Good bye Turkey April 21, 2011

Tilos Harbor

The harbor attendent helping us dock

Tilos sunrise and the ferry, just across our boat

Good bye Turkey April 21, 2011



We had a good day sailing on Wednesday with wind blowing at around 20 knots, arriving at Datca just past 2:00 in the afternoon. We’ve been sailing between Greek islands and Turkish ports, but Datca is the last Turkish port that we are finally checking out. The quay was not full at the time but we decided to anchor out, for the peace and quiet. At the waterfront, there are the coastguard, restaurants, yacht/tour services and of course, gulets and fishing boats. As soon as we landed from our dingy, we were welcomed by someone saying “Welcome Canada” …. having a respectable size flag flying high at the stern helps and also, you don’t see a whole lot of “Canadian” boats in Turkey. We located a yacht agency to help with printing out the exit transit log form and for that, we were charged 20TL. We got to the habour master’s office just before closing time, but police and customs needed to wait until the next morning.

Datca is a fair size Turkish town, pretty it is not, but a pleasant one. Sure there’re tourist shops near the waterfront, but local shops are within walking distance. We went to BIM to stock up on provisions and did our bargaining, the Turkish style, for a flashlight.

The next morning, we went back and got clearance from the police and the customs. We spent our last two liras on a muffin and peanuts. The pastry shop was going to charge the muffin for one euro …. where we paid only one lira the day before. We went back and forth, one euro …. no no, bir lire …. finally, ok. Were they trying to charge us the tourist price or did we pay for a stale muffin the day before? We’ll never know.

Good bye Turkey …. we sailed out, on the run, at 10:00am, with a marching band playing at the harbour …. saying farewell to us?!!

The sea was calm but sailable, and 3 Rivers was sailing on the run for a good 3 hours. In the afternoon the breeze picked up. It was perfect, and we sailed on a reach, at 6 knots, under a brilliant blue sky. We entered the Tilos harbour, in Greece, at 2:30pm. The harbour attendant assisted with the mooring lines and sternly told us we needed to leave the next day, to the next port of entry. Mooring fee was 13€ and 1€ for 100lt of water (no cleaning of the boat). However, after the first day of mooring, it’s only 8€ per each additional day. Not sure how Tilos harbour could sustain hiring a full time attendant as the space can allow no more than five boats. Our neighbour on port side was a Bavarian 49 with 10 ‘teenaged-looking’ crews that enjoyed Elvis’s songs and on star board, also a Bavarian, but with 6 ‘more advanced age looking’ crews from Isreal-Hezaliya, and they enjoyed Abba’s.

We had a nice meal, grilled lamb chops with wine at Strata, that’s a good way to end the evening since we needed to get up early the next day to depart for Astipalaia and according to forecast, it’s going to be a wild ride.