In early June we left a beautiful place called Boskada, a small town filled with pastel colored homes, white and blue window sills and creative art graffiti on its walls. We were headed for Ayvalik as we could see strong winds (a dark red zone on predict wind) coming our way the next day. Eager to avoid the storm we set sail at 4pm knowing that we had 10 hours ahead of us to reach our safe destination.
The trip was pleasant, we took turns at the helm and then the sun set its beautiful rays behind the mountains. At 10pm out of nowhere we could see a bright light coming towards us at high speed, looking at our radar it was undetected but this speeding boat went passed us turned around and went back. Wondering what that was all about we continued moving. An hour later suddenly just behind us were those big lights again and this time we hear a high-pitched horn that made us jump. It was a Turkish coast guard boat asking us to stop.
Flustered by the sudden visit, we retrieved our file that holds all the pertinent papers and made our passports ready. An authoritarian yet pleasant guard asked us some basic questions on where we were headed and where we came from and then asked for our papers. The coast guard boat was magnificent, it a large, sturdy structure with sophisticated gadgets and their team was in full uniform with their masks and full gear on. As I went to get our passports, I came back to find Anwar going on to their boat. That’s when I started to feel nervous! When they first arrived I was startled then felt okay that it was the coast guard but when Anwar left our boat, I thought “there’s something wrong”. I kept looking at Anwar’s expressions to evaluate what was going on; he was actually talking and laughing and looking around their boat as they explained things to him. Soon he was back on the boat and everything was fine, so it turned out that Anwar had admired their boat so they invited him to have a look at it and gave him a mini-tour. The team were extremely polite and courteous and they gave us face masks with their logo and the number of their boat. We felt safe in Turkish waters after having met them!
We continued until we reached Ayvalik marina at 1:30am and went to sleep soon after as we were exhausted. We wake up at 6am to rattling of the sail lines, banging noises and the whole boat was shaking. Anwar turned on the navigation to see the strength of the wind, it read 61 knots! We had to look at it again for that number to sink in. There were things flying around so Anwar and Hani ventured to go outside to secure all the ‘flying objects’ including our sail bag which was completely open and the sails were fighting to move upwards. The wind brought with it heavy rain that muddled your visibility so packing cushions and tying pieces down was a real challenge.
My instinctive reaction was to start packing so that we could leave the boat as soon as possible, I didn’t see the need to go through the storm while sitting on the boat, I’d rather be in a sheltered place where I didn’t have to see and hear what was happening outside. I slowly realized that we weren’t leaving the boat, it was 7am by then and there was nowhere to go.
As the time passed we started to get used to the noises and the movement of the boat back and forth against the side of the pier. We took comfort in watching the numbers on the screen as they went up and down, we’d get excited when the wind speed reached 40knots versus the 60 knots that gusted every few minutes. This went on for about 5 hours and then it started to calm down until everything was back to normal by the evening but many boats close to where we were didn’t make it and a total of 22 boats sank, many of which were the tourists boats gearing up to get ready for the tourist season. These wooden boats were standing facing the pier and the wind was coming from behind them pushing them towards the pier.
This wind was never predicted to reach Ayvalik but with the weather ever changing and moving, you can never be sure. We were fortunate to have been docked at a marina during the storm and the wind direction was pushing us away from the pier rather than against. I guess these experiences make you stronger because now we know what its like to be in 60knots of wind!
