
Embarrassing moment number two occurred when we tried to leave this morning. We had decided to anchor stern-to to the town wall that supplied electricity and we had been joined by Teddy on the boat next to us (regular readers will know Teddy who works with Jon and sailed on Esper once earlier in the year). Anyway it turned out Teddy had laid his anchor on top of ours and when we left the jetty we pulled his anchor up. After arsing around at the bow not really knowing how to get rid of the anchor we had a shouting conversation with Teddy who offered an obvious solution to the situation. All this put paid to me trying to leave the harbour wall under sail but we soon had the main out and flew back out to sea. We hoisted the jib and mizzen and turned to head south towards the bottom of Datcha.
The wind had picked up and we were soon racing another three boats. As we turned round the headland we lost all wind and the sails were flapping in all directions. Then Ethan, who had elected himself as chief fisherman aboard Esper, decided to lose the end of my brand new fishing rod! Normally when things of little importance go overboard I’d leave it as a lost cause, but with the calm conditions and the fact that was a birthday present he had just lost we turned the boat round the before I knew it Ethan had dived in, swam over to the object and picked it up! Still, recovery of said fishing kit did nothing to improve Ethan’s success as a fisherman.
After turning round again we found some more wind and got all the sails out. Mistake number one! The wind really had picked up and we were battling with speeds of over 25 knots. At one point a gust accidentally tacked the boat and next thing I know I’m facing the direction we had just come from! It was a bit unnerving and I realised that once again I had too much sail out, but I didn’t let it on that I had made this mistake. I didn’t want to worry anyone else.


The next dilemma we had was where we were going to anchor for the night. We were heading back to Knidos and it seemed the obvious choice but since we’d just visited Knidos and this being Chris and Ethan’s last night, it seemed a waste. The other option was Mersincik, but this was a further few miles round the corner and two things bothered me: if the winds stayed as they were and the sheltered anchorage was occupied, we’d have to anchor in open water, and if that was too dangerous then we would have to return to Knidos at night, and we were all feeling a little tired.
Perhaps I should have been a little more responsible but I figured the sheltered anchorage at Mersincik would be empty this late in the year. We continued our way round and had great fun with the rolling waves coming across our beam from Kos. As we turned into Mersincik to the sheltered anchorage we were relieved to find just one other yacht at anchor, and we still had light to make safe the boat. Now the last time I tried anchoring in this spot was with Chris at the beginning of the summer. If you remember I gave up after my third attempt, so I was overjoyed when we managed to successfully anchor on the first attempt. It turned out the other boat was our French-flagged friend from Knidos.
The evening was spent eating, drinking and taking in the full moon rising over the Mersincik mountains.

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