David's Diary: Friday, July 18, 2003

Dragging to Gocek, Turkey

The depth alarms went off at 05:00 this morning. A light wind had come up and shifted Dragonsinger into a shallower spot. As the sky lightened I rigged a second stern line and pulled Dragonsinger back into position, then went back to bed. At 9:30 the depth alarms went off again and this time we have dragged our anchor. We try resetting it twice, but it will not set into the bottom. We motor across Tomb Bay and after a few more tries it seemed like we had finally got our anchor set.

I took our stern line ashore and tied it to a tree. After returning to Dragonsinger and tying the stern line I realized that it was positioned in the wrong place. I get Kevin to take me back to shore. I scramble up the sharp rocks, cutting myself in several places and tearing off two toe nails which start to bleed. As I am working my way to a new location I slip into the sea and am soaked up to the waist. I'm stupidly wearing my mobile phone and it gets immersed too. I finally get the stern line tied to a better location and Kevin returns me to Dragonsinger.

Sunset Passage to Goceck

After returning to the boat Kevin tries starting our generator. It will not start. I spend an hour trying to debug the problem. I top up the oil, check the connections, and discover a lot of salt water under the generator which I clean up. It's now past noon and I have been working three hours non-stop.

After lunch I have a nap, then around 4:00 PM I go for a swim. Allen does lots of jumps off the bow. Last summer he wouldn't jump off the boat at all. Now Allen is comfortable in the water and he loves to jump off any part of the boat. Around 7:00 PM Dragonsinger starts dragging anchor again. I've had enough of this, so I call everyone onto the boat, coil up our stern line, start the engine, and lift our anchor. We motor out of Tomb Bay and as the sun starts to set and casts a golden light on the cockpit, we head for Gocek.

Best Bathroom in the Mediterranean

We arrive at the marina at Gocek and are greeted by a crew boat, which shows us to our spot. They ask us to use our own bow line to moor and Kevin gives them one end of our brand new 15m (45 foot) mooring line. He forgot to tie the other end to Dragonsinger and our brand new line is promptly dragged into the water where it sinks to the bottom.

I throw together a late dinner, which as usual, we eat in the cockpit. We have been eating at the table more after dark since we installed a new table light in Malta. Around 10:00 PM, Kevin, Allen, and I head up to the showers. Tired and hot, we enter the air conditioned showers and open our eyes in wonder. The temperature is 24C and all around us is cool marble. Allen and I have a twenty-five minute shower -- we get to keep the water running the whole time. Even with all my cuts and bruises the shower soothes away the trials and tribulations of this day. Allen and I reluctantly leave what are beyond a doubt the best showers that we have seen in the entire Mediterranean.