Crete to Alanya, Turkey - August to October'12

We’ve now completed our eighth season and are back in Canada awaiting the onset of winter. In short, it was a good summer because we had no real agenda after aborting our plan to head into the Black Sea. This was the result of a confusing rollout of new visa rules by the Turkish government. That cruise is still on the table, but possibly a few years out. There remains many landfalls on the south Med shore that we haven’t seen (Egypt, Jordan, Israel), plus our summer next year will be split owing to the mid summer marriage of our second son back in Canada.

Because of Turkey’s changing visa rules we have each taken out two year Turkish residency visas, which allow us to remain without having to follow 90 days in/90 days out. This will greatly simplify any plans over the next two years.

Just try and connect the dots

All told we covered about 2500 nautical miles circumnavigating the Aegean Sea and ended back in southern Turkey at Alanya, where Two Moons is standing on stilts for the winter.

Alanya Marina, Turkey - winter berth

The last leg of our summer took us along Crete’s north shore from west to east and then we island hopped up to Turkey, where we followed the coast to Turkey’s southern shore. We had covered much of the Turkish area last summer, but we had a plan to set up for winter and then travel in land to Cappadocia before flying home. Arriving at Alanya we quickly settled into the cruisers social scene and busied ourselves with boat jobs in the cooler parts of the day, such that the time quickly evaporated (no pun) and we never met that goal.

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Crete: We saw very few sailors along the coast of Crete. The entire journey from coast to coast was just as rugged and beautiful as our landfall in Gramvousa and it stayed oh so windy. Folks we met often told us that few people sail these shores during the summer due to the fierce winds that are ever present. Now why wasn’t the pilot guide clearer on that little point?

Chania, Crete - part of the beautiful Venetian harbour (with Turkish influence)

We spent several days at anchor on the Eastern shore waiting for the wind to ease and in the end we just had to go for it as time was running out on our EU visa. Expecting the worst, it was a great sail.



Chalkis, Greece - a delightful fishing harbour



SE Greek islands: The islands of Kasos and Karpathos were just as desolate and windy. With dramatic cliffs winds are fluky and often range from flat calm to force 6 in a heartbeat and then back again! We didn’t dawdle and moved on to Chalkis and then Simi, our final Greek island. This close to Turkey the Meltimi winds were more moderate.



Simi - our check-out port from Greece



Simi - where we loaded up on wine and pork



Turkey:

We checked back into Turkey at the same port as last year. All very easy except now you are required to purchase a card which is updated every time you pump out your holding tank. Not using it can impede your exit from the country, but someone seems to have forgotten to install easy access pump outs. The few available are within the high priced marinas, so you have a disincentive to use the card. Another good idea, but with poor implementation.

Alanya (our winter port):

DIY - mainsail repair

When we first arrived at Alanya it was bustling with preparations for the impending Vasco De Gama rally. About 17 boats were readying for a winter cruise down through the Suez into the Red Sea as far south as Eritrea, returning in the spring. The rally, (which we thought was defunct), originally continued down to India. But with the rise of piracy stemming from Somalia, few cruising boats, if any, are passing through the Red Sea/Suez. A June report stated that there were 12 tankers and 124 crew members being held for ransom. Two South African sailors have been held for over 500 days. Out of curiosity, we inquired into the cost of placing Two Moons aboard a tanker to safely transport us past the piracy area – but the $24,000 price tag answered that question.



Our 4:00 o'clock job - when it got too hot to work




The Alanya Marina stress reduction centre



But we have the winter to sort out the next few years travels. All told it was a good summer. Yes it was very, very hot and quite breezy. No, we didn’t catch a single fish – despite making Grace spit on the lure every time (according to one book that was supposed to guarantee success). But we never endured any gut wrenching passages and nothing broke. It was just as cruising is supposed to be – some good sails, warm clear water for swimming, scenic anchorages and sundowners served by 4:00.

Two weeks home and already we are looking forward to getting back.

Best wishes…….Mike and Grace