Priority to Seas: Marine Biodiversity Report from Setur Antalya Marina
We continue watching Başak Mireli's sailing tour around the world with Ömer Öcel. Their letters not only give us hints of a unique adventure, but also share important information about sailing. The latest letter was written by Ömer Öcel. It seems that as the voyage reaches the ocean, the team's excitement peaks.
Ömer Öcel and Başak Mireli
We were quite comfortable crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, as we were already familiar with the traffic in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles. Maybe it would have been in our favor to continue along the Spanish mainland and then steer towards Tangier in terms of the currents. When we finally arrived safely at Tangier Marina, we were greeted with the opposite of our marina experiences in Almerimar and La Linea.
First, Tangier
The place was swarming with securities, polices and soldiers, maybe to create jobs, maybe to make the King feel safe. They manage not to disturb the tourists at all, even though there are so many of them. Tangier's walled old town is magnificent. It is a colorful environment reminiscent of Mardin, the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Bazaar, built on shopping and eating and drinking. The modern face of Tangier is covered with tall plazas and shopping malls. We had to skip attractions like Marrakech and Casablanca, but we recommend Tangier to everyone.
First step into the Atlantic
After Tangier, our first Atlantic experience of 550 miles began. We were very excited about our twin sails, which we were going to use for the first time. Soon we also managed to get the wind rudder working. Depending on the wave and wind conditions, we sailed with twin sails, sometimes with a genoa by combining them, and when the weather reached 30 knots, we sailed with a trinket. We were so determined not to use the engine that we covered the last 35 miles in 10 hours and reached La Graciosa, the northernmost island of the Canary Islands, in 6 days. We were now in volcanic waters. Although we were familiar with these waters, where we came in 2017 for sailing training, it was a great feeling to come with our own boat.
After a few days of rest, we docked at the Rubicon marina on the island of Lanzarote, just to the south. Here, we were flattered to meet Jane, who taught us when we arrived in 2017, and to be introduced to her students on her boat. Four Turkish boats came together for the first time in Rubicon. We had a lovely dinner together, hosted by Deriska and Bossanova.
Thinking that we had solved our electricity problem after buying and installing a wind generator in Lanzarote, we sailed to the Grand Canary port of Las Palmas. Here, we met Sunny in the shop where we went to get a chrome pipe support for the wind generator. Sunny was Bulgarian and he had built a replica of our boat in Bulgaria. After completing his world tour, he settled here with his family and started to work in sailing, rigging, awning and chrome. He immediately realized that we were Turkish and started saying 'komşi (neighbor)'. When he found out that our boat was Istanbul, he asked about Ender and Buket. They traveled a long way on the boat Yosun around Fiji. I negotiated a good deal and had him cut the supports. After assembling them myself, we were done with the wind generator. Then we made the decision to get rid of our bicycles, which took up a lot of space and were very difficult to take to the beach in a dinghy in open seas. We bought two second-hand electric scooters and got rid of our bicycles by selling them to Sunny.
Tenerife was next. We completed the 100-mile voyage with a nice sail, holding the helm because we couldn't get enough of the boat's speed. Our Scottish friend Bryan, whom we met at Rubicon marina, gave us the phone number of Jaime, who lived in Tenerife and had a boat identical to ours. We called him right away. He was such a nice person! He immediately came to the café and we agreed to meet the next day at the Yacht Club where his boat was moored. After Sunny's "Sunny Queen", we saw another aluminum Norman 40 in Tenerife Marina and immediately hit it off with the French owners. We first saw that boat with Jaime and then Hayme's boat.
Jaime showed us around Tenerife, where he was born and raised, for two days. We were fascinated by the magnificent island, especially Teide volcano, when we visited it with someone who knew the area. We hosted Jaime and his beautiful family for dinner on our boat and got to know each other. After Tenerife we had a nice plan of going to La Gomera in the Canaries, then to Sal in Capa Verde and then to Mindelo where the Atlantic crossing would start. However, we thought it was more important to prepare for Başak's solo Atlantic crossing, so we steered directly from Tenerife to Mindelo.
Last stop before ocean crossing
We were accompanied on this 850-mile journey by two Spanish sisters. They had a hard time in the first days because they were seasick, but later they got used to it and became good companions. During this ten-day voyage, we decided that it was impossible for Başak to use the mainsail and the wind helm together. Because the winds are blowing at 15 to 25 knots. Aside from the burden of going to the bottom of the mast and reefing the sail so often, the wind rudder is instantly breaking the pulley and snapping the rope. Maybe it would have been better if we had a third reef. However, great minds think alike: when the weather is calm, the twin sails work in harmony with the wind rudder up to 160 degrees. As the weather gets worse, reefing the sail is done simultaneously for the twin sails. The twins are retracted around 30 knots and the trinket is opened. If it's necessary to get into the wind below 160 degrees, the twins are merged and used like a genoa. The wind rudder also works with all these options if enough sail is reefed. Most importantly, all of this can be done from the well deck.
In his book 'Bir Hayalin Peşinde (In Pursuit of a Dream)', Sadun Boro mentions that during his first Atlantic crossing with Ling in 1952, they used twins and the mainsail remained furled for 35 days. We tried these combinations for 850 miles and on the last two days we took pity on the bored Spanish girls and hoisted the mainsail. We merged the twins and reached Mindelo marina by navigating with a broad reach mainsail genoa.
I can say that most of our days in Mindelo marina were spent preparing the boat for the Atlantic crossing. But it's not like we didn't have the opportunity to explore this city full of music, dance and color. We spent the last two days exploring the hiking routes of Santa Antao island. We took long walks on the green northern slopes of this island, hitchhiked a ride on a garbage truck to Porto Novo and returned home to our boat, Istanbul. After final preparations, we sent Başak off to the Atlantic on the morning of December 23rd.
Thanks to everyone who has supported by following our journey!
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Photographs: Başak Mireli, Ömer Öcel