Here's a 'How long is a piece of string?' question. As always, the answer is 'It depends'.
How long do we stay at one anchorage?
We stayed anchored at Asin Koyu for a week. It's not the prettiest place, it's a very plain, working bay with quite a bit of daily fish farm service boat activity. There's nothing on shore in the way of shops, restaurants or services. The water is green and visibility is less than half a metre. You certainly wouldn't want to swim in it!
So why did we stay so long?
Because we have a weekly schedule which orbits around getting our weekly YouTube video out on time. That's on Tuesday for our patrons and on Saturday for our subscribers. It just so happened that when we arrived at Asin Koyu it was a Monday. That's usually when Aannsha finishes editing the main body of the video and hands it over to me on Tuesday morning for the finishing touches, uploading and doing all of the back end stuff.
On Wednesday the weather turned against us and we had to sit tight for 2 days. Friday we went ashore to explore the ancient city of Iassos. Then we were into the Saturday and Sunday lock down in Turkey.
And that's why we spent a week anchored in a not so pretty place.
Conversely, as I write this blog, we're anchored in a drop dead gorgeous place. But we'll only be here for one night as there is some wind coming in which will make the anchorage untenable and we want to be nearer to provisions for the now 'Sunday only' lock down. Boat life eh?
We need fuel
We upped anchor in Asin Koyu and headed south west to a big bay called Yalikavak. There's a marina there where we could get fuel and a town where we could stock up on provisions.
For once the predicted wind arrived on time and at the right speed and we happily got both sails out and managed to sail almost all of the way there. Dodging fish farm and shallow spots we finally put the head sail away as we rounded the headland into Yalikavak bay at 12:30 hours.
Just minutes away from our chosen anchorage we went to put the main sail away and found that we couldn't furl it in. That's not good.
Rule #1 when something on a boat that is normally easy becomes hard, stop doing it and check why it's not easy. Eyeballing the mast, the sail, the boom and the line clutches there was nothing obvious that was causing the issue. It had to be the furling line itself.
I climbed onto the coach roof and followed the line from the winch back to the sail. I discovered the problem when I looked at one of the furling line pulley's which hangs under the boom. The line had jumped the pulley and was jammed between the cheek of the block and the side of the pulley.
A couple of good yanks in the right direction and I got the line free. Back to winching in the sail. Less than 2 seconds later the line jammed again. Bugger.
Closer inspection of the block showed that it had become distorted. It was an original block from when A B Sea was built in 1995. It was past its retirement date.
If you watch the video that accompanies this blog you'll see that we try several options for getting the sail away and finally after rummaging around below I find a replacement block which we eventually manage to get in place which allows us the opportunity to free the line from the old block and get the main sail furled away. It's a fun watch.
Lessons learned
1. Always carry a selection of various sized replacement blocks, you WILL need them at some point in time.
2. It's possible to anchor with the main sail unfurled, just make sure that you depower it. It'll make a LOT of noise flapping around, don't let that noise distract you, it's just noise.
3. If you're pulling a line and it seems stuck, STOP pulling immediately and find out the cause of the problem before you damage or break something.
4. You CANNOT let go the main sail halyard to drop a furling main sail unless the sail is FULLY unfurled from the mast.
When you own a boat the lessons keep coming and you never stop learning. This is a GOOD thing because it keeps your mind agile. Until next week, stay safe and healthy wherever you are.
To watch the video that accompanies this blog click here.
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