Seasoned cruising sailor and occasional Boating NZ contributor John Woolfe relates a memorable post-Covid cruise through the Greek Islands and along the Turkish coast, a voyage not without its challenges.
As I write this, I’m sitting in the comfortable saloon of Celestine, my Carambola 38, an aluminium, centreboard masthead sloop. We’re in the tiny fishing harbour of Kalanto, at the southern tip of the Greek island of Naxos. We are sheltering from the rotating storm Daniel, a ‘medicane’ in the Ionian Sea, sending 45-knot Meltemi winds down through the Greek Islands. Some areas of Greece which had just survived raging bush fires, then experienced 730mm of rain in 24 hours, causing recordbreaking flooding of ‘biblical proportions’ and 17 deaths.
I’d been so focused on finding the perfect harbour to ride out the storm, I’d failed to notice it was just a fishing harbour – no shops, no buses, nothing, apart from the tinkle of goats’ bells in the sun-scorched hills.
An inventory of our supplies revealed some stale bread and cheese and not much else. My crew, Mark Beckerleg, looked like he has glimpsed the boiling pits of hell, as we were running low on beer. The nearest village is Filoti, some 20km distant over narrow, twisting dirt roads and no way to get there. The life saver was a taverna a few hundred metres up the valley, run by the friendly, but fierce-looking, harbourmaster Vasilis who, once he had got to know us, loaned us a small green bug of a car of indeterminate origin which I wrestled over the circuitous route to Filoti. There, we bought half the supermarket’s stock, enjoyed coffee in one of the street cafes, and watched the world go by.
Back in 2022, I’d laboured to resurrect Celestine after a long Covid hiatus in Porto Lagos, Northern Aegean. I then sailed her down to Oreoi on the island of Evia, near Athens, where she was put up on the hard in Dimitri’s Boatyard (Boating NZ October 2022). I was determined that the 2023 season would be one of sharing with friends, easy passages, street cafes of pictureperfect villages and beautiful anchorages.
Arriving in mid-May with three enthusiastic crew – Julie Brixton and Paul and Amanda Mitchell, all from Wellington – we set about getting Celestine ready to launch. Everyone chose their preferred tasks with Paul completing the plumbing for the black water tank, a requirement for cruising in Turkey, while Julie distinguished herself with her enthusiasm wet-sanding the hull and then antifouling.
With Celestine launched from a trailer, which was interesting, and moored stern-to in the nearby boat harbour in Oreoi, I headed off to the Port Police to fill in the crew list. Everything was going smoothly until they asked for my TEPAI (cruising permit) which I did not have (and did not know about). This admission caused a sharp intake of breath from the three Port Police who then departed to smoke cigarettes and discuss my fate, leaving me alone to regret my slight tendency to forgo proper research and then just turn up and wing it. Clearly not a winning strategy in these circumstances.
Looking stern, they phoned Dimitri to confirm that I had launched when I said I had and motored directly to the harbour (i.e. no cruising). I think Dimitri saved the day for me when he pointed out that I was hardly likely to turn up at the Port Police without a TEPAI if I ‘d known I needed one. Having received a stern warning, the Harbourmaster, for a fee, did the TEPAI online and I was good to go.
Because this crew was only with me for six weeks, we set off as soon as possible, cruising the picturesque Northern Sporades islands of Skopelos, then on to the port of Linaria on Skiros, enjoying a great sail in 15 knots of breeze seeing 6.1 knots on the log at times. Having sailed into the bay where the highly recommended Linaria Marina was located, the engine failed to turn over, which meant endless tacking up the bay with the crew working well together until, within hailing distance, a marina dinghy came out to assist. After much shouting of instructions to the dinghy from the staff on the sea wall, we were nudged alongside and made fast.
Having removed some electrics which obscured the starter motor connections, I discovered the anticipated corrosion on the terminals. After cleaning and applying a generous amount of grease so it wouldn’t happen again, normal service was resumed.
Linaria was a great marina. Friendly staff, and the ‘disco’ showers were a treat, with smooth sounds from a local radio station together with the flashing disco ball casting random colours in the shower stall, adding a nightclub feel to the showering experience.
Another charming feature was the interisland ferry playing Wagner’s stirring ‘Flight of the Valkyries’ at full volume as it backed into the ramp before dropping its stern door.
The cruise continued with good downwind sailing to the tiny island of Psara, then Chios, and down to Samos to make landfall in Turkey at Didem, where I went through the lengthy, complicated and expensive process of checking into Turkey through an agent. One extra layer of bureaucracy (since I last sailed into Turkey) is the ‘Blue Card’ which monitors the regularity and amount of black water you pump out at the designated pump-out stations along the coast. Non-compliance incurs a heavy fine, although the requirements for how much and the time interval between pump-outs is shrouded in mystery. I just hoped for the best.
With a crew changeover in Bozburun, I now had three crazy Irishman onboard – Frank O’Neil from Florida, his brother Joe from Dublin. and my mate Leo McKnight from Wellington. The craic was good. Sailing along the Lycian coast was a panorama of beautiful bays, interesting archaeological sites such as a memorable day-trip up the Dalyan River in a hire boat visiting the ancient city of Kaunos and Lycian Tombs carved high into the cliff face above the river.
Once in Kekova near Finnike, it was time for another crew change, with David Fisher and Teresa Ostapowicz from Wellington, and my mate Mark Beckerleg from Auckland, all flying in together and sailing straight into a brutal heatwave, peaking at 43°C and lasting for about a month.
There was much discussion around cooling the boat below the level of distress. Installing air conditioning was a popular option, as was the more practical suggestion of a boom tent to give shade to the cabin-top.
Anchored-off in bays, life was doable, with frequent swims and seeking shade in the cockpit reading during the heat of the day. Midnight swims under the clear, starry sky were popular, with the buoyant water of the predator-free Mediterranean wicking the heat from our bodies, before laying a wetted sarong over ourselves, the cooling evaporation making sleep possible.
We adopted the crew name ‘The Saints’, being Teresa, Mark David and John. Tess, who had never been on a boat before, apart from the Cook Strait ferry, proved to be a natural and quickly became the go-to person to swim the stern line ashore when at anchor, making it fast to a suitable rock or tree.
Despite the heat, the crew were a happy lot, and we did have some memorable times, such as being anchored in Kizilkuyruk Koyu in the Gulf of Fethiye, which Tess dubbed ‘Beautiful Bay’. Making our way ashore in the cool of the early morning, and up a bush-clad ridge past long-abandoned stone dwellings we reached a plateau, the site of Lydae, a settlement from Roman and Byzantine times with extensive ruins including a theatre and agora (market place). I think what fascinated Tess and I the most was that it was not considered an important site by archaeologists and therefore had not been excavated. We spent a lot of time exploring the ruins and debating the purpose of low, domed stone structures with one narrow entrance. These proved to be for water gathering. A black terrier adopted Tess and followed us back to the bay.
Berthed in Fethiye Marina, we were forced to abandon Celestine for a few days, seeking shelter in air-conditioned apartments recovering from heat stress, as the heat radiating from the surrounding marina infrastructure made life impossible.
Dave, being a doer not a talker, took this opportunity to have a ‘proof of concept’ boom tent made which significantly reduced the amount of heat being radiated into the below decks area.
With Dave departed to meet his wife in Italy, and Tess to return to life in New Zealand, Mark and I continued east through the Greek Islands to Naxos, where, once Storm Daniel had resolved itself after 13 days, continued north to return to Evia where the boat was put to bed for the winter back in Dimitri’s Boat Yard, picking up two more crew on the way – John Howe from Northern Ireland and David Hill from Canada – both of whom I had met more than 10 years ago in a previous cruising life. Friendships forged at sea endure.
Next season we are bound for the Ionian Sea where the Meltemi doesn’t blow. BNZ
