Rhodes.

July 3^rd, 2013

Position:   36:27:07N     28:13:38E

We left Kizilkuyruk Bay bright and early in the morning for the relatively short sail of 35 miles to Rhodes.

Talking to other skippers one either loves or hates Rhodes. It’s the port not the town that is the concern. The port is very old fashioned, is very busy and the harbor master has an interesting reputation for the manner in which he directs visiting yachts.
Rhodes needs a new marina.
The odds of getting a berth are pretty low without a pre-arranged reservation at this time of year so we had decided to employ an agent at the port to handle our port documentation and berthing reservation.

The sail was pretty uneventful with light breezes from the south to south west building to 15 to 18 knots as we approached Rhodes harbour.  

It was a good job we had arranged a reservation with the agent because the harbor was indeed BUSY!
Lots of arrivals and departures as we arrived. Most yachts were indeed turned away.

The nightmare called Rhodes Harbour – the WORST harbor in the Mediterranean.

The mooring required the old fashioned method of dropping your anchor out in the harbor and going astern to the dockside to tie up. Except that Rhodes harbour has a semi-circular shape where many visiting yachts are directed – and we all know that the centre of a circle is a point. i.e, most people drop their anchor in about the same position as everyone else. Hence, you get multiple anchors on top of others, anchor chains across anchor chains and so on.

We were directed to a small tight spot such that as you reversed in between these adjoining boats your fenders moved those boats aside to make your own space bigger. The wind was quite strong at 18knots and on our beam – not the best.
Anyway, I dropped my anchor in the middle of the harbor and went astern. As I neared the dockside I couldn’t feel the pull of the anchor anymore. What had happened? The next thing we knew was my bow had turned in the wind to rest against the anchor chain of the leeward boat – and still couldn’t feel any pull on the anchor?
Then the prop caught that boats anchor chain.
Grrr….

Onlookers were calling out that a pro scuba diver would be needed, others claimed salvage, others laughed and others watched the boat stuck at right angles to the adjoining boat whilst they drank their beers.
With nothing else for it (and against all the rules of a busy harbor) I donned my snorkel gear to investigate below the water. With a bit of persuasion of the other skipper to loosen his own chain I was able to disentangle the chain from my prop – and the prop still looked o/k.
Now we could head back out into the middle of the harbor and start again.
So we began to pull the anchor in.
Nothing happened?

..we’ll cut out the following 30 minutes of investigation, conversation, wagging arms and nodding heads.

Again, against all the rules (and a pretty dumb thing to do from a safety perspective looking back on it) I donned my scuba gear.
I followed the anchor chain out into the middle of the harbour and then it looped all the way back such that the anchor was now a couple of boats along from us.  ???? I have no idea how that could have happened other than it was accidentally lifted by the anchor from another boat dropped whilst we were maneuvering. There was a lot of departing and arriving at the time.
Whatever.

My anchor was also caught by a very large and old chain laid down 20 meters from the dockside following it’s path. There was no way we could lift my anchor anyway. How could this have happened?
Whatever.
Carefully, I lifted the 50 kilo anchor off the seabed and out from the huge chain. Carefully, because as the seabed was disturbed the visibility was reduced to zero. Now we just had to borrow a winch from a nearby boat to lift my anchor onto my dingy so I could reposition it back in the centre of the harbour.
Meanwhile our boat was still stuck across the adjoining boat with a wind of 18 knots!

We did borrow a winch. We did lift the anchor onto my dingy using a strong rope. We held the dingy next to bow of ‘Timeless’. The pro crew of the motor yacht next us were amazing by the way! Their strength held out when my own died out!

With the anchor free we were able to motor and pull the boat around and into it’s proper berth. Now we had to set the anchor in the proper place.

With the skipper of the motor yacht on my deck controlling my windlass and another of his crew with me in the dingy we “s – l - o - w - l – y” (at full engine power) headed out to the centre of the harbour. We also all crossed our fingers that nothing else could go wrong!

Finally, after it seemed forever we were in the centre of the harbour, I pulled up on the anchor in the dingy to lift it over the tube and to drop into the water.
Nothing! I just could not lift it up and over! I was just too tired!
It was a good job I had a strong 25 year old muscle man in the dingy!
UP! OVER! PLOP! Finally went the anchor into the water and to bottom of the harbour.

The skipper pulled up the chain on my anchor. We all watched and waited. Would the anchor set? Would the bow of my boat turn towards the anchor and the chain tighten? Would the boat pull away from the dockside?

By now, because we had stopped all marine traffic flow in the vicinity, there a bit of a queue of boats wanting to transit. I have to say I didn’t really care about the niceties of port traffic – they had to wait for me in my moment of crisis!

The bow of ‘Timeless’ turned! The anchor looked like it going to hold!  

 YES!!!!!

The skipper of the first boat in the queue looked at me as if to say, “Now? Now can we go through please? ” Or was he swearing? I’ll never know and not understanding Greek I didn’t care either!

Happy that we thought we had finally secured ‘Timeless’ we let the traffic through.

Back on the boat, sharing a beer with the crew of the really helpful motor yacht we chatted about how we’ll laugh about this in years to come and that the prop shaft may not be bent and the prop is unlikely to have gone out of balance, that the gelcoat wouldn’t be too difficult to repair, the nick at the rear of the keel was nothing really  ..and the antifoul of the hull is probably still in tack.
hmmmm……?

We now have a standing invitation to open a bottle of wine with owner and crew in Bodrum, Turkey next time we are there. If we ever do the chances are we WILL take them up on it. What a great crew! What a great owner!

Taking stock over the next few days we decided we will have to have the prop and the underside of the boat checked over. We will need to look at the gelcoat.

Over the next week we were on tender hooks EVERY TIME a boat lifted or dropped it’s anchor.
Would our anchor be caught? 
Would our anchor chain be caught underneath a mass of other people chains that arrived after us? Would our boat still be secure when we come back to it after sightseeing each day?
This was not going to be relaxing.

Whilst we berthed in Rhodes, boats from both side of us changed EVERYDAY. Most boats moved every few days.
There are NO facilities in the harbor to speak of.  No showers, no toilets that we wanted to use. There was no internet. It was expensive. The agent was expensive.

The harbor is a nightmare!

Oh! But lets no forget that we came to Rhodes to sightsee.
How did we get on?

We visit Rhodes city.

This historic city was really interesting and one has to be careful not to allow the dreadful harbor to taint the overall experience. 

The city has a great walled historic area with many mansions and many interesting shops, restaurants and cafes. Unlike Athens say, you did NOT feel the effects of the financial crisis within Greece. The city is very prosperous and clean. In fact, we had the best meal in Greece (not a high standard to beat mind you) here in Rhodes.

Because we were on tender hooks for the safety of our boat the whole time we didn’t feel the need to rent a car for the island so we just went as far as we could walk but also be able to get back to the boat every few hours! Rhodes is definitely a place where it would be wise to keep a pro skipper on board the vessel.

As we walked through the city one evening we stopped at a typical tavern.

This tavern was a little individual in that it tended to play classic rock from the 70’s and 80’s and the owner seemed a bit of a drop out from Woodstock. We stopped, had a few beers and a snack and briefly passed the time of day with the owner.
The next morning as we wandered the streets of Rhodes I recognized him and the distinctive throb of the classic Harley as he glided past us on his way doing the various errands one does.
That evening we decided to pop back to the tavern (the music he played was good!). We soon struck up a conversation with the owner about Harleys, how we recognized him earlier, classic rock, the meaning of life and the number 42 et al  .. and Athens  ..and the German chancellor
..we were not allowed to buy ANYTHING for the rest of the evening – beers and snacks would just appear.
Another great guy!

In all we found that we have a LOVE/HATE relationship with Rhodes. We love the city and hate the harbor.

You can only take just so much stress watching adjacent boats squish in next to you every day and so it was time to leave.