04/06/22

We needed to get an other pump out of black water, so made our way round to the dock for the facilities. In Setur marinas it is self service, so you pump out yourself then you go to the marina office and pay 120TL for the privilege of pumping out our own black water. But at least they sign the “Blue Card” so we are legal for the next 15 days. Then we set off for Ceniviz Limani.

We had a superb sail, light winds to start with Making 3.7kts in 7kts of breeze broad reach. Then our course took further downwind but the wind picked up sufficiently for us to continue to sail. In the end we had 22kts of breeze downwind and had to reef the Genoa and take in the mainsail before rounding the headland and making our way to the anchorage. As we arrived most of the Gullets started to leave, leaving one very noisy one, but he left soon after we had anchored. 

Then the fun started. We had anchored well away from a large motor yacht who was anchored with a line ashore. We preferred to swing at anchor so gave ourselves plenty of swinging room. When the final Gullet left, this motor yacht decided to move to this now vacant spot. The Gullet had been very close to the shore with a stern line ashore and we had anchored well away from him as well. But now the motor yacht took this position he put himself very close to us and definitely in our swinging circle. He put out so much chain with his anchor that he ran out of chain before backing onto the shore. So there was nothing for it but for us to either move our anchor, or to put a line ashore. The motor Yacht had taken the last mooring post on the beach. I went ashore in the dinghy to see what I could find and found what looked like a sturdy post in the ground further back off the beach. The next question was did we have enough line to reach the post and tie off it? I took the line ashore and it did reach, but we had used all the line. Now our anchor was facing the wrong way because the wind had gone through 190'. We put a load of weight on the anchor with the engine and it appeared to be still set, so with fingers crossed we decided to stay like this for the night. 

We have attended a lot of lectures at CCSC given by Adam Bowers and he always stresses that other sailors are only out on the race course for one thing only and that is to “spoil your day”. I bet he didn’t realise that applies to  cruising yachts as well, but it is very true!!

Ceniviz Limini is very pretty with high mountains all around and pine tress clinging to the little ground they have. There is a ramshackle group of huts at one end and a rather rustic looking restaurant at the other and that is it. Unfortunately the one night we were staying, the restaurant decided to have a party that went on until 0200, so we didn’t get much sleep that night.

Muskrat in Ceniviz Limini at dusk

Chris in his usual relaxed helming position