In this episode of Sailing A B Sea we sail a few more beautiful Turkish anchorages before we depart from Turkey and show you how to check into Greece & the T...
Closed Captions (CC):
The captain is in for demotion as
there's been an oversight in the flag
department. In some countries when you
arrive you've got to fly the yellow
quarantine flag. There wasn't one in the
in the bag of flags so Aannsha has made
one. It's a duster. I put a couple of bits of string on and we've got a Q flag!
In three days we would be checking out
of Turkey at Didim to go to Greece but
this mild May morning we weighed anchor
and left Knidos for Catalada just
off the Bodrum coastline
As we approach the bay at Catalada the
wind picked up
I don't know how comfy this is going to be
That wind's picking up too.
It is isn't it
With poor depth to anchor and no shelter
on this lee shore we headed towards Gumusluk
a sheltered bay just up the coast
This is the lovely little anchorage we
find ourselves waking up in this morning
this was our plan B anchorage yesterday,
the first one we went to was basically a
lee shore with a building wind and also I
wasn't too happy with the with the
depths at all it went shallow quite
quickly and if the wind had swung around
then we would have possibly potentially
been into shallow water and that's not a
good thing. But here we are in this
beautiful little place, a bit of a tight
squeeze getting in, you've got a watch
there's a submerged old harbour wall or
the remnants of it so you gotta make
sure you keep it slow and look at your
charts and check your depths. We dropped the
anchor in 15 metres and pulled back to 10
metres and we have 35 metres of chain
out. The bottom here is weed and mud and
the mantus went in first time and has stayed put all through the wind. I
think the wind only probably was
sustained about 15 knots and gusting to
maybe 20 knots. Today we've got another 4
hour trip - we're going to Didim and we're
potentially staying there for one maybe
two nights. Didim is now our new check out
port of Turkey simply because it didn't
really make sense to go further north
all the way to Kusadasi and then check
out and then come all the way south
again to check in to Samos. So Didim to
Samos is about five hours. Of course one
of the things we've got to get our head
around is the new Greek cruising tax
which has just been introduced two days
ago and
we will pay that online before we enter
Greece which will just make the whole
entry process a lot simpler. So we'll see
how that all pans out
As we weighed anchor we got very close
to another yacht that had anchored
almost on top of our own anchor the
night before
but we missed it and were
soon leaving Gumusluk for Didim
Just behind me you can see the town or
the city of Didim
we're about 20 minutes 25 minutes out
from dropping anchor - had a look at the
bay, there's a couple of spots in there that
might be good for us but if that's no
good there are plenty of other options
here. We'll be spending two nights here
as we said previously so we'll see how
it works out when we start getting
things done but Didem is definitely our
check out of Turkey town. It's been a bit
of a weird trip over, one minute the wind
was there and we got the sails out it
was great we were doing four knots or so
under sail and then the wind just
decides to bugger off and it's now
become almost glassy calm with no wind
at all and once again were motoring but I
have had my morning exercise of bringing
in and putting away the sails at least
two or three times today
And it's giving me the opportunity while
it's calm to actually do some sewing
and finishing on pieces of jewellery
without getting seasick so that's really good
We've just dropped our anchor in 4.5
metres of water and let 20 metres of
chain out here on the outside of this
bay here at Didim. We are pretty much as
close as you can be without being an
obstruction to the entrance to the
D-Marin marina I Didim. We couldn't
really get any further into this bay
because it shallows off quite
quickly and they're also just out there
somewhere there are a couple of
submerged rocks which may or may not be
at five metres below the surface so we
we came further over to this side and it
is a dead calm flat day and hopefully
it's going to stay that way. There are
other options should the wind, weather
and waves change. So, putting the boat to
bed, lower the dinghy and we're going to
catch up with Beverly and Metin. We are
currently in Didim having a brief tour
on our first afternoon here thanks to
Beverly and Metin.
Metin has just taken us somewhere to try
and get our cooking gas refilled but
unfortunately they don't refill here
they refill a long way away and it would
just be too complex. Anyway moving on
from that as you can see behind me
there's a very ancient building and this
is the Apollo temple and those columns are huge. But
apparently it was also one of the places
where there was an Oracle so people would come from a long way away to get come and get their fortunes told.
Yeah. It wasn't really fortune-telling it was
more they had a burning question you
know will I survive this battle.
Is that a fortune or not? Yes you will. No you won't. Let's
take a closer look. Imagine how long it
would have taken to put this thing
together and just the idea of stacking
these pieces to make a column that tall
I mean that's gotta be 30 metres close
to 30 metres tall and get getting those
cap stones on top unbelievable. You can
get some sense of the scale of things
there are three people standing by those
columns down there now two people
standing there, but that is a size
comparison for these columns they are
absolutely colossal. Colossal, that's definitely
the word for it
The next day we collected Jim in the
dinghy and went over to Didim. We moored
the dinghy on the end of a new jetty
that was being built for one of the
hotels. We almost didn't get back to the
dinghy because hotel security wouldn't
let us back in, however when the security
guard realized there was no other way to
get to our dinghy they'd let us through.
This is our penultimate day in Turkey
and we are here at an ATM where they
charged the least amount to withdraw
money and we are getting some euros out
because coming tomorrow
we'll need them because we'll be in
Greece
Look at that: shiny euros . We're going to Europe!!
Monday morning here in the anchorage
outside the marina and Didim and we
really wanted to do the whole paperwork
checkout process ourselves but it just
seemed to be that nobody really knew
what to do if you weren't using an agent.
First of all we went to the head office
of the marina and they said oh you'd
better go and check with the
Harbormaster and customs office. We went
there and they said well you really need
to check with the Marineros so we went
to the Marineros and they weren't kind
of there but somebody did say you need
to check with a front office. So at this
point we went to the agent's office in
the marina, very nice guy, great English
and said you know what's the process, how
long does it take because you do get two
hours for free on a pontoon while you're
checking out in the marina. If you go
over that two hours they charge you for
a whole day and that's something like
560 lira so we figured for the 50 euros
for the agent to do it and not have the
worry of going over that two hour time
period it was just worth spending the
fifty euros. The customs, Harbormaster,
passport control police are all in one
building
so once you've walked there you don't
have to walk anywhere else. If the
customs guy is here and not at Kusadasi. Yeah so
just too many unknowns, yeah, 50 euros
seemed to be a reasonable price to pay
yeah. So now we're just going to go in
and refuel. Ive already taken the
paperwork to the agent. I'm going to go
in to refuel and while we're refueling
and sitting on the fuel berth he's going
to process our paperwork
So, this is it Turkey. We're going to say goodbye. Oh look you've been an absolutely wonderful place to visit
Love the country, love the people
Be sad to say goodbye actually. I mean
we're really excited to go to Greece but
it's kind of bittersweet. Yeah. All
right let's bring that anchor up and go and refuel
By Turkey we love you
and we're gonna see you again
We left Didim in Turkey at 11 a.m. on
Monday the 13th of May. The weather was
sunny with a slight haze and the sea was
flat and calm.
Greek water's pilot guide. Yay!
After only two and a half hours
we arrived at Agathonisi, a little
Greek island and we dropped anchor to
stay there overnight before heading to
Samos to check into Greece the next day
We're here. We're here. In Greece. It's 1:30 Monday
afternoon and this is our first
overnight anchorage in Greece. Agathonisi. Yeah. It's a cute little town, well
it's not even a town is it? It's a village - little hamlet - fishing village and yeah we're just
gonna stay here for the night because
this really takes about two and a half
maybe three hours off our trip to Samos
which is literally just behind this
island. So Samos tomorrow that's where we
check in but we can anchor here for
tonight as long as we don't go ashore.
Don't go ashore
At 9:30 the next morning
we made our way to Pythagorion in Samos
Well we're just a mile away from
entering the port of
Pythagoria on the island of Samos in
Greece and we are going to attempt to
get our own DEKPA and
everything else sorted out including the
new Greek cruising tax which has to be
levied so we've got all our paperwork
together, we're gonna drop anchor in the
bay and then dinghy over to the harbour where we'll tie off and then go to the port
police, harbour master and customs.
So that's Samos.
We dropped anchor in four
metres of water and went ashore to
officially check-in to Greece
A B Sea is now anchored in Pythagorio on
the Greek island of Samos. Pythagorio is
a port of entry and you have two choices
when you come here. You can anchor just
outside the harbour like we have or you
can go stern to in the harbour. If you do
decide to anchor here rather than going
stern to on the quayside then just be
aware that most of that harbour wall
there is for ferries that come in almost
on a daily basis and I'm sure in summer
there'll be several ferries a day so
anchor well off. We are currently in four
metres of water with 20 metres of chain
out, the holding is very good with sand
there are some weed patches around too
but you can certainly pick and choose a
sand patch if that's your preferred holding.
The cost for being stern to in
the harbour is 10 euros a day and that
includes your water and electricity so
that's a very reasonable price to pay
Not all of the positions against the
harbour wall have lazy lines available
checking in here you don't really need
an agent it's very easy to do. Just over
there on the seawall side of things in
front of the white boat is a small white
demountable building and that's where
you'll find the immigration police. You
need to go there first with your
passports and all your other documents
in case they want to see something and
they will just check you in
They don't actually stamp your passports
unless you specifically ask I guess
After you've done what you need to do at
the immigration police it's a short walk
into town roughly in that general area
there, you will see the building - it has a
big Greek flag outside the front of it
and you go into the customs office. There
is a charge of 20 euros for them to
process your paperwork and check you in
and then literally right next door are
the port police where you can get your
DEKPA if you are an EU vessel or if
you're not an EU vessel you'll have
a transit log issued. There is a charge
of 15 euros for the DEKPA and all in
all the whole process took us around
about an hour.
Now let's talk about the
Greek cruising tax which has just been
introduced. Vessels up to 12 metres in
length have various tiers that they are
charged at. Over 12 meters you are
charged 8 euros per month per metre, so
for A B Sea at 14 metres that's 8 times 14
per month and you have to pay the month
in advance. The method that we found
easiest with regards to the cruising tax
was to go online to the website and I'll
put a link down below in the description
for that website, register your vessel's
details and your personal details, print
that out there are two pages to print
out and take that to either a post
office or a bank in town and pay the
corresponding fee for however many
months you want and whatever the
length of your vessel is. Then with your
proof of payment, when you go in to see
the port police to get your DEKPA
sorted out you can then lodge that
paperwork with them and everything's
hunky-dory
A huge thank you to all our patrons
because you helped us to keep sailing
and making videos. Join us next week on
sailing A B Sea as we hire a car and tour
around Samos Island. If you've enjoyed
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