Our plan for today was to view a couple of beaches on the way to Ölüdeniz Beach then go paragliding. Well, I was going paragliding. Michael was going to take pictures and cheer me on. 🙂

We saw this along the way so stopped to enjoy the view and take a couple of pictures.

Snow on the mountains!

This is Butterfly Valley. Beautiful!! We considered visiting it by sailboat later in our trip, but we don’t think we will make it after all. I am glad we got to see it from up top. You can’t hike down to it.

Our next stop was Hanuman Paragliding on Ölüdeniz Beach. Ölüdeniz Beach is a big, beautiful, and popular beach, and the perfect location for paragliding. Hanuman Paragliding is a trustworthy company. I highly recommend them. If you have an opportunity to select a pilot for tandem paragliding, I recommend my pilot, Törehan Şimşek. He was great – he even let me take control of the chute for a bit,

When we arrived, we were told that we were going to take off from the 1200 meter point because it was too windy for the highest point of 1960 meters. Oh well!

The drive up the mountain to the launching point was a twisty-turny experience. The driver must have driven this road hundreds of times because he drove quite fast (did I mention there are no guardrails?), even on the switchbacks. I am glad I took my motion sickness pills that morning; without them, I would have been pretty carsick by the time we got to the jumping off point.

We saw the top of a chairlift as we were making our way up the mountain, so they clearly ski this mountain.

When we finally stopped, we were told that we were taking off from the 1960 meter point after all. Yay!

A little background: I’ve jumped out of perfectly good airplanes 48 times, so I know what to expect from that. I did not, however, know what to expect from walking off a cliff with an already-open chute over my head. Törehan told me that I should walk when he told me to walk and run when he told me to run. He also told me not to sit down (there is a comfy seat for the passenger) until he told me to. I asked him how fast I should run (is this a sprint?) but I don’t remember what he said. In the end, it didn’t matter, because I think I took maybe two steps before we were airborne. It was pretty windy.

Here are some pictures from the top before we took off.

As per usual, I had spent a fair amount of time researching what to do in the part of Türkiye we would be visiting. One adventure that presented itself repeatedly was Saklikent Canyon. I had written it off at one point because one post indicated that the water would be too high and too cold (from the melting snow from the mountains) in April. Happily, and luckily, I put it back on the To Do list!! It was amazing!!

First, the water was pretty much freezing! It was the kind of cold where your feet go numb so you no longer care how cold it is. The water also got quite deep: mid thigh at the highest point (although that is probably because the rapids made the water run up my thigh – it was probably just knee deep). Second, any good Colorado gal has hiked in the Big Thompson River (or some other river) when it was high, fast, and cold due to snow melt, so she knows what it is like for her feet and lower limbs to go numb. Right, my fellow Coloradoans?!

Saklikent Gorge, also known as Hidden City, is about 18 kilometers long and 300 meters deep. It is the longest canyon in Türkiye and one of the deepest in the world. The hike we took (out and back) is four km total.

Okay, let’s just start with this entrance sign. There are two comical things. I understand why one wouldn’t consume alcohol while traipsing through the water, but . . . nuts? What do they have against nuts? And, I don’t know how one would enter the canyon “from a hard hat” unless they are the size of Ant-Man (when he is, you know, ant-sized). I love these signs!

“Girisi” means entrance, so this was our starting point.

There is one way for us to get into town: by dinghy then foot. This is completely cool with us since we actually have a dinghy now. Oh how we are enjoying that!

But first, let’s remember why we are even here. We’d planned to go directly to the Greek Dodecanese islands after we left Cyprus, but Michael did what he often does: he chatted with a stranger he met at the marina. When telling this gentleman of our plans, the gentleman suggested that we visit Kaş, Türkiye first. Because we are open to new ideas and don’t have a really strict schedule, we did some research. After about an hour’s worth of study, we decided that it was an excellent idea to visit Türkiye before Greece!

So, here we are. We shared a couple of pictures of the anchorage in the previous post, but since it is so pretty, we are sharing some more.

The clouds!

This Colorado gal loves, loves, loves seeing mountains!

We also have great views of the sunset and a portion of Kaş at night from our boat.

We left Cyprus on Good Friday and arrived in Türkiye on Easter Sunday. The GRIBs correctly predicted the winds, so the trip was uneventful. Whew! What a way to spend the Easter weekend!

We are now in the Kaş marina anchorage. A berth in the marina would have cost about $170/day so we said, “no thank you.” This means that we need to revisit our plans. We’d expected to be in a marina for at least a part of our visit so that we could take a four-day road trip. That’s not going to happen now.

Let us first say something about the work we got done at the Limassol Marina. It was lightning fast! We were astonished and grateful. 🙂 The Raymarine dude replaced two navigation instrument displays and installed a triducer. The Yanmar folks emptied and cleaned our fuel tanks, cleaned our fuel/water separators (for both engines and the generator), replaced the serpentine belts on both engines, and replaced the water pump belt on the starboard engine. It wasn’t cheap (at all!) but everything needed to be done and was done quickly. We also hired a diver to check our props and propellers. (We are certified divers but we don’t have a tank on board. Must get one.) We hired the diver for a couple of reasons. First, Michael had cut yet more plastic from the props and wanted to make sure that it had all been removed. Second, we’d been hearing a weird sound from the rudders and wanted to make sure that nothing was amiss. There wasn’t.

Here are a few pictures of the work we had done at Limassol. We’ll start with the fuel tanks. First, they attach a hose to the bottom of the fuel tank. You can see a nozzle toward the bottom of the tank in the middle:

Next, they put the hose through the portlight and attach it to a pump.

This little pump (the black thing in the middle with two hoses attached to it) moves the fuel from the tank to a big barrel in the back of their truck.

They emptied the starboard tank, then we used the fuel transfer pump to move the fuel from the port tank to the starboard tank. When they were done, there was no more fuel left on Seahike.

We’re back! April Fools pulled a fast one on us. That, or I jinxed us again by saying over and over how much we LOVE Cyprus. She called us back!

What actually happened is that we were headed to Turkey – we left at 12:40 a.m. on April Fools Day. After motoring for about 18 hours, the RPMs on our starboard engine dropped. When we went to check it out we smelled smoke coming from the engine. We turned off the engine and decided to go back to Cyprus. We would rather have professionals look at the engine than try to fix it ourselves. And we don’t want to head to Turkey, Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Italy, and Tunisia with only one working engine. We don’t have a great deal of trust in either engine at this point. 🙂

This seems to be our curse. I think we’ve had more engine problems in four months than we should (well, maybe “should” isn’t the right word) in four years. Although, we are wondering this time if dirty fuel tanks might be involved. . .

Rather than return to Ayia Napa, which is at the east end of Cyprus, we contacted Limassol Marina to see if we could stay there. It was closer to our (then) current location and also closer to Turkey (in the big scheme of things). We were happy when they said it was okay. We got to the marina at 5:00 a.m. yesterday, went to sleep again, then checked in with Customs and Immigration a few hours later.

I took a walk around the marina and nearby area yesterday morning while Captain Michael took a nap. This place is amazing! There are numerous restaurants and bars, and even a Cigar Lounge. (You might recall that Michael and I share a cigar or two every year.) There are showers for the yachters (we’ve already used them), and a gym and spa. I might – wait for it – get a pedicure!

In addition, no more than 10 minutes after we moved to our temporary berth yesterday, Kathy from the U.K. (I don’t think that is her official name) came by to welcome us. She introduced us to the owner of the boat she was a guest on, Brian from Britain (ditto, but how alliterative). Brian told us that he had a friend staying at the marina who could give us the name of a good diesel engine mechanic. A women who works at the marina also told us she would contact folks who could work on our engine problem.

So, that’s where we are now. We considered flying to Turkey in case we don’t have time to sail there, but the cost of the flight alone is pretty prohibitive given that we are now spending more money on a marina, mechanics, and coffee and pastries at the coffee shop (!).

p.s. I wrote most of this yesterday. As of this moment (12:06 p.m. on April 3), a mechanic is looking at the engine and the fuel. Michael also arranged to have someone look at one of our Raymarine instrument displays that just started acting up before we left Cyprus the first time, and he has already come and gone. He will have two new instruments (we are replacing two since one is simply old and will likely fail soon, given our luck <grin>) for us within three days.

Everything works out for the better in the end. Stay calm and carry on!

In the meantime, here are some pictures of the marina and surrounding area.

The time has come. It is bittersweet. We look forward to the next part of our adventure, but we have loved our time in Cyprus. It is a beautiful country. The people are kind and demonstrate generosity of spirit. In that way, they remind me of the people we met in Israel. It is one of the greatest pleasures of travel. It restores my faith in humanity when so many horrible things are happening in this world.

We have some repairs to make to the boat. Two of our windows have “popped.” I am using this term, I don’t think it is technically what it is called. What I mean is that they are no longer sealed to the boat entirely. The second one just popped yesterday. Apparently, this boat is known for windows cracking. I guess I’d rather have it pop than crack. Anywho, Michael and I are going to attempt to seal them today. Fingers crossed.

I guess that is the only actual repair we have to make, so I misspoke. The other stuff we need to do is typical maintenance and more cleaning. Seahike gets rub marks when she is in a berth. I am not really sure where they come from since we use fenders, but they magically appear. We also need to flush out the old coolant and add new. The only coolant we could find (was it in Egypt?) wasn’t exactly the right stuff so we want to swap it out with the right stuff.

We’ve changed our itinerary three times now. 🙂 The first time we changed it was because we learned that the Corinth Canal is going to be closed when we want to use it. The second time was yesterday, when a gentleman who has been sailing for 20 years recommended that we stop at Kas, Turkey before beginning our tour of the Greek Islands. So now we are going to do that.

As to when we leave Cyprus, we think it will either be late Sunday (like 11:00 p.m.) or early Monday (like 3:00 or 4:00 a.m.). We need to talk to the Control Room to see if we can leave under the cover of darkness. We also need to ask Customs and Immigration what hours they operate and whether we can check out with them one day and leave the next should the need occur. (I am writing this today because I think it is the only time I will have to dedicate to the blog.)

We still have a twisted main halyard. We kept waiting for a windless day and either we had one and didn’t take advantage (most likely!) or it was windy. We’ve never tried to untwist a halyard so we don’t even know if it can be done but it is a HUGE pain in the ass to raise the mainsail. First, I go to the mast to try to untwist the line by hand. Then we try to raise the sail. Then we see that it won’t go to the top of the mast because the lines are twisted. Then we drop the sail. Repeat. Repeat. Until success. If it is quite windy we can raise her with one reef in her and call it a day, but that isn’t always the case.

We finally went to Cape Greco. It is on the southeast corner of the island. It is beautiful. Here are some pictures both from the land and from Seahike.

The last post, which was about my sister’s birthday, also included information about the first part of our final road trip in Cyprus. This post contains info about the rest of our trip.

On my sister’s actual birthday, March 23rd, we went for a hike. We actually went for several hikes on this road trip. This is the “hike” part of “Seahike.” The trail we hiked on March 23rd was the Millomeris Waterfall Trail. We chose this because it was about the right length (2.4 km round trip) and ended with a waterfall at the turn-around point. There are several hikes in Cyprus that end with a waterfall, so you have choices should you choose to hike here.

The instructions told us to park at the Platres Athletic Center, but Google Maps couldn’t find it, so we parked at the first “free parking” sign we saw and walked downhill about 50 meters to the sign that marked the trailhead. (I should note that a couple of hours later the parking lot was full, and we were there in the off season. If you are going to take this hike, you will want to get an early start.)

There were no surprises on this trail. No rock hopping. No boulders. Just a nice trail. There were uphill and downhill portions, but what respectable trail doesn’t have those? We walked by a babbling brook for quite a while before heading uphill and away from it. It is a beautiful trail and the waterfall is a treat for the eyes and spirit.

As I sit on a bed in a hotel listening to a Greek cartoon, I think about my sister, whose birthday is today. Other than when we were at each other’s throats when we were younger, she’s been a good big sister. Happy day to you, Debbie. I hope it is awesome!!

Now, to what we’ve been doing. The last time I wrote, we’d returned from Israel. We then spent several weeks relaxing on Seahike at the marina. That included breaking in our new dinghy motor. I was very excited:

Michael did a fine job driving while I adopted the role of hood ornament so I could read my book, take pictures, and stare at the clouds.

I tried some octopus at the marina’s restaurant. It was very good!

We spent a wonderful afternoon with six 20-somethings. We met the three women on the cab ride home from Israel. We’d invited them to meet us for coffee at Coffee Berry and go for a sail with us. We were SO happy when they contacted us the next day. They asked if they could bring three of their friends. “Of course!”

There ended up being no wind that day, but we had a nice time chatting at the coffee shop, then took all of us out on Seahike (via motor). They were so much fun! It was a wonderful day!

We’ve had some rainy days in Ayia Napa. My umbrella reminds me to be safe:

We were very happy with our trip thus far. We were also excited about what was ahead. We ended up deviating from my itinerary a bit due to lack of time, but it all turned out fine in the end.

We took the train from Jerusalem to the airport the morning of the 24th. We did that because we needed a car for the rest of our journey.

Our first stop on our road trip was to Ein Gedi Reserve. We absolutely did not have enough time there and would go back in a heartbeat if we are in Israel again. That said, we took a lovely short hike and saw four waterfalls. Now, that might not seem interesting but we were pretty much in a freakin’ desert, so four waterfalls seemed excessive. Here are some pics from our short hike:

We next drove to Masada National Park but they’d closed early that day so we had to skip it. We had already planned to go to the Dead Sea, so we followed that plan. Not much to say except it was absolutely beautiful and we floated!

We took a little trip! The marinas in Israel had no room for us so we decided to fly there and visit for a week. Our itinerary was packed. That was the plan: spend a little time in a lot of places to get a feel for the country and have diverse experiences.

Those who worked with me know that I tend to plan using the “back of the napkin” method. Here are the notes I took:

Perhaps those who utilize a similar system will recognize the superior methodology. I ended up with a very well-organized itinerary that I typed in Google docs. We didn’t follow it 100 percent but it was a very useful guide and allowed us to make amendments on the fly. I highly recommend this approach.

We flew to Tel Aviv. Michael got a window seat so I told him that it was his duty to take pictures. With great seat assignment comes great responsibility. He did well.

The plan was to take the train from the airport to a station near our lodging. The plan played out well. . . . and it was really cheap!

Michael surprised me by suggesting that we walk the three kilometers to the hostel. It was a lovely night and a nice walk.

Once we checked in, we walked downstairs to the hostel bar for a beer. Michael was quite clear that he just wanted one beer. Okie dokie.

Little did we know that Matan (not sure how you actually spell his name, but it rhymes with “baton”) was bartending that night and that we would spend the next two hours laughing our heads off. I laughed so hard my stomach muscles hurt. The beer was also good. I was surprised when Matan asked us if we wanted a second round and Michael said yes. That’s when I knew for certain that he was having as good a time as I was.