Turkish angels to the rescue

I’ve ranted about “Med mooring” before and I know in very deep and crowded anchorages it is a necessity but I will continue to absolutely abhor this way of securing our boat!

For the uninitiated, Med mooring is where you anchor in (usually) very deep water and then reverse towards land, stretching back on your anchor chain. Because it is so deep it can take several attempts to secure the anchor.

Then, one of you takes the dinghy (or some people swim) to shore with a rope or webbing while the other person keeps the boat in position using the engines while simultaneously feeding the line out to the person in the dinghy.

After what seems an eternity of watching the person (in our case Capt’n Birdseye) slipping and sliding on rocks while trying to tie up, the wind gusts send you hurtling dangerously close to the beautiful gulet next door. It is the stuff of nightmares.

THEN what can happen – does happen! We had been for a beautiful walk – all was calm, all was peaceful – but arriving back from our tramp we found that the wind had whipped up in beautiful Seagull bay putting all the boats under strain and testing everybody’s anchoring and tying up skills.

As we motored back on our little dinghy we saw a catamaran like ours in trouble – their anchor hadn’t held and they had to let go their lines and try to re-anchor and retie their ropes. They gave up and left the cove.

Two super yachts were revving the heck out of their engines and made a break for it to another anchorage.

We seemed to be holding well but the good captain was concerned about our webbing strap which was tied up to a post on shore. A tree had fallen close to the post and he was concerned that one of the branches was chafing against the strap.

He prepared another length of rope and was about to go and check when PING the strapping broke! Fortunately we had another line out and there wasn’t another boat to bang in to but we were being blown close to some very hair raising rocks.

Soon Jonathan had secured a replacement line but we were still sitting at an angle and it all felt very precarious.

Suddenly – out of nowhere – two angels appeared! Two Turkish sailors who had been tied up close to us at Finike marina had been on a dinghy ride and caught sight of us. They told us that there was space in the cove where they were moored – just ten minutes away – where it was sheltered from the wind that was sweeping into our bay.

With the help of our two angels – Cüneyt and his partner from S/V Lagon – we managed to untie our lines and pull up our anchor.

They then went over to S/V Catabella to see if they needed any help – it was so good that they did this because Sue and John on Catabella had two nasty incidents with their anchor.

First of all they snagged a great mess of fishing net which our rescue angels cut away and then the anchor caught on a rope. Who would have thought it was possible?!

We were very sad that we had to move from Seagull Bay as we had just met the delightful Yusef who – with the new proprietor of the restaurant – had done an excellent job of getting the place shipshape and working well.

We had promised to come to have a meal at the restaurant that evening and instead, we had to run away!

Our heroes guided us to the new spot in 22 Fathom Bay where we were skilfully assisted in by their sailing companions on S/V Mr Oka and S/V Ulgen (who, again, we knew from Finike marina.)

It was such a help to have all those extra pairs of hands and simply wonderful to be in a quiet sheltered and really beautiful spot. However, our peace didn’t last long!

A small “super yacht” drove into the cove and dropped its anchor exactly where all our anchors were laid with the intention of backing in directly opposite us.

The skipper soon realised that the cove was too small and started to pull the anchor up.

Next thing we knew their anchor had snagged Mr Oka’s chain. After much gesticulating and people whizzing around on dinghies the chain was released and the super yacht beat a hasty retreat without so much as an apology – let alone sending a crew member to assist in reanchoring/tying up.

No sooner than Mr Oka had resettled than we discovered our anchor had been lifted too!

So we also had to go through the same anchoring/tying up process again. Argggh! No wonder we hate Med Mooring! We are eternally grateful to our Turkish friends however, for stepping in to help us and the crew of S/V Catabella!