Back on the Water
02 May 2012 | Marmaris, Turkey
Jane, warm and sunny
Yippee - last night we cut the lines (not literally) from Yat marina where Ta-b has been for the winter. We are once again at anchor, a fantastic feeling, and we celebrated over dinner with our friends from Skaddale Again who left this morning to go to Greece. A lot of cruisers are having to leave Turkey because of the new Visa rules (90 days only allowed out of 180) but we are biting the bullet and becoming residents for a year. As I write we have the air conditioning guru finishing up work and testing the system which has not been working since we bought Ta-b. It will be a luxury that I think will come in useful this year as we plan to cruise further south.
Russell had a very productive three weeks on the hard (living and working on Ta-b while she is on land) while I came back via Vancouver and England where my mum has just moved into a long care Dementia home. I visited every day, learnt a lot, and had some very special times with her and all her new friends.
I arrived back in Marmaris on 3 April and ended up living on the hard with Russell for two weeks as boat work was running behind time due to the weather. Although as I write this at 5.30 pm (nearly happy hour) with it being sunny and a warm 27 degrees, March was a very wet month for Turkey, and April certainly had its moments with several nasty fronts that came through. The worst was just after we got splashed (put in the water) with winds recorded up to 65 knots, although where we were it was not too bad.
So busy, busy getting the boat ship shape and as they say Bristol fashion. We now have a new copper hull (bottom) and the hulls (sides) are all beautifully polished. Sheets (rope) are all clean, sails are back up, reefing lines and lazy jacks are in place. New lights on top of the mast, did I mention rigging renewed? All motors serviced (we have a few) although the outboard on the tender took a couple of days as it decided to play up on us. Russell has a “to do” list that is 3 to 4 pages long and never seems to get shorter as we keep finding things to add to it. One addition we now have is a comfy new helm seat that goes up and down, back and forth and around so that we can sit in it and be social at happy hour ☺
I got a bit busy with a friends sewing machine recently and while making some repairs made a new “Turkish” curtain (to match my cushions) for our door, three bean bag chairs (after two I had enough materil for a third) and a cover for our wakeboard. The boat was continually needing cleaning, provisioning and then there was the constant social life …. It is hard not to take girl time for a Turkish bath (can become addictive at 35-50 lire, about $20) which includes sauna, jucuzzi and then steam bath on marble with exfolicating, soap massage for half an hour. Tomorrow I will help the local community by having a manicure and pedicure for 30 lire before we leave.
While we were at the marina we celebrated my birthday, seems we celebrate it for longer each year, but hey any excuse to party! Ended up one night with a bunch of Aussies, Kiwis, English, Canadians, Maltese, Swedes, South African, Norwegian and Americans on board – luckily we all talk the same cruising language and had a very lively, loud evening assisted by way too much wine.
We plan to leave Marmaris on Wednesday, pop over to Rhodes to pick up a parcel, and then join the EMYR possibly in Datca. The Rally started in Istanbul, we will visit the south coast of Turkey, Cyprus, Lebanon, Egypt and Israel. There are 35 boats this year, so a small group which we feel is perfect. Apparently we are treated like royalty and I am looking forward to getting out some of my less scruffy clothes so I can dance the night away in style. Pyramids are on my bucket list as are a host of other places that we will visit. Excited …. Did I say excited … you bet.
I have included a few more photos of New Zealand that I have just found, plus a few more that we hope you will enjoy. Take care and please keep the emails coming, it is always lovely to hear from you. Carpe Diem - Jane and Russell