In last week's blog I covered the two main factors, tiredness and stress, as to why I had recently been making silly mistakes when manoeuvring A B Sea in close quarters. When you watch the video that accompanies this blog (Ep.197) you'll see me getting a bit stroppy and having a 'Baz explosion' as we return back to 'home' base at the end of the summer sailing.
For those of you who are not sailors I should explain that a sail boat must be making way in order for it to be manoeuvred and when moving in reverse to enter a berth there comes a point when the boat becomes stationary and I am then at the mercy of the people handling the lines to make sure that A B Sea stays exactly where I put her. There were many small factors why this didn't happen when we returned to Kaş marina and I'll tell you about them shortly. First let's go back to Marmaris marina.
Marmaris
We'd only intended staying at Marmaris marina for 2 nights but that stretched out to 5 nights and could've gone longer but we really needed to get moving to get back to Kaş while we still had some days remaining on our marina contract there.
As our next destination was Ekincik, just 3 hours away, we made a late start casting off the lines at 11:50hrs. Exiting the marina we found a nearby spot to drop the anchor so that we could bring our dinghy around to the stern and haul her up onto our davits. We don't like towing our dinghy, it just doesn't feel comfortable and we never know when the wind and waves might take a turn for the worse so we always put her up on the davits.
It was another hot, humid and windless day and we motored all the way to Ekincik. When we got there our plan A anchorage was full so we went to plan B anchorage which was closer to the town and the small harbour area.
Night time brought no respite from the summer heat, it remained a sweaty 38C (100.4F) all night so sleep was sketchy to say the least. Add to that visitations from a few mosquitoes and some drunken revellers who decided that it would be a great idea to take one of the day tripper boats out of the harbour at 2am while blaring music at volume level 11.
By the time dawn broke I think I'd managed 2 hours sleep and was eager to get moving by 06:15hrs. Our next stop was Gemiler Bay.
Gemiler Bay
Another windless day meant motoring the 5.5 hours to Gemiler Bay and even though it was super busy we got lucky and managed to drop anchor in our usual spot.
Summer was in full swing and alongside the private yachts and charter yachts there were dozens of small day tripper boats coming and going plus an equal amount of huge pirate themed galleons. Each vessel of course trying to outdo the next in how loud they could play their music. It was a very different experience from when we had anchored there near the end of March (2021).
Eventually the sun headed to the horizon and the day trippers all went home, peace and quiet descended.
The wind gods, not content with the windless days, decided that some wind from the south was what we needed overnight which produced a small swell and caused us to rock and roll all night. Another night with just a few hours of decent sleep and at 06:20hrs the following morning we upped anchor and began our 7 hour trip to Kaş.
Kaş
At Kaş we dropped the anchor just off the fuel berth to do two things. Firstly we needed to drop our dinghy from the davits and secure it off the port bow so that we could reverse into our marina berth.
Then we syphoned the 40 litres (10.5 gallons) of spare diesel from the two jerry cans into the main fuel tank. The spare fuel had been sitting on the side decks for 7 months and I didn't want it sitting there all through the winter months as well.
With both of those tasks completed we next went to the fuel berth to top off the diesel tank and pump out our black water tank. Once that was complete I radioed for marinero assistance in getting into our pontoon berth.
A new guy rocked up in the marina rib, (it was his first week on the job) and once we told him our berth number he went ahead to prepare the slime line (lazy line). This is where all of the little things started falling apart.
The end of the slime line that ties to the bow cleat is pulled up from the bottom of the marina with a lead line. As he was reversing back to pull up the slime line, the lead line snapped just as he got the slime line in his hand.
I continued reversing A B Sea into her berth where two of our friends were standing ready to take our stern lines. Usually by now the marinero would have the slime line tied to the bow cleat but when I looked forward the marinero seemed at a loss at how to do that. After throwing the stern lines, Aannsha went forward to see if she could help.
The marinero simply handed Aannsha the slime line and proceeded to come back onto the pontoon. As I've already said we had two guys there handling the lines so he really should have been assisting at the bow.
I looked forward and asked Aannsha if the line was secure. She said it was too short for her to tie around the cleat. The marinero then went to the bow and tied a short bit of old rope onto the end of the slime line, made a bowline and just hooked it over the cleat. That wasn't going to work when trying to adjust the tension of the lines to keep A B Sea off the pontoon.
While all of this was going on the wind kept getting hold of the bow and pushing it to starboard. As there were no boats either side of us to keep us in line I was constantly using the bow thruster to try and keep the bow in position.
This messing around had been going on for around 6 or 7 minutes and I couldn't see how it was going to be resolved, then my tiredness and stress finally broke through and I cracked a nana. I decided to abort the docking.
I brought the starboard stern line back on board, fired the bow thruster for the umpteenth time and informed Aannsha that I was aborting and that she should drop the slime line and come and retrieve the port stern line. At first she couldn't hear me over the noise of the bow thruster motor. When I raised my voice and she understood what I was relaying she was reluctant to drop the slime line as there would be no way to retrieve it from the bottom of the marina.
At this point I now had nothing holding the stern, I was fighting the wind for control of the bow and couldn't move forward until Aannsha let go of the line and it had sunk below the level of our propeller.
I invoked captain's privilege and loudly ordered the line dropped. Aannsha was not happy and neither was the marinero.
Narrowly missing the anchor on the bow of a boat tied up to our starboard I got A B Sea into the wide fairway and reversed back out to open water. The marinero went off to get assistance telling us he'd be back in 5 minutes.
A few minutes later he came speeding back in his rib with another marinero and between the two of them at the bow and us at the stern we easily reversed into a different berth and we were securely tied up within 2 minutes.
We felt sorry for the new guy, but in our opinion he should've had an experienced marinero by his side showing him the ropes.
Q & A
We're just about to start filming our annual Q & A video, so if you have any Q's you'd like answering then leave a comment on this week's video and we'll include it in the upcoming episode.
Also with Christmas just around the corner check out Aannsha's Mermaids Treasures by clicking here. There's 20% discount on selected items for a limited time.
Until next week stay safe and healthy.
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