Summer lay up

Mystic of Holyhead (successor to Lynn Rival)
Rachel and Paul Chandler
Fri 13 Jul 2007 21:25
Finike (36:18.00N 30:09.00E)

route map 1

Our last entry was sent from a small bay east of Fethiye where we had tied up in the early afternoon to a mooring offered to us by the local restaurant.  We had some unusually stormy weather there and by the early evening the wind was gusting 50 knots.  While in the process of making sure everything on deck was well tied down we suddenly realised our mooring line had broken and we were drifting onto another yacht moored nearby.  We got our engine going but not soon enough to avoid a collision.  Fortunately their crew were on deck and able to help fend off.  We ended up with a bent stanchion and damaged toe rail.  Luckily the other yacht only suffered a small dent in an already well-dented bow plate.

After a while the storm blew over and we had a quiet night.  From there we had another day of mostly motoring and anchored for the night in a convenient bay near Kalkan.  Like many other places visited so far along this coast, it was quite busy with tripper boats in the afternoon, but quiet at night. Beyond Kalkan the coastline is much less busy, with the Greek outpost island of Kastellorizon and many other small islands of passing interest. The scenery
is constantly changing, with dramatic headlands, wooded mountains, deep gorges and sometimes stretches of sandy beaches.  Our next night was spent at Gekova where there are plenty of safe anchorages to chose from in a lovely unspoilt area.

Lycian coast

We didn't do much sailing, as the winds were generally light, but we did manage to test the Aries to check it was working properly.  When we were motoring east of Gekova we spotted Paul and Chris on New Dawn.  They were on their way back West, having lingered in Israel at the end of the East Med Yacht Rally. It's surprising how often our paths cross.  Lynn Rival is now in Finike, which will be our base until the start of the Vasco da Gama Rally at the end of September.  We had met Tuncay, the manager of the marina in Finike, in Istanbul two years ago, so it was good to see him again.  To our relief, we were able to get our stanchion straightened and new toe rail organised in a short time.  We also managed to get a replacement mirror for the aft heads, but no new cooker!  It seems that boat cookers with grills are difficult to get in Turkey so we're now planning to bring one out from the UK.

The weather has been hot, around 35 deg C on most days, but the nights have been pleasantly cooler, dropping to a mere 25 deg.  In the marina, the mornings were quite calm and the afternoons quite windy.  Either way it wasn't the weather for doing much work on the boat.  We did some exploring of the town, especially on market day, and we met lots of
interesting fellow yachties.  Finike is popular with long-distance cruisers and we met quite a few people who had been around the world.  Some had been in Finike for a number of years, and seemed reluctant to venture any further West!  A surprising number of boats were for sale and it seems a good market place for trading boat bits and pieces.  We
managed to sell our old genoa winches and some charts.  We also also bought second-hand charts for the Red Sea, Indian Ocean and beyond.

We flew back to the UK on 11th July and will be returning to Finike on 28th August.