This week on Sailing Kawai we continue our journey across the Cyclades on route to Turkey. We leave Mykonos early hoping to get some strong winds pushing us towards our final Greek Island Patmos. Unfortunately the predicted winds (12-30 knots) don't appear and we don't get in much sailing. Our only excitement is when we come across a sleepy whale and a couple of turtles.

We reach Patmos on dark and anchor in Merikas Bay. The bay is secluded and like most anchorages at this time of year in the Cyclades we are the only boat. Once anchored we entered the cabin to be greeted by an egg like smell. Unfortunately our starter battery is cooked and we must rush to find a new battery out of season. With a little luck we meet a local who assists us finding a battery and we can check out of Greece.

We leave Patmos with a beautiful sunrise and sail to Didim Turkey where we attempt to sign in to the country. We find a local agent who assists us check Kawai in to Turkey and we start exploring this amazing country. Some excitement arises when we get visited by the coast guard.

Hope you enjoy the video and thanks for watching :)

About us:
Our names are Jason and Tracey and we traded our house, cars, business, job and security for freedom, adventure, travel and living simply amongst nature and the seas on our 45 foot Hanse 445 sailing boat, Kawai. We don't know exactly where the winds will take us at this stage but over the next year we hope to sail to Turkey, Greece, Montenegro, Croatia. Jase loves making travel videos and we decided to upload to youtube to share our sailing adventure. We really hope you enjoy and feel free to drop us a comment any time to chat or subscribe to follow along :)



Instagram
Jason: https://www.instagram.com/jase_stephens1/
Tracey: https://www.instagram.com/trace_y02/?hl=en



Music
Massive shout out to Adam Yoo. We first heard his music on Sailing La Vagabonde and just love all his music. Most of the songs in the last 2 videos are his songs and he was quick to respond letting us know he loves sailing videos and he was happy for us to use his music. Links below to soundcloud ☺. Thanks mate

1 - If Ya Wanna Go, Sleepaway Camp,
www.epidemicsound.com

2 - My My, Adam Yo,
https://soundcloud.com/adamyoo_music

3 - Bjurman, They Dream By Day, Rospigg
www.epidemicsound.com

Thanks for watching
Jason and Tracey
Sailing Kawai

Closed Captions (CC):
last time on kauai we took advantage of

the favorable winds and set sail from

paris to the popular party island of

mykonos

we are fortunate to experience this

charming island out of season

and have the anchorage to ourselves we

are able to wander the streets of the

locals and are pleasantly surprised when

some of them treat us to their greek

cuisine and uzo at dinner

yamas guys this time we depart mykonos

as our time in greece is coming to an

end

while crossing the cyclades on route to

our final greek destination of patmos

we meet a sleepy whale before

discovering we have a battery problem

three months in greece sadly comes to an

end but we are excited to begin a new

adventure in turkey

all right well we're out of mykonos yeah

we've spent longer here than we expected

and now we're off to patmos last day in

greece

jeez yeah turkey here we come

there's a bit of crazy uh weather

happening in the met at the moment

yeah over in italy in croatia area

and the ionian it's pretty well just

cyclones for a change that's not crazy

so

but it's still been it's been blowy but

not it's been like

50 60 over in those other areas but this

has only been 20 to 30

so we're feeling quite lucky ah we are

there's uh it's meant to be 30 currently

we better we got two

our 65 nautical mile trip would take us

past paris and nexus to the south

and ikered to the north before we would

anchor and check out of greece

in patmos

[Music]

are you hearing my words

i'm saying to you

cause i'm looking in your eyes

[Music]

break the cycle

[Music]

that

that's huge

i'm a little bit scared now

you saw a massive whale babe

the hole that's left

you look to be gazing off there in the

distance

what are you fascinated with over there

oh i'm just checking out icaria

we almost got to go there but due to

weather conditions we didn't and a

skeptical anchorage so

uh yeah we didn't get to go there but i

really wanted to go there because i've

uh

heard a lot about it and it's one of the

places in the world where people live

way longer than

average culvert blue zone

so just checking it out it's quite

rugged and

barren mountainous yeah

people have got to be tough over there

generally motoring motor sailing as you

might be able to hear

yeah it's a bugger um very disappointing

windy has told us between 12

to 30 knots today depending on between

wind and wind gusts and

the most we've had is night

[Applause]

and that's apparent we arrived in patmos

in the dark and with no

other boats in the bay found a nice spot

to anchor after anchoring we headed down

below

and were met with an unappealing

egg-like smell we're aware this could be

a symptom of a problem with the battery

after checking our monitors all seem to

be okay but within hours were woken by

the battery alarm

showing low voltage with ashanga visa

expiring in one day we would need to

find a new starter battery quickly

so we didn't overstay our welcome in

greece kawaii still all right down there

yep she's with her goats on the uh

foreshore

[Laughter]

got company good well

tiny down there yeah we've pulled her up

down there we've been to see two

electricians

none of which are around today day off

tomorrow

saturday we were thinking get it done

friday before

saturday and the only problem we do have

is that we're meant to be out of greece

today so

we're gonna have to just have a chat and

see what they have to say at the

customs office or we just sneak back

onto sure

don't tell anyone so many yachts

[Laughter]

tourists everywhere so yeah we're still

gonna have one more shot

and there's a guy that's in athens who's

coming

back tomorrow he said he can bring us a

starter battery back

so um it's a big hope

yeah but it might be our only option no

one else is

here so fortunately spheros arrived from

athens the next morning with a new

starter battery and was so kind and

helpful

thanks virus you are a legend we had a

good morning we had uh spiros from uh

in town and patmos come out with his

battery that he got for us

yeah he picked one up came down here the

winds have calmed it was blowing an

absolute gale

and i had to pick him up here with the

battery on that little

point on the edge and uh yeah took him

out to kauai and

through the waves through the waves

battery's sorted and

uh now we can leave and uh head to

turkey so we're pretty glad it's all

done

he was a champ though wasn't he it was a

real chat we got back to the boat

saturated and thought oh no

he's not gonna kind of want to come out

to our boat and he's

really good yeah just left his shoes on

the end he goes i'll leave my shoes here

i come and uh yeah he sorted it out

really quick he checked it

and uh yeah kauai is all ready to go and

um

obviously now the winds are gone yeah it

doesn't look like what it did

but there's some cute little cats with

you your fluffy thing

you gorgeous oh yeah you know it

well batteries are all fixed and we're

checking out of grease

all right let's go all right we're off

again

where are we off to now we've just come

from police

all right for the document to check out

of greece

that's the plan anyway yeah and we've

had our passports stamped

we are back going back to the boat um

and we are off we've all signed out

we're pretty happy

our 44 nautical mile trip would take us

from the western side of patmos to did

him in turkey

where we would check into the country

what a cracking start to the morning

all the pinks it's beautiful and the

coral up on the hill

up there the lights and the whiteness

it's just

just phenomenal so what's so special

about today

it's really exciting it's uh it's not

that we like want to get out of greece

we love greece

oh we have to turkey we've got to go

because uh

our 90 days is up i think i think we're

into our 91st or 92nd day

leaving and uh yeah america's bay

we're leaving

[Music]

she lives in the bar

let alone

down down

[Music]

how

when when we fall

straight down

[Music]

no

well we've just arrived to ditham turkey

and

we are in the passport control section

just waiting for somebody to stamp us

in and come across

something unusual at passport control

jason was a turkey at first i did

chickens well we've arrived to turkey

and uh pretty excited we

got here maybe an hour and a half ago

two hours ago yeah and we went into the

building where apparently everyone is

harvard master passport customs

and no one was there there was one

of the coast guard guys there and he

called

said i'll call someone was surprised

that there was no one in passport

control

he called someone and a guy rocked up in

destrucky's

casual sunday attire and uh

said that he was an agent and we needed

to use him to check in so um

yeah we sat with him and he took our

passports to

a guy cooking a barbecue

he came to the he was actually the

passport officer

and he brought us to the passport

control office and stamped us in which

was pretty cool

different experience yeah it was and the

main reason we couldn't do it ourselves

is that it is

the what date is it today uh 17th of

november out of season

and it's a sunday as well yeah and

customs aren't here anymore

well at this time so we're in dithum and

as of the 1st of october they had

somewhere else about an hour from here

so we would have to uh

hire a car yeah and there was no one at

passport control

anyway to stamp us in so it would have

been illegal

yeah so it all worked out well in the

end

and we've unfortunately kawaii's not

checked in yet but

uh tomorrow she will be his customs

isn't open today

and our agent took us

to migros and we got some efforts

yeah we love these beers turkish beers

so we've been missing it so we uh

celebrate tonight with a couple of beers

and uh yeah just happy to be in turkey

[Music]

[Music]

in the darkness

[Music]

escapes us

[Music]

is

well we just arrived to our new

anchorage here in turkey uh

4 a.m start so uh probably looking

pretty shabby right now but uh

that's all good we had to leave our

anchorage near the marina near where we

checked in

we were waiting there for our agent to

bring our documents back to us

overnight at 4 am we got woken by

large-ish waves and

strong winds coming into the anchorage

so we had to get out of it and we knew

it was coming but we were just hoping it

wouldn't get too bad until

midday when he was bringing our

paperwork back to us so

yeah it was a big storm and there was

also a big storm headed for us so

and the anchorage had a massive fetch in

front of it so

the swell could have got very large in

there so we got out of there while we

could

and we came nine nautical miles

away to this lovely little anchorage

where it's flying seven knots

so beautiful here it is very nice

it's very different looks like lots of

resorts or something there's a mosque

and then just all

the same similar looking houses

[Music]

cheers to turkey cheers to turkey

really good day i showered today

what a day that's a good day

and um yeah we checked that little town

over there we're just having a sundown

are watching uh

obviously the sun go down so we'll move

in tomorrow

did you say you showered today

else i can see is the silhouette of your

crazy hairdo

well that's part of the reason

[Laughter]

this hair has got a whole lot of

business going on at the moment it does

i'm doing this just to spite your mum

crazy hair i'm growing my beard out i

know she loves it

she does she loves it a lot

not

[Music]

[Music]

so you're in the middle of dinner there

what just happened well we're in our

quiet time

having food we're watching a bit of

netflix how to get away with murder

and um there's a spotlight on the back

of the boat

and then we got siren siren came on that

was the coast guard

so it's always a little bit daunting

when the coast guard comes and shines

epic light and it's

six men um

why we probably felt a little bit weird

about it is because we tried to check in

on

sunday and there was actually nobody

there

and today is tuesday

um so we got an agent on the day who's

got the paperwork he organized it for

today but we

are going to collect it tomorrow so

we could have really gone back to dinner

today to get it because the weather's

calmed down but

we didn't we organized it for tomorrow

morning to collect it so

because we thought the anchorage might

still be quite rolly

yeah we don't have a blue card because

there was

no harbour master in the office at that

point um

i don't know i i guess i was just a

little worried about

what might happen how they just arrived

on a

really dark night in the furthest corner

of a bay

without we've got the worst mars light

in history and they found us so

and there was a little sailboat today

that crews passed and um

like really close to us and he was

videoing us

yeah it was really weird and it just

felt strange so

yeah yeah i thought we might be getting

set up for a fine and it worked out

they left we they made sure that we put

the turkish flag up we only had the

yellow flag um

so we were quick to put the turkish flag

up very quickly

you almost fainted on the deck i think i

was so stressed

it was a different experience um

it's not what i expected i really didn't

really haven't seen him yeah well

i did say that guy or i hope he's not

sending videos back to the coast guard

and you were like as if

[Laughter]

i did not say it in that high pitch

pretty much exactly

anyway we will be back there at 9am

sharp

to get it and our blue card we'll get

there

yeah all right let's eat our food and

back to

normality well it is a gorgeous morning

here in

ditum in turkey we are situated in our

anchorage which is right outside of

de marin in dirham it was

very convenient anchorage because our

agent is located in the marina

and also the customs poor police

and the harbour master are in

building just over there so it's all

very handy and this morning we cruised

into our agent and picked up our

transit log and we also

bought the blue card from the marina

which is very important the coast guard

definitely made a point of us getting

that so we got that this morning this is

what they look like

that's the blue card it was 1150 turkish

lara which is pretty cheap

about three aussie dollars and that's

the transit log

so we are ready to roll and today we are

off to

an anchorage near bodrum next time on

kauai we leave dinim and sail south

along the turkish coast

stopping in our picturesque little towns

on our way to our final destination for

the season

marmara thanks so much for watching and

subscribing to join us on our journey

if you haven't already please subscribe

it's free to do and helps us a lot

also we really appreciate everyone

checking in to see how we're getting

along we're currently still in australia

and our plan is to hopefully head back

to turkey

and kauai early 2022