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Barry's Blog #192 - Mostly Marmaris

Updated: Aug 21, 2021

Decision making is a constant reality of being a full time liveaboard.


For instance right now in real time we are making the most of our 30 days free stay at Marmaris Setur marina as part of our 12 month Setur marina group contract. Our original plan, heading back to Kas, hadn't involved Marmaris at all, but we calculated that we needed to refuel. When we arrived the plan was to stay for 2 nights to recharge our sleepy heads, have some long hot Hollywood showers and then do a big 13 hour hop down to KaÅŸ.


Then we found out that our mate Jim was arriving in the marina. We were so excited about catching up with him so our 2 nights turned into 3 nights. Of course that catch up turned rather boozy and waking up at 10am with a hangover is not a good start to a 13 hour hop. So 3 nights have now turned into 4 nights and instead of doing a 13 hour hop we've decided to split it up into 3 smaller hops. The first one will only be 3 hours which is a walk in the park. But I digress and once again I'm getting ahead of myself as the events that I'm going to write about in this blog, to accompany this week's video, took place in early June 2021. Pump out - Fuel up


The Turkish coast guard are being very vigilant at ensuring that yachts pump out their black water tanks on a regular basis. The fine for not doing so can be 3,200 Turkish Lira. The policing is also a little lopsided as we've seen plenty of evidence that the big gulets regularly dump the contents of their black water straight into the sea. It's a minor irritation that the rules are not applied equally.


So our first task following our night time arrival and anchoring at Marmaris was to go into the marina to pump out the black water and fuel up on diesel. The fuel guys don't start work until 08:30 hours and we wanted to be first in and first served so we upped anchor at 07:30 hours and headed over to the fuel berth. There was no wind and we'd lowered the fenders and prepped the bow and stern lines. We're fortunate that we have side gates at our amidships so it's super easy for Aannsha to step off the boat, as soon as I bring it close enough to the quay, and tie us off without any hassle. Our teamwork and casual attitude really shine through in this week's video.


Exploring Marmaris


After completing our tasks at the fuel berth, the Marmaris marineros guided us to our marina berth and we made the most of hooking into shore power, free wifi and the hot showers. The Setur Marmaris marina also provides unlimited free potable water, so we took the opportunity to clean the topsides of A B Sea and fill up on fresh water. We carry 600 litres (158 gallons) of fresh water and as we were going to be out at anchor for the next few months it was nice to be able to fill our tanks to the brim.


We also decided to explore some bits of Marmaris that we hadn't seen before, although frustratingly we discovered, when we got there, that the fort on the hill near the marina was closed for 10 days. Ah well that's another reason to come back at another time to check that out.


As we were walking around I noticed the very distinct architecture of a Chinese structure and the first thought that entered my head was "OMG it's the outside dining area of a Chinese restaurant." I haven't eaten Chinese food in over 6 years and was craving the tastes. We wandered over for a closer look and discovered that it was only a small park area in recognition of the fact that Marmaris is twinned with the city of Jinan, the capital of Shandong province in Eastern China.


Since that encounter I've learned that Marmaris is also twinned with Furth in Germany, Ordu in Turkey, Ashkelon in Israel and Dzerzhinshy in Russia.


Moving north


After 5 days in Marmaris it was time to move on and although it was almost the middle of June it was still quite chilly in the early morning. If you look closely at this week's video you can see that I'm wearing my slippers sitting at the helm.


Departing Marmaris our goal was to get to an anchorage called Serce Limani (north). It's a super well protected spot that our friend Kev had told us about and we'd previously stuck our nose in there earlier in the year but it was not open for business at that time. Entering the small bay we saw that there were two mooring balls available and we followed what we were taught during our RYA training courses in Gibraltar in February 2018. As you'll see in the video the RYA technique does not apply to all mooring balls especially when they have no slack in the mooring line to bring the ball up to the cleat at the toe rail.


Eventually the restaurant owner, who maintains the mooring balls, came out in his dinghy and helped us securely tie off. And we have had several helpful comments from our subscribers explaining some different techniques we can try next time we're approaching a mooring ball.


We really appreciate the helpful advice and tips we get from our patrons, subscribers and viewers. Thank you all so much.


Until next week stay safe and healthy.


Follow the link to watch the video that accompanies this blog click here.



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