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Tuesday, November 5, 2013

A Farewell to Remember for our Visitors & The end of a Season - Oct 1 – Nov 4, 2013


We have had terrible weather here, in Gocek.  We think a small cyclone came through Tuesday night; it was a nightmare. The lightening was like a fireworks show, the seas were very high and choppy - shooting up through the docks ten feet in the air. It had come on in the late afternoon and raged for a while. We were anchored and planning to go in to meet BeBe for dinner on shore. We had decided not to go, but then around 7:30, it becalmed so we went in. After getting seated and chatting for a while the rain and wind came back but we were indoors and couldn't hear the howling. Apparently what we thought was the end of the storm was only the eye. The winds were now fiercer than before and coming from the other direction. After dinner, we walked out to a horror show. Boats were violently pitching and slamming at the wharf. Locals told us they had never seen this before in Gocek. Our dinghy was gone from the cleat we had tied to! We found it half deflated, slamming up against and under the little footbridge to Skopea Marina. BeBe was tossing up and down so much; their passerelle was pitching about 4 feet up into the air. A catamaran moored next to them was full of drunken Russians who were partying and singing, the girls looked as though they were pole dancing on the shrouds without a care in the world as they came perilously close to slamming into Bebe. Frank and Jaime got on board to help Judy & Bill get BeBe secured, but some other boats didn't fare so well sustaining stern damage and damage to their passerelles.

We were now stranded on shore with no means to get back to Destiny. We couldn’t even see if she was still where we had left her. Eventually the captain of one of the mega yachts deployed his dinghy (looked like a Navy seal tender) and jetted us out to our boat. Sure enough she was there but pitching like a mad bull making it extremely difficult and more than a little scary trying to get on board. The captain was kind enough to return to shore for our crippled dinghy, towing it back to us. Frank raised the prune-shriveled tender on the davit, and we all hunkered down inside trying to ride the rest of the storm out. None of us had seen this on the weather forecasts.

The next morning of course the skies were clear and the day beautiful. The dinghy was taken to the hospital with a rip (above the waterline) and some cracks in the fiberglass bottom. Jaime and Christine left on the 3rd. They certainly had some adventures to write home about.

After the dinghy repair we leisurely returned to Yacht Classic in Fethiye, via the lovely islands on the way, to get Destiny ready for her long Winter’s nap.


We had gotten so lucky with our summer cruising here because it was quite mild and then our trip back up from Kas was one of the best sails we had here, which is amazing since we've heard that it is a bash coming back up. So I guess the odds were heading us toward a really bad day, eventually. The cold has settled in here as well, which makes nice sleeping weather. Today the winds are unmerciful but skies are clear and the temp is cool. I guess when the season starts it comes in with a bang!