36 49.49N 028 18.849E Marmaris

Pipedream
Thu 14 Apr 2011 12:13
Arrived safe and sound Marmaris, Turkey. It took us a while to get anchor up in Kekova Rhoads. We started at day brake and were moving about an hour later. Hobnob came down to our end of town for drinks and my home made sedziki the night before and gave us a round of waves as we left. The anchor and about 20 ft. of chain were covered in thick gooey mud after riding out 36 kt gusts for about a week. I am using the new (to me ...) 45 pound CQR and am gaining faith... yachting guys like to have faith in their anchors so you imbue your anchor with super powers like the sword Xcaliber... 'she's never dragged yet' that way you sleep a lot better at night when it's blowing like stink out there, you can't see a thing, and there was a rock cliff in back of you at least when you first anchored.

We motor sailed about half the way and the wind veered further to the south after sun set. By about 8 PM I shut the motor down and we were making about 5 kts. under main and reefed staysail. I was trying to slow down as I did not want to get into a strange harbor before day brake. There is a real art to sailing slow... it's not practiced much and is almost as hard as going as fast as you can. By the time we made Marmaris at about 4 AM we were doing 3 kts under bare poles. I tacked around in the outer harbor for a couple of hours waiting for the sun to rise feeling the swell get taller and taller. We finally went in and as I was approaching the marina I got a radio call from Bruce in Preserve's already in the marina, and an e-mail from Ben already in the marina, letting us know the weather was going to get worse. We called the marina for about 15 minutes with no response and then just went outside and anchored for a long sleep in 41 KT gusts. 'she's never dragged yet...'