Northern Cyprus

We had arranged to wait in Monastry Bay until our friends from Skysong and Endeavour arrived a couple of days later. Whilst we were there we saw Mashona and Taralee on the first night and Avocet the second night. On the third night our friends finally arrived after the long sail from Israel, and we were only too happy to prepare a meal for them on board Belle Helene – the last supper together before we all went our separate ways. Justin created one of his special curries, and we spent the evening reminiscing about all the fun times we had shared on the rally.

The following morning, Endeavour set sail for Girne, and we decided that we would make a dash for Turkey. As soon as we left the bay we realised that we had made a mistake, as there were strong winds and 2.5m seas straight on the nose. We battled on for a couple of hours hoping that it would settle down, but it didn’t and the boat was taking quite a hammering, so we decided to turn around and head back to Cyprus with a view to try and get into Karpas Gate. We knew that this wasn’t strictly legal as we needed to go to a port of entry to check in but in view of the bad weather we thought that we might be able to claim that we needed a port of refuge. As it turned out, once we neared the coastline, the seas settled down, so we carried on the 65 miles or so to Girne. We were very pleased that we hadn’t attempted to go into Karpas Gate as we discovered that other rally boats had been turned away, and one crew had even been arrested and taken to court for illegal entry.

In Girne we met up again with Endeavour who were very surprised to see us, but they too had had a rough passage and were very pleased to be in a safe harbour. Of course we had to share a beer or 2 with them and a few others who had made it this far. Avocet had rescued Ibis 2 from Karpas gate after Hassan’s court appearance, and towed him all the way to Girne, so they were definitely the heroes of the hour.

Next day Dave and Cath, of Mashona invited everyone to their house for a BBQ and swim in their lovely pool. I made banana cake to take, and we spent a very pleasant afternoon away from the boats for a change. That evening the crew of Avocet invited us aboard for supper but realised that Belle Helene had a much bigger cockpit to host – so we were at it again, entertaining on board with EMYR friends – great fun!

After 3 nights in Girne, we decided to try again to head for Turkey, but not before we stocked up on cheap booze and bacon. We left late afternoon in calm seas and fair winds for an overnight sail to Alanya.