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June 2005
We departed MYM on June 11, finally, on a calm, clear, sunny day. All cruising functions seemed to be working, so we left Marmaris Bay and headed southwest.
The wind, of course, was from the southwest, but light, so we headed for the point some 20 miles away, after which we would turn and go "with the wind". Best laid plans ...
The wind got stronger, so we decided to stop in Serce, a small narrow bay that we'd tried before, but had decided against as it had been crowded. We hoped that there would be fewer boats at this time of year.
There were, so we decided to stay. It's an anchorage where one can anchor at the south end, in deep water, or in the north end, on laid moorings. We chose the north, and the owner of the restaurant, jetty and moorings rowed out to help us get some lines on the buoys, and tie to shore. After using all the long lines we had on board, we were tied to two mooring buoys and two rocks. The wind was blowing across our beam, and our windage made for some very taut lines! This is not a situation that we are normally comfortable with, but we decided to give it a go, as the wind typically slows down at night anyway.
So, it did. Good, we thought. But then it started up from the opposite direction (still across the beam), and putting a whole different set of strains on the lines. Unfortunately, it also sent us much closer to shore, and we determined we had about 6 inches under our rudders. By this time, it was dark, and we were stuck, as getting out at night was just not possible from that place. Ooh, how we hate that!
Sometime around midnight, the wind did calm down to about 12 knots, and while we were still in shallow water, we felt safe enough to go to bed. But it was a pretty early start the next morning - and in extricating ourselves from the spider web of lines, Ann had to cut one of the stern lines as it was caught around a rock with the new wind direction. Pretty though the spot was, we were glad to leave.
Because we had picked up a mooring, we were more or less obliged to go to the restaurant for dinner. This is quite common in Turkey, and can be one of the highlights of any particular anchorage. This spot had been highly recommended to us by a number of cruisers, and we had chosen to overlook our initial discomfort about the anchorage for just that reason. The frustrating part of the entire episode is that we found the restaurant to be overpriced and quite mediocre. It did, though, have one really great feature - the owner played CDs with some excellent folk music.
The following day we headed north to our old haunt, Keci Buku. Our "spot" was occupied (!) so had to anchor somewhat further out, but it still felt like coming home.
We had a lovely nearly 3 weeks in KB. The bay is as gorgeous as ever, although the prices for everything, including Mama's Chicken, have gone up by about 20%. The dolmus is now 3.75 pp/one way, (only 3.00 last year), so a trip to Marmaris now costs us YTL15. The good news is that there is a very good, small public market every Saturday, so the area's excellent fresh fruit and vegetables were available just a dinghy ride away. The water was relatively clear this year, and we swam every day in 28 degree water.
Our stay was marred by one very unfortunate event. On the last day of June, we were robbed. There had been some thefts from boats in the bay (at anchor as well as at docks) already this year, so we made sure we locked the boat whenever we went ashore. In the 30 degree heat this was not natural, but we were religious about it. However, we did not feel it was necessary to lock the boat when we were swimming. And it was then that we got caught. About 6 in the evening, as part of our daily cool-off, we swam over to introduce ourselves to Grey Dawn (very nice Oz couple, Brent & Pam). We were not watching the boat, whose stern was pointed away from us anyway. Some 20 minutes later, we swam back, and discovered that someone had climbed aboard, (swam out from shore, we assume), and taken about $1800 USD from our "secret" hiding place. Some of this was in Amex checks, but most was in cash. We don't normally keep that much on the boat, but it was left over from our trip to North America, and we knew we would need cash going down the Red Sea. They handled, but did not take, passports, camera, computer, credit cards, or anything else of value that we can determine. There was salt water dripped everywhere.
We were distraught, of course, and went through the usual denial, shock and anger at the whole thing. We reported it to the local authorities, but they are not really capable of handling such things, and it was only some 6 hours later (midnight, yet) that the Coast Guard and Jandarma arrived at our boat to "take a report". We didn't really expect much, but we had to do it. Amex was very good when we called them, and arranged for us to get an immediate refund on the check amounts at a bank in Marmaris. All in all, a very sorry experience, and one that has colored our feelings about our used-to-be favorite anchorage.
We stayed through Canada Day, but decided that we should try someplace else, and so motored over to Dirsek, at the eastern end of Hisaronu Bay.
