And then there were two...
24 October 2012 | Gumusluk
Dan 27 degrees C, raining & winds calm
Christine and I are at anchor tonight in the village of Gumusluk after saying goodbye to our good friend Liz earlier this morning. With Tyler now in Thailand for a month, and Liz on her way home to MN, it's just the two of us onboard for the first time all season. It's raining tonight but the winds have been calm and the scene here is actually quite nice and peaceful.
Since returning from Istanbul last Saturday, Liz, Chris and I have been touring the waters and bays south of the Bodrum Penninsula. Except for a 6-hour window when it rained late one afternoon, we've had near-perfect Fall sailing weather and were able to give Liz a good taste of what the cruising lifestyle is all about. One of the many highlights was being able to shadow about 50 sailboats that were participating in the Bodrum Cup yesterday as they raced from Bodrum to Yalikivak. This is is an end-of season regatta for mostly local wooden charter boats (Gulets) and a handful of private sailing vessels. Although the winds were pretty light, it was exciting to see that many sailboats clustered together and jockeying for position at the starting line. We cruised alongside the participating yachts until it was time for us to turn and head back in to the marina in Turgutreis.
There is good news to report on the boat maintenance front: While we were away in Istanbul, we were FINALLY able to get some long overdue maintenance work successfully completed. The troublesome (and serious) issue with our diesel engine was resolved; turns out the release pressure on the injectors needed to be adjusted again. But the real cause of the problem appears to be that the injectors had been inserted improperly, resulting in fuel being sprayed into the cylinders 180 degrees in the wrong direction! I'm guessing that the mechanics in Montenegro replaced them improperly and the guys in Athens simply put them back in the way they found them. It's pretty aggravating given how much time and money we spent in Athens chasing down other possible causes when, in the end, it was really a simple solution.
Also, the local Honda outboard dealer was able to bring our 15hp 4-stroke back to life after its 36-hour dip in the sea last month. It works like new for now and I'm hoping that the decision to repair it will, over time, prove to be the right one.
And lastly, our AIS650 transceiver is now finally transponding properly. The latest Raymarine tech to size up the situation concluded that the VHF splitter was the problem and that nothing was wrong with our vhf antenna or cable. We decided to use the backstay to create a second VHF antenna for the AIS to use, thereby eliminating the need for a VHF signal splitter. So now the radio uses the masthead VHF antenna and the AIS uses the backstay antenna, providing us with a backup radio communications option should the masthead VHF antenna ever fail.
The season is quickly coming to and end and it seems like we see fewer and fewer boats on the water as each day passes. But the days remain warm and the weather has been anything but unpleasant. Hopefully that'll hold up for the next 10 days or so until we're ready to leave Turkey. We're going to cruise around the North side of the Bodrum Penninsula for the next week before returning to Turgutreis to prepare for haul-out on/around November 3rd. We're hoping to be in Paris to celebrate Chris's birthday (perhaps 1 day late) and will spend 4-5 days there before she flies home. My Atlantic crossing trip won't begin until at least 11/25 from Gibralter so I'll have 10-12 days to spend somewhere/somehow. Am currently assessing several possible options, so stay tuned on that....
That's all for now ... it's movie time onboard now before retiring for the evening. I'll try to keep posting updates more regularly between now and when we wrap up for the season so stay tuned for more soon.