Makarma's log: An easy downwind sail?

Our destination - Teos Marina, Sigacik

When people say that sailing in the Med is unrewarding, they probably have in mind a day like today. We started out from Cesme with a gentle northwesterly. That’s good, the wind’s behind the beam for a change. We hoist the mainsail and unroll the genoa and manage a few easy downhill miles until we reach the south end of the Chios channel where the wind dies. We roll up the genoa and turn on the engine to get round the corner. On the other side, we’re heading southeast along a pretty beach on the south side of the Cesme peninsula. In the lee of the land, the wind’s now a pretty lacklustre affair, sometimes puffing up, sometimes dying. We motor on. At least the tillerpilot is doing the steering for us.

After ten miles or so the wind gets up a bit from astern. We turn off the engine and unroll the genoa but it refuses to fill behind the main. We haul it over to the other side to see if it’ll fly there but that doesn’t work either. We don’t think it’s a good idea to pole it out as it’s a bitch to get back in when it starts to get gusty. We roll up the genoa and go on under the main alone. We fit the preventer to stop us gybing as we’re sailing dead downwind. The tillerpilot can’t be relied on in these conditions, so we set up the Aries windvane. But the wind blowing off the land changes direction all the time and our course begins to look like a drunken spider’s. Not good when we’re trying to make Teke Burun, the next headland. Leighton takes the helm instead.

On the approach to Teke Burun we’re on a sleigh ride with 20 knots up our stern. It gets to be hard work hanging on to the tiller. Not worth setting the Aries again as we’re almost there. We undo the preventer and gybe round the point. After that it’s just 10 miles to go to Teos across Sigacik Korfezi. Past the point the wind dies. On goes the engine again. Take out the windvane and set the tillerpilot again.

Half way across the bay, a fresh breeze pipes up at 60 degrees off the bow. I pop my head out of the companionway and seeing the strength of the wind, I ease the mainsheet, prompting the tillerpilot to seize up. Leighton, who’s been finessing the thing to steer properly since the point goes below in a huff. I hand steer. It’s a good sailing breeze, but it takes two to unroll the genny, and I don’t dare ask Leighton for his help.

As we near Teos, the GPS log registers 5000 nautical miles. We can’t remember if that’s since we set out from Plymouth, or since we left Ayamonte. Given that today we’ve only managed 34 miles in 8 hours, it represents many hundreds of hours of slow travel out on the water. What an achievement!