Weekend before Christmas!!!

We returned home from Turkey on a cold December 18^th. I was so excited to be home with friends and family to celebrate Christmas! Dad and mom picked us up from the airport; it was great to see them. The following day we did not do much because we were exhausted. We were so lucky to have a private viewing of the Beauparlant twins Emma and Logan. THEY ARE ADORABLE and Abby and Brian are a wonderful example of loving and devoted parents.

    

Emma Kathleen and Logan David

Now, because we were in town before Christmas we had lots of running around to do as well as visiting. Our next visit was with the Jacobi family! We had planned on celebrating lil Wendy’s birthday with a special trip into Boston. We headed out to Sudbury on Saturday afternoon to pick up the kids. We were thrilled to see them. It had been four months since I had seen them last. The kids came running out the door when they saw my truck pull up…we all had some tears of joy! The house was all a buzz with Christmas and it was so nice to be back there. We had a nice lunch with Gigi and Poppy and Jen R. was there too. Jeb and Wendy were so excited to show us all of the activities they have been doing. We all exchanged gifts and had a wonderful visit before the kids headed to town with us.

We arrived at the Sheraton at about 6pm. We checked in and got cleaned up to go meet one of our bestest friends ever Alison O’laughlin!!!  She fortunately had very thoughtful gifts of noise machines for Jeb and Wendy. The kids we thrilled and we all headed in to have dinner. The very special reason for dinner out and a night at the Sheraton was for Wendy’s birthday so naturally we all sang Happy Birthday to her!

We really enjoyed our time with Alison and I still begin to chuckle when I think of how much fun we all had.

 The following morning we went for a long swim before brunch. Jeb and Wendy are natural swimmers and love the water. After swimming and brunch we headed to the Frog Pond in Boston Common for some ice-skating. On our way into the common we ran into the man of the season Santa with Mrs. Claus and one of the head elves. They were heading to a local charity to visit with the kids. We were very lucky to run into him, he had candy canes for everyone! It was the first time for all of us to go skating on the pond. It was fairly warm and a bit drizzly at first.

Wendy and Jeb are naturals at ice-skating but Joseph and myself were a bit nervous about falling so we took it slow.  We spent about 2 hours on the ice. Lucky for us that Dietz and Watson were doing a promotional day at the pond with hot mini sandwiches and free cocoa. We took full advantage of the free treats and I assured them that I would no longer buy Boars head brand meat, which we all know (Emily) is the best meat ever! The kids had their faces painted…we all had a blast!

 

 

 The free hot cocoa was yummy!

Lots of energy was expelled and we headed up to Helen and Butch’s house for another sleepover!

Wendy cuddling with Logan at our sleepover party...Wendy is a natural babysitter!

 

Turkey...three weeks deep! - Lost but also found

One of the things that makes Turkey different is the number of ATM’s… you rarely see one on it’s own. The picture shows eight ATM’s along one wall and 7 more along another. I’m told in summer there are queues of people lining up to use them, but right now it’s quite… we hear that a lot…

The following day we were invited to a barbeque. We drove with Orkin out into the country side to a friends restaurant. It was a cold night and the locals say it’s never this cold so they don’t have heat to heat the houses and apartments. This was no exception… Even while we were inside we had to ware gloves and hats. As the evening moved along, we got a visit from the local MP police called the Jandarma. These guys act as local police when there are no local police in the area. They deal with all the issue that local police deal with,, and more.. They turned out to be really nice guys and stayed for dinner. They even taught us to play back gammon. We had a great night. So much fun!

The original reason to go was to get a Christmas tree !!! It’s not like the US, you don’t see Christmas tree’s on the side of the road for sale. Turkey decided to make it illegal to cut down certain types of tree’s, oil trees and pine trees being two on the list. Just to be clear, you can own the land, you can plant the tree, but you can’t cut it down !!! With special permission and a large bribe you can make it happen… we were looking for the other option but the local Jandarma police were not going to allow this! So the plan was put on hold.

The next day if was off to the boat again. We are sanding the bottom to allow it to dry out over the winter. Joseph hired two local guys to help him, they are making good progress. Just as a reference, the wages in winter are 1000 TL for a month. This is 6 days a week 8 to 9 hours a day.  We pay 300 TL’s  a week, or $150, or this works out at a little over $2.5 an hour.The labor here is cheap. We are sure to feed them a nice lunch as well as Anne brings them Cokes and candy bars in the afternoon.

We headed to Kipa again for fish… and once again Joseph cooked it up. As a side note oranges are almost free in Marmaris. They grow everywhere…. People sell them out of the back of their cars for pennies!

 Other local fruits are sold at really discounted prices, as the Irish say "it is it good value for money?" At Kipa we saw the solution to the Christmas tree. Although they have fake trees they also had fresh trees in pots, still growing, this gets around the issue of cutting down a tree.  $25 buys you a fresh tree.

Some people have been asking what does the boat look like out of the water. Well WENDY and JEB...this photo is for you!!! Zim stands in a cradle and for extra security, the Turkey boat yard adds wooden poles to help stop it from moving in high winds… they have a good record of not loosing too many boats. (Anne gets nervous about this)

The other big question has been about our apartment. We got quite a good deal on the place, two bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom, and kitchen. All for less than $200 a month !!! We get  free water but have to pay for electricity…. Which can be expensive since all the heating is electric.

Master Bedroom 

View from living-room

 Guest bedroom

Living room ...

In the final days before we leave for the US for Christmas Joseph went for his first Turkish shave. Again Orkin (or as we like to call him Orkin-man as a way to remember the pronunciation) came to the rescue, he brought us to the right place. The guy spoke a little English and did a great job, even if I had to give a little direction, so I got the desired out come. I think Joseph will go back, he really liked the experience. In the morning we were off to Germany, and then to the US …

The morning started early, the bus left at 8am and we had bought our tickets the night before. We were really proud of ourselves as we had managed to get the price of the bus for the listed price. Believe it or not everything is about bargaining. Now when you go to a market, you expect to have to bargain, Turkey is famous for this. But when you go to a bus station and the guys tells you the normal price is 42 TL’s but for you he can do a special price of 39 TL’s you know you are getting had !!! We had been armed with the price from the internet… and knew what we wanted to pay 31 TL’s which is $15 and not a penny more. Later that evening after a visit to the ring store to collect my engagement ring, we collected the tickets for the bus ride from a different bus store, this guy didn’t even try to bargain, he came out with the 31 TL’s price all on his own… Finally we felt like we were starting to fit in.

We boarded the bus and headed off to Izmir some 4 hours away. Now to be honest we couldn’t understand why the car ride only took 2.5 hours and the bus was so much slower. But soon enough it became very obvious, they drive really slowly. The only good thing about the journey was that they made us tea and sandwiches on route. We arrived a head of schedule and then took another bus to the airport. With plenty of time to spare we boarded the flight to Germany to spend the evening with Josephs cousin Rosemary and her lovely family, Christian, Mia and Dominic. 

On landing in Germany, for the first time in weeks, it really felt like Christmas. Christmas trees everywhere and Christmas music, something we had almost never heard in Turkey was playing freely… The season had begun for us. The following day we board the second stage of the flight to Boston and now as I write the remainder of this blog I am sitting on the plane with 4 hours to go… see you all soon...can't wait to be home for Christmas!!!

 

Orkin and Joseph enjoying a hot coffee

Leather jacket testing ... hahahahaha

 Orkin 

Izmir from up top :) 

Turkey - Part 1 (lost but now found)

So the final count for miles traveled was 4,253 NM. Some more enjoyable than other, but in the end we reached our final destination ahead of schedule and more importantly, both Captain and crew were safe and sound, ready for the next stage in our journey together… the burca, lamb and morning prayer… all to be explained later!

As we walked down the dock the first thing that became very obvious was that I wasn’t the only American here, in fact probably 40% of the boats are registered in the US, (most have never been there ) The US is a tax haven for Turkish boats. 

 As we continued to explore the marina we discovered this boat, totally submerged.

 As we learned more about the place Zim would call home for the next few months we realized that no all was as it might first seem. First of all,  the owner of the marina was in prison as he was a member of the Turkish mob. The marina was most likely illegally built over time and they continue to add to it without proper planning permission. Sea walls are constructed each winter season at the marina entrance only to be torn down by the government each spring. The marina was once just a sand bar, but now there are some 600 boats ashore and some 300 in the water.

 After a long walk around the marina a special guest followed me home, she boarded without the sightless worry of falling in and cried until I gave her some milk. She stuck around for a few hours hoping to be let inside, but that was never going to happen on Josephs watch…in the end she left the boat.

Next day it was off to do some shopping. We both wanted fish and Joseph offered to cook it.
 

Kipa is one of the local markets and were we headed there first. It is kind of like a Walmart or super Target. The weather was supposed to change and Marmaris was expecting 40 inches of rain !!! Now this seemed impossible, but after everything we had seen… we decided to take the warning seriously.

In the morning we woke to what can only be described as a lake of mud. It was believed that more than 40 inches fell, but due to the damage it caused, no one was sure of exactly how much fell. The picture below was taken 3 days afterwards.

 Land slides were common place on the road from the marina to the town, and the road was almost completely destroyed. Huge sink holes opened up and swallowed the road leaving just enough room for cars to pass.


 One local bee keeper had 100’s of bee boxes washed of their perch displacing tens of thousands of bee… the pictures don’t really show the extent of the damage and loss.

The next day the weather cleared up enough for us to head out shopping again… this time to a real market. The fruit and veg are some of the best we have seen anywhere and the price is right. Food, or at lease fruit and veg is really cheap !!! Joseph was in his element and had to be dragged away  from the spice section.

 
 After a few more days of waiting around the weather was perfect to lift the boat. We planned to have some of our decks replaced so we needed to take the mast out. Because of all the damage from the rain, the government had contracted all the local cranes to help remove fallen trees, the company responsible to take our mast out had to hire a tow truck with a boom lift to take our mast out. At first they were not sure if it would be big enough, but in the end it all worked out perfect.
  

 The next step was to lift Zim out. The travel lift made light work of this and soon Zim was sitting in her cradle on which she will stay until March.

At this point we had found an apartment and had moved in. A nice two bedroom with just enough room for our future guests. We had already began to miss the boat life but it was Thanksgiving and that night we spent the evening with some fellow sailors at the Pineapple restaurant enjoying a delightful turkey dinner with all the trimmings. It was a great evening and the company and entertainment was fantastic. I saw my first Christmas tree of the season !

The next day the building began. We needed to cover the boat for the winter. It needed to be big enough so that we could work under it during the winter as we tried to complete the long list of projects. We worked into the night. The next day was Sunday so we planned a day off with a trip to Mugla, 1 hour away. The view from the road was amazing. Some locals used the road to sell their hand made “stuff”everything from stuffed donkeys to honey to bird boxes. All very colorful and beautiful. The plan was to do some Christmas shopping, not easy is a country that doesn’t celebrate Christmas! Of course, Joseph found the food and was happy to try and spend his time bargaining over apples and oranges.


We did find a few things… but I knew we would have to find a few more days to shop before we  headed back to the States. On the way out of the market… I saw where chicken nuggets came from !!! Not easy to see in the photo, but the lady on the left has a chicken between her feet. Not sure I would know were to start !
 

A week has passed without much to report. Back and forth to the boat most days as we try to be ready to leave for Christmas. This week we headed to Izmir to try and do a little more shopping… This time we took our side kick Orkin with us. Not only as company be also as our bargaining tool… but also as our interrupter. Again food was the order of the day but I did manage to get some good shopping done also.

Orkin our sidekick...

 

Zimbabalooba being moved from the lift onto her cradle!!!