Great chums become new crewmates

It’s been a top last week as we welcomed new crewmates, two great friends from Milton Keynes (as usual I won’t mention names because this is a public facing web site). They joined us in Fetihye for a sailing taster having never been on a yacht before. Spending a few days in the benign Fetihye and Gocek area seemed perfect so imagine my horror looking at the forecast below just before they arrived. The orange and purple is a tad windy, probably force 7 or worse. Our plan was to leave Tuesday for Kapi Creek), so not exactly perfect for a first sail!

Luckily the weather doesn't always happen as forecast, as was the case for us, all was calm on Tuesday morning with the wind now forecast to build later in the day. So we managed to get away and parked up in Kapi Creek before it got proper windy (gusting 28 knots). Nonetheless it was still over 20 knots by the time we arrived so the trickiest park of the holiday. The forecast the next day was pretty similar with the wind starting earlier in the day, and when we got up it looked like the forecast would be right. So we stayed put for two nights, had a fine time and a proper catch up with Mehmet (see previous blog). As usual we learnt many things from Mehmet including the mating season for the goats, who he said “will ‘kissy kissy’ next month, then babies 5 months later”. Every day’s a school day.

Thursday was kinder to us and we were able to have a proper sail. The good news is our chums enjoyed it and even took this video.

Thursday night we went back to Amigo’s restaurant at 22 fathoms (see previous blog) to catch up with Regap and his family, which along with several final swims was a proper treat before returning to Gocek.

A few final piccies of Amigo's restaurant and surroundings, Regap's son out with his 'mini market' boat (he takes it to boats around the bay to make a little extra money).

So that’s it, our sailing holiday’s done for this year. It was really special to have our chums with us for the last few days to share with them what sailing’s all about and share the places and people in the beautiful Gocek Bay. Of course the scenery and weather has been fantastic but it’s the warmth and hospitality of the Turkish people that make it truly magical. We will be back.

Serefe!