Blown Away

I have been trying but failing to airdrop myself a video I compiled yesterday of a vessel dragging anchor and getting blown out to sea! That was the adventure of the day, all day yesterday! We've been on anchor here in Datca, Turkey for about a week now. The first several days were incredibly pleasant. The water is crystal clear, there are turtles grazing on the seagrass, and we have been able to swim with the turtles on more than a handful of occasions. 

Sasha and I managed to snorkel and dive beneath the waves with the turtles, Micah has yet to have a chance because when we arrived in Datca he was struggling with multiple infected blisters, a bacterial infection that spread from a simple rope burn graze he got on the back of his knee. One minute it was just a graze, and in a matter of days it was a multitude of circular, open wounds, oozing and inflamed. I will not lie, I was scared shitless!

You know how parents are meant to look all calm and "don't worry, its only a flesh wound!" but I was angry with myself and scared that it would get much worse and require a hospital. I am, by nature, a hypochondriac. I can't just have a headache, I probably have a brain tumor. I can't just have a stomach ache, I probably have bowel cancer. I say this because I am, by nature, a very anxious person who rarely gets a headache, rarely gets a stomach ache, rarely gets ill, and who really could do with a meditation/mindfulness practice that isn't so sporadically committed to, but such is the way of someone with ADD/ADHD! So for me, feeling shit is the end of the world! I am the worst sick person out there! When I get the flu its got to be the Man Flu, it can't be the regular one! I feel like I am dying if I am sick. I have never had a single childhood disease...ever! Not measles, not mumps, not chickenpox, not anything that kids run through that are contagious as hell. Trust me, my mother tried to put me with my siblings when they got a contagious childhood illness, never happened to me.

So the anger, at myself, was that I had let it get this bad without noticing. Micah had been going over to the neighbour's boat to play with their son who was the same age as him. Its on that boat that he got the rope burn, a simple graze that happened when he was swinging off a rope line attached to the mast before jumping in the water. His leg had gotten caught against the rope and so when letting go, had burned the back of his knee. It was just a graze. But after daily dips in the bay, a bay with poor visibility and likely very little real movement of water out of the bay, he got a bacterial infection. 

The infection looked like infected mosquito bites but soon we noted smaller blisters forming that were filled with fluid. I busted out the saline solution, the silver plasters and the antibiotic powder I had brought back from India. These helped a bit but were far from a quick solution. Eventually I went to the pharmacy on shore, pointed at the plasters on his leg and said I needed something to clean a wound, something to heal a wound and something to protect a wound from further spread of infection. I walked away with an antibiotic ointment, a liquid in a bottle that looked like betadine, fresh gauze strips and waterproof plasters. 

Whatever that ointment was, it worked! Within a day or two he had fresh skin formed and the open wounds were closed. From there we had to just wait for the dry and dead skin to fall away and so, much to his dismay, I refused to let him in the water even when there were turtles swimming so close to us as we sat on anchor in Datca. The infection he got was in the anchorage at Kiz Kumu, the same anchorage where my father came to visit us for a few days. It was a peaceful anchorage but the water there was likely not very clean. I myself ended up with a urinary tract infection after swimming in that water and I ceased swimming for the remainder of our time there because I was worried that the water and my infection were linked. 

I jumped in the water as soon as we were confident our anchor held in Datca! The water was crystal clear, visibility for over 10 meters deep, and since it had been so many weeks since I had been for a swim, I was over the moon to have such beautiful, cool, crystalline blue water at last. The other thing here in Datca is also that it is more open to the sea, so there is more movement of water out to the open water. Me being the germaphobe I am, and after my last time ending up having to find a hospital late at night so I could get antibiotics for my urinary tract infection, I am not going to risk swimming in water I find questionable. Did you know that there is likely more bacteria in the water at a beach than in a swimming pool? I know, I don't even risk swimming pools unless its dire because I have had fungal infections on my skin all through my childhood from using public pools! My brother would even get ringworm from using public pools, much as it sounds like a worm, its a fungal infection. I just...nope, I won't do a pool unless I trust the folks keeping it clean. 

Anyway, despite the visible signs of trash in the water here in Datca, with everything from plastic beach furniture, glass beer bottles to aluminium beer cans littered on the seabed below, the water itself is crystal clear and I am willing to risk it. Unfortunately for Micah, by the time his wounds had healed the winds picked up. For the past few days its been blowing gusts of wind anywhere from 15 to 35 knots. In those winds, you don't want to be swimming off the back of your boat, its just not worth the risk.  

The winds are expected to keep gusting, I guess these are what they call the Meltemi winds. We will have to contend with them as we sail our way back towards Greece, against the wind for the most part. 

A quick Google search brought me the following information: "The Meltemi winds were known by the Ancient Greeks as the Etesian northerly winds. They result from a high-pressure system over the Balkans area and a relatively low-pressure system over Turkey. This wind polarises many people with locals often welcoming it while tourists may despair. It’s handy to understand what it is and where it affects to make sure your vacation plans don’t go awry and you still have a fabulous trip to Greece."

I guess if you chartered a vessel or you have a boat trip planned, the Meltemi winds can put a damper on your holiday because riding that jetski in 30knots could be a recipe for disaster! Plus, all your holiday photos would have you with windblown hair in your eyes!

We are likely going to remain in Datca until about Tuesday when we use an agent to check us out of Turkey. From here the easiest path would be for us to sail to the nearest Greek island of Symi, one we can see just on the horizon from where we are anchored here in Turkish waters. Its also the island that the sailboat that drifted off was moving towards yesterday when we were encountering 30 knot winds. 

We had noticed the boat dragging anchor because initially it was anchored well ahead of us but at some point it was almost parallel to us. No one was onboard, it had clearly been left there anchored vs the owner putting it in a marina during inclement weather conditions. So once we were certain it was not going to dig in again, we called for the coast guard only to find that no one answered our radio call. We then picked up the phone, calling the number, eventually someone answered but there was no one in their office who spoke English. 

Our next step in trying to hail some sort of response team saw us proceed to contact the agent we had hired to check us out of Turkey when the time comes, letting him know that the boat, call sign "Brother" had begun drifting out to open waters and that we needed the coast guard informed or even whatever authority that the boat was registered with so that the owner could be informed if at all possible. 

After yet more time passed with no sign of action, our radio buzzed and a sailor on a neighbouring catamaran anchored in the bay informed us that him and another boat owner would make the journey to the coast guard office in their dinghy to raise some form of an alarm and a response. Off we saw them motor, across the white capped waves to the cove where the coast guard office is. It was probably another 15 minutes before we saw them on their return journey, by which point the drifting vessel was looking well on its way to Symi, Greece!

Finally we saw the coast guard boat motor out from the cove. Through our binoculars, each of us taking turns to look, we saw the boat catch up with the drifting vessel in the distance, a mere speck on the horizon by this point. Another 20 minutes and we saw another small motor boat, a fishing boat, head out from the same cove towards the coast guard boat and the drifting vessel. By this point even looking through the binoculars was pointless because they were so far out it would give you a headache to look while the winds buffeted our own boat at 30 knots, making holding a steady gaze nearly impossible. 

It was another couple of hours before we finally saw the small fishing boat towing the rescued sailboat back towards the cove on the other side of where we are anchored in Datca, the coast guard boat following behind the two vessels. That must have been a dangerous mission because in 30 knot winds, getting someone to hop from one boat to another that is drifting, its not an easy task! That could have gone much worse, of course, this is not the first vessel we've encountered that dragged anchor. The first time was when a 45-foot sailboat dragged anchor in Vathy, Ithaca and slammed into our boat! One moment we were all below deck on our screens and next we heard a big bang. We all rushed up on deck to find this boat right beside us before it pulled back and slammed into our port side hull again. We were lucky that the winds weren't excessive that day so Jeroen had even climbed aboard that vessel but once on it, calling out to whoever he had assumed may have been on there, he realized it was unmanned and that he had no idea how to turn the engine on so he could move the boat or pull up its anchor. Contrary to what most people may believe, it would be hard for someone to know they were drifting if they stayed below deck. The boat rocks and rolls on the waves, and if there is a swell, that too would feel like the normal movement of the boat. Without an anchor alarm set up on an electronic device of some kind, you wouldn't know you'd drifted, which is why keeping your eyes on your surroundings is a must, its why "Anchor Watch" is a thing!

In the end we ended up pulling up our anchor and getting away from that boat as it continued to drag anchor, pin-balling its way through the bay and finally towards the shore where many small motor boats were tied to the dock. It was like watching a nightmare in slow motion. We were fortunate that our boat is so sturdy that nothing actually happened to us because of our rub rail, a protective metal trim around the boat that acted like a bumper of sorts. It was also fortunate that the winds were nowhere nearly as strong as we are encountering here in Datca, that boat dragged anchor in maybe 8 knots, but possibly because he had not put out much chain. We had to call the coast guard for that one too! The coast guard there responded in time to drag the boat out to deeper water because it had its chain and anchor out and the only way to move it without a means to pull up the anchor was to stabilize it at a greater depth where the anchor would not catch while moving it. Eventually the owner came speeding back in his tender from shore and had to deal with the damage done to his boat. 

The second time we watched a boat drag anchor was just the day before yesterday, that was a big motorboat. Again, no one was on deck and no one would have been paying attention when it headed towards the rocky shore. We alerted them when we sounded our air horn several times and the same neighbouring catamaran sailor, once again, hopped in his tender and headed over to shout out to the person who came up from below deck just in time to turn the engine on, hoist the anchor and move out of harms way, just moments before the boat would have sustained damage on the rocks behind it.

Jeroen has remained on anchor watch the past two nights, sleeping above deck with one eye open to ensure we don't end up in Symi way ahead of our planned entry into Greece! 

Other than those little adventures, the rest of our time has been spent accessing resources to figure out how we ship our meagre belongings to Dubai when the time comes. I have been frantically trying to sort out the necessary paperwork for the boys to get into the school of our choice when we move. Its been stressful, for sure, especially knowing that the first tasks related to the hurdle of jumping back into traditional schooling involve CAT4 and MAP tests that the boys are meant to take remotely as we bob about on the water in Turkey and Greece. 

Testing.

I feel like testing is only there to see if you fail. The CAT4 test looks like a psych evaluation with questions even I can't make heads or tails of, what little I gleaned from the sample questions available online make me feel like you might as well pin a tail on a donkey! The MAP tests are for English and Math and have questions like "what is the antonym to..." in the sample questions we looked at online. Jeroen was already annoyed saying, "who really ever says that shit in real life? Why not just say the "opposite"?" Yeah, this is what traditional schooling is. When I asked the school if there was any way we could prepare the boys, being as they have been home schooled the past two plus years, they said that it was not a pass-fail test and that there was no way to prepare for it, just to look at it as a snapshot in time. 

A snapshot in time. Or a snapshot of how well you take tests or can handle the stress of taking tests!

I hate tests. I hate exams. I feel like my entire high school experience was a living hell and I am genuinely anxious for my kids going back into mainstreaming. Jeroen also had a horrible experience in the traditional schooling system with teachers even telling him not to bother trying to become a pilot because he didn't have the aptitude for it! This is what we are both contending with, our own take away from our very real lived experience of going through the traditional schooling system. Of course, the school we are looking at for the kids has the benefit of smaller student to teacher ratio, 1:7 apparently, and they have incredible extracurricular activities on offer...but still...if we had it our way, we'd choose a system where they aren't indoctrinated to become cogs in the capitalist wheel. I know, I know, I sound like a socialist!

As we lay there in bed looking up at the cabin ceiling, minds adrift in thoughts about the future, we held hands and agreed that if the kids don't get into this school we've applied to, we will just continue with the home education with Wolsey Hall Oxford, hire private tutors and just say fuck it to the system. We are at peace with however this plays out. 

That is it from me for now. Until next time.