Upon starting our journey through Greece and towards Turkey, we had always though about entering this new country as far as possible to the north in the Aegean Sea. The thinking behind this is that we would be entering in May, and staying until mid-August; the locally-famous ‘Meltemi’ northerly wind is usually at its strongest in July to August, but can start in June. Therefore and theoretically, starting in the north we would have the wind from behind us as we travelled south over the 3-month period planned in Turkey. This plan changed a little enroute through Greece as the wind direction dictated our next destination at times. We also made the decision to visit Mykonos enroute - a little out of the way but at the time the wind direction enabled a nice sail there, and we were keen to have a look at one of the ‘famous’ Greek Islands that we’d only heard about. We did end up visiting Mykonos - our main / only activity was heading for a night out, that turned into a party starting around midnight and ending at 4am with a wet dinghy ride back to Ribellu. This destroyed us for atleast the next 24hrs!
Despite thinking at one stage we would head for Samos after making the effort to go to Mykonos, the wind forecast was more in our favour to head to Chios (to the north-east), rather than Ikaria (and then Samos; to the east) - so that’s what we did. By the way, enroute from Mykonos to Chios we had some AMAZING dolphins swim with us... one group of them stayed for about 15 minutes straight swimming on our bow - definitely the best we’d had... such beautiful creatures! It was planned that from Chios we could check out of Greece there, and then check into Cesme, Turkey. Chios seemed a good place to bunker down in our last days in Greece as we were able to stay at Chios ‘Marina’ for free - it was apparently built in the 90’s and then never completed nor managed. It has a very narrow entrance between the breakwall and shallow rocks, and all the land surrounding the marina is overgrown grass and weeds. But it offered excellent protection from most weather and is within 30min walking distance from the main town. The only thing I didn’t know, was that there is no well-stocked/connected ship chandler on the entire island (including in the town), and I needed some parts to do some important boat jobs whilst there (install our toilet holding tank!). There was a hardware store that was great and sold a few marine parts but didn’t sell or wouldn’t order-in what I needed (sanitation hose). Same result at the small local marine store near the port. Being only 3 nautical miles from Cesme, Turkey, I thought I could just do the jobs there instead once we arrived. However upon researching and talking to some other sailors, there was only a small chance that we could get away with checking into Cesme without an agent...
The use of agents is something not unbeknown to me. Having worked in the shipping industry, I do understand the use and purpose of them. And in some countries we have sailed to such as Albania, it is also compulsory. But spending money on an agent for a task that we can do - running around with paperwork and getting signatures and stamps (alot of stamps), is something that we are required to do ourselves in most countries we’ve sailed to already (Greece, Montenegro, Croatia). It usually takes only a few hours or half a day at most, depending on the location (a bit longer in Corfu, Greece, because nobody could find any customs agents for 24 hours!). So, if we could avoid using an agent, I was all for it. Besides, our matters for a small yacht and two crew are very simple.
Some friendly Aussies I’d made contact with via the ‘Aussies and Kiwi Sailors in the Med’ Facebook page provided some advice to check in ourselves in Cesme, but advised it wasn’t worth it when they did it in 2016 (3 years ago) and they wouldn’t do it again. It didn’t give much confidence and I couldn’t find any second source of info for doing it - most people said it was compulsory to use an agent. I reluctantly got a quote from an agent, which came back at 140 euros (75 for transit log, 50 for agency fee, and 15 for some customs charge). To me, this seemed ridiculous - especially as Turkey’s currency (the Lira) had weakened significantly over the past 1-2 years. Further south in Turkey, near the more ‘popular’ sailing areas, I believe some agents are charging over 200 euros for the pleasure of checking into their country (and bringing in foreign money and spending in the local economy). After spending 183 euros for our 15 minute transit through the Corinth Canal, 33 euros for the new Greek ‘cruising tax’ (paid per calendar month, even though we used only 11 days of the month), and various other experiences of tolls and taxes being applicable in Greece, we were determined not to hand over more amounts of cash where its not needed!
An alternative idea came up to sail further north in Greece to Lesvos, and check out of Mytilini town and into Ayvalik in Turkey. We’d met some Aussies aboard their yacht in Preveza a month or so before and stayed in touch, and they had checked into Ayvalik last year without an agent. They were very thorough with advice and helped alot - they also don’t like handing over money to governments willy-nilly, so we were very lucky to meet them! So the decision was made to depart Chios and head north. From Chios we made the short trip over to Inousses one afternoon - the island is apparently famous for being the home of many famous (& rich) Greek shipping magnates. Strong katabatic winds into the harbour that afternoon made it a little dodgey to tie up anywhere inside the harbour, so rather than risk scratching gelcoat, we left and went to a small bay nearby for a nice quiet night on anchor (we didn’t go into the town though unfortunately as it was a pretty big hike). The next day, with a nice westerly forecast, we departed Inousses around 9am and motored through the relatively narrow channel between Inousses and Chios where the wind was funneling to about 20knots from the north (right on our nose). Once clear of those land effects though, the wind set in from the west or north-west, with something we are not used to - CONSISTENCY! - with strengths between 9-15knots for the entire next 35 or so miles. We commented that this is by far the most consistent good sailing wind we’ve ever had in the Med for a whole day as it didn’t dramatically change direction or strength at all for about 7 hours! We had a beautiful close reach all the way up to Lesvos where we anchored in a very safe bay on the south side of the island. Greece in April and May was definitely some of our best sailing so far, with moderate winds and from varying directions.
The next day we headed up to Mytilini town where we still were unsure if we could anchor anywhere, or if it was better to go into the town dock or marina for the night. There was potential for the southerly wind to pick up through the night, although I didn’t believe it too much as the greek forecast models weren’t predicting it and it only showed on the Windy app through foreign models. We’d heard that the port police (coast guard) could be a little ‘enthusiastic’ here, especially as Mytilini has been a major port where alot of the migrants coming from Turkey had entered / been brought to. Again, Turkey was only a few miles away from this Greek island, and apparently migrants regularly set off on the journey in inflatable boats, or even just in flimsy life jackets (that can just fall apart) or inflatable rings, to make the journey across. I’d watched a documentary a few weeks before about there being a big migrant camp still there on Lesvos with about 9000 people in it (designed capacity 3000). Chios actually also has a big migrant camp, and whilst we saw some effects from it (bigger military presence, quite a few migrants walking around town doing shopping), we never felt unsafe and it wasn’t something that would prevent us from being there (and I think most sailors seem to have similar thoughts in the area). Overall however, I wasn’t too keen to go to Mytilini and stay overnight, but it would have ‘hopefully’ simplified our check out process in Greece (it didn’t in the end!) and Jaja had a job interview over skype the next morning so we needed some certainty on location and internet coverage. We emailed the marina who said their charge for a night’s stay was 25 euros - this is generally cheap for a marina, but we’ve never stayed in one so far since leaving Corsica and more out of principle, we weren’t going to start doing it. This is something we would probably regret being so stubborn about later! So to the town dock it was.
Upon entering the port, and as we entered the final town dock ‘harbour’ a port police officer started yelling at us from shore and telling us to turn around immediately and go to the customs dock. We tried to explain (via yelling back) that we did not need to check in as we were coming from Greece (not Turkey). He still told us to turn around and go to the customs dock, and got angrier thinking we were ignoring him at first as I wasn’t turning around yet - I had to go up further to turn around otherwise I would have turned into the rocks... this was only the start of the fun to come! We eventually turned and went back near the customs dock, and tried to talk to him as we got nearby. This is a high concrete wharf with chains and truck tyres hanging off the side and we had 15 knots of wind blowing us right onto it. We got close but he kept yelling out questions, then I had to motor out and make another 360 as we were getting too close to the concrete dock again. On our second turn he told us to call him on the VHF on channel 12. Then he walked away and up to the customs office and chatted with some guys there and had a cigarette, and stopped looking in our direction. We were very confused with what was going on - giving multiple instructions then just walking away like he’d forgotten about it! We called on the VHF and he didn’t answer, somebody in the office answered and couldn’t understand who we were and why we were calling! The officer, still chatting to the other guys, had the VHF in his hand but wouldn’t reply to us, as we are doing 360’s in front of the customs dock. Eventually he came over to the dock and yelled out, ‘okay, you go inside harbour’. Without further ado we departed from the customs dock without having come alongside (thankfully - the rough concrete and lee shore may have damaged Ribellu). We tried to go alongside a space in the harbour behind a Lagoon catamaran moored there, which is marked in our pilot book as the port police dock, so we thought he would want us there. However he came running over and yelled out ‘You cannot go here! You must go down there! Come to me with your documents when you finish!’, as he pointed further down the harbour. That’s where we had originally intended to go, and is the marked location for the town dock. There were no other yachts in the public town dock area at all, so we went alongside the harbour wall - right next to the busy main road. Not great, but seemed safe enough. [I’ve since read that people recommend staying in the marina because there is a smaller entrance to the port on the western side, to which the port police don’t tend to harass yachts who enter through there!].
I went to see the port police officer with our documents 15 minutes later and he didn’t even look at them, he sent me to their main office a block away on the waterfront and up two flights of stairs. The youngish female offices up there were more interested in asking what was my previous job, how is life in Australia, etc rather than anything else. They checked all documents and sent me on my way. Oh, and on the way out they told me I had moored the boat incorrectly, and it must be Med-moored (stern-to the dock with anchor off the bow) in order to allow enough room for all the other yachts (no other yachts came, at all!). We were hoping that I could process our check out of Greece that afternoon and still stay the night (this is common practice in many places in Greece) but they refused. So I had to do it the next day, of which the final step would be to see them last (after customs and immigration) to pay our fee for staying in the harbour for one night, which should be 5 or 6 euros they told me (quite a normal price for a town dock for a night). After a somewhat eventful Sunday afternoon, I had a nap in the afternoon (luckily) and then we slept at about 9pm. At that time, the weather was still calm.
A few times at around midnight I’d woken up with some wind gusts, but gone back to sleep. I think I’d actually woken up more because of the bass from the bars surrounding us 30-50m away, which start their nightclub music up at about midnight. But at about 1am, the wind really started to howl, pushing us onto the dock. Nothing dangerous and definitely not the worst we’ve experienced. We had all our fenders out and 6 lines out so we were safe, but I did make some adjustments and basically stayed awake for the remainder of the night making sure that the boat wasn’t getting damaged. It seems that the southerly wind really accelerates off the mountain behind the town and into the bay (seems right as when we left the next day it was 15-20 knots in the harbour and 5-10 knots outside the harbour!). Some may argue that we should have gone stern-to like the port police said, although I’d read the the anchor holding was not great there, so we could have done alot more damage potentially if the anchor had dragged. The positive thing about this wind and chop, was that it drowned out the music, but it was replaced with the water slapping on the hull. Also, this wind brought LOADS of garbage into our corner of the port. Around 5am the wind died down but the loads of garbage (bottles, plastic bags, polystyrene, sanitary pads, etc, etc) still surrounded Ribellu, mixed in with the raw sewage from town running off into the harbour. The water slapping noise on the hull from the chop was replaced by groups of drunken girls leaving the bars and having a chat and the odd scream at the park bench nearby, the garbage truck coming and emptying bins, superbikes using the quiet roads as dragstrips (I guess on the way back from the bar) - there was no way I was getting back to sleep! I did fill up our water tank though, as the water taps were working despite the power/water dock being covered by a plastic cover. By daylight I looked around to see the rubbish surrounding Ribellu and thought I wouldn’t be surprised if the prop or rudder were fouled with something. We would only find out later that neither of those happened, but our toilet would get blocked by sucking up some rubbish in the inlet! At 830am and after a few cups of coffee I walked the 1.6km to the chandlery at the marina to see if they had any of the parts I needed - some, but not all. The marina did look very nice and calm, by the way...
I returned to Ribellu, by which time all the trucks, motorbikes, cars, and normal busy life of Mytilini town had re-commenced. Jaja had finished her interview and was confident which was great, although the lipstick and eyeliner were a little overboard for what turned out to be a non-video skype call! After a rough night it was time to get out of here ASAP. I walked down to the customs office to check out, but they told me that we had to bring the boat alongside the customs dock, so they could see it from their office window. This is a little ridiculous - checking into Corfu, we anchored about 3km from the offices and walked across town to get there. But, I guess we can’t blame them too much in that port for having much stricter security for reasons already mentioned. So whilst there’s a bit of chaos at this port, its probably justifiable. We just had to keep smiling and stay calm!
Passport control, customs, port police, then customs again, then to radio port police that we were leaving - that was the process. Overall a pretty smooth process within 1 or 1.5 hours. In the port police office however, I was a little disappointed that I think we got fleeced with the charges for staying at the town dock. It was a different lady this time who was alot more senior; I guess we got to see the higher ranks as it was Monday morning! She said the charge was 13 euro and 02 cents for the privilege of staying at the ‘beautiful’ town dock. I politely questioned this and said it was too much, and not what her officers told me the day before. She explained that it was 5 or 6 euros per calendar day, not per night - so since I’d been there for parts of 2 calendar days (one night, or about 20 hours in total), I had to pay 2x the charge. I was not happy, but by that stage it was a case of ‘picking my battles’ and paid it and left. She had started to explain that it was the tax office’s rules and not her’s, and I was welcome to contact the tax department for clarification - that wasn’t an argument I wanted to take much further! I did get a receipt, but some printed parts of the receipt were amended by her pen - who knows...! Maybe, just maybe, we should have bitten the bullet and forked out the extra 12 euros for the safe, comfortable, clean and quiet marina after all! We got out of there and started the 3 hour trip north-east towards Ayvalik, Turkey.
We had been trying in previous weeks to buy either a second-hand Heikell pilot guide for Turkey - its like a bible of info about places to anchor, moor, etc and about formalities, etc. In Greece, we couldn’t find one anywhere for Turkey, so we were running a little blind. Most of the info we had for Ayvalik, and how to go about the check in process had come from the Aussies we’d met in Preveza. Even online there was very little info (in writing this, hopefully it is going to help out others in future), especially compared to those more popular areas in the south. We weren’t 100% sure really where to go first in Ayvalik but we were recommended to go to the ferry dock and anchor off there, despite some boats having been forced to come alongside the ferry dock (we’d heard) previously with big dirty truck tyres all along the side. We anchored nearby after arrival and nobody bothered us nor called on the radio (our AIS was transmitting and yellow ‘Q’ flag raised, so anyone could see us).
We took the dinghy into next to the ferry dock (lifting the dinghy engine just in time to avoid running over one of the ropes hanging in the water near the ferry), and tied up. We climbed up and started walking around the ferry dock. Two men came out who I guessed were security, or police, or customs. They asked what we were doing there, where was our yacht, where was our dinghy, looked at passports, and brought us inside. This officer of unknown department (let’s call him Mr Smiles) explained to us that we could not check in until we have a transit log which is to be purchased from the marina (about 3km away). We had been told that we should go to this ferry dock first to see the harbour master, then police (to stamp passports); then go back to the boat and motor down to the marina and anchor in front to get the transit log, then later go to customs to stamp it. But Mr Smiles wasn’t having any of that, and said we couldn’t do anything without the transit log, not even stamp our passports (which is incorrect - transit log is for the boat, not immigration). He asked if we wanted an agent and we said ‘no’, to which he accepted. He said he would do us a favour, and call the marina and ask them to bring up a transit log to the ferry terminal where we were - that sounded very generous so we obliged. We were told to wait in the meantime, and we didn’t know any better, so we did. We waited about 10 minutes or less (which I thought seemed a little too fast) and a guy in plain clothes arrived with a transit log in hand. Mr Smiles told us that the cost of the transit log would be 100 euros. This sent the alarm bells ringing as this was higher than what even the agent in Cesme had quoted, and this port should have been cheaper. I obviously argued this, and said it should be around 50 euros. If it was 100euros, then that should include an agency fee and I shouldn’t have to do anything myself (on the ‘med sailing’ facebook page a few days earlier another sailor had told me it cost him 100euros to check with a full service agent in Ayvalik). Mr Smiles said 1) Last year the transit log was 50 euros but this year it is 100 euros; and, 2) If you want to use the services of an agent, the total cost will be 150 euros; and 3) If we didn’t like the costs then we could leave and go to Izmir (a large city about 60 miles away. By this stage I was smelling BS and respectfully said I do not want his transit log and I will go to the marina myself. Mr Smiles said that we couldn’t take the boat to the marina but had to take a taxi. I said we can’t take a taxi if our passports are not stamped into the country otherwise we may be caught as illegal immigrants! So he led us to the police office, 10 metres away, with 3 officers sitting inside watching TV. I explained we want to check in to Turkey and they were extremely friendly and started processing our passports for immigration clearance immediately! What a waste of time with Mr Smiles. The police did stamp our passports after about 15 minutes of entering things into the computer and checking that I’d successfully purchased an e-visa (lucky Jaja didn’t need one on a Malaysian passport!). Then they said we had to go to the marina (by taxi), but they would hold onto our passports until we returned (he provided a small paper receipt with stamp to take in lieu of our passports). He then advised to take the transit log to the harbour master afterwards, who is located in the centre of town (not in that same ferry terminal building as we originally thought - Mr Smiles was correct about that part atleast).
We found an ATM nearby the ferry terminal to grab some Turkish Lira, then got a taxi who took us to the marina - his meter read 17 lira (about 2.20euros) by the end of the trip - which was a good price, and it was becoming clear that maybe inflation hadn’t gone up 100% in the last year, as per Mr Smiles’s advice! We entered the marina office and the people there were lovely; sat us down, said they could definitely sell us a transit log and blue card (holding tank pumpout). It became pretty obvious that the plain clothes guy who turned up to the ferry terminal wasn’t employed at the marina! We asked the price of the transit log - he did some calculations and arrived at 257 lira - or 38 euros. I almost fell off my chair, but tried my best to contain the smile that we’d avoided Mr Smiles’s scam. I guess he had called an agent, rather than the marina, and had been trying to charge us an agency fee on top of the transit log and round it up. The very nice staff there processed all our documents and gave us our transit log and blue card. We asked for directions to the harbour master’s office; they advised no need to take a taxi, it was about a 10 minute walk away nearby the Ataturk monument and along the seaside. He did mention that we need to fill in our boat and crew details on the transit log before going to the harbour master’s office - but it was getting later in the afternoon by this time so we proceeded directly there. The kind receptionist in the harbour master’s office directed us to a room on the left with 3 desks - I guess the guy in the corner was the harbour master or senior manager. He didn’t speak english but his other staff and the receptionist helped translate. He was himself entering all the info into the computer and even wrote all the details in the transit log. It seems as it was late in the afternoon, they wanted to rush through it I guess to go home, so it was all done within 20 minutes or so.
Before leaving, the receptionist told us we must go immediately back to the police at the ferry dock to have them stamp the transit log before they leave at 6pm, and the harbour master will be there at 6pm to pick up his carbon copy of our transit log. We went outside and grabbed a taxi to head back there - it was all true as the harbour master guy pulled out in front of us on his scooter wearing his aviators and with the wife / girlfriend on the back. We got back to the ferry terminal and the nice policeman stamped our transit log, got me to sign some more forms, and returned our passports. He requested that once customs complete their stamp then I must deliver his carbon copy back to him, if he was gone, to put it under the door! We went to customs, and the two officers from earlier started processing our documents and enter more data in their computer. Mr Smiles sat quietly in the corner of the office, and as much as I wanted to give him a piece of my mind, the priority was to get checked-in and get out of there. Mr Smiles was pretty quiet and sheepish though, and mostly focused on his excel spreadsheet. The harbour master then appeared, taking a bit of control over what was going on and requesting another guy to photocopy our passports for him (it may have helped to bring a few copies along with us). The harbour master eventually kicked Mr Smiles out of his chair and started using his computer to input some more data into what i assume was his own system he logged onto. Customs stamped our transit log, and they said there’s no health department there so not to worry about that one. So we were done. We had to deliver the police’s carbon copy back to their office (one officer was still there watching TV, so I didn’t have to put it under the door). By 5:55pm we were done and out of there - fully checked in. We climbed back down to the dinghy and sped back to Ribellu at anchor. We got going quick smart and motored for about 45mins down into a lagoon-type area, away from any human beings or yachts, just in time for the sunset, some home-made fried chicken and one or two bevvies. Between the rough night and check out in Mytilini, Lesvos, Greece and interesting check-in at Ayvalik, Turkey, that was a pretty draining 24 or so hours!
What would I do differently checking in next time to Ayvalik:
Option 1: Maybe anchor outside marina after arrival. Buy transit log and blue card, then go to harbour master (by walking), then police and customs (via walking or taxi), then take taxi back to dinghy / yacht at marina. Seems to be easier to have the transit log in hand first, as the police had also asked for it. Potential problems might be customs wanting to see the yacht - i.e. eyeball it from their office, or if police didn’t want you walking around town without being checked-in. But I doubt its a problem, although we didn’t test this method. It would be the same as arriving directly to the marina, so maybe the marina office can be contacted.
Option 2: Anchor outside the ferry dock as we did. Respectfully ignore Mr Smiles and insist on seeing the police first to get your passports sorted. Take taxi to marina to get transit log. Fill-up main details of transit log yourself. Go to harbour master and have him process as required. Then go back to ferry terminal for final police stamps and to get passports back, then customs to do their processing and stamps. Probably the safest option but I’m not sure it was truly correct.
Locations referenced in Ayvalik:
· Ferry Dock: Contains police (for passport stamp) and customs (Gümrük) - 39.328830 / 26.697046
· Harbour Master’s (liman başkanı) office - it is an office that is a little hard to spot as it is surrounded by tables and chairs from surrounding rerstaurants/cafe’s, but has a big anchor on the wall: 39.318511 / 26.691256
· Setur Marina office: 39.312666 / 26.687016