Back to Fethiye

A massive catchup edition, as I struggle to finally get the Blog up to date...

After an exciting week in Bodrum, it was back to Fethiye to try and get back to business as usual. Winter will soon be coming, so while the weather is still good, we decided to get on with getting a wood burner for the salon, before the rush.

These are very popular in Turkey, as they are cheap to run and provide a lot of heat. Unfortunately although they come in an amazing array of sizes and styles, they are all brown. We didn't want a brown one, so set about trying to track down a cast iron, black one. Eventually we located the very thing in a small ironmongers on the outskirts of town. Although it is quite small, it is very heavy, and took two very strong men to lift it out of the shop onto the back of the flatbed truck. After it was loaded, we sheepishly watched them as we explained that they would have to carry it up to the third floor in our apartment building!

They struggled up with it, and hovvered on the threshold while they kicked off their shoes before bringing it inside. For a price, they agreed to 'plumb' it in, which involves building a chimney out of various lengths and elbows of metal flue, and then stuffing this into the chimney hole in the corner. This service (delivery and fitting) set us back the princely sum of 3.5 lira (about a pound)!

The next day we picked up some logs and coal, which we can store in the utility room outside the front door, and set about getting our first fire going. It works really effectively, the wood gets it going and hot, and then the coal catches and burns slow and hot. The top of the fire is a hot plate, which we use to boil water in the kettle for tea and to fill the hottie botties before going to bed. All very cosy.

Sunday saw a visit to Calis market for pancakes and to meet Pat's latest set of house guests, Pauline and her mother Joan. We retired back to Pat's to swim, for dinner and to make some plans for the week. Monday night - quiz night, Tuesday - Kaya, Thursday - Emali.

The working week begins

Monday saw the first day of work for Iain, I was still waiting for my login to be confirmed, so had anoher week 'off'. We've set up the back room as an office, and it was great sitting there, Iain working and listening to Radio 2 on the internet, with the sun streaming through the windows, while I worked on editing the Bodrum Cup video.

Skype is working a treat for keeping in touch with work colleagues, and costs just 1.5p per minute! The line is perfect. Throughout the day we were interrupted by knocks at the door and small clutches of children after their sweets, for today is the first day of Seker Bayram - the 'sweet' holiday which follows the end of Ramazan.

That night we met Pat etc at the Kosem for quiz night and fish and chips. It was good to catch up with a few of the other faces we haven't had a chance to see yet. We did well at the quiz, coming joint second, but conceded the prize to the other team as we wanted to go home.

Next day, I left Iain hard at work, and went with Pat, Chris, Pauline and Joan to visit the abandoned Greek village of Kaya. Chris, Pauline and I explored the site, and visited the churches while Pat and Joan rested up in the cafe drinking tea.

As the afternoon worn on, we decided to carry on to Oludeniz to watch the paragliders coming down as they prepared for the air games, and we supped a cold beer.

Thursday saw us taking a trip to the village in the mountains called Elmali, which literally means 'Appley', because the chief source of occupation here is growing apples. Iain decided he'd like to come too, and after working for the last three days, felt he'd earned a day off, so we drove too and met the other three in the village of Seki for tea.

We continued the drive up the twisty winding mountain roads, reaching an altitude of 1, 900 metres. One of the main highlights of Elmali is a seventeeth century Mosque, but we arrived as the call to prayer began, so we seized the opportunity to get a pide lunch followed by the speciality ice-cream of the town - burnt milk flavour. Sounds revolting but was gorgeous. An amble through the back streets of the old town revealed many old Ottoman houses made of mud, wattle and daub, and we eventually we rounded onto the Mosque, now empty of worshippers. We ladies donned our headscarves, and we all kicked of our shoes to have a look inside at the beautiful Iznic handpainted tiles.

We decided to head back home a different way, and see if we could find a seasonal lake which Iain had found on the map, and which was renowned for migratory birds. We headed off, stopping to have a look around some unusual wooden barns which are direct decendants architectorally from the Lycian Tombs. After getting lost a couple of times, and getting directions from locals, we found ourselves on a rough stoney track, which by all accounts, we could expect to go on for 10-20 km. Iain was worried about the ability of the Toyota to clear the rocks, and about punctures and suspension, so we agreed to return back the way we came - we should be able to clear the hair raising mountain road while it was still light.

It had been a long day, and a long drive, so about 5km from Fethiye Iain agreed to let me drive the rest of the way. This became a bit of a baptism of fire for my first driving experience on the *wrong* side of the road. The light was fading fast, and it was hard to see in the dimsy twilight. Added to which many of the other drivers seemed reluctant to put their lights on, and the town centre is manic. However, I did well and arrived at Migros right behind Pat. We enjoyed a well earned beer before getting some shopping in and heading home to light the fire.

For Pauline and Joan's last evening, we collected Clare and headed over to Pat's for dinner, along with Jan and Mike from Yakamoz Hotel. It made for a great night, and we all enjoyed ourselves very much before saying farewell to Pauline and Joan.

The next day we arranged to meet up with Ann and Don and sparked up the slow cooker for the first time to prepare lamb shanks with roasted vedge. Clare is alone most evenings while Recep works in a bar, so we invited her over too. We had a great evening catching up with them, in the cosy warmth of the fire.

That Sunday, we'd been invited out, fishing, with Stuart on his 5 metre power boat. It was a lovely sunny day, and he took us around the islands in the bay, while we trailed the lines in search of fish. As we motored out of the bay, we spied a yacht with Norwegian flags - it was our old mate Bent, who we'd met a couple of years ago, when we'd been out with him and he'd lost his dingy. We circled his boat and said our hello's and caught up with the news. He was only out for a few more days before taking the boat out for over-wintering and heading back to Norway. We wouldn't be able to see him properly this time, but we'll catch up again next time.

We stopped off to climb the deserted Red Island and have a look at the old lighthouse, now unmanned. No bites on the lines, so we sped off to Turunc bay to swim and have our packed lunch, consisting of last night's leftover lamb and vedge - yum.

Back to work for Monday, and the rains arrived. Heavy rain, thunder, lightening, very dramatic. Tuesday saw more of the same weather, and today the power was on and off all day - playing havoc with Iain trying to work and me sorting out the Bodrum Cup video. I met up with Pat, Chris and Jan that evening to go to the cinema to watch the Devil wears Prada, while Iain sourced himself a USB modem to allow him to work through any future power cuts.

Wednesday was my first appearance at the Gardening Club, to be hosted by Pat, who has been busy baking scones in preparation. There are now 60 members, and a good 30/40 of them attended, despite it being a very wet day. I've been co-opted to run the membership list, while Pat organises the programme and Jan keeps the money in the Hotel safe. It was great catching up with the gossip with both new people and may who I'd not seen for ages. I do believe some people actually talked about gardening, but I avoided them!

Iain drove over to join us after work, and some of Pat's friends, Sharon and Pete over from England came down over for dinner with their little boy, Sam. Trying to get the car out to go home, we found ourselves stuck in the mud, but with a helping push from me and Pete, we were soon free!

We got home, to find the video had finally finished processing, it had taken 12 hours just to finish the joining and conversion, so we watched the final cut.

Thursday saw a welcome return of the sunshine, and that afternoon the 'Golden Dice' backgammon contest was due to start. Chris had entered along with Mustafa the carpet seller - his regular partner. We met them at the venue, and were surprised to see there were no other foreigners, but quite alot of women.

Chris was drawn first, and was playing an old Turkish man who had difficulty seeing the numbers on the dice. He was a great character saying 'no problem, no problem' all the time and bursting into song with, bizarrely, Frere Jacques!

Chris won his way through to the next day, as did Mustafa, and we left them to it while we went back to show Pat the video and give her some copies to take back to England and post onto the Canadians. Both of them were knocked out on day two, but they'd done well to get so far through.

The next day, Pat was flying back to England for 10 days , to see friends and collect her Turkish citizenship. It was raining on and off when we arrived to pick up her to take her to Dalaman, but we emerged to sunshine on the other side of the Gocek tunnel. After dropping her off, we decided to check out the local beach, Sarigerme, while the weather here was good.

Back in town, we'd heard that the two guy's who perform a drag act had just opened a new bar, Kismet, so after dinner we took a stroll along the Kordon to say hi, check it out and wish them well. They are a very exuberant couple and they've done a grand job on the bar, which is very sociable. There was no one else there when we arrived so we had a good chat, before we were joined by a few other people. Their official opening will be the following Saturday. We agreed to call in the next afternoon to write a story for Fethiye Times.

The next day was sunny, but had turned cold. We sorted out a few bits of shopping, ie a new printer/scanner/copier and got back to find Adem in the garden working on the car port. I had another slow cook on, so we invited them over for dinner. As promised we visted Kismet and met another set of new people and got some photo's for the website.

Adem, Nese and Dilara came over at 7 and really enjoyed the slow cooked meat, amazed at the 'clever cooker' which requires so little attention or electric. We can't believe they aren't available here. After dinner, we piled across the landing to watch the Bodrum Cup video on Adem's gigantic new 50 inch Sony Plasma/LCD TV, complete with surround sound. It was amazing. We all really enjoyed it.

For Sunday, we'd invited Clare to come with us to Letoon and Patara to check out the beach, which is in the top 10 best beaches in the world, and to look at the recent excavations that have uncovered so many new buildingsl preserved by the sand and silt over the last 2000 odd years.

We took a picnic of spicy sausage, olives, tomatoes, bread, cheese and wine and barbecued while sitting on an old roman road in front of the remains of the romans baths, very atmospheric. At this time of year, the weather is still good, not too hot for exploring and wandering around, but is deserted of people. It was a lovely sunny day, but the air was still cold. For the price of a piece of bread, we were adopted by a little dog who accompanied us all around the site as we explored the mostly intact amphitheatre, and surrounding ruins.

Like the famous four, we trekked through the dunes with our doggy-guide to see the uncovered light house and then spent an hour sitting on the beach soaking up the sun, before heading back to Calis to watch the sunset with a G&T.

Yesterday was Monday 6 November and as I now have my login through I have started working now too. Iain is required back to the UK, so we have sorted out our flights and transfers in readiness.

That's all for now and I'm finally up to date! Hurrah! Posts will be shorted from now on..... hopefully!! :o)

Bodrum Cup, episode two

Sorry for the delay in getting on with this, have been busy trying to get the DVD of the event done, and it's now finished, hurrah!, and is (if I do say so myself) pretty flipping good!

Race two, of the four day event, began on a very calm and sunny morning. We motored out to the starting area, and waited for the signalling whistles, while getting everything ready to sail. Final whistle and then we're off, although there is little or no wind, so we're pretty much bobbing our way towards the starting point.

Dick and Fraser are still concerned that we are starting too far from the actual startline, and after half an hour it becomes apparent that they are indeed correct in their concern. The committee boat passes behind us and we then hear on the radio that hardly any of the boats have passed the start line! The rules state that in order to compete, you have to have crossed the line within the first half hour - we just made it!! Captain Mustafa says, oh yeah, I forgot that rule! Out of the 70 odd boats, only 11 have actually crossed the start, and so are in the race. The others are asked to motor off to English Harbour (our berth for the night) and clear out of the way.

As we are the only on entrant in our group, we had a guaranteed first place, so we sat back and relaxed while we headed off to the finish line.

When we arrived at English Harbour, all the other non-racing gulets had bagged the best spots in a semi-circle of 'love' around the stage, where a very popular Turkish singer, Nilufer, would perform that night. We anchored a little way further on and the boys prepared us another lovely al-fresco dinner.

That night, Iain and I, Dick, Fraser and Chris headed off on the inflatable gemini boat to watch the concert from the pontoons, while Pat, Shary and Sharon had an early night.

The concert was great, very high energy and everyone was loving it. After a couple of tracks, Iain and I headed off to the bar behind the stage for a drink, while the others watched the rest of the concert. We hadn't been there very long before we could hear the droning horns of the gulets trying to compete with the massive sound system of the singer. Eventually she stopped and we heard cries of 'yangin!, yangin!' - fire!, fire! Some eegit (probably had too much raki) had thrown, or shot, a distress flare behind the stage (Fraser and Chris had actually heard it whistle behind them). It set fire to a tree in the forest behind. Immediately everyone rushed to grab what water they could find to douse the flames.

We met up with the other guys and as we turned, there was Levent and Ali, ready to evac us on the gemini, back to the boat.

Five minutes later, huge water tenders were on site to properly extinguish the blaze. Luckily there was little damage and no one was injured, but forest fires are no joke.

So, that was the end of the concert, and Meral later told us that the organisors had pledged to compensate the area with 1,000 trees to replace the one that had been lost. We think that the culprit was apprehended by the gendarma, but we heard nothing definite. Apparently it made the national news!

For the third day, we made sure that we were alot closer to the start line, and although the morning began fine, the clouds began to build and darken. Then the rain started. We were off, and as the wind built the lads were kept very busy changing the sails and running around the sodden decks. We ventured out into the wind and rain every now and again to see what was happening and show a little solidarity, but mostly we stayed in the main salon, playing cards, chatting and we had a few rounds of Bingo - in Turkish.

It was a foul day, but we made excellent speeds, and the boat was often keeling, causing everything to go flying from one side of the rooms to the another!

The front Genoa sail was having trouble staying out in the gusty winds, so the crew lashed together a couple of large flexible bamboo poles to hold it out by hand. Crack! the pole split and Levent and Onder were left with deep splinters in their hands. After repairing the pole as best they could, we could see one of them brandishing a large, sharp kitchen knife in an attempt to remove the splinters.

Sharon rushed to the rescue finding a pair of tweezers, and Iain performed triage on them both - before they cut their hands off! They were both very grateful.

Once passed the post, in 6th place, the boys had to pull in the sails in 26 knot cross winds. We watched them nervously as the grappled with the whipping sails and ropes, petrified that one of them would be blown overboard. For them, however, they took it all in their stride and soon we were motoring off to find a safe harbour from the fierce Melteppe winds to weather the night.

That evening, dinner was inside, and we looked up the wind and weather forecasts with Mustafa on his laptop, considering what would happen on the next day.

It was dark, wet, windy, thundering and there was spectacular lightening so, as we were all tired and there was certainly not going to be a beach party, we turned in for an early night.

After the night, and the forecasts, we were expecting more of the same weather on the fourth and final day, and thought that the race may be cancelled. Quite the opposite. We watched the dark clouds head off towards Fethiye, and clear high pressure was soon on us. Sunny and warm we headed off to our final starting line.

Now there were concerns that the race would still be cancelled, only this time due to lack of wind. 10 came and went, and by midday we had still not heard about when the race would begin. Onder suggested that while some of the crew rustled up some lunch, the rest of us should swim, so we got our swimmers on and dived in!

After lunch, the wind began to flick the tail tells, and the organisors announced that the race would commence at 2.30pm, and that they would shorten the course.

As the five minutes - engines off, whistle blew, we could see that a few boats were getting very close to each other, as they jockeyed to get as close to the start line as they could. A small yacht emerged from between two larger gulets, and it looked like it caught on the bow spit of one of them. This caused the smaller boat to pivot round into the path of the gulet and then there was an almighty 'CRACK' as the main mast on the small yacht was broken in half! Luckily no one was hurt. Iain was up front videoing at the time and caught the whole incident on film.

Final whistle and we were off, heading to the finish, before docking at Turgutreis marina for the final night.

The wind soon got up, and we all had to tack to get to the line. This is great conditions for our classicly rigged ship, as no one could effectively use a spinniker in a cross wind.

It was very exciting as we pitched and yawed, and made speeds of up to 9.5 knots.

We finished third that day, and the three best scores are counted for the final results. This meant that we got third overall in our class, and a place on the podium! More stage work!!

Erhan now lives in Turgutreis, so we gave him a call and arranged to meet him and take him to the awards ceremony, where there was to be more free food and drink, plus live entertainment.

It was a great party atmosphere, as we met other sailors and exchanged tall tales. There was to be an inquiry into the mast crashing incident, and they had heard that Iain had footage of the event. He was approached and asked if he would show the film to the race organisors so they could try and determine fault. All very exciting.

Next up came the prizes, and we discovered to the joy of our crew that not only were we third in our class, but that we had won the best Sportmanship cup from Turgutreis Council. This was a fine, heavy brass statue. We all went up on stage in Kaptan Sevket T shirts and collected the award.

Back on the boat we were euphoric, and Onder let me have his Bodrum Navy hat, which was really generous of him, as a fantastic momento.

Mustafa and his crew had had a great time sailing, and really appreciated all the support we had given them, saying that we'd brought them luck and hoping we'd be back next year.

The next day we left our gulet and said our goodbyes, first to the crew, and then later to the Canadians as we headed back to catch the bus back to Fethiye.

Excellent fun and amazing value for 900 euros each, I'm sure we'll be back!