Every boat owner has one, wishes they didn't have one and constantly battles to keep it under control.
I'm talking about the never ending list. Actually it's really two lists. The first list is 'jobs that need doing' and the second list is 'bits that need buying' in order to complete the jobs that need doing.
Marmaris in Turkey is a great place to buy the bits and after a recent road trip up there I came back to A B Sea with lots of little goodies. In this week's video I run through what I bought and why I bought it. I also include the prices for each item, I'm constantly amazed at how inexpensive things are here in Turkey.
Of all the items bought the most expensive were a pair of Canadian manufactured Caframo Sirocco II multi-speed 12 volt fans. They were 1,178 Turkish Lira (AU$210) each. They are so quiet on low speed they can be left running when we go to sleep and they have a timer mode for 3, 6, 9 or 12 hours which means they won't chew through power either.
The plan is to test out these two in the saloon and just before summer arrives buy another three and install them into the cabins.
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We first met Michel and his Turkish wife Canan (pronounced Jan-ann) when we over wintered in Kaş harbour 2018/2019. Michel, originally from Belgium, is based in Germany and flies as a captain for a well known air freight company and when he retires in a few years he has a plan of living in Kaş and having a yacht in Kaş marina. He'd been watching our YouTube videos to get an idea of what was involved with owning and maintaining a boat and that winter his trip to Kaş to buy an apartment coincided with us staying in the harbour. He came to A B Sea, introduced himself and invited us out to dinner. We formed an instant friendship as we shared stories while we dined at Smiley's restaurant that evening.
We kept in touch via email as he and his wife began ticking off their RYA courses at the Rock Sailing School in Gibraltar, the same school we learned at. Then when we opened up the option of short stays on board A B Sea for patrons, Michel was very eager to be the first to give it a go.
Michel had a week of holiday time available in September 2020 and we finally had A B Sea ready for guests so it was our great pleasure to welcome him on board.
His arrival at the marina early on Saturday evening gave us time to catch up over dinner and a bottle of wine in the cockpit. The next day we planned on heading to Kekova Roads just 4 hours to the east of Kaş. It was a late start while we waited for the predicted wind to arrive. Somehow the wind gods hadn't seen the prediction so they didn't turn up and we eventually cast off the lines at 11:40 hrs.
This was an auspicious trip because not only did we have our first patron on board, but we were also giving our engine its first proper test run since we'd done the turbo bypass surgery. Or a turboectomy as my friend Toby called it.
At the pontoon there was no smoke at all when I fired up the engine, which was a great relief. While we motored towards Kekova I played around with the engine speed and found that keeping the engine at around 2,000 rpm was the sweet spot. That gave us 6.7 knots of speed over ground, no smoke at all from the exhaust and the engine coolant temperature remained at a steady 79C (174F). If I added another 200 rpm a small amount of black smoke came from the exhaust. This was something we expected as it indicated that not all of the fuel being injected into the cylinders was completely burning. I was seriously stoked with the job that Aydin the mechanic had done.
Four hours after departing Kaş marina we arrived at our first planned anchorage at Kekova and enjoyed sundowners and dinner while the three of us discussed what we wanted to do the following day. No wind was predicted so sailing was not an option and as Michel wanted to be as hands on as possible we agreed that it would be a good idea for him to get a feel for raising the anchor, flaking the chain into the locker and also manoeuvring A B Sea into position for dropping, setting and testing the hold of the anchor.
I'll tell you all about that in next week's blog. Until then stay safe.
To watch the video that accompanies this blog click here.
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