Hello, Welcome, come aboard. Thanks for all the wonderful support for this new thing called Sailing Longo Mai.
Spring is blossoming and everyone is looking forward to the sailing season. Conversations are turning to journey planning and days are filled with finalising winter projects.
Happily, Longo is almost ready for the season. So much so that last week we were able to take her out for a shake-down cruise. We chose the nearby town of Kaş as our destination. The trip was reasonably uneventful with the boat and crew settling back into the groove of things. It was lovely to be back out on the water.
Unfortunately, towards the end of the day our traveller broke. The traveller controls the angle of the main sail. It’s an important piece of equipment that takes on a bit of a load as the boom swings for side to side when you gybe and tack (change direction).
Thankfully ours broke at the end of the day and Ian was quick to come up with a temporary solution to finish the trip. On inspection it turned out that the screws used to secure the traveller weren’t long enough to do the job; something we’ve all experienced before, I’m sure. (Ian’s edit: they’re not screws, they’re bolts! but as this would ruin Malia’s little innuendo I’ll let it pass this time)
We stayed in Kaş for three nights. Spending two in a small anchorage near a marina, just five minutes from the centre of town. The first night we met a lovely local lady who’s planning on buying a boat to live on and we chatted for a while as she floated on her SUP along side us. The second night friends from Finike stopped in for dinner on their way through to Marmaris.
For our last day we moved onto a new anchorage called Bilal’s Beach. The trip over to the new anchorage gave us our first glimpse of sea mist. At times it was difficult to see the horizon, but the still, bleached vistas were eerie and peaceful.
With not a breath of wind and almost no swell the only noise unfortunately came from our engine.
Bilal’s Beach is a little under 2 km from Kaş, giving us the opportunity to test out our new tender, Big Baby Boat (BBB) , whose official registered name is “Grande Petit Bateau.” Yes really! this is what happens when Ian lets me do the formal paperwork. BBB is 3.1 metres long with a nifty double floor and a whopping 20 HP electric start motor. So he has the room and oomph to take our friends onboard and to give us a little extra range for exploring. Unfortunatelty with size and power, the environmental friendliness of BBB is lacking. Oh well you can’t everything.
Kaş, is a lovely Turkish touristy town. In the height of the Summer season it’s teeming with tourists from all around the world. The number of gulets and other tourist boats up on the hard was a testament to the popularity of the town.
The Kaş we got see was slower and lower-keyed, giving us the opportunity to explore without feeling crowded. The town is on the Lycian way and occupies the site of the ancient city of Antiphellos which dates back to 2nd century BCE.
While anchored at Bilal’s Beach we also climbed up to see two rock tombs that overlook the bay. On the way down to BBB we stopped in at a bar for a refreshing ale and to meet the local kid.
On our last day we set off for “home” (Finike) bright an early. The weather forecast predicted perfect sailing winds but we’ve learned to remain skeptical. For once our doubts were unfounded as we set the sails and Longo stretched her wings and flew us home, reaching up to 9.9 knots and the engine remained silent until we reached the marina.
The same winds made docking a bit of a challenge but as there was no damage, no injuries and no video, we count it as a success.
Fair winds and a dearth of sea monsters.
Sailing Longo Maï 