Birvidik

This will be the last entry involving bureaucratic procedures until we have to renew our Turkish visas at the end of September/beginning of October.

Honest.

In order to clear out of Greece we had to deal with the following authorities in the right order: passport control, immigration, health, customs and finally port police to get our transit log stamped for exit to Turkey. As we wanted to leave at sparrow fart the next day, we decided to start early and at 7:30 we walked into Kos town with our documentation.

We found passport control and immigration straight away. It was easily identified by the 500 metre queue of gently baking, wilting tourists that wound its way tortuously across the sun blasted car park, snaking round rubbish bins, parked cars, coaches and fume-belching lorries. Every 15 minutes or so the queue would shuffle forwards and 2 or 3 people would step gratefully into the air conditioned office. In this time, of course another coachload would have joined the tail.

Working on the principle that the glut of potential day trippers would have cleared in a couple of hours we took ourselves off and spent a happy hour or so pottering around the castle, from where we could keep an eye on the queue. Once we'd seen that it had dwindled to the merely ludicrous we joined the end. As we approached the doors we became uncertain as to whether we were in the right place, as all those in front of us were going straight through after processing and boarding large cruise boats.

We asked a tour rep who said "Oh no - you don't want to be here - you want to be in the other office by the cafeteria." So off we went. Further enquiries at said office elicited the response that "Oh no - you don't want to be here, you want to be in the other office you've just come from". On our return, of course, another coachload of Germans had joined the end of the queue.

By now it was 11:00 and we were getting hungry and thirsty. The sign on the office door said that the office hours were 08:00 - 21:00, so we decided to have a coffee and a bite to eat and come back in about an hour. Fortified with a toastie and a fresh orange juice we returned to find that the queue had completely disappeared. We also found that the door was shut and locked.

A helpful guy from customs told us that, having just cleared all the daytrippers out, they were now all busy round the other side clearing the Turkey to Greece daytrippers in. He suggested we go and have a coffee and come back in about an hour.

An hour's stroll later found us back at immigration and the door still locked. This time we were directed down the side of the building where we found an open window. Behind this window was an office in which was a uniformed guy sitting drinking coffee and reading a newspaper. Not a day-tripper in sight.

We were just wondering about the advisability of distracting him from his labours, when a local tour rep turned up. She yelled through the window at him and he put down the racing results. On his approach, Bob explained that we wanted to clear out. "When are you leaving?" he asked. "Early tomorrow morning" we said.

"Come back at 7 p.m." he said, letting the tour rep in then shutting and locking the door in our faces.

It's fairly pointless trying to argue with a shut door so we resignedly trudged all the way back to the marina to see the port police and sort out that end of the paperwork. What naïve little optimists we were. It has to be done in the right order. No exceptions. So, we had to go back to Kos at 7 p.m. to get our passports cleared before we could clear out with health, then customs and then finally with the port police.

"Unfortunately," the charming Port Policewoman informed us, "we shut at 4 p.m."

This was getting quite Kafkaesque.

It turned out, though, that there was a Port Police office in Kos town which was open 24 hours a day, so we resigned ourselves to a lost evening and another long walk into town and back, carrying every piece of documentation we could find, which was quite a lot.

To our great surprise, our evening attempt couldn't have gone more smoothly. Smiling immigration officials cheerily stamped forms and joshed in a manly way about Bob's rucksack. Bob didn't realise when he bought it, but this is franchised merchandise of Olymbiakos football club, who are the Greek equivalent of Man U.

Apparently.

Customs and health must have also been Olymbiakos fans as we sped through there with smiles and jokes and were personally escorted to the Port Police where the same happened and we were spat out the other end after only 40 minutes with all the paperwork sorted.

No-one ever did ask us for the hard-earned receipt for the 88 cent tax either.

We left Kos early the next morning in a strengthening wind and started on a cracking sail, reaching 7 knots in a lumpy sea. Just as we were getting the hang of it and starting to really enjoy it, the wind dropped and swung round on to the nose. After that it was motorsail all the way to Marmaris.

Entry into Turkey requires flying the Q flag and then visiting the following, in the right order: Harbour master (where you obtain a transit log and pay harbour and light dues); health (where you sign an affidavit that you're not importing any unauthorised unpleasant infections); immigration and passport control (where you need to obtain visas valid for 90 days); Customs (where you list every item on the boat worth more than £2:50, along with the relevant make, model, colour, age and serial number) and finally customs patrol who, if they're particularly bored, may want to come on board and have a rummage through your knicker drawer.

This is the peculiar phenomenon of deja vue.

The fees for all of this amounted to about 130 euros. For an extra 20 euros you can pay an agent to do it all for you. This involves handing over all your papers, including passports, boat registration documents etc and not seeing them again for 24 hours. So we chose an agent linked to the marina. Then at least we know where to point the finger if Birvidik suddenly turns out to be owned by an Albanian people-trafficking ring and we get pulled up at any borders because some computer links our passports with actions by assorted terrorists, international prostitution barons, political dissidents, mafia hitmen, money launderers, Shin Bet agents, illegal immigrants and drug smugglers.

Your starter for 10 - which two of the above might have some basis in historical truth?