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2008 EMYR
Schedule
Monday, May 5th, Orhaniye, Turkey
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It seems like such a
long time ago when I wrote the last update. Our
lives have gotten very busy as we follow along with the
rally schedule. We've made three passages
with the group since I last wrote. I hope we can
keep this pace up for the next six and a half weeks.
Click here to see the schedule of passages, tours
and parties for the portion of the rally (all but ten
days) that we will participate in. It's a pretty grueling
pace for a typically-relaxed crowd of sailors to keep up
with, but we all agree that it will be well worth the
inevitable hassle of traveling in a big group and the
hopefully-not-too-frequent exhaustion.
The first rally passage
was a bit of a bash. We spent the first four hours
motoring directly into 18 knots of wind, bashing through
the waves, and hoping something would change. Our
wish was granted as the wind died down to 5 knots but at
least we weren't bashing any more. We lucked out
for the last three hours of the trip and had a nice
mellow sail the rest of the way into the marina.
Back in Kuşadasi, we
embarked on our first rally tour which took us to the
Ephesus Museum, the Virgin Mary's House, and the ruins
at the ancient site of Ephesus. A mini-bus picked
us up from our boats at nine in the morning. Ozan,
our guide, greeted us as we boarded the bus and gave us
a nice history lesson about the region as we drove
towards our first stop, the museum.
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Many of the important
artifacts found during the excavations of Ephesus reside
in the museum. Amazingly, only ten percent of the
site has been excavated. Ozan tells us that Turkey
needs a lot more money to fund future excavations and to
protect the ruins sufficiently from vandals and the
weather. They are much safer left buried in the
ground.
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Even leaving ninety
percent up to the imagination, the site inspires awe.
The first development at the site, dating back to 2000
B.C., took advantage of its position on the southern
shore of a huge bay located at the mouth of the Cayster
River where it meets the Aegean Sea. In the
ensuing few thousand years, through the constant
erosion of the land around it by the forces of wind and
water, the bay completed silted in. Six
kilometers of flatlands separate the ancient site of
Ephesus from the sea today.
The Greeks conquered
the city from its original inhabitants in the eleventh
century BC. An important commercial center, it was
a major departure point for the trade routes into Asia
Minor. Equally noteworthy was its religious
significance. The Hittites worshiped the Mother
Goddess, Kybele, at a temple constructed in her honor.
The Greeks later called the Mother Goddess Artemis and
built a huge temple for her at Ephesus. One of the
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the sight of the
huge gleaming columns of the Temple of Artemis was said
to blind people with its beauty. Sadly, all that
remains to be seen today is a single reconstructed
column on the sight. Our tour did not even bother
to stop there. We did get to see a model of the
temple in the museum and one of the statues of the
goddess Artemis as well. She was a powerful lady,
one of the chief Greek goddesses presiding over wild
animals, hunting, nature, the moon, fertility,
childbirth and the harvest. I can certainly
understand why people wanted to stay on her good side!
Imagine the havoc she could reek upon those who angered
her.
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Like so many ancient
Greek cities, Ephesus fell to the Romans, after
suffering invasions by the Persians, Egyptians and
Syrians, in 190 B.C. It soon became the capital
and most important commercial center for the Roman
province of Asia.
Ephesus also bears
great significance in the history of early Christianity.
St. Paul is known to have spent five or six years living
in Ephesus, preaching and trying to establish the new
religion of Christianity. Furthermore, according
to the bible, as he hung dying on the cross, Jesus
instructed St. John to look upon the Virgin Mary as his
mother and the Virgin Mary to look upon St. John as her
son. There is significant proof that St. John came
to Ephesus in the latter part of his life. He
wrote the fourth book of the New Testament while living
there and died in Ephesus. Having accepted
responsibility for the Virgin Mary when instructed by
Jesus, it follows that the Virgin Mary also came to
Ephesus. The house where she is supposed to have
lived stands atop a hill overlooking the ancient city.
Devastated by the death of her son and the violent
struggles she witnessed in Jerusalem, she secluded
herself on the hilltop and lived out her last days here.
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Enough with the history
lesson. The glorious weather, the fascinating
ruins and the input of a knowledgeable guide made our
first rally tour a real delight. We were back at
the marina by 2pm.
We left Kuşadasi for
Turgutries early on Wednesday and had a fairly nice day of light
winds which left us alternating between motoring and
sailing depending on the strength and angle of the
winds. We started out, however, with a huge
fishing success. Simultaneous hits on the rod and
the new reel I mounted on the starboard rail galvanized
us into action at seven thirty in the morning.
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I changed into my fish
cleaning foulies and went to work. I think it was
three hours later by the time I was finally restocking
our freezer with tuna. It is a lot of work, but
the seared tuna steaks are well worth it!
There was no organized
tour from Turgutries so we took the dolmuş
into the city of Bodrum, which boasts a lovely Crusader
Castle. The church inside the castle walls, like
most Christian churches in Turkey, had been converted to
a mosque by the Ottomans with the simple addition of a
minaret.
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As we gazed over the
castle wall at the lovely anchorage on the other side of
the city, we had a pang of regret that we were bypassing
all these wonderful spots so quickly. It is so
difficult to reconcile oneself to the loss of
opportunities presented by the path not chosen.
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The next day we were
scheduled for a 65 mile passage to Orhaniye. The
forecast was calling for good strong winds on the beam
for most of the way. Now, I'd like to quote you
from the Rally "Bible." "The rally is neither
race nor regatta, and the use of auxiliary engines
and spinnakers to assist during passage making is left
entirely to the discretion of each skipper." Well,
any of you who know anything at all about sailing know
that whenever there are two boats heading in the same
direction in some proximity to each other IT IS A RACE!
Who do you think you are trying to fool? As the
word spread about the good winds for the passage, the
strategizing began.
We were the second to
last boat out of the marina on Sunday morning.
Departing just moments behind us was the newcomer,
Rumpus, a Beneteau First 44.7, with Rupert at the
helm. Joe and Rupert had met on the dock in
Turgutries so Joe knew he was a racing sailor from New
Zealand. Well, it didn't take us long to see just
how serious he was as shortly after raising the main,
out comes his full symmetrical spinnaker. Wow!
I had to listen to Joe's sighs and groans for two hours
while they ground us down. "Do you think they are
gaining on us?" he asks.
It was a downwind run
and there was no way we could keep up with that kind of
sail unless of course we got out our spinnaker.
The leg was relatively short so it didn't make sense to
rig the spinnaker. We suffered through the
humiliation of being passed by a 44 foot monohull.
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In our defense, it is a
speedy little race boat driven by a racing skipper.
We'll get him next time!
Joe basically stopped
whining once they were all the way by us. It was
time to strategize about catching them!
We turned the corner
around an island and came into a great breeze just a
little aft of the beam. We pulled out our big
genniker and started catching boats. We sailed by
a dozen boats in the fleet. Square in our sights
was our nemesis, Rumpus. We were only a few hundred
yards away when we saw their mainsail drop down and
plaster itself against the spreaders. The halyard
had given way. It was blowing a good 25 to 30
knots by this time so it was a frightening sight. We
made sure that everything was okay before passing by.
Later on that evening, we found that our friends on
Twice Eleven were docked right next to them. We
went over for cocktails and were joined by Rupert and
his crew Richard. We had a ball rehashing the
"race", teasing each other, with each of us vowing
victory in our next match up. Stay tuned.......
Next Entry >>>>>>>
Many thanks to our friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
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