But, yesterday, 29 May, was anything but dull. The weather was forecasted to be OK during the day but toward evening, Southerly sustain winds of 20 knots with gusts forecasted to be over 30 were predicted. So, having had to move from our first location closer to the city, to a spot about 400 meters closer to the mouth of the harbor, it gave me a chance to set the anchor into the predicted wind direction and lay out additional lines. (The harbor is better protected from Northerly winds and offers little protection from Southernly ones.)
I laid out two 50 meter lines, one from each side of the bow to bollards ashore. (You might be able to see one of these lines (green) in the picture below.) I also added two additional lines from the stern to bollards ashore. These additional lines, plus my normal stern lines to wall's bollards crossed like an "X" should have been enough. I mean, it was in Symi (Simi) Greece, where the winds were stronger and the waves in the bay were nearly whitecaps.
By 2100, I noticed our Turkish Gulet Charter boat neighbors were getting underway and moving. Some were going to a wall at the very eastern tip of the harbor (saw a self unloading freighter there two days ago) and some seem to be anchoring in the middle of the bay. But still I was OK.
By 2300, the last Turkish Gulet next to me slipped her lines and got underway for a protected bay just south of the harbor.
LeeZe by this time was rocking, rolling, water was being forcibly ejected upward thru the holes of the swim platform, and neither of us were happy.
But I still did not want to get underway so I made a half-ass decision to slip my stern lines some 5-8 meters, take in some anchor chain, and ride out the night still attached to the wall, but some 8-9 meters from it.
In the morning, having not gotten any sleep at all, it seems my decision would work out. Zehra went to bed at about 2330 and woke up about 0830, having slept well. I did not sleep well, but we were OK. At about 0630, during a check, I noticed not ONE Turkish Gulet was at the wall.
They had all left. My conclusion… I should have left also. It probably was a dumb and stupid decision to hang off the wall, but by morning, having made it and lived thru it, I am none the worse for wear less sleep, and LeeZe is not damaged, saved for two parted mooring lines.
So, it is now 30 May, and the winds are slowly dying down, and coming from the West now. My bow lines throughout the night seem to work magic in keeping LeeZe from not yawing too much, and my stern cross lines did the same. The other stern lines straight to the pier and the anchor chain kept the fore and aft motion pretty much also in check. So now we just waited most of the day and into the evening for the waves crashing against the wall to simmer down.
One charter boat, a big steel, party boat type, came back at 0900, and our neighbors returned about 1300. The ones at the eastern end of the bay
were still there at sunset; my guess is they too are waiting for the crashing waves along the wall to dissipate. (One of them did try coming back to the wall, but apparently gave up, and went back.)
We have not moved back either. There is no rush. We are rocking and roll, but we are safe. We are not hitting the wall, nor bottom, nor violently lurching about so we elect to stay like this until calmer waters prevail.
Zehra and I are QUITE INTERESTED in picking the brains of a charter boat Captain that we go to know as to what guides him in making a decision to get underway, or not. I had an experience early in my sub career. We were moored to a anchored barge in a bay in a Northern African port , when the weather turned from good to bad in hours. The sub was crashing against the barge and we were afraid we would either sink it or it would put a hole in us. The CO and XO were ashore (pre cell phone days) and were not available to be consulted. Got the sub underway and cruised the night outside the harbor in deeper, but safer water. We came back and retrieved the CO/XO, found out we were not in trouble, but if I remember correctly, we were told a more prudent course of action might have been to anchor, given the diplomatically and politically sensitive nature of our port visit (which of course we were clueless about because, heck!, we are only engineers!!!).
We moved LeeZe back to the city wall this morning, 31 May, after coffee. We then did a few chores, and then went to talk to the Charter Boat Captains. We came to learn that they leave because some years ago, they did what we did but as they are bunched closer together, some lines broke, some boats hit each other, there was some damage, so the prudent course of action came to be is the leave and go anchor either at the concrete dock, or around the "corner" in the next bay.
We walk about town and learn these is a concert tonight in the main square at 2030. We will check it out, and then resume our "dull" lives along the wall.
6 June: We are still in Cesme. We were to get some fuel today but the delivery was canceled for some reason. So, it may not be until next week that we will get our fuel delivery. We are med moored to the wall opposite to Kordon Pizza, a small restaurant run by a husband (Mehmet) and wife (Melek) with 3 kids. It has not been sunny all the time, and in fact, a rain storm that lasted about 36 hours, with cloudy days on either side, forced us to run the generator. Well, Mehmet came over while it was on and told us it was too noisy as it was driving away customers and could we turn it off. It was mid-morning, and I apologized but said it needed to run for about another hour. He was NOT happy. After securing it, went over to have a talk, and he was quite adamant that we should move to the marina as the wall is not for "people like us." But Melek appeared to be more reasonable. That night, on our walk about, we talked to some of the charter gulet owners, shared with them the story, and came to learn that the Mehmet had no leg to stand on. The city IS working on bringing shore power and water to the pier, but it is weeks away.
So, not to be completely unsympathetic, we decided to eat at Mehmet's restaurant the next night. To make a long story short, his menu is quite limited, but the food that he serves is quite delicious and reasonably priced. We talked with him and worked out a time in the morning when TYPICALLY he is not open so we can run the generator. So, all in all, an agreeable truce has been reached. We have eaten there a few times, and have yet to be disappointed. The name of the place is called "Kordon Pizza" but there is no name on the restaurant. It sits along the waterfront (duh!!) between a Turkish Defense Ministry and a Jandarma Building by the Post Office. He serves pizza, sandwiches fish, grilled meat balls, stuffed macaroni and breakfast, but no alcohol. He does not take credit cards either. Service is NOT speedy, so if you need a quick bite to eat, Burger King is a few hundred meters away. But with a little bit of patience, you will be rewarded with a very tasty meal at a very reasonable price.
12 June: It has been nearly a week since my last entry and really, life has been "boring" along the wall. Or, so we thought. Sometime during our visit, I had to deploy our mooring springs. These are made from 13 mm galvanized steel, rated for 20,000 kgs, and are not small. I have no clue why I did not do that on day 1 but I did not. Getting them on is a dance. I attached the spring to a piece of chain which gets wrapped around a bollard. Then on the end end of the spring is a shackle, which I undo and put it around the still quite taut stern line. I do this to both stern lines. Then, Zehra and I switch places and when there is a short pause and everything is calm, I loosen the stern line, Zehra takes it off the bollard and it gets captured by the shackle, and I take a strong tug to it. It actually goes smoother than I expected, and the ride improves noticeably. So of course, last night they had to come off because today, we are shifting berths to load fuel. So, basically, we reverse the process, and have to tolerate a less than pleasant motion for the evening. We do eat at Mehmet's tell him we are going, and he seems genuinely sad we are leaving. We had a great meal and take a short walk ad call it a night.
We visited the local castle yesterday and here is Zehra at the wall
me sitting in the court yard,
and LeeZe at the city wall.
13 June. Underway day, even just for a short hop from the wall to the pier. Our agent, Omur has done all the paperwork for the the fuel load and the check out. Our transit log (the Turkish Government document that authorizes LeeZe to be in Turkey) expired yesterday so Omur says we will have to pay a fine for not having a current log, It is about $33. (The cost of new one is about $125 and to have a new one for just being one day late did not seem financially prudent to do.) We prepare for the short move to the fuel dock and get the word at about 1130 to be there at 1300. While it is less than 1 nautical mile away, I need the time because the bottom of Cesme Harbor is mud, more mud, and mud. It takes me about 30 minutes to coax LeeZe's anchor out of it. This anchor has been in this mud for 2+ weeks, holding us off the pier in winds gusting to 30-40 knots It is dug in well, and while I do not have a picture of it, when it does come out, there is probably another 100 kgs of mud and stuff stuck to it. We try to get it over by rinsing, dragging it thru the water, dunking it up and down and it will not come off. We eventually get it off using a pole to poke at it, and water, and 45 minutes of work. But digress. Underway, choppy day, into the fuel dock, have to turn around as the boat there decides to leave, realign, and come in starboard side too.
The fuel truck is there. So is Customs. I ordered and therefore committed to taking 3200 liters. So, we begin with the aft tank, fill it to just over 90%, than the forward tank, which we fill to over 90% and when the noise of the air rushing out starts to change, i change to the aft tank and put the last 110 liters into it, all without spilling a drop. (When we loaded fuel at this same dock some 2+ years ago, I got a diesel shower when the fuel rushed out the fill nozzle because the speed of the fill was way too high. This time, we filled using gravity flow, and I did not get another shower.) Ok, that is done, and I pay the fuel company by credit card $1.27/liter of low sulfur diesel fuel for the delivery.
Next on the agenda is to get the black water tank discharged. The tank can hold about 800 liters, and it has about 700 so I am trying to do the environmentally appropriate action by dumping it ashore. The marina agrees to take it (for a fee, of course!) but then comes to tell me that their pump is broken and do I mind waiting. I say no, as I am using this time to purify the new fuel in the aft tank and that will take hours. At about 1600, come to learn that the marina cannot get their pump fixed that day, but they have called for an outside contractor to come in and take the waste water.
Now, before we moved from the city wall, we called this same contractor, and he wanted about $71 to empty our tank. We thought that was way too much $$$ so we asked the marina what they wanted and they said $24. Better. The contractor came, and sucked the waste water out and now, all of our chores were done. But is is also close to 1700. Omur comes back with an itemized bill for the rest of the services, including the $200 tanker delivery fee, and we pay him $714. We are now no longer officially in country. Our passports have the check out stamp, and the transit log is "closed out." It appears that the late fee Omur said we would have to pay was waived. Not sure but there is no annotation anywhere about it being assessed.
Thank the Lord as Zehra learns that the new Marina Manager is Jon, who was here when we stayed here in 2011-12. For some reason he liked us then, so Zehra asks me to try to sweet talk him into allowing us to spend the night at the fuel dock. So, I try. I of course ask, and throw in the fact that the marina itself charged me $250 for the privilege of coming to their fuel dock to load the tax-free fuel from a truck I had to pay for to come here, and he thought I was pulling his leg. So I show him and the dock master Omur's bill, and they are so astonished they ask if they can make a copy (of course) and said while I cannot stay at the fuel dock, they will slide me in stern too just opposite it. So, underway for a really short move from one dock to another, and settle in.
Remember when I said life along the wall was "boring," we were FLAT ASS wrong. Here we are in a marina, stern too, surrounded by boats that all but one is empty, nobody walking by, temperatures 5 degrees hotter than at the wall due to the congestion and we realize we had it really good at the wall, even with the boat's crazy motion. But a least we are here for the night, the wind is blowing some 30-40 knots, and the ONLY excitement was watching a 165' yacht named Misbehaving come in to the fuel dock, spend a few hours loading taxed fuel, and then moving to another pier nearby to stay a few days.
14 June. After coffee, we depart Cesme at about 1000 for a 3+ hour run to Egri Liman Koyu, passing thru Greek Territorial waters. There is not much around, a few LARGE fish farms at the entrance and along the coast, some homes ashore, a beach, and a shelter cove
We anchor in some 10+ meters of water off of a deserted beach. I do some chores, take a shower, and finish this blog.
That concludes this blog entry. Of course, comments and questions are warmly welcomed. If you receive the link to this blog via a personal email, and no longer wish to, just me me know and I will remove you from the list. No hard feelings, OK?
Thanks for taking the time
Lee and Zehra Aboard MV LeeZe
Hİ GUYS..! Thanks to you for sharing your advantures with me. I really enjoy reading the blog with a smile glued to may face.....=))))
ReplyDeleteWish you a pleasant trip whereever it takes you.
Best Regards.
Eagle Ozkan