Sailing into the Meltemi - Our sailing routine - Sailing Gocek to Datca Turkey - Sailing Kawai

We're leaving Go-Chek again, it's a little bit earlier than last time but it's the same kind of direction. We're heading on a similar route as to the first journey we took in Kauai when we bought her maybe four years ago. So yeah it's a little bit of a weird feeling. We're not gonna probably come back here again and yeah I think we're a little bit more experienced than last time. We're just tacking today. So we're heading up towards Marmaris. This time of year it's always a little bit tricky choosing days to sail. The winds have blown from the north pretty well all summer, so the Meltimi. So you've got to pick a day that it hasn't been blowing 30 knots. They're getting big swirls. Now the swirls are reasonable today but yeah they're not too bad. Around 18-19 knots. It's finally coming. We're hooning. We've got most of the sail out but it feels really comfortable going up into it. So yeah, flying along. We'll be in our destination two and a half hours so that's great. Tacking can sometimes feel like you're never going to reach your destination but it's a must if you want to limit your engine use. We have found Turkey to be a fantastic sailing destination. Winds not quite as strong as the Cyclades with more protection creating less swell which makes for great sailing up into the wind and downwind. Give us an oh yeah. Oh yeah. I guess I'm meant to be on watch aren't I? Yes. You are the captain. It always falls back on you. Lucky I'm always on guard. As we headed for Kumbaluku our anchorage for the night the winds peaked at 28 knots slightly higher than predicted and a great opportunity to get some experience in different conditions. Although sailing in strong winds takes a lot of concentration it's a real thrill but it wouldn't be long before we were in a calm anchorage and we could relax and consider our day. Well it's early morning we're going to sail today from Marmaris to Dacia or a bay near Dacia. Yesterday we had I'd say some of our best sailing. It was really strong winds sitting about 45 degrees sort of beating up into it and we sustained between six to eight. Yeah it was fun. It was a fun sail. Usually well since we've been back over here we've had mostly downwind sailing but because we're going back towards the north you know you get the El Timi type of view so we're always going to be beating back up into it. So yeah it was good to challenge ourselves today and or yesterday sorry and yeah we had had a lot of fun. Yeah looking forward to today's sailing which will be totally different. We're up early we just have to leave. Trace is eager to leave. She's hurrying me up even on this video going. Oh yeah you usually take more than an hour to drink your coffee so we don't have that time. All right wrap it up. Look at that glorious sunrise. Pretty spesh. Yeah. Don't look don't look closely at the boat it is disgusting. Yeah we've been anchoring in a bit of mud lately and we don't have a freshwater hose up here unfortunately on the to-do list. Anyway uh great day. Get around this corner and there My coffee is the one there on the left almost full. Trace's is nearly empty. I've been working harder. What do you have to say about that? You're a slow coffee drinker. That's all I got to say. All right Cap it's been a beautiful morning. How's the sailing going? Oh it's a bit all over the shot. We've just rounded a corner and some big mountains just over there so I think they're playing with us a bit and um yeah we're currently on about four knots we've got uh about eight knots of wind just forward of the beam so it's not the best not as good as yesterday but it is picking up throughout the day so hopefully we get a little bit more and we're currently cruising past Shipwick Anchorage and we've got about 35 nautical miles to go to get to an anchorage near Dutcher. Yeah we got some uh strong winds coming in the coming days. Yeah up to 38 I think. It wasn't long until we would spot whitecaps on the horizon and we knew the winds would be picking up. It's something you need to be paying attention to with winds changing from 8 knots to 25 knots in a matter of seconds and a sail change necessary before reaching the gusting. North now. It's very common to see the Turkish Coast Guard and with the migrant crisis sweeping across Europe it's even more so. I always feel a little nervous even though we've done nothing wrong. Does anyone else feel like this? As we turned into the straight past Simi the winds would drop and I would be put in charge while Trace had a rest. During strong winds Trace almost always is at the helm and I look after the sails. This partnership works for us but it's also great to mix it up and learn both skills. Hold on. Right on the edge of needing to reef. The point in which we reduce the sail area is dependent on a number of factors. Mountains cause gusting which means the winds are less predictable therefore we would reef earlier. Open areas the winds are generally more consistent so we could keep more sail up for longer. The size of the swell is another factor you have to consider but not here as it was minimal. Akca is 10 nautical miles east of Datça where we had heard of a protected anchorage to sit out the strong winds predicted for the coming days. We didn't know much about the village and to our surprise it was a cute little place full of holiday homes, restaurants and people relaxing enjoying the beach with bicycles the transport of choice. It's a good vibe holiday vibe here in the town and then the markets are on added bonus. Yeah we found out we were speaking to a local one of the locals and he said Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Yeah well he said the bazaar. Here's my rug, look at that water. So we're having a nice little chill this morning we've had a couple of big sailing days which were awesome really good winds. We got in yesterday and tried to anchor in the anchorage next door which has really good reviews but it was pretty full there were about 20 boats in there so we came around the corner to a very similar anchorage but the swell actually comes in here so we're that's why there's no one in here obviously. It's not too bad but I'm gonna go see today how the other anchorage is. Wow this bay is a little bit better than the last bay next door no swell just a little bit of wind but yeah it's nice we're gonna eat comfortably watch some netflix and have a beautiful view life's good it is check out the moon bullets and view of the mountains well the plan is we're gonna go up to the big flag and then hopefully we can keep hiking up to the top of the mountain should have a nice view over both bays we don't have our drone anymore so we can't really check it our drone is broken so this will be a good opportunity to see from the top two bays the one we're anchored in just there there's Hawaii and then the other bay we originally anchored in on the first day so over there and yeah it's typical of Europe these cool walks that have awesome views at the top no signs just find it yeah with 30 plus knots forecast we headed back to Kauai we were anchored in weed and sand and being a new anchorage wanted to test the condition the anchorage was fantastic gusting to a maximum of 22 knots allowing for a pleasant stressless night well we've just seen a heap of fire trucks go past like probably 10 and we've seen another seven or eight water helicopters fly past and so we did a bit of googling and there's a fire just near Datcha so we were planning to go tomorrow and took a little bit more notice we thought there was just a few clouds in the sky but it's actually the smoke i don't think it's actually at Datcha though is it i think it's between here and Marmaris yeah it's last year they had some really bad fires in Turkey so it's hopefully it's not a continuing theme for the for the rest of the summer because it has been really hot and windy so it's not as windy tomorrow so hopefully that will help is that oh that's the moon coming up over the mountain i was like is that a fire over there yeah it's pretty cool firstly you look really pretty this morning huh thanks i made a bit more effort celebrating your birthday today again yeah it's a week since your actual birthday and uh we've recovered a little bit more now so we're planning to head to Datcha and maybe head out for dinner yeah it's very exciting maybe pizza yes you've been wanting cafe or restaurant that sells good looking pizza good looking pizza what's a good looking pizza got on it well for you it's got salami and cheese that's about all you require and a thinnish base what's a good looking pizza for you just out of curiosity uh it would be probably lots of veggies that's pretty well and a bit of cheese i reckon we can sort that out tonight we got up early to get some wind but uh but i can barely got we've got 11 the thing is though in this anchorage it could be it could be blowing 40 knots out there and we'd be still calm so let's wait and see yeah true it looks the water looks a little bit disturbed on the horizon so uh fingers crossed need to be getting in a little bit of sailing it's not going to last very long i can see the calmness just ahead but great feeling just to get a little bit of sailing in when we can we're uh going about four knots we've got nine knots of true wind eight knots of apparent so yeah so good we don't want to get there too early because we're planning to have a beer when we get there for your birthday it's only 9 30 so wow that's way too early exactly so we're trying to drag it out just a little bit longer to a more suitable hour as we cruised into Datcha we were able to view a number of water scoopers in action picking up six tons of water at a time and dumping them on the fires near Datcha it's a sad time with so many fires burning through europe and devastating the environment well it's hard not to get excited about uh just checking the anchor this water is so crystal clear beautiful blue and so hot today so i'm just going to check the anchor um people have mentioned a bit of rubbish in the water um like old industrial rubbish so i believe that's further north than where we are but i'm just going to go check it anyway so yeah all should be good looks pretty clear next time we explore one of our favorite turkish towns Datcha which is full of life and a great place to anchor thanks for watching if you enjoyed the video don't forget to give us a like and let us know in the comments see you next time thanks