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.