A Couple Days in Symi



The Gang at Dinner

The next couple of days are a blur of food, drink and fun with our new friends Tina, Dave, Bimmy and Claudia. We went out for dinner a couple of times, walked to the beach, tried to go out on a day-trip boat but it was too windy, and generally trooped around Symi. They’ve been coming to Symi for more than 20 years – Tina started coming because her brother said she’d like it. Her father was Greek and so she understands the language and customs. Dave is a very gregarious guy and between them they seem to know everyone in Symi. They come twice a year and avoid the summer crowds … so they’re like locals and have been coming so long they have many friends and have a tough time walking a block down the street in less than a half hour because they’re always stopping and chatting with friends. Dave owns a company that deals with airports in Libya, lives part of the year in London, part in Switzerland and part in Florida. Tina lives with their kids in London and they join up with each other in one of the three spots – I guess 4 if you include Symi. 



Playing in the famous Takis Leather Shop



Both Ross and Jessie had a great time with the girls. Jessie showed up several times with evening style make-up, different clothes combinations and hair styles. Ross would join in (though he did say he wasn’t too keen on watching another makeover) and they explored, played cards and other games in town on the boat or at the hotel.

Symi to Rhodes

Like all holidays, it must end, and on the 30^th of October it was time for us to get going. Rather than do the ‘dance’ of leaving Greece again in Symi, we decided to go to Rhodes – famous ancient city and home of one of the Colossus of Rhodes – one of the ancient wonders of the world. We got up and had breakfast with the girls and Tina, David was recovering from the last night of the tourist industry (the 30^th of October is when they roll up the sidewalks in the Greek Islands and the locals hold a late-night party to celebrate the end of another season).

After saying our goodbyes, we fired up the engine, pulled up anchor and headed to Rhodes. The wind was behind us and probably good enough to sail on but we were a bit lazy and just motored away for 3 hours. We like to arrive during the day into a strange harbour. We arrived at Rhodes around 3 in the afternoon but there wasn’t really much space at the harbour. We pulled in beside a couple other boats and were informed by one of them that it’s a high-speed catamaran’s dock and we needed to leave by 07:30 the next morning (no problem). Marina and Ross went to see if they could find the harbourmaster and see what we could do.

They came back a half hour later without having found the agents (offices closed and locked) but they did run into Tina, David, Claudia and Bimmy arriving on their ferry from Symi and we decided to meet them for a final drink and snack. Apparently there was a bet between Marina and David who could get to the restaurant first …. So Marina and Ross ran as fast as they could back to the boat to fetch us. We joined up a couple of tables and had our last glass of ouzo together for a while. The kids each had a waffle covered with all sorts of goodies like strawberries and Nutella. We marvel at the amount of this stuff they can eat. At 19:00 hours their taxis arrived and we said our final goodbyes – until we meet somewhere in the future.

Ova Buku to Bozburun to Symi

We had plans to leave Ogun's Place and head to Marti Marina, but lo and behold, Claudia and Bimmy, our new British friends from Symi, made a connection and said we could have more fun with them in Symi...so we had to go to Bozburun to check out of Turkey. It was raining cats and dogs – probably 2 inches and hour. It was blowing 25 knots with thunder, lighting and we were sandwiched in between two 120 foot Gulets that could crush us like an egg.  We hunkered down and the kids did school and Matt went to check out. Unfortunately this means going through Customs in Turkey 45 minutes (another 30 Euros fee) and then upon re-entry into Greece, 2 hours of trekking from Port Police to Passport Control, to Customs, and back to Port Police (15 Euro EU Entry Fee, 12 Euro Port fee, 30 Euros Transit Log fee), then taking another couple of hours and the reverse of the fee schedule to get back into Turkey. The kids have been starved for company their own age and we figured “what the heck, we gotta do it!”.

As we left Bozburun we found a 25 knot breeze directly on the nose when we pointed to Symi (grrr) so we put out a double reefed main and rolled-up genoa and started sailing to Symi. As you may recall we didn’t get diesel in Bozburun so we were completely skosh fuel – so we couldn’t power into it and therefore  needed to sail. We learned that we might as well close reach at 7.5 knots rather than go close-hauled at 5.5 knots … our VMG is better the faster we go, and we had a much more pleasant ride. Somehow our jib furler line jumped out of the drum and wrapped around the jib. We needed to fix it so Marina put a bathing suit on and went forward to unravel it. After being thoroughly drenched by going through some very big waves, she had it put right.


It took a couple of hours to make Symi – fortunately we were lifted on starboard tack so after half way we could make it without tacking. Approaching the city we saw the gas-dock was empty and pulled in. We took on 222 litres of fuel and our tank is 235 litres in size à not very much to spare that’s for sure! Now we can power wherever we want for the next few weeks. Woo hoo.

Anyway we put our anchor out, pulled into the quay and waiting for us were two very pretty 14 year old girls. We tied the boat up and the kids were off in a pack.

Bodrum to Ova Buku

We needed fuel and tried to get into the Marina where it the fuel is sold but it was far too windy to put the boat into such a tight fit, so we left Bodrum for a nice sounding little harbour called Cokertme. As we powered into the wind it kept building until the wind was nearly 30 knots on the nose (not forecast anywhere). At this point the 20 miles to Cokertme was going to be 6 hours of hell so we decided to change course down-wind. We had hoped to go to Knidos, location of an ancient amphitheatre but the wind and waves were too big so we opted for Ova Buku. It’s a tiny little harbour where a fellow named Ogun runs a restaurant and general store.

We had a great dinner ashore, Ogun joined us for an hour chat. The food was excellent, we learned about olive trees and olive oil, and the local customs of Turkey. He was particularly angry at the local harbour master – the community owns the dock and some 1,200 yachts had visited so far during the year at around 35TL (A Turkish Lira is .5 Euro) and apparently, the revenue reported for the dock so far that year was zero – so he was tracking all the receipts he could to catch the guy. Apparently Turkey is trying to eliminate the backsheesh (bribery) that has gone on for millennia, in preparation for joining the EU sometime in the future.

We got some provisions, including fresh mandarine oranges and pomogranites from the very kind small market owner.

Datca to Bodrum

Marina's part of the post here...upon reading Matt's part...he got so wrapped up on Marine Stores he forgot it was also JESSIE'S BIRTHDAY! We had balloons, gifts and a cake that Jessie insisted on decorating herself. Good fun and our first 'celebration' on Tara. Now...to Matt...

Bodrum is an ancient city in Turkey and Marina wanted to go visit. I did too for the ulterior motive of visiting a West Marine store and provisioning the boat. There was also a Gulet race week where the local large wooden Gulet boats (a kind of schooner) have a regatta. If I wanted to travel to the Med I would consider taking a Gulet trip for a week. They’re like little cruise ships with 3-10 cabins and they go from port to port, restaurant to restaurant. Far more intimate than a cruise ship yet much bigger than a sailing yacht, these things look like a great way to go if you ask me. Especially because someone else does all the work….pretty much the opposite of cruising your own boat.

We anchored out in Bodrum because we arrived late (when we go to expensive marinas we tend to try to arrive early so we can take advantage of the services for the day – what’s the use of checking into a Ritz Carlton at 10pm when you check out at 8am the next day - you want to experience the luxury.)  We took the dinghy into town and … wow, what a tourist town. The tourist season ends on the 1^st of November … there’s a last-gasp of tourism at the end of October when the German and British schools break for their fall term-break. Then November 1, they roll up the sidewalks and are done with it until next April. Marina and Jessie took advantage of this by shopping for several new outfits. Even Ross got a two new t-shirts –doubling his wardrobe.

I scouted out the West Marine – went by bus which is an interesting experience. The buses are Community Shuttle size, there really aren’t any stops per-se … you just tell the driver where you’re going and he drops you off there. The West Marine is located in a strip-mall with a Home Depot, a ‘Future Shop’ store and a very nice West Marine.  I was in heaven!

[Technical entry – only boat-owners will care, and only those with little or no personal lives]

The big thing we wanted was an AIS Radio. AIS is a new service that ships must use and it transmits their GPS coordinates, Course, Speed, and identity via a digital VHF channel.  What it means for us is when we are doing overnight passages we can identify radar contacts, calculate Closest Point of Approach and basically have peace of mind knowing that a freighter isn’t going to run us over at night. If they are getting close it sounds an alarm and you can call directly to the ship to determine how you should avoid each other.  As you would expect, West Marine Turkey don’t carry it but since I was at a really nice Marine store I bought a bunch of other stuff. Also I bought a LCD monitor for the boat at the Futureshop … so now we can all watch movies together. Later in Bodrum we found a 1000 watt Honda suitcase Generator that we have been contemplating buying for quite a while. It may sound crazy but with 5 laptops on board we were putting too much stress on our batteries charging them when we weren’t plugged into shore power. With 2 laptops plugged in our little inverter we were pulling about 10 Amps out of the batteries when they were charging and 15 amps when they’re turned on. Our house battery capacity is 450 amp hours (about 2/3’s usable or 300 amp hours) … so charging laptops while using them for 20 hours depletes our batteries …. Plus we need to run the fridge, autopilot, water pump, navigation lights etc. The simple solution was to get a small generator that could charge our house batteries and laptops efficiently – either that or buy a bunch more battery capacity that we need to find a place to put and also figure out how to charge up. It’s small, quiet and seems to do the trick so far.  You get about 3 hours of power out of a litre of gas so it’s fairly economical too. The big thing it does for us is extend the time we need between marinas – now we can probably stay completely self-sufficient for up to two weeks (before we need water and cooking gas). That gives us much more flexibility in our cruising itinerary.

The other key reason to go to Bodrum was to get our communications needs sorted out. New cellphone numbers and a new internet stick. My sister Betsy called our cellphone and in 10 minutes we used up our 20 euros pre-pay (Greek cellphone roaming in Turkey = 2 euros a minute). I got 2 new Sim cards for the Cellphones for 30 Euros and now we have Turkish numbers.  Vodofone’s Mobile Internet service in Turkey appeared much more expensive than Greece – so we switched from Vodafone to Turkcell. Vodafone blocks Skype on their mobile internet stick (scoundrels if you ask me) – so we changed suppliers to Turkcell and they don’t (yay!) .. so a couple hours, couple hundred $$ our communications needs are satisified for the next month. It’s a bit painful but once you get the hang of it we now have Sim cards for every country we visit (and a growing pile of telephones too).

Kos to Symi to Datca

Tuesday morning was N-A-S-T-Y. Thirty knot gusts of wind, lightning, sideways rain, waves building up; all that and then some. Then at 11:00am the sky cleared, the sun came out and the wind dropped to zero.  About that time Ross woke up and said “why are we leaving? It’s a beautiful day, we should go to the beach” – needless to say we overruled him and proceeded to Symi – a Greek island near Marmaris Turkey. We have modified our plans somewhat because of the hassle of entering into a new country. To get into Greece we needed to go to Port Police, Customs, Passport Control and when we leave we must surrender all these documents. If we return to Greece it happens all over again – so basically a half a day wasted. So we are visiting the remaining Greek Islands we wish to visit and then we will head to Bodrum and then carry on  down the Turkish Coast. Basically we need to backtrack 50 miles to go to Bodrum and then work our way down the same water to Marmaris. Looking at our calendar it’s only the 23^rd of October and my mom Sharon and her partner Dave are meeting us at Kemer in Turkey on the 15^th of November, so we have the time and the weather is very nice when the sun comes out like it is supposed to this weekend.

We tried to sail a bit on the way down from Kos but the wind was pitiful so we powered all the way. We stopped for a half hour and went swimming – everyone including me went, though I was mindful to check if there were any Norwegian whaling vessels in the vicinity. Ross must be getting more boat-smart when he asked Marina to join us and then realized “then nobody would be driving the boat” that was sailing along at 3 knots speed. I guess he figured out that watching the boat sail away while we’re all swimming around wouldn’t be the best thing.

We came through a narrow opening that was 4 meters deep and maybe 20 meters wide – and then into to city of Symi. We med-moored on the quay and we had a bit more difficult time getting tied up than usual so we felt a bit like wankers – until we helped a few others tie up and they made us look like pro’s. After watching one guy bring the boat in Ross turned to me and said “Dad, we should never charter our boat, ok?” What makes Symi tough is that it is quite deep where you throw the anchor out. Most of the time we try to anchor in 7 meters or less depth but at Symi we had to drop the anchor in 20 meters and ten pull it into the dock. Despite being quite deep we got a good bite on the anchor and had no issues at all.






The Fat Cat of Symi



Symi is one of those Greek Islands that is basically a mountain sticking out of the sea and the houses go directly up the mountain and are built into the rock. It is a very pretty place, quite touristy and fairly expensive. We spent more than 100 Euros on dinner for the first time on our trip last night for pizza, pasta and house wine. That said we did have the most delicious Caprese salad Marina and I had ever tasted. Instead of desert we did some internet surfing,  Skyping birthday calls and then went back to the boat.  At 12am we woke up to what sounded like a hurricane – driving rain, confused seas, and howling in the hull. When Marina and Ross went to investigate it seemed to get worse so I got up too – and it was a ferry pulling in. It might be the same type of ferry that was on Kea. We could hear a tremendous noise in the hull and really thought it was a storm passing through. Perhaps that’s what causes the fish to go nuts like they did before. Anyway it does interrupt your sleep pattern that is for sure.





The next day we went exploring all around Symi, walking to the top of the village, visiting the local museum and the church at the top of the hill. It would not be unlike living on Grouse Mountain and taking the Grind as your daily walk. We met a very nice woman from Britain that retired to Symi some 6 years ago. Apparently 20% of the long-term residents are from the rest of Europe and they come for the climate and lifestyle – which is pretty nice.

In the evening we decided to go back to the same Italian restaurant, though this time only ordering Pizzas.  At the restaurant we met a couple from the UK that had two girls with them. I was kidding Ross that his ‘Girl Radar’ was broken because he didn’t notice these beautiful girls but he said that he did notice them, just that they were 17. Marina and I disputed this but he remained resolved to be discrete. After our kids retired back to the boat we joined the British couple, Tina and Dave, and we learned the girls were both 14 (apparently going on 18) and on school holiday until October 30th.

New Friends for Ross and Jessie!



Cliff Jumping



The next morning I checked out of Greece (an involved procedure requiring visiting the Port Police, then the Police for Passports, then Customs to hand in the Transit Log. Symi is laid out in a U shape with the Port Police and Passport Police being on either side of the U – as far as possible from one another, with Customs in between) On my way back I met up with Tina and Dave and they were off on a boat-trip to a beach. We made a quick on-the-spot decision to accompany them to the bay and go swimming.  Ross and Jessie did some cliff jumping and the girls joined in. Bimmy  and Claudia joined in and jumped off the cliff too and the kids had a great time together. After the cliff jumping, Tina generously invited us to join them for lunch and Ross and Jessie went and said it was fantastic! Eventually, we had to move on, the kids exchanged contact information and we decided that we would go back to Symi if the girls called or emailed us.

The kids were very sad to say their goodbyes, and since the girls were the first kids we’d experienced since Joost in Croatia, we were sad too. Unfortunately we had checked out of Greece already so we had to go to Turkey.

Because we went swimming, the 50 miles to Bodrum was too far to go before dark so we went to a closer port called Datca (pronouced Datch-ka). Clearing into a country is time consuming and expensive. The visas into Turkey were 50 Euros each (Canadian Visas to Turkey are 3x the price of every other country on the list ... what did we do as a country to peeve them off?) plus the transit log and other fees … so $500 and two hours later we were in Turkey. 

The Turks at Datca are very friendly, it’s a bit like Greece but different. We did a little marketing, some internet surfing and went to bed. The next morning we decided to head to Bodrum.

Leros to Kos

The many cats of Kos

Sailing from Leros to Kos was a bit frustrating. We got behind the island of Kalimnos and its enormous wind shadow, so we powered (Ross loves it when the wind is low because he can swim off the back) then sailed, then the wind built and built – until it was 25-27 knots close hauled. The boat was rail down with a couple of reefs in both the jib and mainsail. We could still do a reasonable 6.5 knots generally towards our destination. Throughout the day the wind moderated and we pulled out the reef in the jib, then the reef in the main and eventually had to put the motor on to arrive by 6pm. It’s now getting dark fairly early so we try to be moored and everything squared away by 6.

We got our first glimpse of Turkey because Bodrum is only 10 miles from Kos. While we haven’t visited Turkey, the contrast is evident from 10 miles away. Where Greece appears to be built up without a lot of planning, and in the Cyclades islands the houses and buildings look like randomly dropped sugar-cubes all white and blue. The Turkish houses are laid out in perfect symmetry. As you sail along you can see them line up perfectly, same type of buildings, same colour, same size, in perfect square formation. Very different than Greece.

Kos has two harbours – the one in the town that you med-moor at and a Marina. We opted to stay in town because the marina is a kilometer or two from the ‘action’. The town harbour is about 4 meters deep and we were expecting a big blow so we put out 50-60 meters of chain and med-moored to the dock. As the wind grew we added more lines and have effectively sewn ourselves to the dock. To Marina’s credit, we had to cinch up the anchor a couple of times to take the slack out of it, but we never hit the quay and never had any problems. This morning saw 32 knots on the wind speed indicator in driving rain and lightning. A couple of boats had to reset their anchors in that stuff – not much fun. There was this guy in a 40 footer that decided to come in between two boats, one over from us. It took him 4 tries, he hung the boat up on the anchor chain of the boat beside us, crashed about, nearly hit our boat, nearly fouled our chain and all he needed to do is anchor in the middle of the bay and wait two hours because by 11:30 it was dead calm and sunny.

Our Second McDonalds

One thing this trip has taught us is that you should be flexible on what you’re doing. Had he anchored out it would have been no problem, he wouldn’t damage his boat nor others, and a couple hours later he could do whatever he wanted. I thought this ‘mental vapor lock’ was a racing phenomenon. Having seen two guys that couldn’t do the easy alternative (one in Mykonos and one on Kos) maybe it’s a yachting thing.

Ross in the "cat tree"

Kos is pretty touristy – but one thing I have found here that we were unable to find anywhere else in Europe – Mount Gay Rum – plus it’s 18 euro for a litre – woo hoo! Naturally I bought a couple bottles, though I have resolved to limit my consumption to a max of one every couple of days.

Because of the weather we're needing to stay here three nights. The first one was fine, the second was almost without sleep, and the third should be fine. It is truly amazing the difference in noise on a boat between a 10knot and 30 knot breeze. I understand the force of the wind increases at the square of the speed ... so a 30 knot breeze is 9x time more powerful a 10 knot breeze -- hence the reason why it's so much more difficult to sleep.

Paros to Amorgos to Leros

Since we decided to pass on Santorini we could go East instead of South then East. We decided we would go to Amorgos, then Levitha on our way out of the Cyclades into the Dodacanese islands. We set off in nice strong winds for Amorgos and sailed the whole way. The next couple of passages are for covering ground. We’ve got a 50 mile day followed by a 40 mile day followed by two 35 mile days. Again we are mindful of weather as we know that on Tuesday the wind is supposed to howl at Force 7-8 or around 30-35 knots so we need some good shelter by then. We had our rough plan to ride out the bad weather in either Leros or Kos. We also discovered that there is a Gullet regatta in Bodrum Turkey the 23-30^th of October. Gullets are 70-150 foot traditional wood boats that take passengers à think of them as small cruise ships with 3 or 4 double berths that stop in most ports. Some take 50 passengers to islands, others only a few guests on week long cruises.

They actually look like a really good way to see the countryside from a yacht’s perspective without any of the hassle of dealing with your own boat or having to cook, clean, or find liquor stores as– they always seem to have case after case of booze on board.

 With our itinerary set we sailed into the south end of Amorgos and a very quiet harbour that had a number of fishing boats in it. We anchored out,  had dinner, played some cards and went to bed. No internet coverage – no emails, no Skype – we were vibrating …. What can we do?  

We got up early the next morning and hauled up the anchor and went to leave and were warned off of a fishing net – good thing to not run over that’s for sure. The wind was a beam reach, 20 knots with medium sized waves and we set off the 40 miles to Levitha – a small island between the Dodacanese and the Cyclades.

We were scorching along at about 8.5 knots for 4.5 hours and boom we were there by 1:30 in the afternoon. There are only two long term residents on the island and when we went in it looked pretty quiet. Through some miscommunication between Marina and I, I gybed the jib and the jib sheet (rope that you pull it in with) got caught under the dinghy. Marina went to free it and when it came loose it hit her in the mouth. She got a pretty big fat lip out of it. At the back of the boat I was unaware anything happened until she went downstairs and Jessie shot me “the look”. I had no idea there was something wrong but “the look” was a dead giveaway that something had happened – and Jessie thought it was my fault. A couple hours of icing and it was half the size, by the next day it was fine.

The conditions for sailing were perfect, the anchorage looked kind of boring, so we decided to press on to the island of Leros and the marina there. We thought we might as well take advantage of the great sailing conditions and that there was lots of daylight left. We arrived at Leros marina at around 5pm after sailing some 65 miles. It was the first marina we have been in with laid moorings since Athens so it was a quiet night – except for the souped-up scooters that ran up and down the main-drag all night. We ate on board and thought we’d do some shopping in the morning. Remember the Sunday everything in Greece is closed thing à it really applies to Leros – not even the bakery was open. We bugged out at noon after using power and internet for a day, then proceeded through a narrow gap to the island of Kos.

Naxos to Paros

The next day we left for Paros and the harbour of Naussa only 10 miles away and we sailed slowly while Ross, Jessie and Marina jumped of the boat into the water. The water is getting cooler but it is still above 22 degrees so it’s more swimmable than Vancouver ever gets.

We went around the corner close to some rocks to find a beautiful new marina with virtually no services yet. Laid moorings – next year, water and electricity – only to some berths, showers – makeshift, so it’s 95% complete but not quite there. The good news is that it was free – so to a certain extent how can you complain. The shelter was excellent, there were lots of good restaurants and shops and the town was very pretty and friendly, internet is everywhere and fast.



Marina's Favourite Friends on Paros



We spent a couple days there, Jessie wanted to go up to the top of the mast to take some photos and the marina guy went a bit nuts – saying that we could get fined for her going up without a safety rope around the mast (she was on two tied off halyards and was wearing an ANSI rated climbing harness). I find it a bit laughable that they’d care about going up the mast but it’s OK to ride a motor scooter at 60kph without a helmet with your kid on your lap wearing a bathing suit while talking on your cellphone … but everyone has their own view of risk.

Jessie's Shot from the Top of the Mast