Mystery solved

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Tue 1 Sep 2009 17:51
Tuesday 1st September

A little while back we damaged our 'Hydrovane' wind-vane, self-steering
system, or more exactly a Hellenic Seaways ferry helped destroy it by
surging us back onto a town quay (dragging a laid mooring with us) at 2.30
am! Having been in touch with the very helpful people at Hydrovane, we
determined to have a new shaft sent out to us, but of course that is so much
easier said than done when you have no address and you are passing through
such bureaucratic and administrative centres of excellence as Greece and
Turkey.

In desperation we turned to the Cruising Association of which we are members
and they helpfully posted a notice on their Mednet internet forum. We were
inundated with responses from any number of people who had dealt with this
issue themselves offering various suggestions. In the end it was the London
office that came up with the perfect result and everything is now in motion
(we hope) and the parts should arrive in Kos (Greece) sometime in the next
10 days....watch this space.

Another very windy afternoon here and around 6.00 pm the star windsurfers
reappeared for a while. We told the main man as he swept past us that we had
taken some good pictures of him yesterday, so he came alongside, dropped his
rig and came aboard to view them.

Ayhan was able to tell us all about the area, which is actually private land
(500,000 hectares) that belongs to a very wealthy Turk who developed it
simply for his own private use. The owner sometimes stays in the small house
on the beach but when he is not here, people can pay to use the beach and
its facilities, although apart from a bar and a restaurant there is little
that is actually staffed. Ayhan had always wanted to run a windsurfing
centre here and he approached the owner with a view to buying some of the
land, but this was refused, however he was allowed to rent the beach to the
east of the stream that flows down the valley. His windsurfing centre is
evidently very busy in the high season, but the season has pretty much
finished and he expects to close down for the winter quite soon. Ayhan
himself was a serious windsurfing competitor, but now only goes to some
events for one day out of the three that they usually run as he gets tired.
He lies about his age at these events claiming to be 34, but in fact he is a
remarkably fit 50 year old.

The history of the site and the dramatic hill beside where we are moored is
long and involved and Ayhan was having difficulty in recalling it all, but
it is clear from what he was saying and from what you can still see on the
hillside that this was once a quite big site, possibly a large town which
dates back into the mists of time but appears to have been used by the
pirates to shop (!), that we have heard so much about in the nearby Greek
islands and whose past is tied up with the Ottoman empire. The headland that
lies at the foot of the large hill is also interesting for its spectacular
downdraughts. Sarah had photographed a number of small whirlwinds (water
spouts) in the afternoon as the gusts came through and again Ayhan was able
to confirm this local phenomenon.

He invited us ashore tomorrow to see round, but we have planned to go to
Kos. We may well return here next week when our eldest son Tom joins us for
a week.