There's a running joke between Aannsha and I about navigating. In particular understanding what we see on the chart compared with what we see with our eyes and knowing where we actually are in relation to where we want to be.
As a long time computer gamer I prefer my chart orientation to always be 'north up'. Aannsha on the other hand prefers viewing the chart from a 'heading up' perspective. So when we open this week's video with me boldly proclaiming "Well here we are, we're in Marmaris" it's quite a funny moment because we are certainly not in Marmaris.
Paradise turns rolly
Inspired by a rolly night at anchor I also reworded the 1957 Everly Brothers classic Bye Bye Love. I think it could be the next No1 on the charts.
Our plan for departing Turkey's Gemiler island anchorage was to have a slow morning and up anchor at around 10:00 hours, but after nearly 5 hours of laying awake because the anchorage had turned rolly, we were ready to leave at 08:30 hours.
We were headed for Fethiye where we wanted to be anchored for the last weekend lock down before Turkey fully opened up for the summer tourism season on June 1st.
The 2 hour trip was thankfully uneventful and we dropped our hook in pretty much the same spot as we did last time we visited Fethiye in 2018. Kev on Barbara Ann followed us into the anchorage and made the mistake of dropping his hook too close to the coast guard station. They like plenty of space around their jetty to manoeuvre their vessels without hindrance. A quick shout reminded Kev what we'd mention about anchoring there before setting off and he quickly reanchored closer to where we were.
Once we'd settled in it was time for a quick trip to the nearest supermarket to provision ready for spending a weekend on board. We'd spend the weekend editing and writing.
Uninvited guests
For about a week we'd been noticing some very small ants wandering about in the cockpit area. Pests on board a boat can quickly get out of hand if not dealt with so it was important that we find out where the nest was. I finally spotted a dozen or so ants lingering around one of the hinges of the double gates to the swim platform. We figured that they had maybe built their nest inside the hollow wall of the gas locker.
Out came a newly purchased plastic square of ant poison which we placed on the cockpit floor close to the gate hinge. Within a minute the bait was found and a processional line of ants came marching out to gobble up the bait and take it back to the queen's colony to share around. Ants are very good at sharing with their colony members and that's their Achilles' heel.
Raid Max Double Control Ant Baits, 0.28 oz, 8 CT https://amzn.to/3zLVhHs
We left the bait overnight and by the following morning there was not a single ant to be seen moving. I inspected the hinge area and noticed that one of the three hinge screws was missing. It seems that the flying queen had spotted the tempting hole while flying around after emerging in early spring and figured that it would make a good home for her colony.
I'll be buying an extra hinge screw when we get back to Kaş.
Visiting Göcek
Göcek is one of Turkey's most popular sailing and anchoring areas and we wanted to visit and check it out.
We also wanted to get some footage of the various merchant boats that support the visiting yachts. There is the big Migros supermarket boat that visits the area daily, plus a fruit & veg boat, an ice cream boat, a baked goods boat and a mobile black water pump out vessel. These all operate daily during the summer months.
However all of the Göcek anchorages are line ashore. They are simply too deep to drop the hook and swing freely. This caused me some nervous concern as we had only ever done line ashore anchoring once before and that had been in an empty bay in early spring. It was now summer and the Göcek anchorages were super busy.
We stuck the nose of A B Sea into 3 potential anchorages but I just didn't feel confident that we could perform the line ashore manoeuvre without bumping into some other boat and completely messing the whole thing up. I decided to abort the Göcek plan and instead motor further west and north and find somewhere where we could just drop anchor normally and I'll tell you all about that in next week's blog.
Follow the link to watch the video that accompanies this blog click here.
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