36 36.9 N 27 50.2 E

Simi - Friday 7^th October

Town Quay (south side)

We decided to use the genoa for our journey to Simi as the wind was on the port quarter and freshening. The sun was shining and we had a good sail across from Niseros but as  we approached the next island I decided to reef the headsail a bit and it wouldn’t furle in! Rob came up to help and then started a battle of us against the wind and the sail trying to get the thing sorted. It was a similar scenario to the one we had off Mallorca 2 years ago. Suffice to say we eventually got the sail wrapped up and used the two spinnaker halyards to hold it together but not before a small part of the foot edge had been damaged. Also as we finally finished wrapping there was a loud clunk and we thought that something had ‘freed-up’ it later proved to be the halyard snapping! So on arrival in Simi we decided to go into the port rather than anchor in the deep bay to the north of the ferry quay. Our friends from Popsy and Bintang another boat met in Niseros had been great giving moral support over the VHF and offering to come and help during the passage which was so kind of them.

As we were maneuvering to anchor and back into the quay in Simi we were hailed by Judith and Tony on board their boat Mora of Hamble (EMYR participants) so we had some help getting tied up which was great. We had been to Simi before but not with the boat having gone on the bus from ‘Monastery Bay’ to see the place in October last year. We needed to check out of Greece and with advice from Tony as to where the 2 offices were, Jacky set off to do this. While away Rob had an accident – the passerelle collapsed under him – the boat end sheared off at the points where we had some corrosion. And he ended up in the water between the boat and the very rough harbour wall. Fortunately he was not too badly injured – some general bruising and rope burn on his fingers as well as injured pride! The passarelle was stored away and will have to be repaired when we get to Marmaris and Rob had a few drinks to calm down and then had an early night. With all the paper work completed Jacky was able to visit the Duty Free shop and get a few bottles for the store cupboard at extremely good prices.

We had decided to leave early and were up at 0700 raring to go but were delayed as our friends on Mora had their anchor trapped by a boat that had arrived in the dark and dropped over them. We waited for 30 minutes while they sorted this out hoping ours would run free when it was our turn. Fortunately it did and we had an uneventful sail across to the Hisaronu Korfezi – the long thin gulf that runs east west deep into the mainland of Turkey. It is very attractive with small islands dotted along its edges and tree covered slopes. There are numerous anchorage possibilities but as we were expecting a southerly gale we decided to head right to the top end of the gulf to an area known as Keci  Buku where we knew the shelter would be good. Having called Marti Marina on the VHF for a price – 60 Euros for one night! We decided to head on past this and try our luck with some of the smaller pontoons at the head of the bay. Ersoy was the first one I phoned and we were really lucky – they had one space as another boat had recently left! We were helped to berth by the owner Soli and his son Mustafa and they advised us to drop the anchor as well as picking up a lazy line.  More details to follow in the next blog.