Makarma is up for sale

Are we mad? Why are we exchanging our lifestyle of the last five years exploring the Med for the one we’ll go back to?  We’ll have to wear shoes, lock doors, look left and right to cross a road. Mobiles will beep for our attention, people will interrupt a conversation with you to check their email.  On the street no-one will make eye contact, strangers will think you’re weird if you say hello. And that’s before you consider the weather!

Well, for us one of the main reasons for cruising the Med is to explore remote places we wouldn’t otherwise visit. The experience has immeasurably enriched our lives. But for the first time this year we got the sense we are just doing more of the same.  The trouble is, we’ve run out of Med to explore!

For Cathy living on the boat means the family is a long way off. The children have their own lives to lead now but she wants to be closer to her parents who aren’t getting any younger.

The more we think about it, we more we come round to the idea that there is life after Makarma. We’ve had an incredible adventure and created a huge stock of memories to draw on in years to come. Time and again she’s looked after us and brought us home safely. We want to leave while the going’s good and we’re still fit enough to open a new chapter in our life together.

Winter makes an early appearance

Our usual Mediterranean gear??

What a difference a week makes! We remain in Fethiye to wait for Cathy’s sister Marion and her husband John to arrive on 3rd October. The moment they arrive in the early hours one morning after a long drive from Antalya, a fierce northeasterly plunges the temperature to the low teens, and we have to dig out our jeans and fleeces.

View of Yes Marina, Fethiye

We decide to wait until the wind abates to make the long trip down to Kas, especially as poor Marion had seriously bruised her ribs falling from her horse just three days before and wouldn’t appreciate a rough ride. The wind made our berth at Yes Marina very uncomfortable and after a sleepless night feeling like we were crossing the Channel, Marion and Catherine checked into a local pension to get a peaceful night, leaving John and Leighton onboard. That’s a first!

John dreaming of his next boat-building project?

Leaving Fethiye, we had a very brisk sail towards Gemiler but before we reach the Seven Capes the wind’s gone and we motor the rest of the way to Kas, pushed on by a dying swell. At least it’s getting warmer. A rolly sail the next day takes us to Kekova and we finally start to relax.

AAhh......Kekova........heaven

A good dose of sunshine and a bit of gentle walking is the perfect tonic for Marion’s bruised ribs, and she manages remarkably well given a boat isn’t the most comfortable environment.

Past Bunda Burun, Finike comes into view. We call up Setur marina on the VHF to let them know we’re approaching.  Their crackling reply echoes across the cockpit, ‘Makarma, this is Setur Marina, welcome back.’  It is six months and over 1,000 miles since we left in April.

The marina dogs are underwhelmed to see us

Pleased to be home

Fiona comes to visit

Fiona in her element

Cathy’s sister Fiona is always a welcome guest onboard, even though this year she arrives at 2am one Sunday morning when Marmaris’s nightclubs are still competing with each other to wake the dead.

Delicious Chinese meal at Kumlubuku - our first stop

We have a fantastic week. As the week goes by, we fall into a relaxing routine of a walk every morning, plenty of swimming in calm water, and eating out most evenings.

Kapi Creek

The only decision is which of Skopea Limani’s many restaurant pontoons we’ll use. The weather stays idyllic and we even have a couple of good sails.

Setting off on another morning's walk

Inspecting the Lycian tomb at Tomb bay

Fiona fancies the slide on the gin palace

Showering off after another swim

At the end of the week we anchor in Fethiye bay and row ashore to eat a last meal at Fethiye’s fish market before putting her on the bus to Dalaman. The bus trip turns out to be the only bad experience of the week, but Fiona makes it in time for her flight back to Bristol.

A spot of bother in Bozburun

‘Let’s see if the anchor gods are smiling on us today,’ observes Leighton as he starts up the windlass. Today’s Tuesday. The anchorage outside the harbour at Bozburun has emptied out a bit since we anchored here on Saturday to sit out a blow. 

The anchorage during the weekend's wind - Swedish friends on Doris on the right

Leighton has good reason to be concerned. While we went ashore yesterday for the first time in two days to get some much needed fresh food, a large gulet moored up to the outside of the harbour wall alongside a couple of others close by. At the time we said to ourselves it might spell trouble.

‘Thirty five metres’, Leighton shouts, winding in the chain. So far, so good. At that moment, the bow dips violently and the windlass grinds to a halt. ‘Yup, they’ve got us!’ The gulet’s heavy anchor and chain has well and truly trapped our anchor chain underneath. In 14 metres of water so free diving down is out of the question. We make a couple of attempts to extricate ourselves using the hand windlass but it’s useless. We’re not going anywhere.

‘Je peux vous donner un coup de main?’ Roland’s voice chips in. He’s from Provence and is on his way to Thailand in a 28 foot boat, Loyola. He’s waiting here for his Thai wife (a durian and pineapple grower) to come to crew with him. First he has to fix a bent prop shaft without lifting the boat out of the water. He doesn’t speak a word of English. As our dinghy’s already on the foredeck we ask if he can give Leighton a lift to where the gulet’s moored. His dinghy is like a paddling pool. ‘Ask him if I’m wasting my time baling,’ Leighton says, trying to keep the water level below his calves. ‘You’ll just have to put up with it,’ I say after Roland explains there was a small hole in the rubber floor yesterday which turned into a big one when he plonked two full jerrycans in the dinghy.

Roland earlier with his blue boat in the background

A little later they return with the name and phone number of the captain of the offending gulet, the Yorukoglu 2. Captain Mehmet is not due back until this evening. We leave a voicemail message and a text but it’s obvious we’re going nowhere today. We can just about afford a day’s delay but have to get to Marmaris by Friday in time to meet Cathy’s sister. Cathy finds lessons in patience hard to take and there’s no outlet to relieve her frustration. We don’t dare leave the boat in case the gulet suddenly decides to leave. The day drags. Evening comes and Captain Mehmet still has not returned our messages. No sign of life on the gulet. Neither of us sleeps well.

The offending gulet in the middle - look how far away it is!

On Wednesday morning, Leighton wakes determined we will leave today even if we have to hire a diver to extricate us. Captain Mehmet isn’t picking up his phone when we call. We dinghy ashore - this time in ours not Roland’s. Leighton heads to the port police to report the problem while Cathy collects the laundry and picks up fresh bread. By the time we head back to the boat fifteen minutes later, the Yorukoglu 2 is moving away from the harbour wall, slowly picking up its anchor chain. Hooray! We leap onboard and just have time to let out enough chain to reverse out of its way.  As it narrowly misses our bow, we get a volley of denials from Captain Mehmet that he’s caused us a problem. We don't care. We’re free and back on schedule! 

The Leros bus goes on a little adventure

The soundtrack of our last visit to Leros was the doodle-doop of the green-striped bus tooting to alert passengers it was coming as it plied up and down the length of the island. This morning we hear the tell-tale sound disappear up the road and realise we’ve missed the bus. Damn. Moments later we hitch a lift to Platanos off a Raymarine engineer and arrive just in time to buy the last loaf of the island’s must-have olive bread - Cathy’s main reason for coming here.

When we get on the bus to go back to the boat, laden with shopping, the driver looks apologetic and says something in Greek to us. We catch something about twenty minutes but the rest is gobbledegook. He lets us on anyway with a shrug and we sit down wondering what's in store for us. The bus is crammed with a group of middle-aged ladies who are clearly in holiday mood, laughing and keeping up a non-stop chatter. Halfway along the road back, the bus veers off down a small lane that soon turns into a dirt track ending at a low cliff overlooking the sea. At the end of a narrow causeway jutting out into the water stands a small blue-domed chapel perched on a rock. A sign tells us it’s dedicated to St Isidoros. 

Our mystery destination

The bus stops, the ladies clamber out and we watch the group make their way down the steps to the causeway and across to the chapel. There’s a bit of a kerfuffle as first one lady then another loses her hat, blown into the sea by a brisk breeze. The bus parks up and we wait until they return. As they come back on board, the driver turns up the volume on some traditional mandolin music, one of the ladies cheers and they all clap. Whatever they’ve done out at the chapel has clearly got them all excited.

A car is blocking the road on our way back - the bus doesn’t normally come this way. No problem. The driver gets out and pushes it into someone’s driveway so we can squeeze past. A Greek Orthodox priest runs out - he's parked the car to drop in on one of his parishioners. Soon we’re back on the normal route - about twenty minutes behind schedule.

When we get ready to get off at the boatyard, the ladies chorus to us, ‘kalo taxidi!’ and they all smile broadly, doubtless tickled that we are unwitting - and bemused - participants in the bus’s diversion from its usual schedule today.

Arki

The little harbour of Port Augusta in the Dodecanese island of Arki is tiny, with just a straggle of small white houses, a handful of chapels and almost free of traffic as there’s nowhere far to drive. The plateia facing the harbour is overlooked by two rustic tavernas and a café festooned with vines. It’s not at all touristy, there are just a few rooms for rent and the quay has room for ten sailing boats at a pinch. When the islanders aren’t fishing, they hang out in the shade somewhere gossiping and tending their nets. 

The place is still as we remembered it from our last visit two years ago. The same couple are running the kiosk on the dock, the same guy in the taverna with long grey hair tied in a bandanna, the same guy who runs the cafe greeting the boats. The mini market still has bewildering opening hours.

The quay is almost full the first night we’re there. We can see the wind’s blowing hard outside the harbour, but inside we’re snug and glad to be tied safely to some concrete. On the other two nights, we had only one other boat for company.

Leighton is keen to try out a new underwater camera in the little bay a short walk away. Last time we were here, he’d spotted the remains of an ancient amphora set in a rocky ledge just off the beach and he wanted to capture it on camera.  Judging by the results, there’s clearly more to taking pictures underwater than we imagined!

A fishy smell

Port Augusta on Arki, Dodecanese

The tranquil village plateia

 On the 26 mile passage to Arki from Samos everything gets shaken up quite a bit. We have to wedge the coffee mugs to keep them from rattling and the bottles of olive oil and dressings keep colliding in the galley drawer. Some of Leighton’s papers have fallen out of the attic shelf in the forepeak and his socket set is sliding about on to the floor outside the loo. Nothing like a good dose of meltemi to realise we must do something about our clutter.

While trying to wedge everything back in its place, Cathy catches a distinct whiff of something rotten. It’s coming from somewhere in the front half of the boat and it’s absolutely disgusting. Please tell me the loo isn’t blocked! No, thank god. It’s pumping fine. The holding tank?  Don’t think so. Maybe it’s from the bin in Leighton’s workshop. Or the rubbish bag we haven’t disposed of yet.

Is it the smell that's driven everyone away?

Once we’re tied up on the quay in Port Augusta, the hunt continues.  We tidy everything away, look in all the lockers, take the rubbish ashore. The smell’s still onboard. We follow our noses and home in on the forepeak. Cathy moves the bucket holding our bottles of drinking water away from the corner where it lives and recoils. A fetid stench is coming from a carrier bag behind the bucket.  Aah! Got it!

When we’re in a marina, we dangle a wire overboard with a couple of old zinc anodes on the end. We call it ‘the fish’ and it’s supposed to reduce the wear on the anode fixed to our hull. When Cathy hauled it up in Kusadasi, it was covered in muck and weed so she stuffed it into a carrier bag in the forepeak and forgot about it. She brings it at arm’s length up on deck and we stuff it into a strong plastic laundry bag, seal it with duck tape and put it in the stern of the boat so any whiffs will be carried downwind.

Relaxing ashore until the smell goes away