TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

We had got into a nice routine of spending mid weeks in Fethiye visiting the local market on Tuesday and travelling around on the local buses and then just heading into Fethiye town and the spending long weekends in the bays

The food and facilities at Yacht Classic are excellent and we have enjoyed many evenings in the company of fellow sailors eating by the water side.

Thursday 29 July to Monday 2 August

We anchored in Tomb Bay with two long lines ashore and relaxed reading and swimming in the warm waters against a back drop of the Lycian Tombs.

Monday 2 August to Thursday 5 August

We got up early to sail back to Fethiye for another few days at Yacht Classic.

Lydia released the two stern lines whilst I held Silver Lady in position against a light cross wind. After pulling Lydia back in the dinghy she went to lift the anchor as I motored slowly forwards. The anchor came up fine and then everything went horribly wrong as her hand got caught in the windlass. I carefully unlocked the brake and released her hand there was very little blood but as she was wearing gloves we could not see the fully extent of the injury but we both knew it was serious.

We motored as fast as possible towards Gocek and looking at the pilot book decided that as we would need help to berth Silver Lady and a taxi or ambulance. Port Gocek would be the best option as they were most likely to have English speaking staff that we could telephone and advise of our very urgent problem.

The Marina staff were great and put a man on board whilst another held up the lazy line ready to take our mooring line. A taxi was waiting and took us to the local clinic who carefully removed the glove and told us that we needed to see a specialist and instructed the taxi driver to take us to the Yucelen Hospital in Ortaca about half an hour away.

The Yucelen Hospital was only opened in 2009 and is the new regional hospital for the local area with all the very latest equipment. The surgeon however felt that the injury required very specialised micro surgery and advised that he would apply a saline dressing to keep the right index finger stable whilst we travelled by ambulance the 400 kms to Izmir.

The EMOT hospital is the best in Turkey and has a highly specialised hand unit where the surgeon spent 3.5 hours repairing the damage including a vein transplant from her wrist to the index finger. Lydia is at present confined to bed and has her right arm bandaged from finger tips to the top of her arm. Not that moving would be much of an option as she is attached to 3 drips. The hospital is excellent and the private rooms are all en suite twins just 9 rooms to a floor and you can stay overnight in the room. The only thing we are both missing is sleep as they come around every hour or so during the night and turn all the lights on to inspect the fingers and check all is OK.

When we arrived at the hospital on Monday 2 August they said at least 5 days may be 7 days so we laid up so to speak, whilst Silver Lady is in Port Gocek awaiting our return.