36° 43.306N 027° 41.296E
From Söğüt we sailed to Kurucu Bükü (36° 45.318N 027° 53.717E) an anchorage on the south side of the Datça peninsula – primarily to get some money from the ATM in the holiday village there. ‘Holiday village’ sounded unpromising but it fact it was rather charming – built some years ago among the pine trees, extensively planted, and with shaded pedestrian and bicycle paths winding through it. (It’s called ‘Aktur, Datça’ if you fancy going.) We were lucky to arrive on a Friday when there was an excellent food market (and other stuff) under the trees.
One disadvantage of resorts like this is that they often restrict anchoring. The pilot book said that there was ‘plenty of room to anchor off the beach in 5 to 10 metres’, but most of that had been buoyed off for swimming. What was left was deep and weedy. We managed to anchor anyway – at the third attempt – but several other boats had difficulty too and some gave up. But once you’re in it’s nice: our neighbours said they’d been coming since 1986!
We have two main problems anchoring. Firstly we only have 40 metres of chain – and 20m of rope which I regard as a reserve for storms. This means we can only comfortably anchor in about 10m of water, except in calm conditions, without using the rope. The pilot book often suggests anchoring in 5 to 10m – but in practice such places are often usurped by swimming areas and private mooring buoys, so you end up in 15m which means being off the end of the chain.
Secondly, in many anchorages boats will tie back to the shore, and often it’s so deep that it’s the only option. Tying back needs three people – one on the anchor, one on the helm, and one in the dinghy (or swimming) ashore. (Two people could probably do it if they have a bow thruster – which we don’t.) In anything other than a flat calm or an onshore wind it’s too difficult for us. Sometimes we do it nevertheless, but it relies too much on luck and everything going to plan for my liking. Tying back also needs more chain, for reasons too complicated to explain, and we sometimes run out of chain – and rope – before getting near enough to the shore. And a couple of big motor cruisers tied back, with 200m of anchor chain out, make it impossible to free swing there.
For all these reasons we are actively considering swapping our 40m of 10mm chain for 80m of 8mm chain (or whatever weighs the same). But it will be difficult and expensive. One for 2012 maybe.
We retreated to Keçi Bükü – better known as Orhaniye – right at the bottom of the Hisarönu gulf, to shelter from gales which were forecast over the Aegean and, more relevantly, the Datça peninsula. We anchored behind the island, which turned out to be very pretty and peaceful – though not the most sheltered spot. We took care to dig the anchor well into the mud and stayed there three nights while the wind blew and we skittered to and fro.
With the gales in the Aegean dying down we headed for Datça once again, first to Dirsek, a restaurant in a bay (36° 41.026N 027° 58.66E). Dirsek really is sheltered; we had been beating double-reefed into a force 5 but inside Dirsek Bükü it was flat calm. The restaurant there is excellent – we particularly like when you get to choose your own combination of starters, so you can avoid an excess of yogurt and aubergines.
This morning we left Dirsek to find the force 5 still blowing, so we resumed beating where we’d left off, arriving in Datça 5 hours later.
Datça has a new quay, with water and electricity, so we’re pretty comfortable. We’ll stay a couple of days.
Some pictures here.
