Wednesday 2^nd June

Slow start again today as we are not setting sail for Syria until tonight. Sarah and Lesley went off to the supermarket by dolmus to stock up for the next few week or so as things become a little more difficult from here on.

The ‘office’ at Burger King was busy as folks made use of the last certain WiFi connection and then at lunch time the four of us set off for lunch out and rather on a whim headed for a kebab house recommended by Sarah on Limbara. We found the restaurant easily and found that there was no menu as such, but their speciality is a very special long kebab the size of which is dictated by how many people are eating. We were four people so they went off and in due course brought us five or more plates of delicious mezes (starters) which were a range of salads along with a basket of the wonderful local pitta bread. In due course they placed a one and half metre long elongated toasted pitta bread down the middle of the table and  the chef, with  two others helping him, arrived carrying a single very long adana kebab all on a single long thin bladed sword. With great ceremony and a big flourish they placed this along  the long bread and then dramatically withdrew the bladed leaving our meal laid out on the bread. This consisted of grilled lamb wraps, chicken and  lamb kebab which along with all the salads left us all very bloated by the end. Sarah had to rather bolt her lunch at this stage as she had to return for the skipper’s briefing which would explain her indigestion later on during the night’s sailing. We took our time and waddled back to Serafina later.

The afternoon passed very slowly as none of the boats could leave until the authorities had returned our papers and passports which did not happen until 5.30 pm. This performance was due to the fact that we were all leaving Turkey to head for Syria and the paper-chase involved in leaving Turkey, with regards to visas and ship’s papers, is almost as bad for leaving the country as it is when you arrive! There was virtually no wind and the sun was blazing down all afternoon which left everyone very hot, tired and frustrated.

Eventually the papers all arrived and suddenly there was a madcap panic with most of the boats making a frantic dash for the open sea. Not too sure what the extreme hurry was, although some boats claimed they were just hoping to get offshore and then stop for a swim.

We got away quite promptly and were very pleased to find that the wind was rising quite quickly outside the commercial harbour and in no time all the fleet were sailing in around 12 knots of breeze which was just off the starboard bow and allowed us to make a refreshing 6.5 knots close hauled pretty much bang on course for the 96 mile trip to Lattakia in Syria.

As the light started to fade, the Najad 570 came past us sailing at a comfortable 8+ knots and we were able to take some reasonable photos of her sailing whilst they did the same for us.

I had spent some time yesterday taking the radar cables apart and checking the system right through as well as cleaning and spraying all the connections and we were rewarded with a fully operational system all night which was very handy as firstly we had boats from our own fleet to avoid (along with some interesting navigation light configurations!) and then there was a report of a large fishing fleet 12 miles ahead of us laying nets across our path. The good sailing wind inevitably died away after only a few hours of sailing and eventually we had to concede that 3 knots was not good enough and began to motor on towards Syria.