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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