Koya

Wonderful sail in Lamu on a traditional Dhow boat. Captain Kelly has been sailing for more than 30 years on his boat and taught me the basics of how to sail a Dhow! The sail works similar to regular yachts but tacking was quite tricky as everything was done manually from shifting the mast and moving the sail to the other side 😅 Definitely wanna try this again and perhaps sail to Zanzibar! The co-captain, Mohamed appearantly goes there every year spending 2 weeks along the coast of Kenya 🇰🇪

Today was our last day of sailing in Türkiye 🥲 We set off early to fill up with fuel in Göcek and dug into our final breakfast. Initially we attempted to anchor up in a bay nearby Göcek but unexpectedly we got some wind so we headed out into the Gulf of Fethiye for a final bit of sailing which was great because it meant that we didn’t need to motor for two hours. We stopped for our last lunch in a bay nearby where we finished off the last of our provisions nicely before motoring back into the marina to return La Luz 🌅 That was it. Another great week full of lots of memories and valuable lessons. Until next time 🤩

No Wind day. Woke up in the beautiful bay by the restaurant. Asked the owner if he could sell us some food from the restaurant and walked away with 3 loafs, eggs, meatballs, skewers, and a massive block of feta. He threw in some hummus and yoghurt dip for free, very kind. 🍳🍞 We motored down to Cleopatra Cove where there are some ruins of an old bath that they say Cleopatra once used. Me and Koya swam ashore and hiked through the beautiful wilderness in search of some more ruined we had read about. 🌴 We got lost and ended up at a high end cafe with some flowers that have the most beautiful smell, kind of like vanilla / honey I need to figure out what they are! 💐🌹💐🌸 Tracing our steps we found a path going up the hill surpjndjg the bay, after a very sweaty climb on the 35+ degrees we were rewarded with a stunning view of the bay. Having climbed a hill and being too lazy to walk Back we radiod the team to pick us up from across the bay and Ole arrived with 2 cold beers 😍. We sailed towards the top of the bay with no very little wind then needed to motor. The plan is to hit the fuel pontoon before it gets busy tomorrow. We long lined in a very tranquil bay for the night and played cards, cooked and ate some great food in our last night before heading back. Great spending time together 🥰

A day of auto pilot, turtles and turquoise water 🐢 A slow start, having our first breakfast out at the bay’s restaurant. A DELICIOUS mezze of cheese, bread, eggy bread and dips that Tom’s going to write in his log 🍯. We bought a giant bag of tomatoes and cucumbers - our rations for 3 days. Ok - time to leave! Heading to Ola Denis before the tourist boats arrive 🏴‍☠️. We rocked up to a perfect bay (much nicer than reviews) and started reversing on the anchor when a turtle popped up! AN ALIVE TURTLE! The curse is broken 🐢 ❤️ We anchored in 30m with 60m of chain and lines ashore. No wind. Easy peasy. This was our longest day of swimming thanks to the lack of wind, which was delightful. We also held an impromptu SailTies design sprint about collections and weather overlays (watch this space!) A 2hr motor back gave us time for naps and some work. We arrived at another beautiful bay with a restaurant pontoon. Classic Turkey 🇹🇷 🌊.

Sunrise-ish slip at 7am 🌅 We had a Turkish mixed-grill day of no wind, little wind and almost too much wind. PERFECT sailing adventure. To add to this, our lunch spot was an idyllic beach with a nice long swim from the boat and our evening spot is another picturesque restaurant mooring bay. Tonight it’s a mooring buoy, our collective favourite. Sad news though, we took Kevin out for a photoshoot and saw a dead turtle floating 😞 🐢. Some SailTies flyering done and now off for dinner at Charlie’s place. P.s. we stopped at butterfly bay and it was AWFUL with 5 pirate ships having foam parties. 😬

#Reborn After 30 hours of mayhem with seasickness, headache, 2 dragged anchors, anchor stuck in some mooring gear, anchor chain coming out the windless today I felt reborn. Ate well, slept well, then sailed very well today! Some amazing sailing! Just perfect. Stopped in the most amazing bay, lovely long lining (second anchor attempt). We did have crossed anchors trying to leave but the skipper of the Gulet we crossed with jumped aboard and dragged our anchor out from the other side of the chain…. Nice technique 🤓. Now in a beautiful bay and off for dinner 🥰.

If we thought the previous incident was lucky, this was something else. Around 7am there was a huge gust and a much louder sound of the anchor dragging. We entered “Quick Emergency” mode, the culmination of a ”Slow Emergency” that had been building since we arrived late to our anchorage the previous night. Tom and I ran from the bow cabin to the helm and got the engine running and anchor coming up. It seemed like we were stuck, but we started moving forward only 2m from the rocks. We noticed that we could step off the boat at this point. A decision was made to leave the long lines behind, so we could move forward on the anchor. Ironically, the anchor slipped onto a disused mooring buoy and got stuck. Many failed attempts later and we requested help from a scuba diver, who freed us 30 mins later. Don’t worry - both lazy lines and anchor were recovered. Crisis averted. A gentle broad reach sail on just the Genoa and we reached a bay to recover and have breakfast. Sadly it was too deep to anchor. After finally finding a great spot at 35m deep, we were unable to get the anchor to hold. On picking it up it escaped the windlass and we had to improvise a rolling hitch/winch solution to feed it back through without tension. 3 for 3 on anchor fails. We moved to our evening spot on a restaurant’s pontoon. It’s only midday, 22hrs after departing base, but feels like 6pm on our final day! Time for a few beers and dinner! Lessons: - don’t skimp on 4x depth anchor chain - in high winds on anchor, set a 30min alarm to check and ideally have constant anchor watch rotation - make sure everyone knows what to do when we slip: engine on, stern lines slacked, anchor up - don’t let out the last 10m of chain, just in case it leaves the windlass - don’t put shower gel in a bag of clothes that might get squashed 😬

Anchor slipped! Heard it go, off to the back of the boat to find our long lines floating 🤔. Got the anchor up as it was an awkward spot to anchor and then Chris did some great boat handling to keep us steady in the strong gusts as we explored options in the dark :-/. Managed to find some good depth and bollards ashore to execute a night time long line 😊. Concerned there might be some old Bouy stuff in the water but it’s our best bet at this time!