Bruadar

After being given so many promises and different dates for the steelwork to be fitted, we decided enough was enough and got a quote from someone else. He was slightly more expensive, but we'd seen the quality of his work and we decided that we'd be happy to pay the difference just to get it sorted.
We were both suffering marina madness and we were totally cheesed off with the situation, so we thought that we'd go out for a sail and sort things on our return around the middle of May. As a courtesy before we left we phoned the original guy that we'd ordered the steel from (Ali) and because we'd refused to part with any cash until the work was finished, we knew that he'd used his own money to buy the steel from Istanbul, so we reluctantly offered him one last chance to deliver the goods.
We set off once we'd done all the prelim checks on the engine and sails etc and eventually left Cow Bay (Pupa Yacht) early on Sunday morning (9th May).
Initially we motored out of the bay and around the coast until the wind was right to sail and we headed west to an anchorage just outside Bozburn where we dropped anchor later that afternoon. We sheltered here from strong winds for a couple of days before making our way up to Datca and then on to Pethi Bay (Greece) to stock up on essential supplies (booze).
Unfortunately after we'd left the Island and sailed with a heavy swell to our next anchorage, we noticed as we started the engine that it sounded strangely throaty and had no water coming out of the exhaust (bad news and potentially enough to seize the engine). Fortunately we hadn't committed ourselves to enter the bay, so we sailed out and continued on towards the marina in Marmaris, running with only the genoa, in a heavy swell but making a steady 5-6 knots.
By the time we made the headland to turn into Marmaris Bay it was around 5 pm and then sods law the wind died totally, but knowing that we couldn't risk running the engine for more than about 5 minutes, we stuck with it. After a couple of hours of swirling tricky wind conditions we eventually limped to the Yacht Marina entrance and using our extensive Turkish vocabulary (engine kaput) finally managed to get the staff to assist us alongside.
It turned out that the new impeller had completely disintegrated after less than a week which was not reassuring. The plus side to this, apart from the expense of buying and fitting new parts is that the engine appears to have survived (touch wood), we ended up back in the Marina earlier than expected. Which allowed us to chase and hound the guy to fit the stainless, obviously for a cheaper price then we'd agreed, because of the hassle and stress that he'd caused. The only thing that we didn't achieve was fitting and wiring the solar panels, which will be something to report back on in July, as we're about to fly back to the UK and on to the US for Andy & Amy's wedding in Indianapolis (I think that a winter wedding would have been far nicer but you can't have everything).