finding an affordable SIM card with

heaps of data. Uploading videos and

managing our social media presence

really chews through gigabytes very

quickly. From Patmos we sailed east south

east to Lipsi just two and a half hours

away. Anchoring in the big bay took a

couple of attempts because the bottom

was thin sand over rock but eventually I

Mantus anchor found what it needed and

dug in. When we woke on our first morning

at Lipsi the wind had swung around and

as we were not too sure of how the

holding would be when the wind picked up

strength we decided to motor around to

the more protected bay at the south of

the island. 30 minutes later we were

dropping anchor in deep sand with 100%

protection from the building wind. This

was our first encounter with the

infamous Meltemi northerly wind which

stalks the Aegean Sea all through the

summer. We stayed in the bay for a few

days waiting for the wind to drop below

30 knots and planned out a new route

which would eventually take us west and

north with our ultimate goal of getting

as close as possible to Athens in time

for visits from our friends Shelley and

Ian in mid-september.

From Lipsi we

sailed two hours south to Leros and

anchored in Alinda Bay on the east

coast. This island was where we had our

first real internet data win managing to

buy 30 gigabytes of data for 25 euros on

a Wind SIM The irony is that the next

island we were going to had no phone or

internet access as there was only one

family that lived there. It took us six

hours to get to Levitha which lies to

the west southwest of Leros. The most

secure option is to tie off from one of

the mooring balls

in the narrow bay on the south coast. The

mooring ball is 7 euros per night or

free if you take a short hike up the

hill and eat dinner at the family

compound. The next day was the seven hour

hop further west to anchor in the big

bay at Amorgos

This anchorage gets very busy in the

summer and you must make sure that you

anchor well away from the big ferries'

turning area. They come in and out

several times a day

We stayed anchored at Amorgos for 11

days

again catching up on editing videos,

writing blogs and filming around the

island and also waiting out the Meltemi

wind. A final overnight stop at a very

picturesque anchorage in the northwest

of Amorgos

put us in the perfect position for a

3-hour motor Northwest to the small but

attractive anchorage in the eastern

corner of Upper Koufanisi. As beautiful as

it was we only stayed for one night is

it was very open to the swell and very

rolly. Certainly no good for getting a

good night's sleep. Feeling bleary-eyed

we made an early start for a short

two-hour hop southwest Schinoussa. The

big bay on the southwest of the island

provided good holding in sand and more

importantly a calm anchorage so we could

get a good night's sleep. Feeling

refreshed the following morning we went

further southwest and returned to the

big island of Ios which we'd visited on

our way to Turkey. This time we chose to

anchor in the big bay just to the south

of the main port. We stayed at Ios for

six days and managed to buy some

replacement lines for both of our sails'

furling systems plus a cooking gas

refill. We also met up again with Jim on

our buddy boat Acheron and had a

great time sharing stories of the

different islands of anchorage's we'd

each visited since we parted ways at

Samos almost seven weeks ago. Eventually

the wind changed direction and made the

Ios anchorage we were in very

uncomfortable. We made a decision to push

further west to the uninhabited island

of Polýaigos but once we stuck the

nose of A B Sea out into the open water and

found ourselves beating into the wind

and waves we decided that seven hours of

that wouldn't be fun so we turned tail

and sailed down to the big Manganari Bay

on the south of Ios. After a comfortable

night protected from the wind and waves

we upped anchor for a four and a half hour

sail to Folegandros anchoring in the

only viable bay on the mid west coast of

the island. The next day we had a small

weather window which gave us a chance to

finally begin heading in a northwesterly

direction. Our anchorage of choice was on

the northwestern side of Polýaigos. The

water clarity there is spectacular

protection from the prevailing wind is

good and the bottom is fine sand. We

would have liked to have stayed there

for a few days to explore but the wind

gods had other plans and shifted the

wind to blow from the West which left us

exposed. With no other choice we motored

three hours west and entered the huge

bay of the island of Milos

We hunkered down anchor there for six

weeks. We got heaps of work done,

celebrated Aannsha's birthday, changed out

the old furling lines for the new ones

and once the wind forecasts indicated

that it would be okay, we briefly tied up

alongside Adamas town quay to fill up

with fresh water and fuel. Finally

leaving Milos, we motor sailed five and

a half hours north to Serifos, tucked

into a decent anchorage on the south of

the island and checked the weather

forecasts for the following day

It looked like it was going to be more

of the same so we took advantage of that

and made another hop north to Kythnos

Arriving into the beautiful anchorage in

the northwest sector of the island we

found the spot in the busy anchorage and

got settled in just as the wind

increased from 25 knots to 30 knots. We'd

be staying put until that settled down.

Four days later the wind dropped to a

more manageable 15 knots and shifted

slightly to come from the Northeast. This

was perfect and we made the decision to

skip our next planned island stop a Kea

and instead go directly to the anchorage

on the southern part of mainland Greece

near Athens. We made good time

and five and a half hours later we were

anchored in Sounion Bay overlooked by

the ancient temple to the sea god

Poseidon. Our quick push north meant we

now had ten days up our sleeve before meeting

up with Shelley and Ian. Time for a quick

mission to Athens to visit to chandler

who was the authorized Mantus dealer for

the area. We wanted to buy a Mantus chain hook

From Sounion we motor sailed

north into Athens Bay and anchored at

Varkiza which was a more convenient

location for catching public transport

to Athens. The timing couldn't have been

better as a day after we installed the

new Mantus chain hook on the end of our

snubber line the wind gods decided to

put on a show of strength with three

days of 30 knots sustained wind gusting

up to 37 knots. A B Sea never budged an inch

After things settled down it was time to

begin heading towards our rendezvous

with Shelley and Ian but first we were

going to meet up with our longtime

subscriber Nikos and he lived at Porto

Rafti six hours away on the other side

of the peninsula. Porto Rafti is a

well-protected anchorage with all the

usual amenities and we had a great time

with Nikos who gave us a tour of the

town and bought us a cold beer

September 19th rolled around and we left Porto

Rafti to head east to Evia Island where

we anchored in Marmari just in time to

watch the ferry coming

in carrying our friends. We took them

sailing back to Porto Rafti, onwards

to Sounion where we took some time to

explore Poseidon's temple and then

finally on to Varkiza where we said

goodbye so they could head off to Athens

before flying back to Australia but we still

had three weeks left of our prepaid

Greek cruising tax so we decided to do a

little sightseeing before heading to our

winter haulout destination. Our first

stop was the island of Poros southwest

of Kavouri across Athens Bay. We anchored

at Russian Bay for a week, managed to get

some more work done

plus some exploring around Poros town

and quay. We also wanted the weather to

settle down and for the wind gods to

finally make up their minds which way

they wanted the wind to blow

They obviously couldn't reach a

consensus because we woke up on the

15th of October to a dead calm day

and instantly decided to begin making

the final hops of this year's journey.

From Poros we motored to Sounion, once

again staying only one night before

heading back to Porto Rafti to meet

up with our friend Nikos. Two days

later we were on the move again

this time heading northeast across the

southern section of the Evia channel

en route to Strongilo. The next day it

was still calm and windless as we motored

five hours further north and west in the

channel to overnight anchor at Eretria

The following morning was cold cloudy

and breezy with 13 knots of wind so we

motor sailed three hours through the

sometimes shallow and narrow channel to

drop anchor on the southern side of the

Chalkis old bridge. Monday morning we

went to pay the fee and register our

intent to pass through when the bridge

opened that evening. We got very lucky

with an opening time at 10:30 p.m. Some

opening times can be as late as 2 a.m.

it all depends on the very unpredictable

and unique tidal flow in that area. After

passing the bridge we decided that it

would be best to spend the remainder of

the night tied alongside the town quay

rather than try and find an anchorage in

the dark. From Chalkis quay it was a very

short one hour motor north-northeast into

building wind to drop anchor at Aartaki

The wind slowly increased as did

the swell and made for a very bouncy

night. We were thankful when it got light

enough for us to lift the anchor and get

out of there

We motor sailed five-and-a-half hours

northwest to eventually tuck around the

headland and drop anchor just outside

the small fishing harbour at Theologos

on the Greek mainland side of the Evia

Channel. We spent two nights there

waiting for the wind to lessen or change

direction so that we could make our

final hop northeast to the boat yard at

Sipiada just two kilometres north of the

small town of Limni on the

second-largest Greek island of Evia. Upon

arrival Harris the yard owner told us he

couldn't haul his out straightaway and

recommended we tie off to one of his

secure moorings for the night. The

following day at 7 a.m.

A B Sea was hauled out and made secure as we

moved ourselves and our personal

belongings into an on-site studio

apartment. In total for 2019 we travelled

954 nautical miles which is 1766

kilometres or 1097 miles and that took us

six months and four days. We visited 49

anchorages, 3 town quays and 6 fuel docks

Next year as we continue in a general

westwards direction it's going to be a

totally different kind of sailin. We'll

be crossing longer stretches of water

there will be overnight passages and who

knows, they might have finally concluded

the whole Brexit thing which may or may

not force us to rethink our plans but

you know what they say, the plans of

sailors are written in the sand at low tide