David's Diary: Sunday, July 27, 2003

Onwards to Ova Buku, Turkey

Karalee and I are up again at 05:30, untied, and on our way by 06:00. We do not have that far to go today, but we are heading into the prevailing wind and we want to try and be well on our way before the wind builds for the day. The wind never died last night, but it did slow down. We motor out the narrow entrance to Bozuk Buku, put up the mainsail, and motor directly into the wind.

Karalee goes back to bed, but Allen is up with me as the rising sun paints the cliffs around us. We head towards the Greek island of Simi and use it as a wind break. The wind has been increasing, but we motor sail along comfortably. As we round the north end of Simi we are back into the wind and Dragonsinger heels over fifteen degrees. Despite having traveled more than 5,000 nautical miles (10,000 kilometres) on the Mediterranean, Allen still complains about Dragonsinger heeling over. Allen gets his mind off his fear of heeling over by asking me Harry Potter trivia questions until I can't take any more.

Beach Holiday in Ova Buku

We arrive at Ova Buku in the early afternoon. We use our own anchor and back up to the dock off O Gun's Place. Ova Buku is a popular holiday spot for local Turks. The pebble beach is covered with people sunbathing. On shore there are several hotels and restaurants. O Gun's Place is one of the local restaurants that come highly recommended by our friends Dick and Marian Leighton.

Dock at Ova Buku

After a nap, Karalee and I go to O Gun's Place for a drink. We are enjoying a drink in a shady spot when Jocelyn comes running up. The wind has picked up and Dragonsinger has dragged its anchor and is rubbing up against the dock. We start the motor, pull in the anchor, and motor out into the bay. We make three separate tries to reset our anchor and moor to the dock. In the first case, we were 5m short of the dock when we ran out of anchor chain. In the second, I didn't have enough reverse speed, so we couldn't line up with our spot on the dock. We got it right the third time, but I had to use a lot of reverse speed to keep us moving backwards. Our spot was very narrow and I did not quite have us lined up perfectly. As we muscled Dragonsinger into its spot the rear corner of our boat hit the side of the Italian boat next to us.

After tying up, I went forward and examined the damage to the Italian boat. It appears that we left a strip of plastic from Dragonsinger on the side of the boat. Hoping that I had not marked the gel coat, I get out some 1200 grit sandpaper and a bucket of water. I spent twenty minutes sanding the hull of the Italian boat and when I'm finished the hull looks better than before Dragonsinger hit it. The Italian owners seemed pleased -- even though they don't speak much English we end up smiling at each other.

Kevin swims out to where our anchor is laying on the bottom. He calls out to me that the anchor is lying on its side and would I like him to dive down and push the flukes into the bottom. I would very much like it and Kevin disappears below the surface. It is a good thing he pushed in the flukes. After dinner, as the sun is setting, the wind switches direction and Dragonsinger starts rubbing the dock. I pull in some anchor chain and with the anchor well set in the bottom, Dragonsinger is pulled off the dock as the anchor chain goes bar tight. Thank goodness Kevin checked the anchor.