June Blog 2010

Waves, wind and Sun

It is official, the summer is here, as if the weatherman were in control of the season, somebody hit a switch and the temperatures soared in to the 40s. Punctuated with heat influenced thunder storms, we enjoy mostly clear blue skies, sunny days with nice calm winds in the mornings and brisk winds in the afternoon. Perfect for a morning swim, some water sports if you feel active, lunch and an exhilarating sail to another destination waiting to be explored. The afternoon gusts keep the cabins cooler and the insects at bay (most of the time). They also offer our guests on board a real feel for Kealohas’ love for getting going. Give her 10 knots of wind and she is begging to flaunt her sails and try to dip her toe rail into the cool blue sea.

Our guests and friends aboard have all loved putting K8 through her paces and the smiles crack into wide grins as soon as they grasp the helm and feel how responsive the boat is and how she enjoys the wind.

Travels along the Turkish Mediterranean coast

Everyday blesses us with another experience and together with all aboard we often wonder if it can get any better….

Be it people, places or just seeing something in an exceptional light all contribute to our satisfaction.

The romantic sunsets over the hills in Marmaris bay are stunning.

The charm of the waiter in Selimye called “Golden Teeth” who just helps out with your mooring lines to make that important first connection and perhaps persuade you to stop in his establishment and drink a homemade lemonade with the fruits from the tree behind his home. In the same bay, the ship building yard is open to view where the skeletons of future gullets lie and the local workers skilfully lay planks on the frames of thick hard wood pausing only for the imams call to pray.

In Bozubuku a young guy greeted us in a small tender as we lay the anchor and offered to take our line ashore. The next morning, he brought us fresh warm home baked peasants loaf of bread laden with olives. This bay has no electricity, the settlements on the shore line nestle between Byzantine ruins and only have power supplied by generators. You wake to the bray of donkeys and the jangle of goats bells.

Cooking up a storm

Inspired by the freshness of the local ingredients and the variety of spices, cooking aboard Kealoha has been a delightful experience. We have enjoyed the fresh wild sea bass, the calamari and octopus and the local lamb. We would like to hope that our friends and guests have left us satisfied and there have been plenty of requests for recipes for “cooking on K8”.

One of the more unusual requests was for fresh sea urchin eggs, so we clambered into the dinghy and methodically combed the coast line seeking the urchins. We opened them our selves carefully and scooped out the eggs for a delicious aperitif with a dash of lemon. Had we had a little more time before the sun set, we could have collected enough for sea urchin linguini

St Tropez of Turkey

The most Northerly point of our cruises so far has been Bodrum. What a contrast between the other towns and villages we have visited so far. The guests enjoyed breakfast the other morning under the shadow of St Peters Castle before alighting to visit the St Tropez of Turkey. Sharing the streets with the crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s wife, you can browse the designer shops and savour international cuisine on a shady esplanade. But keep walking too far on the esplanade and you come to the largest outdoor discotheque in the world. It boasts the biggest speakers pointing directly at the yachts in the anchorage. On a sliding scale, the later into the night it is, the louder the noise from the club. In case you do not get the full effect and this has not shaken all your fillings out, the club sends a strobe lit, floating disco out into the bay among the yachts and to quote a guest aboard who “slept” in the cockpit, he thought they were actually dancing next to him.

Despite the volcanic ash cloud which disrupted some of K8’s plans, Visits flowed in steadily. We were eager to blow away the dust from the yard, and concentrate on exploring the blue cruise coast line which we had heard so much about. The photos in the literature do not do it justice, as it is all about the experience too which can not be portrayed in a still image.

Provisioning

Provisioning alone is an experience to behold – the market runs every Sunday and Thursday in the centre of Marmarais town. Farmers from neighbouring villages set up stands with their wears and tout for business as potential customers wander about. You can buy the freshest fruit and veg, but only the local produce that is in season, there are spices piled in colourful sacks and wicker baskets of dried fruits and nuts. You can taste all the local goat, cow and sheep cheeses and gorge yourself on a million different olives. Some of the vegetable were new for me and a stand holder took me under his wing and cooked a wonderful stew on a gas camping burner right there as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Friendships were forged over a quest for understanding the Turkish for coriander and a place to buy some.

Visitors

Our visitor are arriving and sadly leaving, but all I hope are taking a little bit of Turkey and the magical Kealoha experience with them. As we visit different places we are making new friends. The coast line seems an endless discovery of little bays and historical ruins. The people we meet are so full of knowledge and very proud of their history. We have got to know a number of Turkish Gullet Captains and International Cruisers in their own boats who are eager to share their knowledge of the coast line with us so that we can get the most out of it together with our guests aboard.

None the less, nothing replaces your own experience of each special place. A few weeks ago we went to Gocek town for the evening; a friendly waiter served the guests with drinks on the quay side and upon learning that they were cruising the coast on a yacht, insisted they take freshly made stone oven bread with them free of charge. We devoured it with some home made Hummus and salad for a light lunch. Last week we went to a restaurant with guests in Selimiye and some German Crew kindly entertained all the diners with a jamming session on a banjo and saxophone. A few days later while crossing the bay of Marmarais in the tender, we were joined by a curious loggerhead turtle, which swam with us for a few meters before departing to the depths of the bay. He must have been 1.5m large, I wonder how old he is and what he has seen in his life?

While the winds howled and the rains lashed down, winter work on Kealoha 8 remained as relentless as the Turkish winter. Punctuated by balmy sunny days you could not believe that it could also be so cold and hostile. I often wondered how the oranges and lemons managed in climes that were 1 degree centigrade sometimes.

Like the hardy citrus fruits, Thanks to a team of some exceptional local specialists, Kealoha 8 was refitted inside and out during the months of January through March and by April she was smugly gleaming in the yard awaiting transportation to the launch pool.

Friends and pricing benefits

For ourselves, the crew, Turkish refit doubled up as a Cultural lesson and one day, while seeking some obscure small but crucial piece of equipment, we befriended a well dressed local gentleman in a suppliers shop who offered us a lift in his car to another outlet where we could source the piece we were seeking. The gentleman turned out to be the buyer for the Turkish Navy and we gleaned a valuable lesson in how to manage price negotiations with different sources. A very large bladder is a key point as it involves several cups of chai (thimbles full of tea) before you can arrive at a mutually acceptable agreement. Also do not judge books by their covers, craftsmanship is understated generally in Turkey and the shop with the biggest front and most advanced advertising statements does not necessarily tick the boxes. The little shack at the dark corner end of the road probably supplies the gleaming shop that catches the naive crews’ eye!

Launch on time

Kealoha 8 sat snugly surrounded by perhaps 2000 boats. Thanks to our exceptional team the ship and the work aboard was completed in a timely manner though from my inexperienced eye, I could not see how the marina were going to get Kealoha and her mast into the lift pool for the date that was emblazoned on her rudder. But true to their word, the marina played out an extravagant game of shuffling boats (sometimes into the small hours of the morning) and K8 kissed the Mediterranean with precision timing and precision driving by the travel hoist driver.

Sea Trials

Sea Trials ensued – our sails were put on by one of the fantastic teams we have a lot to thank for at 9pm on a Sunday – where else do you enjoy such a dedicated attitude – including a sparkling new stay sail. After a seemingly mammoth amount of paperwork in order to be let out of the marina (one of the few down sides) We slipped the stern lines carrying a posse of 10 stoic work partners out, to put Kealoha 8 through her paces. It really did not take long for every one of them to break into a smile, enjoying over nine knots in a moderate breeze.

We knew then that Kealoha was just itching to get on with the exciting season ahead.

Ben and I have joined the boat in Marmarais, Turkey, where she is on the hard, having winter maintenance and up grades completed. She is very clearly well looked after and is in good hands in the yard in Marmarais where teams of workers are pouring over her. There are thousands of yachts here being worked on, the yard is very active so it is all a good sign.

Kealoha 8 is resting comfortably in her chocks after her exciting trip around the world, you can almost see that she is a proud experienced “seagoer” and as the new crew, it gives you a warm buzz. You have to sit back and appreciate the Oyster workmanship, continuous top spec. maintenance and investment, and hard graft of previous crews which have kept her that way. She is clearly a boat that is “loved”.

Hard work for a great advantage

When Kealoha is launched in a few months, she will be one of the few boats of her size to boast her own waste water treatment system, giving her an ecological advantage over many other vessels. Guests will be able to enjoy all facilities on board such as showers and toilets, whether in the most secluded bay or in the marina, knowing that the water consumed will be returned clean to the sea.

Bye bye soapy residue pumping out of Kealoha!!

An exciting sailing ground

As crew we are looking forward to sailing the Eastern Mediterranean. Even arriving in winter and winding through the roads from the airport you are impressed by the majesty of the surrounding mountainous countryside. The dark green of the pine forests contrasts with the glittering blue sea. The snaking roads are littered with stalls buckling under the weight of oranges and lemons which have been harvested freshly from the groves at the road sides. Once in Marmarais town, there is a distinct hustle and bustle, a town getting ready for summer trade. Restaurants are having boards taken down and being cleaned, the yacht chandleries are eager to attract your business. There is still a lot of local trade though, supermarkets stand side by side with covered bazaars re-iterating the East meets West culture that makes Turkey such an interesting destination to explore. There is so much ancient history scattered along the shores of Greece and Turkey, evidence and stories dating back thousands of years. We are spoiled by the dream coastline and islands only short hops away, made even shorter by the prospect of  decent winds that will carry us there all the quicker. There seems to be no box that is left un-ticked in my mental list of criteria for exceptional sailing boat holidays that I have compiled over the years.

Showing what a versatile and socially connected vessel she is, Kealoha8 has completed her transition from an around the world sailing yacht to a high quality Mediterranean charter yacht. In the last two weeks we have cruised through the beautiful Ionian Islands of Greece, have now moved to the islands of the east Peloponnese and shortly will sail into the Cyclades group and onto Turkey. We have transited the Corinth Canal, all 3.2 miles of it but it saves hundreds of miles by having to go around the Peloponnese Peninsula. The cost for us to transit was Euro534 or E166.75 per mile; must be the most expensive waterway in the world?

The weather is warm, wonderful sunny skies everyday, the water clean and clear, fabulous for swimming at any time of day. Evening drinks and canapés in the cockpit are a highlight and that is usually when we plan the next day’s adventures. Our sun worshipping guests are as brown as berries now and giving us a run for our money on the suntan stakes.

You will of course have heard of the famous and wealthy Onassis and Niarcos families of Greece. We have visited Scorpios, the island owned by the Onassis family, our guests even circumnavigated it by kayak! We later moved to another private island called Colonis, owned by the Livianos family who are related to both of the above families. Our guests are friends of the Livianos family so we were granted the privilege of visiting. As we docked, our lines were taken by men in pristine white uniforms, our guests whisked away to spend the day on the island’s beach and we were handed a landline telephone for our free and personal use, along with a wifi connection. The captain of the island owner’s motor yacht even wanted to help us blow up the kayaks….there is to be a race around the island this afternoon so we have our guests in training for the event (well they haven’t actually returned from lunch yet so the training session is looking a little grim). The two motor yachts we share the dock with are stately and elegant; the crews all decked out in whites and looking fantastic, we too arrived in our new pristine uniforms but alas no matching boat shoes but our brightly coloured toenails made up for this.

We are in exquisite company, so that is all from K8 as we must away to let shore lines go and sail away to another idyllic bay for the day.

Poodle Tip

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The crew of the good ship K8 continue to deal with the rough and smooth in their stride.

We eventually got into Horta on Faial in the Azores on the morning of the 17th May after motor sailing through light winds. Once on a berth, K8 was given a good wash down and clean before the crew were allowed some R & R.

Horta turned out to be a little gem. Quiet, atmospheric, very pretty, bags of local culture and inexpensive. A refreshing change from some yachtie ports of call where daylight robbery is literal as well as metaphorical.

Eating out was good value – Chris and George grabbing a continental breakfast ashore for less than 3 Euro for the both of them and much the same for a snack lunch.

Local cheese, wine and fish were all good though there were mixed reactions from the crew to the local blood sausage and grappa-substitute.

The people were charming and helpful. We suspect there wasn’t much to do other than be charming – there were lots of small shops spread right through the town but not one of them appeared to be busy. The shops tended to be curious places, with small shop fronts and a real mixed bag of products inside so that you weren’t clear what kind of shop you were in until you had penetrated the gloom.

An interesting whaling culture too – shops full of bone carvings and Scrimshaw (drawings on whale’s teeth and bones). Whaling station well preserved. 2000 whales harpooned from open boats over a period of 40 years ending in the 1980s. The whaling boats are still here, lovingly maintained and now raced in the harbour.

The whales were spotted from the tops of the volcanic peaks and the whale boats alerted by rocket. We assume the type of whale was signalled by hand e.g. Right Whale (thumbs up sign), Killer Whale (cutting motion across the throat with the flat of the hand), Sperm Whale (don’t ask!).

The marina got steadily busier as yachts arrived from the west, usually complaining, like us, of slower than expected passages. As a gale was brewing, no-one was leaving so late arrivals were rafted up.

The crew seemed overtaken by sartorial matters. The skipper had a nasty moment when his thong gave way under the strain – but not as nasty a moment as the crew who observed the catastrophe. Luckily it happened on the pontoon so there was no threat to our teak decks. The good news is that the thong was on his flip flops, in case any of you were thinking of something else.

We’ve all been mystified by Rowanne’s appearance every day in a different new top. Current thoughts are that, as she is up the sharp end, she has a treadle Singer sewing machine there and runs herself up a little number between watches. There can be no other explanation, mail order not being available at sea and her luggage being incapable of carrying such a collection.

Jen feels obliged to keep up and has appeared with a different item of K8-branded sailing gear every day for the last week. She has become the Queen of Yachtie Totty.

Even Chris has joined in, diligently hemming his trousers so the hemline is just short of the Balearics. Being a cunning old sea-dog he has used different coloured thread on each leg as an aid to navigation when getting his strides on. He is, of course, now known as the Breeches Boy.

George’s only clothing exploit so far is that overwhelmed by the poetic immensity of the Atlantic and its mystical effects, gazing into infinity, he felt obliged to leave something intimate and deeply loved in the ocean to mark his passage – so he threw an old pair of Y-fronts over the side. The position is now marked on charts as the site of an Underwear Anomaly.

Adrian just looks the part in his sailor suit, and impressively in command – or as impressive as you can get when wearing only one flip flop.

The last 3 days into Gib were a white knuckle ride. An easterly near gale was expected in the Straits and we had the choice of sitting it out for 3 days on the wrong side of the straits or lifting our skirts (metaphorically) and making a run for it. We covered over 600 miles in 3 days in worsening weather and made it into Gib late morning on the 27th.

The last 24 hours started with a beautiful evening, calm seas, everything we could have wished for. By morning we had gusts up to 40 knots, a Pan Pan for a man overboard from a merchantman east of us, a skirmish with the Spanish military when we sailed close to a live firing zone that was in use (”What was that bang?” said Rowanne). As this happened just off Cape Trafalgar, I can announce that the Second Battle of Trafalgar (between the Kiwis and the Spanish this time) was won by the Kiwis – but they didn’t hang around to celebrate the victory! (”New Zealand expects every Englishman and Scotsman to do his duty”). I understand Auckland is going to erect Adrian’s Column.

Fun and games with mainsails and engine controls that went on strike at a crucial moment in mooring made for an exciting time right to the last. This was the final straw for George who was last seen legging it for Gib airport with a look of pure terror on his face.

All in all a great trip with something for everyone including more than they wanted for some. Great team, good fun all round and no harm done!

The rest of the crew are now bracing themselves for the rigours of the Mediterranean.

Poodle Tip! The Kealoha8 Trans-Atlanticers

We were plagued with lighter winds than we wanted so our best run wasn’t until Wednesday 13th when we did 225 miles, noon to noon. On the 14th, we started motor sailing to get through the centre of the Azores High to the favourable winds on the north side. Everything going to plan at that point and the distance to run falling nicely.

While we were counting our blessings, the Gods of Meteorology were planning to spoil our plans to do Antigua – Azores in 10 – 11 days. The winds went light and against us and, even worse for the half-basted crew, it got cold. (Sea temperature has dropped from Antiguan 28C to North Atlantic 18C.)

With the goosebumps came one of those periods when time seems to go into a standstill. The plotter seemed incapable of estimating the time to run at anything under 3 days. Sometimes it was telling us we had even further to go.

Nothing for it but to grit our teeth, set our jaws, clench our buttocks and make the best of a wind now driving us south of our rhumb line. (That’s the pencil line on the rum bottle to show how much is left.)

Still grinding it out today with 285 miles to go to Faial.

Plus points though for good food, good company, lots of dolphins, the occasional bird – including a little green warbler of some sort that should have been in someone’s back garden and found itself rather bemused on K8, looking for the bird table. Offers to the Skipper to build one and put a bird box up the mast were politely declined – or as politely as one can construe what sounded like “duck off”, even though it was a warbler.

Couple of whales bimbling along side by side, like a couple of old ladies out shopping, Portuguese Men o’ War and a few fishing buoys (remember Tom Hanks and his basketball friend) and that’s been our social life. Current challenge is to see who can suck a polo mint the thinnest before it breaks. This competition takes the skill of a Linda Lovelace to win but unfortunately she’s not on board.

At least it isn’t raining, there’s the occasional sunny spell and we are covering ground on top of the water. Our glasses are half full rather than half empty – zut alors, now we’re even further south of the rhumb line! Garcon, another bottle, s’il vous plait.

Toodle Pip! The West to East Trans-Atlantic K8′ers

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Just to show that Chris wasn’t the only expert at falling over, George (coincidentally on the way from the Tots Club) was put ashore from the tender by Chris at night, without telling him he was being put ashore on a strip of land about 2 feet across. A full pike and double summersault later, George was under water. The watching security guard gave him a 9 for technical difficulty and a 2 for execution. He is still laughing.

Two things this proved: you can’t read your email on your Blackberry underwater and Pentax digital cameras don’t take pictures of fish. Both devices were soaked in fresh water and washing up liquid. The phone in no more, it is an ex-phone, it has gone to meet its maker. The camera required further surgery and is now sort of working though there are a few suspicious holes in it where we think there were once screws.

Jen, Adrian and Rowanne arrived to impose some sort of order. Thereafter we had a few interesting days dealing with a faulty furler on the main. (Their arrival and the gear failing is also purely coincidental.) After a false start with the riggers from the marina we ended up doing it ourselves successfully – at the point of writing!

All this involved the main being up and down like a whore’s drawers and this is what passed for team building (successfully). We can now all swear at each other by name.

We eventually sailed on Monday 4th at 0950 – more or less to schedule – but into a VERY confused sea (more confused than Michael Jackson and George Bush put together) with a big swell running to the SW and a fair chop on top of it. By the end of the first day, the sea was a lovely blue and most of the crew were a sickly green. On the bright side, we didn’t use much food but what we did use might just have well been thrown straight over the side for some of us. George was seen praying to Mecca on the after deck and Chris spent ages hanging over the side shouting for someone called Hughie. Rowanne was more decorous, Jen was stoical and Adrian ate lots.

Rowanne set the trend for kamikaze showers while corkscrewing through the waves. We’ve all developed a kind of mixture between disco dancing and mountain climbing to keep from killing ourselves whilst soaping off the barnacles in the showers. Spiderman couldn’t wash himself in those conditions.

We’ve battled north sailing off from 20 – 25 knot Easterlies so we are west of the rhum line from Antigua to the Azores, chasing the westerly side of a big High to pick up the SW and W winds around the top.

The first 3 days were a slog but we were all in good form by Thursday and we are now well into the High, in sunny weather and 10 knot winds. On Saturday we started motor sailing to push through the centre. This quiet period has given us a chance to catch up on jobs and sleep after sleeping with lee cloths up for 4 days, trying to sleep while holding onto the mattress with gritted teeth.

Not a lot of wild life, unless you count the crew. The odd gannet, tern, Portuguese Man 0′ War and some flying fish but not many of either. Not many other vessels – one sail in sight, one called us though we couldn’t see him and on Saturday morning about dawn Adrian had to sidestep a merchantman heading straight for us. They didn’t answer to VHF so maybe the watch officer was drying out his Blackberry (don’t ask – it’s an old naval tradition like the Tots Club!)

More follows if Neptune allows. Onwards and upwards! Toodle Pip!

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