Flotilla Sailing

In 1982 Lesley agreed to sail with the children on a flotilla holiday in Turkey.  We nearly didn't make it through the Turkish customs!  We naively brought a bag into Turkey which was said to contain sailboard spare parts but actually was carrying engine parts.  Perhaps the officials thought that we were smuggling parts to the Kurds who were already seeking independence.  We were very relieved when the company representative finally arrived to clear it with the customs.

We were surprised by how experienced the other crews were.  One crew had sailed in the Fastnet race and another crew had recently been competing in a World Championship; we were one of only two crews not to have a yacht owner on board!  The flotilla skipper was not required to supervise very much, but we were still surprised to see him sail over the horizon before we left on the first day.  As it happened we didn't have too many problems and didn't even panic excessively in a force 7 towards the end of our holiday.  We mainly remember rather light winds and an excess of sun.  Turkey was not commercialised then, perhaps too much so for us as we didn't always like the food.  I have only hazy memories of the penultimate day when a few of us rafted up in an idealic bay to make an amazing punch from our remaining duty free bottles.

Click on any of the photographs to enlarge it:

Breakfast	The day's briefing	The morning sail	Lunch	The Afternoon Sail

Several more flotilla holidays followed.  The children declined to come with us after the first trip.  The Turkish heat wave of 40 degrees had put them off, and as they grew up they preferred to spend their holidays with friends.  We sailed in Corsica and Sardinia, the Sporades Islands and the Ionian Islands.  Our favourite area was the Sporades Islands which had beautiful bays for lunch time swims.  The sailing was mainly straight forward although we did experience strong winds at least once on each trip.  We were pleased to find that even the most experienced crews had occasional difficulties mooring bows to the quay.  We enjoyed the sun and found swimming in the clear sea was a real joy.  We never found flotilla sailing restrictive and the flotilla skippers always knew the best places to visit.  Almost without exception we ate at night in beautiful surroundings, mainly in local tavernas but occasionally on board at anchor.  We enjoyed the informal company of the other crews and on one occasion even shared a boat with two others previously unknown to us.  This worked well until they returned smelling so strongly of garlic that we had difficulty living with them for the next two days.