How hard could it be to get off a dock and go for a sail around Marmaris Bay? Under normal circumstances in light winds with a boat that you are familiar with, not hard at all. When you add 30 knots of wind, boats squashed together like sardines on a dock and three people that have never sailed a 50ft Beneteau Sense…damn near impossible!! Some would ask where is our sense?

Our trip to Marmaris was relatively non eventful with the highlight being our 104kg of luggage falling off the trolley just as we were about to enter the Qantas check in area. Not bad in the event stakes considering we had four flights and three stop overs that took about 48 hrs. We did get to spend a few wonderful hours with our dear friends Kylee and Brett in Adelaide before catching our flight to Dubai.

Once we finally reached Dalaman airport, we met a lovely couple Jane and John (Catching the Wind) who were also headed to the Marmaris Yacht Marina. We were fortunate to be able to share their lift to the Marina and amazingly, everything arrived in tack. By the time we arrived to the Marina, Simon was like a kid in a toy store, running down the dock to see our boat for the first time, and she did not disappoint. Aura is in great shape, all cleaned, serviced and ready to go…well mostly....(its now 7 days later & almost finished)

Just to give you some background, the previous owners left the boat thinking that they would be returning so everything was onboard including their clothes, shoes, toiletries, a fully stocked kitchen (including the biggest toaster I have ever seen), linen, boat stuff and much, much more. So the first few days have been sorting through what is on the boat, deciding what to keep and where to store everything. Aura has so much storage, five days on and we are still finding things. Good news is that there are a number of charities in town that are more than happy to take anything that we don’t need.

So after Simon has crawled all over the boat and I had done some provisioning, we hired a training skipper (Paul) to come out with us to give Aura a bit of a “shake down”. Although the winds were strong, we decided it was a good opportunity to put her through her paces. Everything was going smoothly as we dropped our lines and headed off the dock for the first time. That was until our bow got pushed by a strong wind gust resulting in our life buoy getting caught on our neighbours anchor. Once we slowed down to untangle the anchor, we were knocked horizontal onto the anchor of the boat two down. Simon was hanging over the side trying to push us away but the winds were stronger. Fortunately Paul used the “Dock and Go” to move us sideways and out of harm’s way. It was a close call and fortunately only minor damage was done to our neighbours anchor.

The rest of the sail was not without incident and we now have a list of a few things that need to be fixed…it is a boat after all and maintenance is due. The wind dropped to a comfortable 18 knots and we sailed out of Marmaris Bay to have a look around. The scenery is amazing and can’t wait to explore all the beautiful bays and small coves. We are likely to be at the Marina for another few days. We have met lot of great people and are more than happy to get to know our new home better before we head off.