Oops, just in the nick of time I checked our passports and discovered that our three month Turkish visa was actually 90 days, and it was due to expire the very next day! Good thing that Bodrum was our next stop! Off we went that afternoon, and after a bouncy night anchored near the big, illuminated medieval castle, we spent the next day shopping and doing errands before clearing out after lunch.

Customs required us to tie the boat up to their dock so the built-in purchases could be verified for our VAT stamp, so we dinghied out to Halekai and brought her in. Not realizing how time-consuming the procedure would be, Burger had to first hustle to the police station, harbor master and bank before Customs would issue clearance, and the coveted stamp.

The bank was closed when he got there, but a sympathetic employee let him slip in the door, only to have to stand on a long line before he could pay the fee. He rushed back to the Customs dock where I was waiting, just before they closed. Had we had to postpone till the next day we would have been fined for overstaying our visa. No mention was made of our entry stamps into Greece a few days before. We left the dock just before dusk and motored to a quiet anchorage, and celebrated the mission accomplished with sundowners.

It was finally time to bid Turkey goodbye. Only later did I look at our passport stamps and discover that, quite by coincidence, we left Turkey a year to the day after we had arrived in Istanbul from Thailand!