September has been eventful.  When I last wrote we had sold Cowrie to a lovely couple from the UK who we knew would look after her well.  This was not however to be as due to ill health the sale could not continue.  We contacted a broker to get the sale up and running again and were amazed to receive a call the next morning to ask if we could do a viewing.  The long and short is that Cowrie was sold again, this time to a German man called Heinz.  Sadly for us this means that we have to leave Turkey in October and head back to the sunny UK.

After we’d recovered from the unaccustomed stress we set off for a final cruise.

We planned to visit two anchorages on the Turkish coast but once out of the heads we decided to change our plans and sail to Rhodes.  Up with the Greek flag and onto a much better sailing angle.

Mandraki harbour was the usual chaos.  Yacht groups tying off berths which they wanted to keep for paying super yachts who will pay a 100 euro back hander for the privilege.  We managed to squeeze into the last remaining space.  Our reason for being here was that we’d had little success in finding a way to ship our belongings home from Turkey.  Amazingly the Greek post office is the cheapest way to do it despite quotes from shipping companies.  We gathered together boxes from skips and fumigated them for cockroaches.  120 kilos of books, saucepans, lego and K-nex were posted to Macclesfield.  We’d sold our RIB but a neighbourly boat let us use their tender to take the parcels across to the other quay and to the post office.  After a stock up of wine and beer we sailed back to Turkey.  Another flag change. 

We spent the night in Bozuk Buku with a yacht called Concerto who did the EMYR with us.  It’s rare to find yourself in an anchorage with someone you don’t know!

A forecast for high winds sent us into the sheltered harbour of Bozburun where we met back up with our friends from Full Flight who we began the season with.  The wind didn’t quite materialise so we sailed down to Ohaniye (this was where we joined the EMYR last May) and spent three pleasant nights at anchor, barbecuing, doing school and sailing the Optimist.  We had borrowed a foldable dinghy from a Frenchman called Alain.  It was a strange, wobbly, coracle.  I think he got the better deal with our RIB.  The sea is still warm but as the air in now slightly cooler we didn’t swim.  Mark went underneath the boat to scrape a few barnacles off the bottom but the cross wind was quite chilly.  We heard that another Yacht Marine boat were in this anchorage a couple of weeks ago and a mini tornado blew through, knocking the boat flat and ripping off their solar panels.

Roam II arrived and we all sailed to Greek Symi (yes, another flag change).  It was lovely to see the town again.  In the harbour was Hannah from the EMYR and Freya and Simba from Yacht marine.  Great to catch up and a good crowd for drinks.  Simba have two dogs and they drive out to Turkey each season.  They very kindly offered to take some of our stuff back.  We quickly filled two large holdalls and passed them over with Tom’s guitar and George’s keyboard.  This was fantastic as we now should make it home within our baggage allowance.

We ate lots of pork chops, ham pizzas and stocked up on salami before our final voyage to Marmaris.

Our last passage was not without incident.  It was forecast to be SE2 which meant motoring to windward in a gentle breeze.  When we got out there it was blowing ESE 6 with a constant wind speed of 25 plus knots and gusts over 35 knots.  We tried to sail as close to the wind as we could but even with two reefs in the foresail we had the lee rail under and items were launching themselves over the tops of the cupboard fiddles.  The kids weren’t impressed.  It began to rain and the sea was bouncy.  Mark shouted over the wind, ‘Are you sure you want to sail round the UK?’

We swung into Bozuk Buku to regroup.  A quick lunch and a call to mum for the latest forecast.  Tom and I took stugeron and we headed back out.  After an hour the wind decreased and we continued to Marmaris.  We were glad to arrive and got a good berth on Charlie pontoon in the old harbour.  It was lovely to have the boat still and have no motion after such a bouncy day.  Pork ribs and red wine were greatly enjoyed.

We are now spending time waiting for the boat survey on the 14^th and keeping up with school.  Each day more of the winter live a boards arrive and we are able to see old friends.