Telltales 69

Telltales 69:

From Istanbul back into the Aegean Sea.

Aug 15th till Oct 9th, almost 2 months of the best sailing ever.........

The Black Sea adventure had come to an end, but it was amazing, great, full of surprises, better than we had expected, ...... you name it. To be repeated at some stage. But for now we had to sail down into the Aegean again. Through the Sea of Marmara, through the Dardanelles and than back into the even more familiar waters around the Greek islands, all the way down south to the Bodrum area

Since the steady summerwind (meltemi) always blows from the North, this would be a great trip, reaching down all the time and trying not to go in a straight line south, but zigzagging from east to west, making it great sailing and lengthening this voyage as much as possible. Blue skies, blue water, warm water and some nice places and islands to stop. Almost two months of sailing in this paradise, which is hated by sooo many sailors as there is often tooo much wind. However, sailing downwind we can handle a lot more, compared to beating into it. I still had a number of charters and looked forward to receiving some of these old friends again.

I spent a few days in Istanbul, waiting for my next charter and used the opportunity to get some stuff fixed or buy spare parts. Miraculously we had not broken anything important on our Black Sea voyage. Still, as you will recall we had some doubts about the gearbox, so I had it checked out, but it turned out to be no problem at all. The speed loss that we noted the last week, was solely due to growth on the propeller. Brooks and Gatehouse would come with a dealer and a spare part to finally repair the last of the non-working analogue meters. Unfortunately the dealer showed up without the spares, although we had arranged this weeks in advance and through their HQ. Anyway, they will try again alter. By friday I was ready to go again.

The next charter was to be sailed with Mr and Mrs Smith (they have chosen to remain anonymous for obvious reasons) from Istanbul to the Greek island of Khios (look it up on a map), a trip of almost 350 miles in a weeks time.

Mr and Mrs. Smith.....

Quite some distances had to be covered every day, and still we would need to find the time to relax, swim, barbeque, etc. It all worked out beautifully, especially thanks to the great wind. On the first day of their trip we even managed to visit the Istanbul highlights in the morning, set sail at midday and arrive on Marmara Island at 8 in the evening, clocking 9 knots constantly. Thanks to the Meltemi wind. We motored through the Dardanelles, had a great diner on board in a bay on the island of Bozcaada and sailed onward to Lesbos. We had left from Turkish soil and were officially not allowed to leave Turkish waters and entering Greek waters, without doing all the formalities. However, we wanted to sail back into turkey that same day and took the risk of entering Greek waters illegally. We dropped the anchor in a great bay on Lesbos, where we almost could bring Sylphe up to the beach, before we dropped anchor. Roland took the dinghy to the local taverna to get lunch and we had our room service lunch on the cockpit table when the Coast Guard boat showed up. Of course he asked us where we had come from, and I decided no to lie this time, so I told him Turkey. A good choice, as it turned out that I had forgotten to take the Turkish courtesy flag down. So, the Coast Guard boat took it well, and just asked us to hoist the Greek flag and enjoy our lunch. Which we did. Later that afternoon we set sail for Turkey again and back into the beautiful bay of Ayvalik, where we had spent the winter and started from in early spring. The channel into the "inner-lake" of Ayvalik is narrow (about three boat-lengths) and about half a mile long. No water on the side as you will run aground immediately. So some caution is needed, still we decided to sail in under spinnaker.....a small wind shift would have pushed us out of the channel, but we gloriously managed. It must have been quite a sight for the people on the shore to see Sylphe blasting in under spinnaker. Of course there is no photographer at stand by, but our memory will hold this image for some time to come. We anchored in the middle of the bay. Mr and Mrs Smith had diner on the boat and Roland disappeared to meet local friends. At 4 in the morning we were brusquely woken by a big bang. A fisherman had managed to ram us, while at anchor and we had extra gas-lamps in our backstay to be visible. Still he managed to ram us right there. So, once again, sylphe's graceful stern was damaged. This becomes a yearly ritual by now. We sailed the next days around Lesbos and continued to Khios, all with great sails and Sylphe wants to do no less than 8 knots...is the log blocked or what???? No, it was simply thrilling sailing, all through out the week. Mr and Mrs Smith will be back again next year. And they set a new record: they had not left the boat in 4 days, just enjoying the privacy of Sylphe.....no need for all the fuss on shore.

I had 1 week in between charters and Kenan decided to come and join me for a few days, while I decided to go to Holland for 48 hours. So, Kenan ended up sitting alone on Sylphe and roland "enjoying" Holland. Upon his return Kenan and Roland still had a few great days in Turkey, where his father lives, and we sailed again with a full meltemi onward to Samos. Bryce, Mrs Underpants and their kids joined me there for a week of sailing bringing us further down towards Kos. The meltemi was still blowing and we decided to get some shelter in the lee of the turklish coast. We spent three days sailing in the Gulluk Korfezi.

A beautifull setting in this enormous bay, with typical Turkish villages around. Historic places like the ancient Iassus. Of course we were again illegal as this time we had started from Greece and never checked in into Turkey. The Hamblin family took it all well and cool. And sailing wise....I guess...No, I know, we were being spoiled again...flat waters, 20 knots of wind and being able to go left, right or back. What an idyllic sailing this turned out to be. The last two days we made our way out of the bay on back into the Greek waters onward to Kos. We sailed into one of my favorite bays in Greece on Kalymnos....with 40 knots of wind. The highlight of the gang was tryiong to get the sails down in these conditions. But the reward of being at anchor in this spot is BIG. It was a difficult goodbye in Kos a day later at 5 in the morning, when Roland, JR and the girls came back from the nightlife.

Marit flew in from Holland and we sailed together onward to Symi to meet up with Swedish friends and their boat Free Flight. We found them in the great spot of Panormitis on Symi and we stayed at anchor for 5 days, just sleeping, reading, swimming and eating on each others boats. In the end we had run out of supplies and sailed together around to the main port. Upon seeing the main port of Symi Marit immediately fell in love with the place and only a few days later Marit and Roland were looking at houses......What....houses.....right, we rented a house for 2 years to have a fixed place on earth. Marit had a look at some ten houses and decided for the first one we saw. Picture says it all. So, turn to Telltales 70

But, still the charter season was not finished, nor the great sailing, so we turned back north towards Samos to pick up the next friends. Thank god, the meltemi had died down for a few days rest and we arrived in Samos without adventures, running under engine. Barbie, Elisa, James and Maynard joined me there for another week, bringing us back into the heart of the Cyclades and our goal of Mykonos.

A lot of wind was forecasted for that week, but we hoped the best. We had a blast during this week: too much wind, too little wind, the full Musto wet gear out and bikinis and swimming. And this was already october. We managed to do it all in one week, the Barbeque, the island (Samos and Amorgos) discovery trips, the (more than great) sailing taking us well off our original course.

But we enjoyed. However we did not end up on Mykonos. Our trip stranded with too much wind on Paros, in the beautiful Naoussa, with Mykonos almost in sight and 20 miles upwind, just a little too much. The gang took a ferry to Mykonos, and even that one turned out to be cancelled due to too much wind. Anyway, they made it home and onward. See you next year again, guys.

From VERY relaxed........too less relaxed......

Marit came back to Sylphe a day later and we wanted to get back to Symi as quick as possible. We chilled out two more days on Paros and set sail for Symi, normally a three day trip of 50 mile stretches. And with the Meltemi blowing it went fast. When we arrived on Levitha (the beautiful deserted island with only the lighthouse keeper, remember Barbie??) we ran into a number of boats that we had seen 2 weeks ago in Amorgos. They had been stuck in Amorgos all this time and had sailed only that day from Amorgos to Levitha. When we told them that we had in the mean time sailed around and done 7 islands, they...........ah well, not necessary to rub it in.....

We arrived in Symi two days later having done some more fantastic sailing. 58 miles with an average of 7.8 is not bad after all, that means 7 hours continually, not just ten minutes. We lingered around in Symi, made new friends and planned our winter stop. The season had come to an end. Up to next year, when we will sail back into France, Italy, Corsica, Sardinia, Naples, Capri, Elbe and the classic races at the end of September.

Ahoy,

Roland

S/y SYLPHE