Week 8: Syros, Greece to Turgutreis, Turkey (134 nm)

One of our busiest weeks in a while, as we met up with friends in Mykonos, then visited Patmos and Leros, before finishing the week sailing from Greek to Turkish waters. Highlights included sundowners in Mykonos bay surrounded by superyachts, Laura valiantly redeeming herself after misplacing the boat keys and our first attempt at spear fishing.

Rendezvous in Mykonos

After running a couple of final errands, we left Finikas as early as we could to head over to Mykonos, as we were excited to meet up with our friends Alex and Geraint who had just arrived there for a week’s holiday. The forecast for the 35nm journey was similarly strong to the previous day, but this time I had learned my lesson – Laura kindly glossed over my optimistic sail plan on the last day in her post last week, which was a silly mistake seeing as I knew it was going to be a windy day, and we spent a good couple of hours getting “spanked” (the technical nautical term) before we were able to properly get the boat back under control. A good skipper can read the mutiny in his crew’s eyes and this time we started conservatively and added sail only when we knew Serenity could take it. It made for a much more enjoyable sail and I hope that will be the last time I underestimate the Greek ‘meltemi’ winds.

Our friends had chosen a hotel that overlooked one of the best bays for sailors to anchor on Mykonos, so we accepted Fate’s guiding hand and dropped the hook around 4pm. We weren’t the only sailing boat there, but the island’s party reputation was clearly a lodestone for the Superyacht crowd. It was amazing to watch the various miniboats and occasional drones serving the motherships (likely delivering champagne and the like), but rather than feeling jealous it was inspiring to be able to enjoy the same location as these boats for a fraction of the cost (and one or two less amenities…).

I dinghied into the beach where Alex and Geraint were waiting for the water taxi service. After a slightly nervous entry into the tender, they quickly relaxed into the sailing lifestyle and we were delighted to be able to share some of our experiences with them. An afternoon of champagne, beers, music and paddleboards was accompanied by the ever-present laughter we have whenever we reunite with this pair. We ended the day in the semi-exclusive beach club called Skorpios after Geraint managed to find a doorman willing to look the other way – unfortunately we didn’t recognise any of the night’s VIPs but were fortunate to navigate our way home along the cliff path without injury (bar Geraint’s flip flops).

Find the boat keys (hangover edition)

Our heads were ‘reasonably’ clear the next morning and Laura and I decided to take the opportunity to get her phone fixed in Mykonos town, and have a wander around. It was slightly surreal seeing buses signed for “Paradise” (which, despite Mykonos’ inordinate number of churches, was actually a reference to a trendy beach), and we were enjoying wandering the winding streets when the day’s challenge presented itself – Laura suddenly realised she didn’t know where the boat key was. We ransacked all our bags and concluded that the only place it could be was on the floor of the dinghy, which rendered the bike lock on our dinghy somewhat vulnerable and persuaded us to cut the morning short so we could put our fears to rest.

Bizarrely, we got to the dinghy and the key wasn’t there…perhaps Laura left it in the cockpit of Serenity? Since the key had been in her possession last and our transportation was impounded, Laura bravely accepted the challenge of swimming out to the boat in her underwear (which I thought fitted in quite well with the local beach fashion?). The boat was a reasonable way from the beach and so I thought I had time to grab coffee whilst I kept an eye on her from the shore; however, my order had only just been placed when I noticed that Laura had had enough swimming and was climbing aboard a fancy powerboat with the apparent permission of its owner! The nice man agreed to drive Laura the rest of the way in his tender, and was polite enough to avoid commenting on either Laura’s inappropriate swimwear, or the fact the she had to break into our boat when she arrived to discover no key there either. Where it went is a mystery, but Laura returned victorious to the beach with a spare and I had to abandon my coffee to collect her from her saviour’s boat. This is a great example of the boat karma we earned over the last few weeks coming in handy…I’m only grumpy that Laura spent it all in one go!

After the morning’s excitement, we gratefully accepted Alex and Geraint’s offer to visit their hotel and lounge by the pool. It was a stunning location and we really enjoyed a few hours of luxury and swimming in non-salty water. We all had dinner back on Serenity where Laura knocked up her now famous “sort of Mediterranean tuna salad thing” (recipe to come soon) and we enjoyed the sunset from the best view in the bay before saying our goodbyes. The enthusiasm on our friends faces as they discussed visiting us in the Caribbean was a great bookend to our visit and we can’t wait to see them in another suitably glamorous location!

Onwards to Turkey

The next day we had a really long trip of 65nm to Patmos. Normally you plan on an average boat speed of 5 knots, which would have made this a 13-hour trip. In this case, we knew the wind was not going to appear and the forecast for the next few days was similar, so we decided to motor the whole way at 6 knots, which cut a little bit of time off the trip. We had some early excitement on the fishing line, only to discover I’d caught a plastic bag (and in hindsight my excited shout of “fish on” when the reel squealed seems aggressive). Since the sea was fairly flat, we took some time to do more boat jobs and managed to successfully service another of our winches (without losing anything in the sea). The day was topped off when we arrived in Skala and completed our best yet two-handed stern-to, which is a challenging parking manoeuvre with only two people (and is the norm in Greece). Whilst celebrating with a beer, we decided that this must be a sign that we were ready to move onto new challenges and so we started plotting our route to Turkey.

Patmos is quite a popular cruise ship destination as it was where St. John wrote Revelations, and subsequently a fortified monastery was built on the island in the 11^th century. We considered going to visit it, but it was at the top of a hill and looked to be overrun by all the cruise ship tourists. By contrast, the town of Skala was very enjoyable to wander around and we decided to stay an extra night given the wind was still absent. We found an amazing dive shop and so decided to upgrade our snorkelling gear and buy a spear gun (if the fish won’t come to us, then we’re taking the fight to them). The other notable part of our stay was that the harbour master completely ignored our boat despite being parked directly in front of him, so we took the money we saved on mooring fees and had a delicious greasy burger as a reward.

The next day was a short hop to Leros, which got us within striking distance of Turkey the next day. I was in the process of repainting the outboard prop, so we paddleboarded in and finally found some charcoal for the BBQ (as well as some mind-blowingly good whiskey ice cream). With the grill awaiting, we decided to try our hand at some underwater hunting where we quickly located a small but passable target. Unfortunately, the learning curve of spearfishing meant I got close but not enough to the target, and despite Laura’s diligent tracking efforts whilst I reloaded, we eventually had to admit defeat before hypothermia set in. Thankfully we had some sausages as a backup and so the BBQ was still given it’s first outing afloat.

The wind came up a bit overnight and we were swinging all over the place by the morning, which was sufficient motivation to get an early start. It was a lovely broad reach all the way down to Turgutreis in Turkey where there was a customs office for us to check in, and a fancy marina to settle in for our first night. We had been advised that using an agent was almost mandatory to overcome the language issues, which I was surprised by given my past experience in Turkey; however, this was a good decision as it was clear we would have struggled to get through it on our own. The wind died down once more and it started to feel really hot for the first time, so we made good use of the pool and deluxe shower facilities before settling down with the Turkey pilot book to read about the new coastline we had to explore.

PS – Thanks for the book recommendations we received last week, we’ll provide feedback as we work our way through them all 🙂