2007 - 5 : Turkey-Greek Islands-Turkey

The last leg of the trip started in Marmaris, Turkey. It took us through the Greek islands for 6 weeks, before returning to Marmaris, where our boat journey ended.

We left the busy Turkish town of Marmaris on May 31, with the plan to go to Rhodes Island, The wind was fairly strong, but it blew us in the right direction. However when we arrived in Rhodes, the local port was very full and we could not find a suitable place to anchor.

So we decided to turn back north. We ended up finding a very cute, protected little bay at the end of a Turkish peninsula, called Bozuk Buku. Several sailboats were anchored here. We were able to tie up to the dock of one of the taverns with the help of the proprietors.

A cute local girl came by in her boat, trying to charm Max into buying her goods.

It is simple in Turkey with restaurants in isolated places. If you eat a meal in their place, you are welcome to spend the night on their property and use their facilities. Fair enough. The meal was good, the people extremely nice and we decided that we liked it here better than in the tourist trap of Rhodes anyway.

Pictures of Ataturk, “father of Turkey” can be seen all over Turkey and one decorated this restaurant.

A full moon shining over “Reflections” made for a great picture.

The next morning the wind was favorable for a heading to the Greek island of Simi, it was only 12 nautical miles away and we reached it in 2,5 hours. The town of Simi was gorgeous with its pastel colored houses on the hill side and its cute little harbor,

Surrounded by taverns and shops selling real sea sponges.

I wandered all over the place and climbed the many steps to the village above

for some terrific views,

while Max occupied himself with manly matters, such as dealing with immigration issues, filling up the diesel tanks and taking a nap.

Nisiros was the next island we landed. It did not get a lot of tourism. The little village with its cute little white houses was just a little walk from the little harbor, where a few little restaurants served little gyros, the Greek national dish.

It was 8 hours of motoring (no wind) to the island of Astipalaia, where we anchored in a lonely bay. There were just a few houses on the shore and goats with bells around their necks, which succeeded in keeping me awake at night.

We reached the island of Amorgos after a 6 hours trip. A great little port surrounded by square, blindingly white, houses.

Here in the Mediterranean Sea, boats are tied to the pier “Mediterranean style”, which means that you throw a bow anchor into the water, then you back the boat against the pier and tie it by the stern.

It is an efficient method to be able to place many boats in a relatively small area, but it is very difficult to accomplish for boaters, especially if you are not used to it. There was a fairly strong wind, which kept trying to blow us all the way onto the pier and we had to place several fenders to protect the boat. For safety we dropped an extra bow anchor. However, the next morning a strong wind gust turned the boat partially side ways and then blew it hard into the pier. Of course, according to Murphy’s Law, it had to hit on a corner, just where there was no fender and it did cause some damage to the fiberglass of the boat. The original plan had been to spend a day exploring the island, but after this incident Max quickly slapped some putty on the area and he just wanted to leave the place.

The next island, Paros, became a base for a longer stay in the islands. It had 2 port towns; Parikia and Naoussa. We decided to stay in Naoussa. It was small, but very pretty with its bright white houses

and extremely cute little fishing harbor,

which was protected by an old fort.

A local man, Janie, acted as harbormaster, he gave information and assistance to all the visiting boats and he was quite skillful in catching squid.

The village was just adorable with its maze of slated tiny streets and alleys,

nice waterfront,

little stores and outdoor restaurants.

We felt quite safe and secure in the area, especially with geese acting as guards and attacking whoever came near. It was very risky taking pictures of them.

Of course, as usual there were some repairs to be done. Max fixed the damaged stern,

while I did some work on the sails.

We rented a car to explore the island,

The island was quite small; a 50 km (35 miles) ride circumnavigated it.

Many places along the shore had beaches, some were very nice, but many tended to be coarse and rough.

The prettiest village was Lefkes,

where we wandered around the tiny streets with its many little stairways.

In the arid hills were ancient marble quarries. The marble mined from this island is of a very white color and high quality. It was used to carve Venus de Milo and the tomb of Napoleon.

Holland is famous for its windmills, but Greece has them as well. They were very different from the Dutch ones and I just loved them.

In the town of Parikia one of them even decorated the center of a round-about, although it just happened to be under repair.

In the harbor fishermen were repairing their nets.

On July 2 Max went by ferry to Athens

To pick up his wife Debbie and his daughter Janelle, while I stayed in Paros to watch over the boat.

They spent a few days seeing the famous sights in Athens, such as the Pantheon,

other historical places.

and the changing of the palace guards, who were assisted by Janelle

A few days later the family arrived in Paros. They had decided not to go sailing this time and the boat was used as a vacation resort.

The weather had been on the cool side when Max and I first arrived. However, right at the time that his family arrived, Greece was struck by a severe heat wave with temperatures over 45 C (110 F). We erected an awning over the boat to keep it cooler. But it sure limited our activities; we ended up sitting around the boat a lot, playing cards, reading, working on the laptop computer and of course we went swimming several times a day.

But in the cooler hours of the evening there was time to go to the restaurants and to go shopping.

Max and his wife went out to celebrate their 18^th anniversary. It gave Janelle and I an excuse to go out for dinner together

and to watch a Greek dance performance.

Santorini Island is a must-see place in Greece. We all took a ferry over there. Max and family did a one day tour, but I stayed for 3 days. The island is amazing; volcanic, long and narrow with extremely steep cliffs. The marked area in the water is the site where a ferry struck a rock not long ago and sank. It is supposed to contain the spilled fuel.

The main town Fira is pretty with beautiful views, but crowded with tourists.

Of course Greek food is offered everywhere.

I stayed in the gorgeous little village of Oia, overlooking a magnificent bay with a little fishing harbor.

Charter boats gave people a sense of a bygone era.

On the third day I took a boat trip to the volcano, which in 1500 BC had one of the largest eruptions the world has ever seen, and which had caused the current shape of Santorini. It caused a tsunami with 40 meter (120 ft) high waves, which destroyed many areas. It has been dormant, but activity is still showing in little steam pots. In the heat it was quite a climb to the craters.

After my return Max and family took a trip to the island of Mikonos

with its spectacular windmills

and the ruins on nearby Delos island,

where Janelle demonstrated the proper use of ancient toilets.

Whenever he was in port Max could not sit still. When there was no work to be done on his own boat, he was helping other cruisers with work on their boats. His beneficiaries wanted to return some favors, so we were invited to the house of Bill and Annie, a Scottish/American couple who have lived in Greece for many years.

And we were taken for a nice dinner by a group of young sailors from Denmark.

July 17 Debbie and Janelle had to return to the USA. Max brought them back to Athens, and he returned a day later to Paros.

After a few more days in Paros Max and I left as well. The heat wave had ended as soon as Debbie and Janelle left, but now the wind had become very powerful. Apparently these strong north-western winds are so common in the summer that they even have a name: the Meltemi.

Our goal had been to travel east and to visit islands that we had not seen before. The first island was Naxos.

We anchored in the lee of a large sea wall, but the water was still so turbulent that Max did not want to leave his boat alone. So I explored the town by myself. In the area where there was no seawall big waves were breaking onto the beach.

Nearby were the ruins of Apollo, “Reflections” is framed by the gate.

It did not matter where we had planned to go the next day, the wind gods determined differently and as a result we could only sail safely to the island of Amorgos. However, we anchored in a different area than the first time, by a very cute little beach town called Ay Annas. Although the bay was deep, it was still blowing quite hard from varying directions. So again Max did not want to leave the boat and I explored the area by myself.

We had set out 2 bow anchors and a stern anchor, but they were not enough to keep the boat from moving. It still managed to make a few complete turns during the night

and so in the morning the lines of the anchors had twisted around each other, which gave us a bit of a challenge in raising them.

30 knot winds and 3 meter waves again prevented us from going to our planned islands and we ended up back on the island of Astipalaio. This time we tied on to the pier of the only tavern and the night was finally calm enough to enjoy some uninterrupted sleep.

The weather was much calmer the next day and we had no problems boating to the island of Kos. It was quite a busy and touristy island with a castle right by the water front

and some old ruins with an interesting mosaic floor pattern.

Hippocrates used to teach medicine on this island. Max gave me a copy of the Hippocratic Oath.

Kos has a huge and very expensive marina, and we decided that one day/night was enough.

We returned to mainland Turkey and we went to the town of Bodrum. It also has a huge marina

overlooked by a large castle.

A small boat met us to guide us inside and then managed to push us into an impossibly small space between other sailboats. The boat needed some repair work in the top of the mast, from where I shot these 3 pictures.

Bodrum is a touristy town as well. We needed to get checked in by the Turkish Immigration officials, which meant that we had to go to 4 different places, something we had avoided the last time in Turkey.

After 2 nights we continued the trip east. The route ended took us to the previously visited Greek island of Simi, although this time we anchored on the opposite site. We anchored in a nice bay, with 13 other sailboats around us. On the shore were a huge monastery with a beautiful clock tower and a tavern, which relieved me from cooking duty that night.

This ended our cruise through the Greek islands. Overall I found the islands themselves not very pretty, they are often dry, barren and rocky.

However many of the towns and villages are wonderful places to visit with their distinct Greek culture.

On July 13 we returned to Marmaris in Turkey. A light house showed us where to turn.

and a true pirate ship showed us the way in.

And we made it safely to the forest of masts in Marmaris Yacht Marina,

our end goal for this trip. Time to celebrate the grand finale of the great boating trip.

Max will leave his boat here for the rest of this year.

We left Thailand 5 months ago and we covered 6200 Nautical Miles, out of this we boated 3155 NM with just Max and me on board.

Overall it has been a great adventure. We visited many interesting places and cultures, we experienced a few scary moments and overall we had great weather. Thank you Max for giving me this great opportunity and making one of my life’s dreams come true.