We were underway all day yesterday in some rather boisterous weather so not able to put together this weekly update and get it out to you until today.  We continue to climb the learning curve with this very unique boat but all is going well and we could not be happier to have finally thrown off those pesky dock lines and start our new adventures aboard the Good Ship Möbius. 

What’s the Plan Stan?

As many of you know I life life on The No Plan Plan and have hopes and intents instead but in the coming weeks we will continue to make our way along the beautiful Turquoise Coast of Turkey which you can see in this map.  Möbius was built at Naval Yachts in Antalya so that’s where the adventure began.  Last July with our Granddaughters and family aboard we moved West to the marina in Finike where Möbius has been tied up most of the time since
We took time to go fly over to North America for a much needed “Nauti Nomadic Grandparents Roadtrip” to visit family and friends in October and November.  Since then and as per all the weekly blog updates since, we have been eXtremely busy checking off all the To Do list items to get Möbius fully sea worthy and ready for us to finally head back out to sea-ing this awemazing world of ours.
Both Christine and I will admit to wondering at times if this day would ever come but finally, on Tuesday the 17th of May 2022 we threw off the dock lines and were “free at last” as we left Finike in our wake and our new adventures out sea-ing the world on our new floating home began.
Our friends Matt and Cindy have also got their relatively new Amel sailboat in the Finke marina and they are recently returned from the US to get “Speed of Life” all ready for the sailing season and they kindly helped release the lines from the dock and give us a good send off. 
They also took some video of us leaving the dock and so here’s a look at that for you and our thanks to Matt and Cindy for taking and sending these videos.

One thing that is working eXtremely well is using the huge rudder and CPP prop to act as a big stern thruster.  Very well shown in this video as you watch Möbius pull away from the dock, clear the bow lines on the boat to our Starboard/Right side and turn on a dime.  I put the rudder over at 35-40 degrees (limit is 45) and then push the Pitch lever full ahead for a few seconds and then back to neutral.  You can see the water being kicked up from this at the stern and then watch as the boat turns almost on its center point to make the 90 degree turn in this narrow waterway.  As I get more and more used to this the bow thruster won’t be needed at all though always there to help out and for other uses as well.  We designed the rudder to be very large and to be able to turn 45 degrees in both directions for this purpose so it is great to see it all work out so well in practice.

And with that, we were off!

Another thing we are eXtremely happy with is how well this hull slides through the water.  In this shot of us leaving the marina we are doing 6.5 knots and not a wake to be seen.  Thanks Dennis!

And so we were free at last but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to spend our first anchorage alone in the beautiful little bay near Kekova where you may recall this shot and Christine’s drone video from this April 12th blog when our friends John and Genna were with us for a week.  Kekova did not disappoint and we enjoyed two blissful nights on anchor with nothing but the sounds of water lapping on the hull, some birds overhead and some goats with bells on ashore.
This is the small hilltop castle above the village of Kekova which we pass going in/out of the bay.  How could we possibly pass up a chance for a few more days and nights on anchor here to more indelibly inscribe this amazing spot into our long term memory banks?
I think it is going to take me at least quite a bit longer to make the transition from the multi year building stage to this new underway stage, but as you can see I’m working on it! 
All thanks to Captain Christine manning the Helm most of the time while I look after the boat and keeping everything working and well logged as we go.
So far we have only used the Helm up in the SkyBridge as the views from there are truly spectacular and this has been working out very well.  The removable acrylic sliding windows allow us to move and remove the side panes to suit the weather and right now it is still a bit chilly during squalls and early mornings so we have left in two of the four sliding panes on each side which allows us to get just the right amount of breeze coming in or kept out as conditions change.  As the hotter summer weather arrives we will remove all but the front three panes for maximum airflow and cooling.

Timely Transition

In all seriousness though, it really is going to take me a good while longer to make this transition back into the live I and we both love SO much.  The build officially started on the 6th of April 2018 and we had been in Antalya since the end of 2017 so we have been landlubbers for over four years and that along with all the stress and strain of the build process has taken its toll on both of us.  Our choice of Turkey and Antalya to build Möbius turned out to be even better than we had hoped and especially when you consider the safe haven this provided for us as we lived through the past few years of Covid on top of it all.  We therefore begin our meandering exit out of Turkey with the fondest of memories, a fabulous new home and that bittersweet combination of melancholy to be leaving and excitement of getting back to life afloat. 

Truth be told though we are also both exhausted mentally and physically.  You know that feeling when you finally finish a big job and sit down for a quick breather and it hits you; “Oh!  I didn’t realise I was THAT tired!”?  Some supersized version of that is what I’ve been feeling these past few days after leaving Finike.  Christine has her own similar but unique version as we both become more and more aware of the need to breath deeply and take our time settling into what in some ways is our very familiar past life and yet at the same time, our all together new life.

The Latest Voyage Begins

You can follow along on the map up above and here again, to see how we are taking our time to coastal hop our way along this beautiful Turquoise Coast.  After putting Kekova in our wake we made the next short 20 NM or so hop West to Kaş. 
Our annual contract with Setur Marinas has a feature that we are now going to take full advantage of which is that we get to stay for up to 30 nights on any of the other 10 Setur marinas between Antalya and Istanbul!  So we sailed into the lovely Setur Marina in Kaş and spent two nights there. 
We enjoyed three nights tucked in between these other boats which will give you a good sense of the diversity of boats that are in this area.

Unfortunately Christine twisted her knee last week and it has been getting worse so we rented a car and drove back down to the hospital in Kamlucha the town beside Finike and where we have been before.  Their MRI machine was being serviced but they did a preliminary exam and prescribed some anti inflammatory to help reduce the swelling and those have been helping.  We will go to the next big hospital for a full MRI scan at our next stop in Fethiye.

The Newest Member of Möbius.World Fleet

As you may recall reading last week, our Davit Arch is not working so we are unable to launch and retrieve our Tender Möbli and so we bought this newest member of the Möbius.World fleet.  We actually have another inflatable 2 person kayak onboard which we had aboard our previous boat sv Learnativity, but alas when Christine when to pump it up the seams on the floor had all let go and and are beyond a simple regluing.  We will order a new one from Advanced Elements but we will have to figure out how to get to us as we are “of no fixed address” once again.

For now though, this new kayak will work fine for short trips ashore when we are on anchor.
Not sure on a name for the newest kayak yet though I’m thinking “Klein” because if you turn a 2D Möbius strip into 3D it becomes what is known as a Klein vessel or bottle.  Let me know your thoughts on this and other names for our newest floating member of the family.

Testing, Testing ………

We now had about 100 nautical miles under Möbius’ keel with our various short test runs and trips since launching last year and all of these have been in very benign conditions so we wanted to push Möbius, and ourselves, a little bit harder.  Weather forecast for Sunday the 22nd called for some thunderstorms and a bit of wind so we decided to make the longer run, about 60nm from Kas to Fethiye.  We left Kaş marina in beautiful sunny morning weather but a few hours later as we were making our way along the coast the skies turned dark and stormy with winds gusting over 35 knots with about 1 meter seas.  Both of those on the nose of course!  So we got a bit more than we had bargained for but did provide us with the kind of testing and different conditions we wanted.  Mr. Gee purred along for the next 8+ hours without a hiccup or complaint and we probably averaged about 7.5 knots overall.  I was surprised at how much wind affected our speed which would reduce our speed up to one knot when against us and add about the same when from behind.  We are in eXtremely lightships trim with only about 500 of the 17,000 liters in our tanks and I have not make our paravanes yet and so in the confused seas we experienced, when the swells came at us on the Port beam/Left side they rolled our smooth rounded hull much the same as our previous sailboat.  However Möbius handled it all in stride and really did help us get much more of a feel for the way this new hull performs.   It will be a completely different ride once we have full fuel tanks and paravanes in the water!  With that experience under our keels we can now go back to the much more common calm sea and weather conditions for the remainder of our cruising up the Turquoise coast towards Istanbul.  As Christine noted though, “getting those paravanes installed just moved up my priority list quite a few notches”!

We checked out one potential place to anchor on the way up as there were some squalls breeding up ahead, but we didn’t like the looks of it so we just continued back along the coast and made it safely into the very protected harbour here in Fethiye.  Total trip time from Kaş to Fethiye was exactly 8 hours and was a good test for both Möbius and ourselves.  We have anchored here in Fethiye harbour on a boat we were delivering back in 2017 and it is a very protected and large bay with good sandy bottom throughout at about 2-4 meters / 6-15 ft.

The rain and winds had started to die down as we approached Fethiye and put the anchor down and Mother Nature treated us to a HUGE rainbow, which was so stunning I forgot to take any pictures!  This one taken a few hours ago will have to do.  We enjoyed a peaceful night on the hook with yet another castle on the hills above us to admire for our breakfast up in the SkyBridge.  I have just taken Christine ashore in the maiden voyage of our new kayak and she is now getting the MRI and other examination of her left leg looked after. I’m back onboard catching up to this overdue blog update and then tackle of few more of the ever present ToDo list items while I await her call to paddle back and pick her up.
This is how we will continue for our last few weeks in Turkish waters before we check out and head over to Greece where we are VERY excited to be meeting Lia, Brian and our two Granddaughters Brynn and Blair when they land in Athens.  Can’t wait for more time and experiences with that whole crew and we will need to take it slow and rest up between now and then to have enough energy to keep up with our two young crewmembers. 

Thanks for joining us as we set of on this latest of life’s adventures and please continue to add all your comments and questions in the “Join the Discussion” box below.

-Wayne