23rd April 2006 - Chilling in Ayvalik
Posted at 4:30 PM, Sunday, April 23, 2006
Done very little since we got back from Istanbul except relax.
The midnight departing and 0800 arriving bus journey from Istanbul back took more out of us than we expected - so have chilled around the boat, cleaning stainless etc, whilst we await the starting participants in the Rally to sail down towards us from the north.
We hear they left Atakoy Marina outside Istanbul today, and have one stoppover elsewhere before arriving here on the 26th.
The rally has an evening ice breaker party organised in this marina for the 27th, and on the 28th we along with another 3 Ayvalik joining yachts, sail off as part of the growing fleet down to the next port of call - Cesme - about 70 miles further south on the Turkish Agean coast.
Most of the yachts taking part will join at one of the 10 or so Turkish ports we stop at along the coast, and it will only reach the full 80 yacht fleet when we hit Kemer on the Turkish med coast about mid month.
Heres a shot of another 'temporary import'. A petite but pretty cat - well pregnant - who came to say hello, blag some food, and we suspect also seeking a birthing spot, some two days back.
Last night she gave birth fortunately on the ajoining yacht. It's 65 feet US registered Hylas, also booked onto the rally, but as yet only crewed by two nice French people - Guy and Sylvie. Guy explained the cat woke them at 3 am crying on their deck, and 5 minutes after opening the hatch, it dropped it's 4 new borns on their (or ratehr thier skippers) saloon carpet!
Sadly two were still born. The other two are cute.
The cat moved them along the jetty from Sylvie and Guys early this morning but we eventually tracked them down to a spot under a sheltered bridge deck on a smallish power boat just along.
I'm sure they will all be fine. In fact this morning we've witnessed a procession of local boat owners and burly fishermen, arriving to check out the new additions, and feed the mum. Not really what we expected - but lovely.
You can see we've a lot to keep us busy.
Met up last night with some other cruisers on another rally boat - Windsong. The skipper, John O'Connor, wanted to celebrate his 60th birthday and invited a bunch of English speaking strangers from around the jetties. Nice guy. Nice night. Comfy 'older style' yacht with lots of character.
Tomorrow we have a local engineer coming back with our bowsprit and hope we don't bore casual readers. But for for those who might be interested in such things - we've beefed it up to stop it bending.
We removed it and he's straightened added a sleeve to strengthen it to survive the loads. The quote indicates stainless work in Turkey is only 30% of what it might cost in the UK or Spain! He's also going to add a 'tie rod' we can bolt from the end of the bowsprit down to the bow chainplate - to minimise upward lift.
Another surprise when we refueled, was to learn it is relatively expensive - 2.6 YTL for a litre. So if you ever plan to cruise Turkey we'd suggest you ensure you top up with diesel and wine in Greece beforehand!
And if you're worried about Greek wine - you're right to be. Most we sampled was pretty rough - but we've ended up with gallons of reasonable quaffing stuff which is kind of OK and has not broken the bank. We were told to ensure our wine was produced either on Kafalonia or Limnos as both islands have a good local name they live up to. It is about half the Turkish prices for even rougher stuff - so worth stocking up. Not sure 10 gallons was not too much though - as we now hear Lebanese wines can be excellent also.
So that's it for now. Trust y'all had a good Easter and we'll update the blog once underway at the weekend.
Cheers
JOHN