Sarpdere Limanı

In the morning the camper van had gone and we had the ancient harbour at Teos all to ourselves once more. There was no wind again but we knew that a meltemi was forecast for the following day, perhaps lasting for several days, and we were keen to move a little further north. So, we got the engine going and headed along the coast to a nearly deserted inlet, Sarpdere Limanı.

Entry to Sarpdere Limanı

Sarpdere Limanı has 3 arms, a southern one which is open to the north, an eastern one which provides almost all-round shelter but which is very shallow (about as deep as BV) and a northern one which has good depths and good shelter from the meltemi.

Sarpdere Limanı – anchored off the eastern arm

Since the meltemi was not due to pick up until the next day, we anchored at the entrance to the very shallow arm of the inlet as the sea was a beautiful turquoise (because the water is so shallow) and the surroundings were so pretty. Just astern of us was a large flat plateau of grassland and trees, not a common sight in the areas we have been, and close to this ‘meadow’ are a couple of beaches, both sand rather than the more usual pebbles.

Whilst we were lazing in the cockpit reading our books, a goatherd drove his huge flock down from one of the nearby hills, through the ‘meadow’, across the back of one of the beaches and up a different hill. The goats’ bells rang cheerfully, as the animals walked and trotted on their journey to pastures new. However, I am not sure how cheerful the goats themselves were, since the goatherd did not seem to use his dogs to herd them, rather he shouted at the goats and threw stones at them to keep them moving.

Sarpdere Limanı – northern arm

The following morning, the wind, as forecast, had swung round to the north and was starting to pick up. Anchored at the entrance to the eastern arm, BV was potentially exposed to the wind gusting out of the shallow bay and out of the northern arm. She had also swung to the new wind direction and there was now relatively little space between her stern and the rocky shore. It would have been sufficient if the wind had been forecast to remain at a moderate strength but since it was due to increase further, we reanchored in the deeper and larger, but less attractive, arm of the inlet.

Whilst we were anchored in Sarpdere Limanı the wind probably blew at near gale force for much of the time. Though there were some impressively strong gusts in the anchorage, the bay was generally very well sheltered and the anchor held well on the sandy bottom. There was plenty of room to swing with any changes in the wind direction and, since the bay shelves gently, there would have been plenty of space for several yachts to shelter. As it was, we were the only one.

It is said that sail cruising is just yacht maintenance in interesting places and, as ever, we had a few routine jobs to while away the time (laundry, servicing the heads, checking the engine, etc). Unfortunately, the wind also helped to generate a repair task – it blew so hard that it sheared the coupling between our wind generator’s drive shaft and the windmill head. The joint broke with a fair old bang and then, with no load on it (driveshaft to alternator) the windmill blades started whizzing round at top speed making quite a racket. Happily, it happened during the day so we could quickly stop the blades from turning and then replace the coupling. We locked off the blades at night just in case, though the wind tended to drop then anyway.

Last year the sun’s UV rays had taken their toll on the PVC covers of our horseshoe life-ring and the rescue strop. We had done a temporary ‘fix’ with some tape but it was neither pretty nor a long term solution. Consequently, I spent a day designing and then making a shower cap style cover for the horseshoe buoy (it can be easily removed if the buoy needs to be deployed should someone fall overboard) and a new bag (which incorporated elements of the original one) for the rescue strop. Better still, I managed to achieve this just using the offcuts of beige fabric left over from other jobs.

Despite the wind, it was still warm in the sun and at anchor the sprayhood provides excellent shelter from the wind (we call it the cave) so it can get very hot in the cockpit. Having overheated ourselves over lunch one day, we took the opportunity to take our first swim without wetsuits, which was surprisingly pleasant and only a little refreshing when we first jumped in. Later, we swam (with wetsuits) to give the hull its first scrub of the season. Unlike in Menorca, no little fish rushed up to eat the tiny bits of slime and weed that we scrubbed off but BV looked much the better for our work nonetheless. However, she still has 30/03/15 chalked on her rudder (her launch date at Marmaris) – that doesn’t seem to want to come off at all!

When the wind seemed to have reduced a little we were keen to move on. On leaving the shelter of Sarpdere Limanı we were hit by the full force of the remaining wind and were fully able to appreciate the shelter the bay had provided. Heading west along the Turkish coast, towards the Greek island of Hios, we had an exhilarating sail in bright sunshine and blue skies.

Hios

To sail in either Turkish or Greek waters requires that we buy an appropriate Transit Log for BV (cost €100-€150 for Turkish paperwork and €30 for Greek), and the regulations require that the Transit Log is surrendered before leaving that country’s jurisdiction. To visit Turkey, like all British citizens, we need to buy a Turkish visa ($10 per person), which permits us to stay in the country for 90 days in a rolling 180 day period. With these constraints in mind, and knowing that we wanted to visit the many ancient ruins along the Turkish coast, when we had been roughly planning this year’s itinerary, we had not expected to go much further north than Lesvos. However, by now we had made better progress north than we had anticipated. With the forecasts showing a period of relatively light northerly winds (not the ideal southerly but not a strong northerly either), we decided to take BV a little further north than we had planned, up to the Dardanelles and Gallipoli, perhaps even into the western part of the Sea of Marmara.

So, with our cruising chute set, we took advantage of a day’s southerly wind to make our way to the recently rebuilt harbour at Berham Kale, the port for ancient Assos, before tackling the route to the Dardanelles.

Sarpdere Limanı, Turkey