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Wednesday, November 14th, Marmaris, Turkey
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Surprise! After closing my last update by
speculating about our winter plans for hauling out in
Turkey, no one is more surprised than I to find
ourselves in Marmaris. A week ago today, we were
sitting in Athens. We called
Yacht Marine
here in Marmaris, to see if we could get them to commit
to a spot for Zia on the hard for the winter.
Nazli, who runs the operation here, asked where we were
and when we would arrive in Turkey.
"We are in Athens, about 250 miles away. We could
be there in two days," I said, trying to be as agreeable
as possible.
"Great," she replied. "If you get here by the
weekend, we can haul you out for the winter."
"Oh.......well, hmmmmm. So if we arrive next week
it will be too late? How about Saturday?" I
stammered, trying desperately to reorganize my thoughts
after a quantum shift in orientation from spending the
next three weeks leisurely cruising the Greek Cyclades
to a mad dash direct to Marmaris.
"Saturday would be okay but next week is too late,"
Nazli stated, seemingly oblivious to the turmoil she had
thrust upon me.
Peddling back to the boat on my bicycle, I calculate
mentally: "If we leave this afternoon, we can make
it there by Friday morning. But if she wants us
there before the weekend, they will probably want to
haul us out of the water pretty soon as well. What
are we going to do with the extra month during which we
had planned to be on the boat?"
"What?" Joe gasps. "Your kidding." It takes
him a few minutes to grasp the concept of leaving Greece
immediately, and sailing straight to Turkey. The
thing is, we had gotten a half a dozen other quotes from
different marinas in Turkey and they were all at least
twice what Yacht Marine charges. Plus, our friends
on Cenou were there, as well as Rob and Cathy on
Twixter, who we had met last winter in Badalona.
All along we had been planning on staying here but had
never bothered to make a reservation. The place is
so enormous, we figured we would not need to be so
formal about it as they would certainly find room for
us.
A
few hours later, we were sailing out of Athens.
The weather forecast was calling for a nasty front to
hit the Aegean over the weekend. Although the wind
was light ahead of it, we didn't dare risk loosing our
chance at securing a place for Zia in Yacht Marine.
The trip quickly turned into a motor after a promising
start, but that is better than dealing with the 45 knots
of wind that would descend upon the area in two days.
At least it was a fast motor as we wove our way through
the islands we had dreamed about visiting. We
would have to keep dreaming, at least for a little while
longer.
Yacht Marine is indeed THE place to come if you plan on
wintering in Turkey. I imagine many boats that
choose Turkey are escaping the 18 month EU restriction
that requires you to pay up to 20% of the value of your
boat in VAT tax if you remain in the EU for longer than
18 months. Technically, you have to leave the EU
for 6 months in order to restart the clock with another
18 month grace period. With our plans to travel
the Eastern Mediterranean next spring, we'll be well
within these parameters.
At
any rate, there are a few thousand other boats here with
us of all shapes and sizes. I think the storage
capacity on the hard is 2000 boats and there must be as
many in the water. They have some pictures on
their website.
We have met Italians, Germans, French, Irish, and
British cruisers so far. There is a real community
here, eerily similar to George Town, Bahamas, despite
the geographic and climate differences. Every
morning they hold a "net" on the radio to announce news,
social events, lost and found items and my personal
favorite "Treasures of the Bilge" where cruisers trade,
sell or give away unwanted items that have been lying
around their boat. There is a kids' club, a
nightly happy hour at the bar, karaoke night on Fridays
and a ladies weekly coffee. The swap library
consists of at least several thousand books.
Unfortunately we haven't participated too much in the
social activities as we've been pretty busy getting boat
projects taken care of in preparation for hauling out
and leaving Zia for five months. We are scheduled
to get lifted on Friday. We took the sails off,
and are cleaning out the cupboards of all the extra food
that will spoil over the winter. Joe has lined up
a half a dozen contractors to come by and give us quotes
on several jobs that need doing while we are gone.
As
for the time we will be "homeless", we have come up with
some interesting options. We've booked an
apartment in Istanbul for two weeks starting on Monday.
Ancient Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Holy
Roman Empire, ancient Byzantium and the capital of the
Ottoman Empire; we will have plenty of time to discover
this fascinating city. Afterwards, Gran and Gramps
Fisher have generously agreed to host us for a little
longer than originally planned. We fly from
Istanbul to Seattle on December 3rd. It will be a
23 hour day for us, departing Istanbul at 9am and
arriving in Seattle at 11pm. But the long journey
will be well worth it for the joy of being with our
family for the holidays. The kids are counting the
days and I am sure they will fly by. Time
occasionally does work in our favor!
Next Entry
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Many thanks to our friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
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