# Into the wind: Sailing, water, mountains and sky > Samet Samyeli's life with the wind: sailing since 2002 at Eğirdir Sailing Club, Optimist then ILCA, Mediterranean ILCA champion with 13 medals; windsurfing, diving, mountaineering, paragliding and the open road. Source: https://samye.li/outdoors/ Most places know me as Rüzgar Samet Samyeli. Rüzgar, Turkish for wind, is not actually my name, but it has stuck so well that I can no longer separate myself from it. My surname really is a wind: Samyeli, the sam yeli, the hot wind off the desert, Scirocco in Italian. And the first sailing boat I ever stepped into, at six, on Lake Eğirdir, was called Rüzgar. Looking back, it was all settled then. I have been following the wind ever since: under sail, then under the surface, on mountains and, lately, in the sky. Years later I named my company after a wind too: Lodos, the warm southwesterly that blows across Türkiye. Most of what I know about patience, decisions and mistakes, the wind taught me.
Samet Samyeli crouching under yellow autumn leaves, one arm around Lily, his English cocker spaniel, with her paws on his knee, the other around his nephew Aybars in red trousers.
Lily, my English cocker, and my dear nephew Aybars. We lost Lily in a car accident; this is the best autumn she left us.
- **Sailing since:** 2002, aged six - **Club:** Eğirdir Sailing Club, Lake Eğirdir, Isparta - **Classes:** Optimist, then ILCA (the Laser) - **Best result:** Mediterranean ILCA champion - **Medals:** 13 medals and 2 cups ## Sailing
Black and white photo: a sailor hiking out over the side of an ILCA dinghy, the boat heeled over on choppy water.
In the ILCA, heeled over and hiking out.
I started in 2002 at the **Eğirdir Sailing Club**, on Lake Eğirdir, one of the largest lakes in Türkiye. Like almost every racer, I began in the **Optimist**: a small, square-bowed boat, one child and one sail. From there I moved up to **ILCA**, the Laser, the single-handed Olympic dinghy. In an ILCA you are alone with the wind. There is no crew to share a mistake with, and no one to blame for a bad start but yourself. I became **Mediterranean ILCA champion**, and over my racing years I collected **13 medals and 2 cups**. What racing taught me, and still does: - **See the wind before it reaches you.** A gust shows on the water as a dark patch a few seconds ahead. Whoever reads it first gets there first. - **A race is a hundred small decisions.** You rarely win with one brilliant move; you win by making fewer mistakes than everyone else. - **Capsizing is part of it.** Everyone ends up in the water. What sets people apart is how fast they get back on the boat. ## On the water
From under the water, against the light: a diver's silhouette, fins, tank and rising bubbles.
Scuba diving: sun above, quiet below.
If it happens on water, I do it. **Windsurfing** is the same wind on a different board, with nothing between you and the sail but your hands. **Canoeing** is the slow way across. **Swimming** is where all of it starts. And **scuba diving** is the opposite of a race: quiet, slow and entirely about breathing. ## Mountains and sky
A paraglider pilot running down a grassy slope to take off, a navy and red wing filled above him, snowy mountains and a lake behind.
Take-off: the wing is full, and the wind is blowing up the slope.
On land, it is **mountaineering** and **camping**: long climbs, nights in a tent, mornings that start before the sun. In the air, it is **paragliding**. After years of reading the wind from the water, reading it from above is strange and wonderful: a thermal does what a gust does on a lake. And there is **skiing**, where I am still a beginner, which is a good thing to be now and then. ## The road
At sunset, a black motorcycle with a round headlamp stands at the edge of a narrow country road between wheat fields; a single tree and the low sun behind it.
Late afternoon, an empty road.
And there is a **cruiser** motorcycle. It is not a powerful machine, and I did not buy it for speed, but it looks like me. Anyone who has seen my [music](https://samye.li/music/) knows the type: a round headlamp, a low seat, an empty road at sundown and a classic rock song inside the helmet. The wind is in my face here too, just without a sail. ## Hunting
Silhouette of Samet Samyeli in profile on a foggy morning, a shotgun over his shoulder.
A foggy morning out hunting.
I am a **licensed hunter**, for hare and game birds. The licence comes with rules, seasons and limits, and with them a habit of reading the land, the weather and the animals that live there, much as sailing does with wind and water. I learned to hunt from my father. My father is a fisherman at heart, and all his life he has hunted on land and on the water. He is the one who taught me to wait, to stay quiet and to watch for the light. My favourite mornings out are still the ones at his side.
On a snowy slope, the sun over the water, Samet Samyeli and his father in an orange cap stand side by side with their shotguns; Lily, his English cocker, sits in front of them.
With my dear dad and Lily, on a snowy morning out hunting.
I do the same thing at a desk: read the wind, then make the next small decision.