Patara, Symi and back to Datca

We left Castelorizo on Friday morning and motored up to Patara, where we anchored off the beach and met my sister Nilly, her daughter Kate and grandson Jake, whom we picked up from the beach to come aboard for a cup of tea.

We dropped them back on the beach and motored on (we had the genoa up for a couple of hours, but it didn't make much impact) to anchor for the night in Kucuk Kuyruk, a beautiful little bay south of Gocek.

Next morning we set off early for Symi. The weather was bad

and got worse, with the thunderstorm fortunately skirting us. It brightened up a bit as we approached Symi and we anchored in the bay of Panormitis,

where we went ashore amidst crowds of trippers from Rhodes to see the monastry.

The anchorage was quite crowded and, more importantly, the taverna looked closed up and tonight was the Champions' League Final. Lin reluctantly agreed to move on to Symi town, where we squeezed onto the quay. Symi is a pretty town, but the harbour was very full and it was busy with tourists, so we decided to spend just one night here, rather than the two we had planned.



We had a quick take away for dinner and Lin went off to bed while Simon sloped off to a cafe to watch Barcelona run rings round Manchester United.

When we anchored Simon dropped the cap of the anchor remote control into the harbour, so next morning he put on his weight belt, flippers, mask and snorkel and tried to dive for it. The water was very clear, but it was 15 metres deep and the bottom was littered with rubbish, so he failed to find it and had to patch the remote up with sellotape. After breakfast we set off for Datca, where we planned to spend a couple of days and to clear out of Turkey. On leaving we found that the large, expensive yacht that had dropped his anchor right by our bow and backed onto the quay on the other side the night before had indeed anchored over our chain. We were very pleased that our beefy windlass managed to lift his chain so we could get free.

Datca was one of our favourite places in Turkey because although it has tourists it has the feel of a real town. In Datca we had an excellent dinner at a restaurant overlooking the quay, Culinarium - highly recommended - and cleared out using a reasonably priced agent, before setting off towards Kos to meet Becky on Thursday.