The Bodrum Cup

Saturday arrives, and we pack up our sacks and head off into town to catch the 10am Bus to Mugla. We are travelling with one of the larger coach companies called Pamukkale. The journey is about 2.5 hours including a few stops, and costs us 12TL (about £4.40). En route we collect Pat and the Canadians from Yaniklar.

They have all their gear, as they will be going on to Selcuk and Istanbul before heading back to Canada. Even so, considering they are on a three week holiday they are travelling extremely light, with just one small case each.

The bus ride is a great experience, it's like a flight. There was a steward who came round with water, then coffee, then biscuits, then more coffee and cake later on. He even came round with the ubiquitous lemon cologne to freshen our hands after eating.

At Mugla we change to the Bodrum express, a smaller minibus, which takes us on to Bodrum in just over an hour. Even on this small bus, there is an attendant and we have coffee and water.

At last, we arrive at Bodrum around 2pm, and take a couple of taxi's down to Halikarnoss Marina where our gulet awaits.

The gulet is a gorgeous wooden boat, about 25m long, and is called Kaptan Sevket. We meet our Captain - Mustafa, and the crew of 5. Pat has been in regular contact with Mustafa, and he is expecting us, with a wonderful late lunch laid out. The food is fresh, plentiful and tasty, and we get a great vibe that we will be well looked after.

There are six double en-suite cabins on board and we have taken four of them. We learn the organisors have allocated two additional people to join us, and the first soon arrives for lunch. Meral is a lovely Turkish lady, who works at Instanbul University teaching and practicing child psychology. She's lively, interesting and speaks English very well, so we all get on great. The other person will meet us at the opening ceremony.

Firstly we sort out a few bits of housekeeping. How much booze do we want? The price we paid includes all food, but drink is extra. Frazer takes control as he has had a lot of experience in catering for parties! We think 4 cases of beer, 4 cases of coke, 6 cases of wine should do it. We also chat over early tactics for the race days with Mustafa where we tell him we are keen to do as well as we can, and win if possible. He looks a little worried, but wants to be bolder this year, so we agree that each morning, before the race begins we will meet as a group and discuss the daily tactics.

Fed, unpacked, washed and changed, we head off in the late afternoon to amble through Bodrum, towards the Yatch Marina where the opening ceremony will be held. As we disembark the boat, Sharry drops one of her shoes into the sea! luckily it floats, and the crew are instantly on the case, hanging off the side of the boat, trying to scoop it up with a broom. Success, and waving our thanks we squelch off into town.

Thirty odd years ago, Pat met Frazer and Dick here in Bodrum. They were in their late twenties, and had boldly decided to invest all their savings in building a gulet, in order to retire and run charter trips. This was frought with difficulties and problems, and a whole raft of interesting anecdotes. Pat was recruited for translation duties, and in return they covered the cost of board and lodging for the three of them. They eventually finished the boat, but had to leave Bodrum quickly to escape problems with the beaurocracy. The parting with Turkey had not been a happy one, and they all vowed never to return to Turkey again in their lives! Pat is writing a biography at the moment, and the drafts to date make a facinating read.

It was quite something, then, for them all to be back today seeing how things have changed, and remarkably still finding many of their old friends are still around.

The opening ceremony includes briefings for gulet captains and crews, plus music and of course free food and drink. Waiters circulate with large plates of canapes, and each table has a plate of grapes to nibble on. The Cup is sponsored, among others, by Kayra Wines, Izmir Raki and Efes Beer. Something for everyone! We keep an eye out for our late arriving final passenger, and talk to people who are on the other boats.

We return to the boat, and have a nightcap before turning in. We're to be up every morning for breakfast at 8am. The final guy has not turned up, so we are to be just nine.

Sunday, and day one of racing. We rise to fresh coffee, and the outside deck table groaning with fresh breads, cheese, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, fruit juices, jams which is soon joined by freshly cooked fried eggs all round.

After heartily tucking in, the captain brings out the race programme and charts and while the lads clear the debris away, we discuss the tactics for the day.

All the 70 odd yatchs are in one of seven classes, depending on the size of gulet. Ours is one of 11 in the red group, and we have a nice red flag fluttering, along with our race number, 55. Many of the yatchs have an additional kite-like sail attached called a spiniker, (or a jeniker depending on how it is rigged). We don't have one, but will get extra points for being a 'classicly rigged' gulet. However this means that we will be slower if the wind is directly behind us. We need cross winds to really be a contender, as this means we can tack - ie sort of zig-zag your way from start to finish.

Today, Cappy says we'll be having a following wind, so we discuss our options for covering the 20 odd nautical miles from Bodrum to the first finish line at Cokertme. If we follow the coastline, we will not do particularly well. If we go far out and then diagonally back, we may harness a cross wind and this may give us enough of an advantage. Basically one large tack. We love this 'no guts-no glory' plan, so we agree to follow the plan, and hope the fair wind favours us.

The race starts a little later than planned, as the organisors wait for the wind to pick up a little. By radio, the organisors give three whistle blows to signal 15 minutes to start. We move around to aim for the start line. Two whistles, and it's 10 minutes to go. One whistle, 5 minutes to go and all engines are off. Anyone using an engine now can be protested against and will be penalised. The art is to be close enough to the line that the wind wont push you over it before the final whistle. We are cautiously quite a long way back, and Frazer and Dick think we should be further up.

Final whistle and we're away. There's not a great deal of wind, so it's not like a sprint start, but we soon start making good speed, and head off in the opposite direction to the majority of the field to make our big tack. A couple of gulets follow us, but in the main, the others stick to the coastline and are making good sailing with their spiniker/jenikers. It's quite a sight to see so many yatchs with their sales up, all quietly gliding across the sea.

As we're only really going to have one major direction change, there is little for us to do (or watch should I say!), so we lie back on the sun beds at the back of the boat, well out of the way of the crew, and chat while soaking up the sun and watching the main field get smaller and smaller in the distance.

A flurry of activity from the crew, as we make our tack and start bombing in diagonally heading for the finish line. The gulet has a computerised GPS so we can see where we are, where we heading, the speed etc. We take turns feeding back the info to everyone, as we start to pick up some good speed, and near the finish.

The next problem is picking out the finish line. It is between a committee boat with a large orange banner and a small yellow bouy. It's not very wide, and you have to go through the two points. It's not long before we start hearing whistles on the radio, as they announce each boat as it passes through. We anxiously wait, listening hard for other boats in our group.

The end is in sight, and as we adjust the sails to keep our line, we are being chased by two other gulets, one on each side. One is in our class - it's a beautiful burgundy and cream boat, so the excitement rises as we try and maintain our lead and hope they don't get into a position where they will steal our wind. We are close enough to be bantering with the other crew and our crew members are having a great time barraking them.

It's an exciting finish, and we just pip the other two gulets. We hear our whistle, and we have come 4th in our class. The risk has paid off, everyone is ecstatic. You can just make out the yellow bouy in the photo.

The crew take the sails down, and we motor off to find a berth at Cokertme. It's a small habour and we have to double park in between two gulets in the first row. We find ourselves near a gulet called Aliko. He's not in the race this year, but has come along for the ride, and the old chap who owns it is an old friend from the days when the Canadians were building their boat back in the seventies. He boards us and they hold an animated reunion over celebratory drinks. He has a crewman Ali, who he agrees to lend us for the rest of the regatta.

While we chat, we hear a drummer and a zumi player on board the boat across from us. They are soon joined by a young belly dancer, much to the delight of all the neighbouring crew members. She shakes her thang, and is amply rewarded by blokes hopping from boat to boat to stuff money in various places around her skimpy outfit.

Next to us is a small boat, crewed by Australians. They have blown up an inflatable kangaroo, and we regale them with 'tie your kangaroo down, sport' as he straps her to the main sail.

After a welcome swim, dinner is ready, again a wonderful spread - all prepared by the crew. We shower and change and hold a full dress rehearsal of the whistle orchestra - press ganging Meral into the act, as tonight is the night we have to perform! The crew think we're hilarious.

Sooted and booted, we head to shore using the dingy, and find ourselves a few cushions to sit on from where we can watch the planned fashion show by Mudo, and drink more free booze. After the catwalking, it's the fancy dress parade, and we watch our competition as they take the stage. Predictably there are pirates, but also there are spanish costumes, and the Aussies are up there in cork hats and one on the bag pipes. Another set are in American Football kits and perform a couple of set pieces. Then it's us! Up we go, and have a prance about before performing 'happy birthday'. It's windy and noisy, and I don't think anyone could hear the notes, but we had a laugh. Disappointingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, we didn't win - the American Footballers stole the show and had a finale prepared.

Relieved that the performance is now done and dusted, we can relax and listen to the music of a petite turkish singer with a big voice accompanied by a very good guitarist.

Well oiled, we return to the boat for more nightcaps, and thence to bed. Whatta day, and there's three more to go!

A brief Interval before the Bodrum Cup

Thursday the 12th, is our first full day here, and after a good night's sleep - where we miraculously slept through the pre-dawn drummer and the early morning call to prayer, we are ready to face the task of putting away all the stuff from the car.

The drummer is a regular feature during Ramazan (Ramadan), ensuring all those fasting during daylight hours are up and fed, ready to start their day.

We spend the morning sorting everything out, cleaning and stocking up, before heading into Fethiye to meet up with a man who reads Fethiye Times. We are soon joined by Pat etc, to discuss preparing for the Bodrum Cup. Pat tells us she has a *great* idea for how we will win the fancy dress competition. We will perform as 'Kaptan Sevket's International Whistle Orchestra'! The whistles come from a set of crackers I'd brought out at Christmas. Each has a different note, and the conductor points to the revelant number as required by the tune. Now, we have performed this orchestra quite a lot since Christmas, at various parties and do's, and it goes down a storm. My role is as conductor, and at the last outing in May for Frank's birthday party, I was bedecked in a gold lame dress and 4 inch heels!

Pat insists that the same 'get-up' is required, and that the pipers will all wear printed T-Shirts (which we have yet to arrange!). This then is our mission, and we head off to find if we can get 8 white T-Shirts printed in 24 hours. After a fair bit of running around we discover we can get a hundred or, none. Plan B is to print up the text and pin them to the T's. Happy with this solution, we head off to the mountain village of Uzumlu, for a pide lunch.

The tea shop doesn't have the ayran I want, but no problem - he sends a boy to the shop to get some. He also doesn't make pide, but again, no problem - he whips rounds the corner and comes back with the pide man who takes our order and soon returns with a wide selection of the cigar shaped pizza's which are a Turkish speciality fast food. All we actually buy from the guy in the end are a few teas!

After a turn around the village, we head back into Fethiye. Jill and Den are an English couple who own one of the ground floor flats in our building. They are looking to sell up and properly move to Oman where they are teaching, so we arrange to get the key from Nese and have a look around. Then it's goodbye for now to 'Pat and party', so we can get ready to meet up later for a 'welcome back' slap-up meal in the one truly good restaurant in town - Il Fiore.

After a wonderful dinner, Clare and Jonathan join us to say 'farewell' to Jon, and 'bon voyage' to Clare, who has to go back to England for work for a week.

On Friday we meet the Canadians up at Yakamoz, which is a wonderful hotel in Ovacik, with a great setting. They have rented their jeep through Mike and Jan who run the hotel, and are returning it. The eight of us then travel onto Oludeniz, in our and Pat's car, for a cold beer while watching the paragliders practicing for the forthcoming Air Games.

That evening is dinner at Pats, where we practice our party piece, and print up the signs.

Saturday arrives, and it's up and packing ready to catch the 10am bus to Mugla, and then onto Bodrum. But you'll have to wait a few days for THAT instalment!!

The journey to Turkey

AT LAST, the day to begin our journey has finally arrived!

Having sold our final remaining possessions from the UK, we stuffed the old Toyota with as much stuff as we could carry, the last few final bits which couldn't be wedged in had to, alas, go in the bins.

The last item for collection was our bed, and we moved this down to the communal hallway of our flat on Exeter Quay, ready for collection that lunchtime.

At 11.20 am on Thursday 5 October, we locked the flat for the final time, posted the keys in and headed for our first stop in Ashford Kent. Our mileometer is reading 114,383.

En route, we heard that the bed collector had, eventually, managed to rouse someone to let her through the controlled doorways, and would have to take the bed and mattress in two trips.

The weather has changed to a drizzle.

We arrived at the travel lodge in Ashford at 3.50pm, and after unloading all the key valuables - laptops and documents, we parked the Toyota under the surveillance camera and headed to Pizza Hut for an early dinner. It's really raining now.

Off for an early night, as we have to be up to board the Channel Tunnel Railway at 5.59am.

We're up at 4.30am, it's dark and drizzly for our last few hours of UK, and by 5.05 we have covered the 12 miles to Eurotunnel check-in. We've booked it online, and the self check-in is an easy touch screen.

Before boarding, we are pulled over to security. They check the engine and if we have any gas - which we do, a few small camping gas cartridges for our small gas ringed cooker. They look in the boot and dab or bags with something, and stick a probe in amongst the packed boot.

They seem satisfied, and we are waved on our way. We drive onto the train, and through the carriages. Before 'take-off', large doors between the compartments are closed, and we start rolling at 5.57. The journey is quick, smooth and quiet, and we emerge into a dark French sky after 26 minutes are are out filling up with petrol in Calais 15 minutes after that.

Our next target is a hotel we have booked online in the Swiss lake-side town of Luzern.

After a couple of hours driving, we pulled over to a service area for breakfast. The service areas are all off the road and have picknick seating and facilities. Out with the little cooker for fried eggs and bacon and fresh coffee.

We are travelling on the toll roads, which are wide, open and not at all busy. On these we can make really good time. To enter Switzerland we cross over into Germany and drive to the border in Basel where we have to buy a Carne for 40 SF.

At 6pm we are checking in to the hotel Spatz in the town centre of Luzern. The weather has been sporadically wet and windy for most of the journey, but we arrive at Luzern to a bright, clear sunny afternoon.

The hotel has free wi-fi so we are able to check email, and update friends and family that we (and the car!) are still OK.

We dine early at the hotel on steak and chips, washed down with Swiss red wine and beer - which is surprisingly good. After dinner, it's off to explore the town and see the waterside. There is a huge ferris wheel set up by the water, and it looks magnificent, so we take a ride in the moonlight and relax and enjoy the wonderful views over the lake.

We sleep very well, and after a light breakfast at the hotel are back on the road by 7am. The weather has now caught us up, and it raining very heavily, with strong gusty winds. The car is heavy and this helps us stick to the roads. Switzerland has an abundance of tunnels, the longest of which is the St Gottard tunnel, stretching through the mountains for 19km.

We reach Italy by 10am, and stop for a break and a quick lunch of cheese, smoked ham and peanuts before pushing on to Ancona.

Our intention is to catch the Saturday ferry from Ancona to Cesme (Turkey), which leaves at 10. We are in good time as we arrive at the Port at 4.15pm. There is bad news though. The FIA world rally championships is mustering it's competitors and the ferry is full. As the next one isn't unil next Saturday, we decide to get a bed for the night and take the ferry to Ignounamitsa Greece, which leaves at Sunday lunchtime.

While waiting at the port, we met another English couple who had missed that day's ferry to Greece. They are relocating to Bulgaria, and have two dogs in their old Ford Estate.

We find a nice hotel in Ancona, called the Hotel Europa, which has secure underground parking, and a lovely room. We dine in a restaurant close by on anti-pasta and spaghetti, followed by pizza and escalopes with mushrooms, wine and beer.

A good night sleep and a lazy breakfast in the hotel later, and we are at the port by 10am. The weather has improved, and it is now a bright, clear, sunny day for our crossing. We have booked a cabin, which is clean and spacious, with an ensuite toilet and shower.

We ran into Steve and Louise agian, they are on the same ferry so we agree to meet later for drinks and dinner that evening on board. They had had to spend the night in their car, as they could not find a hotel which would take the dogs. On board, the dogs have their own cabin!

The ship is large and very well appointed. The food is wonderful and fresh, so we have lunch of prawn salad and Greek salad, before retiring for a shower and a snooze as we sail.

We met up with Steve and Louise in the bar for Martini's before having a lovely dinner of slow-cooked lamb with wine.

We slept well, although Iain said the sea what quite choppy in the night. The boat is so large that it hardly moved around much.

We are due in at 6am, so we get up, shower and pack at 5, and go up to await the instructions to get down to the car. After docking at Igounamitsa, the ferry will contune down to Patras to disembark the rest of the passengers.

A small drama on the ferry as, in their haste to get out, a large 4x4 truck backed into a rather nice Audi - luckily there was no damage.

We are on the motorway by 6.12am, it is now Monday 9 October. The motorway will eventually go all the way from Igounamitsa to Ipsala (Turkey), but large chunks are still under construction, so we are contiually diverted around the old roads which snake up and down the mountains of northern Greece. The weather is bad again, more rain, wind and in many places dense fog. But the roads are very quiet.

On one such detour, after Thessaloniki, we travelled a 50km, to find a road block. They are signalling that we will have to go back and find another road. Arriving back at Thessaloniki, we see that the motorway looks open, so we take a chance and give it a go. 50km later we reach the same point, this time we are on the other side of the lakes, and here we find mud on the roads, more police and activity and large snow ploughs pushing away the mud. We plough on as far as we can until once again we are turned back.

This has put us back a good 3 hours, and eventually we find the road over the mountains we need and arrive at Kavala at 5.30pm. It's getting dark so we take the first hotel we see, which has a lovely hilltop position overlooking the town below - Hotel Philoxenia. We have a nice room with a balcony, but as there is no restaurant at the hotel we pop into the town for sauages and salad, and come back to the room and barbeque it up on the gas ring, while sipping our wine and beers, popping olives and looking at the wonderful view.

A quick scan of the local TV news reveals the reason for the detours. The road we had needed had been washed away by a massive mud slide. The bridge was down, and it was impassable.

We are both tired, so an early night and after a good breakfast of eggs, sausages we are back on the road, heading for Turkey. The wind and rain is strong and gusty, but the car is going well, and we have no problems.

We reached the Turkish/Greek border at Ipsala at 10.30am, Tuesday 10 October. Now for the beaurocratic rigmorole. Get a visa, go back get it stamped by the Port Police, off the customs, the car is listed on the passport. We do not have a green card (insurance), so Iain goes to the duty free shop to buy some, then back for a final check over and we're through!

It's 11.10am, and we are in Turkey. Next stop, Cannakale - a little on from Gallipoli, for a short ferry crossing, and then head for Izmir. Izmir is busy and smoggy. We arrive about 5ish. It's Ramazan here at the moment, and in the hours before the sun sets, the roads are always frantic as the Turks head or home and the Iftar meal - which breaks their fast.

We decide to drive on by and find somewhere in Aydin. We stay in an excellent 4* hotel, the Anenom, which also has free wi-fi, and have an excellent meal in the a la carte restaurant of lamb ribs and veal. The breakfast in the morning is amazing. Freshly cooked-to-order omelettes, fresh tomatoes and cucumber, eggs, yoghurt, honey off the comb, cereals, fresh breads - everything you could want. We have all day to do the last 3 hours to Fethiye, so we take our time over the breakfast.

Finally we arrive in Fethiye at 10.50am, on Wednesday 11 October. The mileometer reads 116,676. We have covered 2,293 miles in the car. We were greeted by the happy faces of Adem, Nese and Dilara, who all helped us unpack the car, before refreshing us with coffee.

No sooner had we swept the floors and sluiced the balcony, Pat and Chris arrive, along with their 4 Canadian house guests: Dick and Sharon Oakes, and Frazer and Sharry Rae. These are to be our cabin mates for the much anticipated Bodrum Cup, and they are fantastic characters.

After lunch, a quick catch-up with Clare and her brother, before back to Adem's for a lovely fresh fish dinner, and an early night.

Welcome to Our New Blog

Welcome to our new blog "Blue Sky No Tie" all about our experiences living and working in Turkey. The USP in this blog is that we will be home working or tele working for a large UK body whilst enjoying the delights of Turkey!

Myself and my wife (Iain and Suzanne) made a decision 2 years ago that we wanted to change our life style from one that was work focussed to one that we were able to fit in our own interests. The thing was we were so busy working we didn't have any interests or even many friends come to think of it! We approached our then employers and asked if we could have a year off to find ourselves. No was the answer....but we went anyway.

We moved out to Turkey where we spent a wonderful year. But, the world of work beckoned again and we returned in September 2005. My job was only a temporary role but the initial 3 months turned into 6 and then 12 as I was asked to say on. Suzanne, after working for a couple of organisations, secured a job with the same employer in the summer. But as time moved on so did our wish to return to all the friends and interests we had found in Turkey (more about them in the weeks and months to come). But this time instead of leaving the job I put forward a working proposal with a difference - one that involved working remotely - or home working as it is commonly called. Anyway, to cut a long, long story short we will shortly be starting our home working from Turkey.

So, come back and visit to find out how we are getting on and read all about our adventures along the way including driving down to Turkey in a £400 car, taking part in a wooden yacht regatta and all the other stuff we now do. You'll also have a chance to meet our new friends too.