Islay Mist in the Med

The final chapter of our 2011 sailing adventure.

2011-12-29T14:55:00.000Z

Our rush westwards was all due to our decision to go home for the Tall Ships festival in Shetland and also two family weddings. So basically we had to make bookings for a marina berth, plane tickets, etc and then as you might expect, it was panic stations thereafter, to try and make sure we actually got to our chosen berth in good time.
The result was we hammered along Sicily's south coast, rushed past the south of Sardinia, positively fled around Mallorca and Ibiza, and just made it to Agua Dulci on the southern Spanish coast in time to get the boat bedded down for the summer break.
This break being "plan A ", was to go home for the summer, attending to the various things that required our attention, then to return back to the boat and head off to the Caribbean for another year or two.
Well, Plan A got kicked out sometime in late August, and was replaced by another "Plan B" which has resulted in Linda and me back at work, the girls attending school, a car being purchased, and TV license, phone land line,etc, etc and a general hemorrhaging of money like you never saw!
The simple fact was, we had so many things to attend to back home, our planned return to continue our trip was not possible, so now we plan to stay home for the winter and return to our travels in the summer of 2012.
So anyway, with all this "Plan A / B" thing, did we have fun?, and yes we did.

After leaving Malta, we headed back to Sicily and spent a few days in a couple of marinas on the south coast. The first one, "Licata" was a brand new marina, and we got a 1st class reception. We were picked up by one of the marina staff in an electric buggy and taken to the office, and shown around the shower/toilet block, and made very welcome. The marina is still having the pontoons installed, so there were hardly any other yachts there. The town itself was just a short walk from the marina, and being an old town, there were plenty of nice views, and as usual, stunning architecture!

The wonderful thing about travelling is having the opportunity to be in "out of the way places" and learn how people do things in different ways. Here we stumbled on the fish van, except it was the fish 3 wheeler pick-up, very typical of Italy, doing a brisk trade down a narrow alley.
All too soon we were slipping off the mooring lines and heading out to sea, with an escort! This "royal" treatment also included the marina staff collecting our empty spare diesel drums, filling them up and delivering them back to our boat, great service.

We then had a calm engine on day, but only a short 30 mile or so trip up the coast to Sciacca

Again another nice old town and a welcoming marina, although not quite a grand as our last one, much more industrial.

The town of Scaicca is an old port, active as a fishing and a commercial harbour.

The town also had a history of ceramics manufacture, as we could see from the very decorative features on the buildings.

There was a festival of some sort going on, but it must have been in a hidden location, because we hardly saw a living soul- the streets were empty.

We did find a lovely park to have lunch in, which was purchased from about the only place open, a street kiosk.

The girls measure most places by how good the breakwater is for scrambling, climbing and fishing on, so this one was quite acceptable.

The other item high on the girls list of importance was the loosing of "baby" teeth, with the obvious benefit of the "tooth fairy" calling in the night. So the loss of a tooth, which you might have thought would have been a traumatic event, was in fact a bonus, almost a pleasure!

I might keep this photo for later, perhaps to scare off undesirable boyfriends!

This was to be our last stop in Sicily, as we planned to go straight across to Sardinia, a two day sail. We had been watching the forecast, and were hopeful of some decent sailing conditions. We took on water, fuel and food, and headed off in nice relaxing conditions.

Under the spray hood is the girls favourite hideaway, shelter from wind, sun or rain. Alisha is a total bookworm, and will read the entire day if left alone.

However little sister is not so quiet, and usually looks for a more physical and energetic activity- this is their "puppy dog" game.
The sail to Sardinia was very leisurely, we had full main and genneker up most of the way, and made good speed.
The the evening of the following day we had the coast of Sardinia in sight, and eventually anchored in total black dark in what we believed to be a nice anchorage.

When we awoke next morning we were pleased with our choice of anchorage, although we were not expecting the coast to be so barren, hardly a house in sight.
After breakfast, we thought that we would press on and make our way west around the south coast.

The coast was mostly rocky, high hills and not much sign of life. We did see an occasional farm or village, and of course, an occasional yacht.

One of the things that we find very odd, is that the sailing season does not really begin until well through June, and this being still (late) May, we never saw many other yachts out and about.

Although every now and then we got a little surprise, such as these guys, the bigger red yacht towing the small yellow one.

We anchored in a small bay on the southeast corner of the island of San Pietro, which lies about a mile or so west of mainland Sardinia. The town of Carloforte is just around the corner, and our intention was to spend a day at anchor, basically use up our fresh food, then go into the town marina and restock, before the fairly long sail over to Mallorca. We always try to fit in some rowing practice, and plenty of exploring ashore.

San Pietro looked to be a nice island, and the town of Carloforte was very hospitable, with helpful marina staff, and not too expensive!! I would say that Sardinia generally has a reputation for expensive marinas.

The place was quite busy, and we spent two enjoyable days, just wandering around, shopping, eating etc, with a bit of "school" and boat cleaning thrown in.

The whole area has a "country" feel to it, not "music" I might add, but nothing too built up, and also a history of tuna fishing, which appeared to be why/ how the town was first established.

This tuna fishing is still carried on today, but also tuna farming, or at least tuna growing!

The tuna are caught in nets, and then kept in pens out in the sea, and fed, presumably until they are much bigger, and therefore more value. Also I suppose they can be better marketed.

These nets are semi permanent and very long, and the pens are close by.

There were quite a few small fishing boats working in the area.

So, it was time to leave, we stocked up in our last Italian supermarket and headed off, again another beautiful day, north west through the sound and out to sea.

This place looked to be a fish factory of sorts, certainly there was some commercial activity.

Another Mediterranean sunrise.

And strawberries for breakfast, no problem with the "5 a day" when you have fresh strawberries on board.

And here we are, Porto Pollensa in Mallorca, and we were looking forward to seeing if Hewitt and Margaret Clark were in town. We knew them from back home in Shetland, and we knew that Pollensa was their base port, so I could hardly wait to drop anchor, and get the dinghy fired up. It was a busy anchorage, with a lot of yachts, so it actually took me a while to find "Lady Margaret" their boat.

In fact it was so busy, we ended up way out in the bay, far away from Hewitt and Margaret who are on a permanent mooring, close to town.

Pollensa is a very picturesque bay, almost surrounded by very rocky hills. We spent a few days swimming, walking, eating and just enjoying the place. Pollensa is a popular holliday resort, so there were other attractions (Pint of lager !)

A spot of excerise........

....and then a rest- ah its a hard life!

The girls were very impressed by the sand sculpture artist.

We even found an area laid out as a bird watching park, with information boards about the various birds living in the park.

After a few days in Pollensa, we said our good byes to Hewitt and Margret and headed down the west coast towards Port Soller.

It is a spectacular and rugged coast, and I would say a highlight of Mallorca.

It was a calm day, so we motored most of the way.

The temperature had jumped in the past few weeks, so we were all trying to find cool and shady spots....

although there is always spelling practise to keep folk occupied.

The entrance to Port Soller, almost invisible from the North.

...but in fact, completely open from the North West. This fact makes it an unsuitable anchorage in bad weather, and especially as the holding is not too good. We had to keep a good lookout, as the harbour was very busy, and some folk will always try and convince themselves that there is plenty of room, when in fact there is not.

Happily, we had no problems, and enjoyed a fantastic three days.

We found it to be a friendly place, and met quite a few old and new acquaintances.

One guy rowed over to ask if we would like a bit of tuna- yes please, and boy was it good!

Now that is a big tuna steak, we could only get one in the pan at a time.

Port Soller has a unique narrow gauge tram running from Soller to Palma, which I had suggested that we must have a trip on. It goes right across Mallorca, through some stunning countryside.

The side windows can fully open, which was good, as it was a hot day.

Now these trams are British built, of course in a period in history when the UK could build things. I have seen "English Electric" trams in various towns and cities throughout Europe, old but still in service, beautiful traditional wood construction. And in Edinburgh, they are struggling to build a tram line, and its not even a UK company that are doing the work! now that's not progress.

The choice of restaurants ashore was good, so we picked a nice small place with tables overlooking the harbour.

Next morning it was "up anchor" and an excellent 60 mile down-wind sail to Ibiza.

Again, leaving Port Soller, we were treated to more lovely scenery.

Now, as we were always getting closer to mainland Spain, there was hopefully a chance that we would meet up with some of our old friends from our 1st winter spent in Barcelona.

We knew that Kristor was somewhere in Ibiza, and also that Ton and Ingrid were in the area, so we were keen to reach San Antonio, where we knew that Kristor would be passing through.

On our way along the North coast of Ibiza, we could see that Ibiza also has some spectacular scenery to offer.

We spent one night in an anchorage before venturing into San Antonio. It is a busy place, with a big marina and also a big anchorage, and plenty of boats.

It was not that long after, that we spied our big Swedish friend in his catamaran, who waltzed through the maze of boats to eventually anchor next to us.

Lets say that the rest of that day was spent catching up on news and socialising!... and visiting...

.....comming for a beer?

smiles all round!

Kristor "showing off" in his slightly bigger and faster dinghy.....

San Antonio harbour seems to be a kind of yacht "graveyard" with a lot of interesting boats in various states of repair.

This catamaran had an interesting rig-

And this once beautiful ketch was laying at the pier, neglected, apparently a victim of drug running.

The Spanish authorities will eventually auction the boats that are apprehended, but it takes forever, and in the meantime, the boats are left, basically to rot- very sad.

After a few days at anchor, we had to say goodbye to Kristor and once more set sail, this time a 300 mile or so sail to our lay-up yard in Agua Dulci, mainland Spain.

We had been watching the forecast, and we reckoned that we would have some nice sailing winds.

So after the refuelling and stocking up on food and water we set sail.

At first it was text book down wind sailing, but as the day wore on, the wind increased....

and we were soon bombing along, all sails reefed.

And by the time we reached our destination, it was so windy that the entrance to the marina was too dangerous to approach so we tucked ourselves in behind this headland, the "Cabo de Gata" and laid to the anchor for a day.

Even behind the headland we were recording 40+ knots.!

And finally, three months, and over two thousand miles later, we reach our lay-up yard, Aguadulci, just southwest of the town of Almeria.

We chose this yard, firstly it was recommended to us, second its not too expensive, and third, the Almeria airport is only 20 mins. in a taxi.

So, here she is, still in splendid condition, almost 9000 miles since we left the Voe marina in 2009.

We spent the last week cleaning, swimming during the hottest part of the day, more cleaning, and generally preparing to go home for a spell. As I said earlier, we hope to return in early summer 2012 and continue our journey.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank any one who has been interested in our little adventure for following the blog.

It was almost 100% Linda's effort, and it is only due to her good nature that I ever got the chance of doing the trip.

Next blog, hopefully next June.............goodbye for now

Malta

2011-12-28T12:37:00.001Z

A note to all viewers- this Malta Post was composed early this summer, not that long after we had been in Malta, but due to the very rushed nature of the rest of our summer, we never got round to actually posting the blog. So here it is, and we wish you a happy festive season.

Our trip to Malta had been talked about, but never actually agreed upon, until we found out that our friends Brian and Rosie were still in Malta, and having their mast re-rigged.

We have had an ongoing rigging problem, and the chance of having a highly recommended rigger inspect our rigging was the final catalyst in encouraging to head down to Malta.

So we left Siracuse in Sicilly, but due to lack of suitable wind, we anchored for evening in the bay of Porta Paulo. When we left at about 8.00 pm we had high hopes of a good night time sail, but in fact ended up motoring most of the way in a very choppy sea, rolling from side to side like a see-saw, not nice.

Anyway, as we approached Valletta harbour, the moon was shining down on us, almost lighting up our entry to the harbour.

We had decided to head for Messida Creek jetty, where according to the almanac, we would find the customs office. We very quietly tied up to the end of the pier, and as it was still only about 6 am, Linda went for a snooze, and I drunk some tea.

By then the sun was rising and for some reason I was feeling a bit energetic, so I set off across the town to the marina yard where we knew Brian, Rose and Alixora were berthed.I dont know who was more surprised, me at actually finding them, or them as I wandered down the ramshackle jetty that they were berthed at. We said our hellos and then had tea, as friends do.
Plans were very quickly made to have Brian and Rose over for dinner and some drinks that evening, and to catch up on the winters gossip!
Things were moving fast, but the fact was, they were more or less ready to leave, so we did want to have an evening together.

Alixora at the Messina repair berth- note the very old crane in the background- a feature of Malta, there are a lot of very old things here.

I then wandered back to our berth, to shake up our crew, who by then were mostly awake anyway.
When I got back, I was amazed to find out that we had , by complete accident berthed next to folk whom we had met almost two years ago in Portugal, Brian and Irene, on board "Dando", so even more catching up to do.
The next on my agenda was the visit to the customs office, which (obviously) was not where it should have been, and I then had to walk a very long ( by now the energy was draining) way to sign in.
Thankfully, officialdom is not too official in Malta, and things went along quickly, so I was soon on my way back to the boat with a bag of various pies- Malta has lots of pie shops, and we like pies!!
Linda and the girls were delighted.

We did not do very much that day, a bit of a walk around the harbour, but enough to get a flavour for the place.
The old boat in the background is the "Black Pearl", sunk twice, but now an on shore resteraunt.

Our berth on the end of the pier, next to "Dando"

One of a very many "Maltese" looking day tripper boats.

They come in all sizes!

Recycling at its very best- an old cannon used as a mooring bollard.

Now this is what a great many people visit Malta to see- the fleet of old busses- and there are plenty of them!!

This takes my back to my first days at primary school. This one was lovingly restored, but some are running on a prayer and a measure of good luck.

There are all types of older vehicles to see.............

This old truck was in daily use, and why not??

I think it is great when older things are kept going, and well looked after- at least thats what am constantly telling Linda!!

This old bike just rounded off the day- what a beauty!

We made contact with the rigging specialist that Brian and Rosie had been using, and an appointment was made for him to do an initial inspection.

Appointments are a bit "flexible" in Malta, but he was worth waiting for!
The rigger, by the name of Nicky, scooted up the mast, using a variety of mountaineering gadgets, faster that a squirrel up a tree.
This was the bit that I was almost dreading, the inspection!!, but actually all is well.
Basically we have a mast and rig that can flex, especially in heavy weather, which I do not like.
Nicky offered some advice, and we agreed that he would fit an inner forestay and running backstays, which he assured me would make the rig "Bullet Proof"
(We have now sailed a further 600+ miles and his advice was 100% correct)
All this extra rigging work took almost two weeks, so we had plenty of time to visit other parts of the town, and take in some of the history.

We first visited the museum of the "Knights of St John", which was really interesting, as we had learned quite a bit about their earlier history when we were in Rhodes.

The variety, quantity and condition of the exhibits is really fantastic.

There are examples of all kinds of armour and weapons.....

To pierce you, hack you or simply.............

Blow your brains out!!
The Knights of St John were thrown out of Rhodes by the Turks, and allowed to settle in Malta.
The of course continued to harrass the Turks at every opportunity, and eventually they decided to get rid of the Knights once and for all.
In ?? over 38,000 Turks landed and laid seige to the Knights forts in Malta.
This was definately a David and Goliath thing, as there were only about 600 or so knights and about 3000 - 4000 regular soldiers defending. They did have immensely solid forts, which were defended with great skill. After a summer of seige, when it did look as if the very much superrior Turkish forces would succeed, a relief force arrived to save the day.
The Knights enjoyed over 200 years of unbroken rule, and Malta was built up to be a very prosperous island- the "Jewel of the Medditeranian", so much so, that Napolian Bonnaparte decided that France should have it, and that was that , at least for a time.
The unfortunate Maltese people have actually not really had much luck regarding being left alone to look after themselves, as century after century, which ever country was the most powerfull at the time had a go at running the place. Good old GB of course had a go, which of course lead to the infamous blockade and bombing of the second world war.
Its kind of funny that now, when most of the great super powers of old are almost bankrupt, Malta is so far holding its own.

Valleta town has a great many old buildings, and we spent some time just walking around and looking.

Almost all of the grand old buildings date from the period when the Knights ran the place.

And there are the "coats of arms " everywhere.

Its not hard to see the influence of the period of UK occupation.......

The princesses being taken to the Royal Ball...........

Or the princesses getting entirely soaked at the water fountain in the square!!

As we walked around the harbour, we saw some odd looking craft moored. I dont think that this one would go our too far.

The harbour was always busy, day trippers, cruise liners, regattas, etc

Finally , with the work done, and a reasonable weather forecast we said our goodbyes and set off.
Brian and Irene, showing off her injuries of the previous day.

We went a short distance up to St Pauls Bay to anchor for the night, and to give ourselves a good early start on our trip back up to Sicily next day.
We anchored just below the remains of what is claimed to be the small church the St Paul built when he was shipwrecked and lived for a short while in Malta.
The monument to the right is much newer.
We did Malta "in a nutshell" but it was a great place to spend some time.
Next blog- the final chapter!!!!

Testing!

2011-08-21T11:45:00.001+01:00

Just a little email to test out emailing straight to the blog which we will be doing via our satellite phone as we are crossing the Atlantic!

Alistair Tulloch & Linda Bannister onboard Islay Mist

E-mail: islaymist@hotmail.co.uk

Blog: http://islaymist.blogspot.com

Tel: 00447900578984 (Ali) 00447810443694 (Linda)

Siracuse, Sicily

2011-06-07T14:40:00.000+01:00

Siracuse was a nice stop for us, firstly because we were glad we had got our first bigger passage of the season over and done with and secondly because we were back in Sicily which meant yummy food shopping again (and of course cheap fizzy white wine!) The supermarkets in Sicily are great and there is a fresh produce market on every morning in Siracuse old town. Our first priorities when we got there were water and washing as we hadn't been at a pier where we could get water since Monemvasia back in the Aegean and we hadn't done any clothes washing since Rhodes.....

We had intended to go intot the marina for a night to get electricity (last hoovering was also Rhodes!) and water so when we woke up Ali called up the marina and asked about coming in. When I heard him say "How Much!?" I knew things did not bode well for going into the marina. 130 Euros is what they wanted for one night so Ali asked if we could just come in and pay for water, no it was a full night or nothing (or nothing being our choice). We were a bit annoyed to say the least but just then the port police came by in their dinghy to inspect our papers and said we could go along the Grand Harbour Pier for free. So off we went.

We got tied up next to this guy as we saw he had a water connection and even though they were being metered the nice crew let us fill our tanks. There wasn't any electricity so no hoovering but I could live with that!

After that we packed up all our laundry and headed off to find the laundry and after a bit of a search what a laundry we found!

This American lady and her Sicilian husband run the laundry, provide a great service - at a reasonable price too. We decided to wash everything that we possibly could over the next two days! It is called Wash and Dry - washanddrysiracusa@gmail.com just incase any sailing readers are in the vicinity!

Next there was a little exploring to do, this is the old harbour at the North of tho old town peninsula, it is a little run down as you can see! Amazing that there are derelict harbour spaces when around in the marina hey are charging 130 euros per night for a berth.

An ancient old tree which we had a hard time keeping the girls out of. A lot of people were taking pictures so we thought they maybe shouldn't climb it.

The next stop was the Aquarium. It is very small but we had promised the girls a treat after their wondeful behaviour on the crossing from Greece.

Some fish....

The old town of Siracuse - Ortigia is quite pretty, maybe not the most impressive we have been to but worth a look. There are the usual restaurants lining the walls and all the smells coming out of them were yum!

A couple of shots looking out along the sea wall of Ortigia.

We saw buildings like this in Gallipoli on the heel of Italy, they have huge fancy fronts but it is almost like the old Wild West towns with a very plain smaller building behind.

There were a lot of derelict buildings here which is a shame and got Ali into his 'Location location location' mode again.

The end of the fresh produce market, if you want to get the good stuff you have to come early!

The cathedral in Piazza Del Duomo.

Getting around in style!

Whilst we were berthed at the pier we got invited out to this boat for dinner. So we went back out to the anchorage on Sat night. SY Marguerite is a lovely schooner which they have sailed here from the east coast of America, it is definitely one of those boats that got both me and Ali jealous. The sailing bits for Ali and the lovely big galley and saloon had me turning green! Best of all the food that had been cooked by Jim and Barbara in the amazing galley was delicious and the company was great too. It is funny as we thought that they would get on very well with SY Solstice our friends Shirlee and John whom we sailed with last year (as they are all from NW USA and very laid back) and it turned out they actually met here in Siracuse last year!

The next couple of days were a bit of a wash out as the wind got up severely and we couldn't go ashore. All day Sunday so we just did boaty jobs, the batteries were never under 13 Volts no matter what we plugged in as it was so windy and so sunny. (Wind turbine and solar panels working flat out )

The next morning we took advantage of a calm period to nip back to town and get messages for setting off to Malta. We tied up in the same place and went off for an hour or so. When we emerged from the supermarket we could feel that the wind had picked up again and when we got back to the pier the boat was rocking and rolling heavily. Aha so this is why the Grand Harbour Pier in Siracuse is free, in some winds it is completely untenable! I was not amused when Ali left me putting away the groceries onboard and went off to the market to get fish and veg. The rocking kept getting worse and I got so worried I had the engine on and the revs up to keep us from bashing the pier. When he eventually returned after what seemed like ages (and was probably only half an hour) we cast off as quick as possible and headed right back to the spot we had stayed well stuck in the whole of the previous day.

A Big boat anchored out in the windy harbour.

It was a shame it had been so windy as we had wanted to go and visit the archaeolgical sights at the outskirts of town but we couldn't leave the boat.

Even though I was a bit annoyed when Ali left me on the boat to go to the market I was very glad he had done when he cooked up this great extravaganza for tea that night!

Fresh swordfish steaks

And fresh herby roasted veg, what a guy!

Sunrise over the calm bay of Siracuse whn we left the next morning intending to go to Malta...see next blog for further details.

Three day trip from Greece to Sicily just call us the Ark!

2011-06-05T18:57:00.000+01:00

We got up at first light to leave Greece so we would get to Sicily in daylight three days later. The beginning of the trip was pretty calm, we had the gennaker up and Ali went to bed but when the speedo was reading under three miles an hour I packed it away and put the engine on. It was windless but it wasn't calm, there was a swell running up from the south which was weird as that stayed with us for the rest of the trip even when the wind built up from the - On the nose direction! After perusing all the forecasts we could get they were all wrong and we were soon banging into a F6 sometimes 7 as close as we could sail into it! Typical.

We weren't the only creatures in the area affected by the winds though....

As we got further from Greece and it got windier we started to get little passengers! The poor little birds were just knackered and must have been delighted to find a resting place for a while.

Another one, not sure what these brownish ones are but we had a few.

This little dude sat huddled in the dinghy for a few hours and we tried to feed it bread but it was petrified. Kaylee was very upset when we were on watch and the little thing decided to fly away and we saw it falling in the sea then trying to get up then crashing again..... Her and Alisha decided to give it a funeral by singing 'Away in a Manger' They said, "Well thats the only God song we know....."

This is a Meditterranean Bee Eater, Ali actually caught this one at night in his hands and then made it a little nest in the ropes with one of my tops. He tried to feed it biscuits too which it didn't go for, not surprising considering the name!

This was our last little visitor on the morning of day two who stayed for a few hours under the spray hood.

The windy on the nosey conditions continued right through day two and life on board was uncomfortable to say the least, cooking dinner was always a bit of a challenge, more so when Alisha insisted on helping. This is both of us tied to the new cooker rail which Ali made for me this winter. It got it's real first usage this trip and it is great to be able to lean back rather than trying to balance in precarious positions to do the cooking when rough. When I first saw the galley on this boat I was amazed as it is so much bigger than the old Islay Mist but much more difficult to cook in when at sea as you actually want to be wedged into a tight corner sometimes!

Our rigging made very strange creaking and banging noises when we were jumping up and down in the waves. Unbeknown to me Ali was so worried about this he had the bolt cutters on hand on one of his watches - just incase the mast came down. I thought he was just being nice letting me do my watches with a fully reefed main...... We have been worried about our rigging ever since we had a cracked spreader last year and this trip finalised in our minds that something hadto be done about it and quick, you'll read more about that in our Malta blog!

Early the next morning the wind died and we motor sailed the whole of the rest of the way to Sicily, since it was still a lumpy sea it was a long long day but at least we made it!

Just as the girls got up on day three we had a lovely surprise - dolphins swam alongside our bow for about half an hour. It totally helped the girls to forget their feeling of seasickness and there were squeals of delight for a while instead of moaning!

The girls entertaining themselves in the cockpit once it was calm. Don't know what this game was about but I caught a bit about ninja star wars barbies!?

Our excitement from the trip wasn't over as we were motoring about amile from the harbour at siracuse the boat started juddering- a sure sign something has caught on the propeller. It was almost like fate, we could see where we wanted to go. I said to Ali he better fix it out here as the water in the bay at Siracuse is notoriously filthy and he wouldn't want to be jumping into that! Thankfully though a bit of forward and reversing and huge pieces of a sheet of polythene started falling away behind the boat and after ten minutes everything was back to normal. Incidentally the water IS filthy in Siracuse when we saw it Ali was very glad not to have to get into it! When you pull your anchor up lots of oozing sewage smelling mud comes up with it, not nice!

Yay! coming into the anchorage next to Siracuse! What a great sight after a three day sail. It was a great night's sleep in a lovely flat calm anchorage helped on by a bottle of wine - we thought we deserved a reward after the last three days!

Sailing video missing from Greece post.

2011-06-02T17:16:00.000+01:00

This is Ali's sailing video from a great downwind sail from Tilos to Astipalaia in F6 to 7 winds!

Zipping through the Aegean the windiest place on the planet! By Ali

2011-06-02T16:59:00.001+01:00

Leaving Rhodes, we got a snap of this unusual vessel- a very futuristic looking glass bottom boat- and it could also go quite fast.

The day started calm enough, with enough of a breeze to allow me to fiddle with one of the new toys- the Hydro Vane self steering rudder. It works well enough, but will definately be better in steady Atlantic type winds, compared to the changable meddeteranian stuff. We had a fairly relaxed day, some sailing and some motoring, and got into the island of Tilos to anchor for the night.

Next morning we set off early, and it was quite a different day- overcast and plenty of wind. The wet weather gear was hauled out for the first time in a long time!

We or should I say I, myself enjoyed a brisk down wind sail, while other members of the family were not so impressed.

This was probably the first kind of rough long period of sailing this season, and the girls were taking a bit of time to get used to the motion. Generally they sleep when it gets rough.

Going down wind, the boat tends to roll from side to side, but eventually with a bit of experimenting, I got the small jib boomed out and the mainsail goose-winged, and things steadied up as we raced along.

THERE SHOULD BE A VIDEO HERE BUT IT WONT LET ME PUT ANOTHER IN THIS POST SO I WILL POST IT SEPERATELY NEXT!

Our days trip was over 70 miles and we were very glad to eventually drop our anchor in the almost land locked bay of Vathi in the island of Astipalaia. It had been our windiest day so far, but at least we made good time, logging an average speed for the day of about 6.5 knots, and almost entirely under sail power. Again we planned to leave early, so for the girls that meant breakfast on the move, which they were not so happy about.
There were good reasons for our hurry to move on. Firstly, we have now decided to park up the yacht on the Atlantic coast about the end of June, (for a quick trip home) so there are a lot of miles to cover. Second, the prevailing winds generally blow from the west, so when any easterly winds are forecast we must take full advantage of them.

It was a very murky morning, with no signs of life except for the occasional local fishing boat heading back to port.

The trip from Astipalaia to the next island of Thira was more of a motor sail, but thats how it is in the Med. Thira is a very spectacular island, and popular with tourists and cruise ships. The island as it stands today is the remains of a very large volcano which the sea has breeched and formed a very deep half moon bay. because it is so deep, anchoring is impossible, but we knew this and had information abot mooring bouys which we could tie up to

This photo shows the flat agricultural side of the island...........

And as we came around into the bay, the coast became steeper and more interesting.

The colourfull view is amazing- the brilliant white village on the hill top, the various rock formations all the way down to the sea shore.

A very "Greek" view, white buildings with an occasional splash of blue. ( the windows and doors )

Regarding the mooring, notwithstanding the strong gusts of wind that thunder down the steep cliffs, we managed to get tied up to one of the mooring buoys. However, just as we were relaxing, the owner of the above pictured yacht came over to give us the heart breaking news that we could not stay on that buoy, and in fact there were no free mooring buoys. This was not good news, considering that we had been travelling over 12 hours, and we definitely could not just drop anchor.

We did the only thing we could do and motored dow to the main cruise liner drop off point, and after a bit of hovering about, getting the lay of the land, so to speak, we decided to take a chance and tie up to a very large cruise liner buoy.

Linda did a very daring leap onto the buoy to attatch a rope, and we then took a loop of the heavy three inch shore line............

........which then gave us a very secure mooring.

And best of all, no one complained or asked for money-great!

We then set about a very well appreciated dinner and a cold beer.

Next morning, after school, we set off ashore to explore.

It certainly is a dramatic setting, and a bit of a daunting thought to have to climb up to the town.

However help was at hand in the form of the cable car, thank heavens!!

Its a long way down, and this was only half way up! You can see Islay Mist looking tiny down below!

The island is still an active volcano, and as recently as 1956, a massive earthquake destroyed almost all of the buildings on the island. This means that there are really no original old buildings, so even this spectuclar old clock tower is only a relitave "baby"

In many of the Greek islands, donkeys are still a daily used method of transport.

They are cheap to run, and can climb steps and pass through narrow streets.

The family taking a well earned rest.

A view of the cliff top village.

These are examples of wall frescoes ( paintings) rescued from the ruins of ancient ruins and now installed in the local museum.

As I said before, donkeys rule here, and are in great demand to take the tourists from the cruise liners up the very steep path into town.

The girls thought that they were quite smelly creatures, and the much preferred the cable car option.

I wonder why.................!!!

This is all the harbour consists off, not deep either, and full of "flit" boats , required to ferry the passengers ashore from the cruise liners.

Our mooring at night.

Looking up to town.

A very Greek appartment block, white and blue.

So all good things must come to an end, and we set off again, ever westwards to our next island destination of Milos. Milos is also an ex volcano, with a bay formed in a similar half moon shape, but not so dramatic as Thira. It has far more useable agricultural land, and also boasts a very active open cast mining industry, with quarries and ship loading facilities visible along the coast.

One of the large mining harbours.

The geology and rock formations are very impressive and colourful.

Typically Greek, the village perched on the hill top (chora), from a distance it almost looks like snow.

After a good nights sleep, school next morning and then ashore to have a good long walk and picnic. The agricultural efforts are impressive, given the rocky terrain.

Small fields of barley, with wild flowers in abundance.

Vines for the all important wine industry.

Is there a big bad wolf?- we just had to find out!!!

The island is very beautiful, especially in spring time, when the place is a fountain of colour.

A farmer at work.

A field of oats, fully grown and ready to ripen.

Big wind turbines, which I have to say, did not spoil he view and could not be heard.

More fields of corn.

And another ship loading berth.

What views............

A contraption used in the harvesting of olives.

Then we hit the beach, great fun..........

..........except when you are getting sucked under by sinking sands!!!!

Free again, and back to gathering up special stones.

This poor turtle caused quite a bit of interest. Did he die of starvation, heat, cold or simply old age, who knows?

Then a poor billy goat, which lead to more speculation regarding death!!

Back to the boat with the days haul of special stones and flowers. There are volcanic stones like you have never seen before, and we now have most of them. The boat is heeling to starboard with the weight of them.

And they can be built into little shapes.

Early next morning we set off in very dull conditions, with the optimistic passage plan to sail over 80 miles to round the cape Maleas, historically notorious for being a windy and and difficult route. We actually had a good sail most of the day, but as we got closer to the cape, the wind increased.

As always the direction changed so that we ended up banging away into big waves and on the nose.

We were struggling to make headway and even with the engine on, our lee way was driving us too close to the shore, (it is a bit like Sumburgh head in Shetland ), it was getting late and dark and it is a busy shipping channel so we took the very rare decision to abort the planned route and head for the shelter of the nearest down wind harbour which was still 20+ miles away.

Of course, heading back around the cape, the conditions improved, and we had to motorsail to the harbour of Monemvasia. As it was too dark to enter the harbour, we anchored for the night. but next morning we tied up alongside a good concrete pier, the first alongside berth for many a day and it was free!

We were in good company as you can see!!

Monemvasia is actually the name of the old fortified village which is sited on the other side of the rocky outcrop in the photo behind us. As is common, forts, castles and the like were usually sited on a high rocky outcrop, which more often than not, is actually a "volcanic plug' ie the hard rock lava which is left behind after the soft ash lava has eroded. ( this only take a million or so years )

Anyway, Monemvasia village is unique as it is stiil fairly original, and the rebuilding is more of an ongoing repair, rather than reconstruction after an eartquake or war.

On the way we stopped to admire the small imaculate grave yard.

The village is quite a walk, but as soon as the walls are in sight, you can see how easy it was to construct the defences, as the original natural rock "plug" is so steep.

Inside the walls, the streets are narrow and winding, with many of the buildings now reconstructed for tourist shops and cafe/bars.

The main square and church.

The Christain church tower in the foreground, and the older Turkish Mosque behind.

The buildings are very close together and the maze of steps and paths could lead to loosing your way.

Its a long hike up to the higher level of the town.

A very long way up in fact!!

This is the remains of an old mosque/church/mosque/church, in which you can see the vaulted construction which was universally common.

The same building from the other side.

According to the information board on the site, this building was used as a gun powder store, even up until the second world war!! hard to believe carrying anything up that steep path, but then they do have the good old donkey.!

Looking down on to our marina berth.

More ruins of another old mosque.

Looking down on the old village.

If you look closely, you could see construction methods from different periods in history.

For instance, this lintel was definitely made for finer things, and not just a simple domestic door lintol.

Because space was at a premium, paths were narrow, and as these overhanging steps show, inovative methods were used to make better use of space.

A very rare experience for our family- the famous breakfast fry-up, enjoyed by all.

As we left Monemvasia, we could clearly see the small area that the village site on.

This is a small monestry carved into the cliff face on the point of cape Maleas.

Apparently it is best to give the monks a bit of a wave as you pass by, it gets you some good luck.

There is a lot of shipping rounding the cape, boats going in all directions.

It was a fine day and easy sailing so boredom set in. To win a bet, I endeavoured to tie a bowline using only my feet- and I won!!

This poor soul did not make it round the cape!

We decided to head south to the island of Kithera, and to the harbour of Avelomona, which is described as a sweet little place. It certainly was little, and although we got ourselves squeezed in for the night, we had to leave next day when the wind picked up again.

That evening we did meet up with an English / Dutch family, and the girls enjoyed the company of the young girl Ninky.

Next day we were out in the bay anchored, and after the daily routine of breakfast, school, etc, we decided on a baking session. Linda and the girls baked bread, which we jokingly referred to as "Poo Bread", but when baked we then renamed "Brick bread"

To ease the baking crisis, we brought out a packet mix fruit cake, which usually turns out ok.

The next day, the wind was forecasted to ease down and go a little bit easterly, so we headed south around Kithera, and then north to Koroni, yet another 70 + mile slog. Sadly and predictably, we never got much of the easterly wind, and ended up motor sailing most of the way.

There were some interesting manuvoures on the way to brighten up an otherwise uneventful day. This guy for instance,changed course when he overtook us, simply it would seem to give us a bit of wash.

We anchored in Koroni harbour late at night in the black dark, wondering why we could not see the red port navigation light at the end of the breakwater. next morning we could see why - there is not much left of the structure and no light at-all. I suppose given the Greek economic melt down, its no wonder if a few lights stop working.

The village of Koroni is a beautifull little place, again being spring, flowers everywhere....

and narrow streets...........

.......and exceptionally good value excellent food. This meal, including drinks cost only about 30 euros.!!

The cat waiting for its share..

You never have to look far to see the relics of the previous occupants and their mosques.

We set off to look at the fortress, as if we have not seen enough of them!

Its always interesting though, and of course good excerise.

This was a huge fort in its day, but..........

..........bits have fallen into the sea.

An underground store, in immaculate condition...

...and a gun emplacement.

The Venetians built this fort to protect their sea trading routes, and at their peak, the Venetians were the main traders in the eastern Mediterranean, but needed safe havens for their ships, hence Venetian built forts all over the place.

The obligatory war memorial.

More churches.

And as we left in daylight, you could see how big the fort would have been.

Sailing through the sound between the island of Sapientza and Methoni, we could see more remains of fortifications, again originally Venetian, but as usual with Turkish additions.

Our trip has hammered home one bit of history, and that is that the whole Mediterranean population seems to have fought with each other more or less all the time.

Sadly, on our evening sailing, we often could hear what we imagined would be jet fighters heading down to fire off a few bombs in Libya, so nothing has changed !!

For once we got a lovely sail, down wind with the genniker- easy sailing.

Entering the enclosed bay of Navarinou, we passed the specacular headland complete with arch.

On the 6th of Jly, 1827, the bay of Navarinou was the scene of a "bloody and destructive" sea battle between the british navy and the Turkish- Egyptian fleet, which the very much smaller British fleet won and effectivly set Greece on its path to freedom.

Inside the bay, lies the village of Pilos, with its unfinished marina. This "unfinished " situation is common in Greece, but no-one complains as the berthing is usually free.

We only stayed one night here, as we got a favourable forecast to head over to Sicily. During the evening as I wandered around the harbour, talking to anyone who would listen, I chatted with a couple,commenting that their yacht looked familiar, asked them if they had been far in their boat, that sort of thing.

At 05.30 next morning as we quietly left the harbour, I was very nearly sick when I realised that the guy who I had been chatting to was none other than the famous Rod Heikell, or "Rod the God" as he is more well known as.

For the uninitiated, Rod Heikell has written almost all the pilot books for the entire Mediterranean.

All in all, I thought that it was a very fitting way to leave Greek waters and head west.

Next blog- very soon............

Rhodes

2011-06-02T06:16:00.002+01:00

Our first port of call after leaving Turkey was the island of Rhodes, in Greece.

We had a short but windy crossing from Marmaris, and by the time we arrived in Rhodes harbour, it was blowing a gale. We had heard many bad reports about Rhodes harbour being so busy that it would be difficult to berth, but I guess we were lucky, as we had no problem. It was still early in the yachting season, so things were quiet.

The island of Rhodes is very fertile, with a central mountain range reaching over 4000 feet high.

For us,the main interesting thing about Rhodes is the old town. It was established first in 408 BC as a very successful harbour and trading post. As time went on it was fortified and grew in size and importance. After many years of peacefull trading with various neighbours, sometime about 304 BC, a guy by the name of Demetrius Polioketes decided to have a go at taking over the place. He built an impressive seige catapult which could throw very large rocks at the fortified city. However his efforts were in vain , and after a year of missile launching, he was forced to admit failure and signed a peace treaty with the Rhodians. The rock balls / missiles still litter the old town and fortress to this day, and are so perfectly round and in such good condition, its hard to believe that they are so old.

Next on the scene, in 1306, were the Knights of St John, who were basically a bunch of well off ( Christian) mercenaries who were very anti muslim (Turkish). Their original mandate was to provide assistance and back up to the "Crusaders" who were the guys fighting in the front line against the Muslims, and they enjoyed the full support of the entire Christian world, which at that time was mainly the Spanish Catholic Church, which was indeed a mighty empire.

They became a very influential power in their own right, mounting attacks at any opportunity against basically any Muslim target, especially trading ships.

They had a fleet of fast well equiped galleys, and were very good raiders , pirates basically.

They built up the old town of Rhodes into a formidable fortress, harbour and walled city. Their success was a thorn in the side of the Turkish Ottoman empire, and eventually in 1522, the Turks sent over an army of over 100,000 men and seige equipment. So well organised were the defences though, that the Turkish force could not gain an outright victory, but had to settle for a cease fire on honerable terms. This allowed the Knights of St John to leave the island unhindered, and head to pastures new. ( See later blog )

The island then remained under Ottoman rule until the Italian occupation of 1912, and remained so until the end of the second world war, when in 1947 it was handed over to Greece.

Islay Mist berthed stern to in Mandraki harbour. The large pillar you can see next to the boat is supposedly where one of the feet of the 'Colossus' of rhodes rested. The Colossus was one of the ancient wonders of the world a huge statue of a warrior built with his legs spanning the entrance to the old harbour through which the boats of old would have had to enter.

One other attraction to Rhodes was the fact that we could again buy and eat pork!

Turkey being an islamic, has therotically no pork, and believe it or not, a pork abstinance can kind of irritate you, especially if you start to dream about a humble bacon sandwich. Anyway, we had a bit of a pork festival ourselves, bacon breakfast, pork chops, etc, etc,

A restored windmill, externally at least.

An old mosque, dating from the Ottoman occupation.

An Ottoman mosque, but with added masonry to become a clock tower.

More Ottoman mosks.

Not a very good photo, but the writing on the stone plaque is in Arabic, and likely dates back to the Ottoman occupation.

The Knights of St John came from many different countries and families. The various knights were stationed in different quarters, and grouped according to their country of origin. The walls of the old fort and city are adorned with the "Coats of Arms" of the various Knights.

The quality of the actual masonry building is very impressive.

More examples of the different "Coats of Arms", many in remarkable condition.

The mouat or ditch surrounding the fortified city. Given the dimensions of the "ditch" surrounding the old city, its quite obvious how easy it was to defend- its massive!

Durring our short stay in Rhodes, a religious ceremony was held. This ceremony included a parade and setting off fireworks. What we did not expect was the local army artillery squadron arriving at midnight with two great big guns, and firing them for the best part of and hour, right outside our boat! The girls slept right through it!

One of the two statues of the small deer, which stand at the entrance of the harbour.

You can see the round rock seige missiles everywhere.

The tall building inside the walls is the palace of the 'Grand Master' basically head knight at the time who was elected from one of the different nationalities of knights.

A point to note is that the stone used for building the old city is a hard rock, and very good quality, which has suffered hardly any erosion over the years. Also the very dry climate means that there is no accumulation of moss and algae, such as found on the surface of building in the wetter northern countries.

One of the enterances to the fortified city.

There were over 600 different "Knights", so there are many examples of the "coats of arms"

For the girls (and us), the highlight of Rhodes was returning to the boat one day to find that the sailing yacht "Yindee Plus" was berthed along side us in the harbour. We had met up with them, Chris and Sue Bright, with twins Wilf and Sid back in Finike, Turkey. They are a similar family to ourselves, in that they are full time liveaboards, and plan to sail around for a few years and see as much of the world as possible.

This is the "gang" sitting on the 2300+ year old seige misiles!!

Rhodes is of course now mainly a summer holliday destination, very popular with the "Brits", plenty of "the full English Breakfast" and lager. Thankfully though, the restoration of the old city has been well done, and offers the visitor an alternative to burning up on the beach, and we really enjoyed its history.

Due to the fact that we have decided to get our boat to the Atlantic coast by June, then our time in Rhodes was short, and after a few days, we were on our way again, island hopping west- see next blog, "The Greek Islands in Spring"

The last of Turkey, what a lovely place!

2011-05-09T07:16:00.000+01:00

After Martin left we set sail from Antalya to Kemer and got our first real sail of the season.

It was a typical Med sail, the wind started off in a good direction and then very soon was on the nose so we tacked the last few miles. It isn't very far so we anchored up in 'Moonlight Bay' late afternoon and went to explore ashore. Now Kemer we had preconceptions of which were all blasted away pretty quickly. A lot of the liveaboards in Alanya had eulogised about the marina and wintering in Kemer as if it was some amazing not to be missed place. Granted the Marina looks OK and the mountains in the background were quite nice (when you could see them through the perpetual mist) but the town - it would have been depressing to stay there for a few months. It was grey and dark and the guys outside the shops were even more opressive in trying to get you to buy things than the tourist strip of Alanya. We don't even have any pictures of the place itself as we were so uninspired. We did however find a guy who filled our Camping Gas and a cheap laundry too because as usual we had a pile of washing.

As we went to leave and head south to rendevous with SY Melody we had a total Kemer disaster, our anchor chain was wrapped around what we discovered to be an oil barrel filled with concrete and spikes through it - plus bits of heavy rope attached - you can just about see it through the water in this picture.

Our anchor was wrapped around twice as the wind had changed direction a couple of times whilst we had been there and we had a three hour struggle of strenght and ingenuity to get free. I was on board winching ropes etc and in the end we grappled the anchor chain between the drum and the anchor and managed to get the anchor on deck, take it off the chain and then slowly pull the rest of the chain around the barrel! A tough mornings work especially for the wincher (me!)

We sailed for Cineviz Limani a really beautiful anchorage at the SW corner of Antalya Bay and were so glad to see it and to see Anne Marie and Lennart on SY Melody. It really is stunning with high sides, even the rocks at the entrance you have to go round to get in are picturesque!

The girls and Ali had their first swim of the season here on the 1st April. I don't have a wet suit so I got out of it. We had a nice night at Anne Marie and Lennarts boat and discovered we were an hour late as the clocks had changed.....

The next morning whilst school was taking place Ali went for a hike up the hill............

And then we come to the tale of the Seventy Lira fish....

Although the night's anchoring had been peaceful we had been woken a couple of times by the local fishermen in their shack on the beach shouting or going past in their boats or even shooting off guns. As Ali came back down to the beach one of the fishermen asked if he would like a drink, Ali said no as it was only 11am, then the guy asked if Ali would like to buy a fish. Ali said how much the guy held up seven fingers and said 'seeben' which is German for seven. Ai said he would go and get some money as seven Lira is a good deal for a fish but the guy said it was OK he would come out and get the money when he went past in his boat. Ali came back all pleased with his bargain and set about gutting and filleting it. Then the guy came, I gave Kaylee seven Lira to pass down to him and he said "No No Seventy Lira!" As expected a bit of an arguement followd, Ali said he could have his fish back and the guy said it was really worth 200 Lira?! He wouldn't take the fish back and said he would be back later. We rowed over to Melody and decided that we would go to the beach give his friend 10 Lira and both boats would leave and move to the next anchorage just to save any hassle at night when they were drinking again.

The next bay was nice and once we could bear to eat it my goodness it was a very tasty fish!

We saw this poor turtle on the way round we think it may have been hurt as it always had its right fore flipper out of the water. The girls wanted to get it onboard and help it get better but we persuaded them that was not a good idea!

Another wrecked ship under the cliffs.

The next stop for us was Finike marina as we were running out of water due to a small blonde girl giving her Barbies a very good wash. Finike marina was great because we met Yindee Plus. A yacht with two seven year old boys on board, the girls were in heaven! We actually spent three nights there just so the girls could play with Wilf and Sid their new found heroes. We got to meet their parents too ofcourse and they are a very nice couple called Sue and Chris and it just so happens they hav the same sailing plans roughly as we do this year and chris plays the guitar so a great chance meeting!

As always Ali had ulterior motives for staying in a paying marina...... When he was in the office he saw an advert for a water maker for sale. The price was very attractive, to good to miss, and it was actually the exact same one we had been looking for that sells for around $4500. We thought it must have been completely kaput but Ali went to investigate and found that the guy selling it had bought the boat with it and just wasn't interested in it as they take a bit of looking after. Ali did a bit of research and found that even if he needed the most expensive spares for it the most he would be out of pocket was another 500 pounds so we are now the owners of a watermaker! Ali spent a happy few days figuring out where to put it and stripping it all down etc etc.

Finike itself is a nice town, we could have wintered here quite happily too although I don't think the weather is as good as Alanya and it is a bit smaller but still nice.

Slow- tortoise crossing-!!!!

Finike has a market like Alanya but on a Saturday we went before we left that day and it was pretty good we certainly filled our trolley with lots of lovely fresh fruit and veg to keep us going on anchor for a while.

Note- the real goat skin bags, containing cheese- ( thankfully with a polythene liner )

Taxi??

After a lot of protests from the girls we left Finike for Kekova Roads a fabled yachting anchorage that we had heard so much about and were so glad we went to.

The reason Kekova Roads is such a great yachting place is that it is probably one of the most sheltered anchorages we have ever been in. The island of Kekova runs parallel to the coast with about a four mile channel inbetween and on the mainland side there is an opening just a few hundred metres wide. This opens into a bay with even depths of around 5 metres and really sticky mud for holding the anchor! Which it turn out we really needed just that very same day..... We got in just before dark so I stayed onboard to cook dinner whilst the others went to explore the hillside. The clouds started to build very quickly and next was the rumbling of an approaching thunderstorm. Turkish thunderstorms are not to be sniffed at so I was out the stern with binoculars watching the explorers trying to get back to the dinghy before the rain came on. They failed to do this and I can tell you that the sight of your two kids amd partner rowing as fast as they can back to the boat in the rain when a fork of lightning comes down behind them is just a little more than scary. They did how ever get back before the 1cm diameter hailstones started coming down thick and fast! Yikes! the wind got up for a while but the muddy ground held us firm and ofcourse not a bit of swell gets in there a really great place to wait out a storm.

Kekova has so much more to offer than just good shelter though. The next day we re-anchored at the other end of the bay next to the ancient sarcophagi ( stone coffins ) thought to be of ancient Teimussa. It is a really special place- of course none of the sarcophagi are as elaborate as the ones we had seen in Antalya museum but the fact they are in situ is great. They all have lids that are shaped like upside down boats.

To our relief and the girls dissapointment we found that there were no bodies left inside them!

The next day was a day for a hike up to Kale Koy a castle on the outer shores of the bay. We took our dinghy to the flat marsh to walk up and saw loads of interesting wildlife like this pair of egrets which I couldn't get a clear picture of as they liked to keep their distance.

Nature trail to the castle at the top.

More sarcophagi on the way up the hill!

The blurb!

The view looking towards the western entrance to Kekova Roads you can see a trip boat coming back from the sunken city on Kekova island.

A view of Ali and the northern end of Kekova roads.

The castle has a small ampitheatre inside it and like some of the other aspects of the castle it is actually cut out of the rocky hillside rather than having been built like all the others we have seen.

Looking down at Kale Koy town.

Local boats at Kale Koy

The school kids come home by boat as there are no roads into the small hamlet of Kale Koy.

Kale Koy looking up towards the castle.

And yet another sarcophagus this time partly submerged.

Some sheep we passed on the way back to the dinghy.
Sheep are always tended on by a shepherd, we have never seen any sheep that have not had a shepherd watching over them.

Reluctantly we set sail the next day for Kas.

It was a bit windy so Kaylee got into her rough weather position with a blanket.....

And I insisted we tried out the new third reef in our sals for the first time and we were still doing over 7 knots but at a much easier angle for standing upright! It was only about 20 miles but we tacked the whole way and so did about 30 making it a longer sea day than we had expected.

Kas is a nice little town. We anchored at the back of the new marina in about 13 metres of water and so our new longer anchor chain also got tested out for the first time that day. Last year we couldn't have anchored safely in that depth of water so it was nice to feel more secure.

Our anchor winch had been misbehaving since last Autumn and Ali thought the brushes in the motor were the problem which he found replacements for and spent the whole day replacing.....

Whilst this was going on the girls and I were ordered off the boat and not to come back until tea time so we wandered around and went to the playpark.

And picked 'crystals' out of the breakwater, Alisha is convinced she will be rich if she gets enough crystal to sell!

The breakwater at Kas is painted with all sorts of frescoes.

Kas is a place where a lot of yachties and others living in Turkey come to regularly to get their 90 day visa renewed as it is a short ferry trip over to the Greek island of Kastellorizon where you can also buy pork and decently priced spirits.....

The new marina at Kas which was to open on May1st. They are allegedly doing great deals like stay one night, get a week free, buy one years berth get another year free. It looks like it will be quite nice although it may have a swell problem in certain directions as it is in a long inlet very open to the west. At least you wouldn't have to make the torturously long visa runs that some made from Alanya to Kas - around 500km! The katabatic gust at night were a little fierce too but that would be OK teid to a pontoon and safe.

Next stop was Gocek to get our life raft back we had a great sail until another dreaded thunderstorm which had me making Ali pack away all the sails. Thankfully we skirted around it and I took the rainy watch so as to make up for the lack of sail.

Our main reason for going to Gocek was our life raft was there being serviced by Blues Marine We had told them we wanted to be present at the inflation so we could see what our life raft was actually like and what was inside it. Blues marine were very good and the guy even explained everything so it was like a safety lecture for us. It turns out that he life raft is almost comercial quality, and in great condition. Ali was so impressed he got them to service the outboard engine too.

The municipal pier was free as it still wasn't 'season' and lucky for us as we had to stay a few days to get the engine back. We really liked Gocek it is a really relaxed little villiage and a sort of yachting mecca. We have been told that in the summer it is unbearably busy and a bit nuts with jetskis, superyachts etc. We met a few nice people whilst there. The first night we invited Eric and Loura off this nice Halberg Rassey over.

It turns out that Eric has sailed to Shetland before and even has a flag in the Lerwick boating club, his father found himself in Shetland during WWII and we have sailed past the island he lives on in Norway too so a very interesting evening all round. Eric turned out to be invaluable to know as my computer got a really nasty virus and he helped me restore the whole system and it is running like a dream now so many thanks for that Eric!

Another great person we met there is Laura, a Londener who lives there on her boat Boudicca. The girls fell instantly in love with her and her two dogs Raggamuffin and Tigerlily.

Laura was telling Alistair that they go out fishing alot at night which he was interested in especially when she offered to catch some for us so Ali said he would supply the veg and cook the whole meal if they supplied the fish. These fish were what Laura came over with, they are like little sword fish and they have have red tipped 'noses' which glow in the dark! Laura says they feed on the plankton that also glow in the dark and that is how they catch them. They set a net then put on some lights above it and go to sleep whilst the fish just jump inot the net! They were tasty little fish but a bit bony for the girls but we all had a couple.

Next it was time for a mini Alanya reunion as to our surprise the Swedish contingent turned up....

Michael and his wife in their motor boat/

And Annemarie and Lennart on Melody once again.

Gocek is a chandlery lovers paradise and as Lennart and Annemarie are heading to Croatia this year they invested in a new 75 metre anchor chain which we would have loved last year in some of the deeper anchorages there. This is Eric helping them get the new chain into the boat.

There was also to be a boat 'expo' along the pier in gocek which they were setting up for the whole time we were there. Setting up and then taking down as the wind nearly blew the whole lot away! It was a very flimsy set up but we felt very sorry for the guys doing all the work. They spent all of one day putting it up and then had to start taking it down in the middle of the night and then put it all up the next day and incredibly after we left they had to take it all down again on the first day of the expo as there was a real gale blowing!

We left Gocek and went to anchor across the bay at the island of Tersane with a view to anchoring for the night and setting of for Marmaris the next morning. This we didn't do as the wind was howling in the morning so we decided to have an adventure walk around the small island instead.

The herd of goats that we woke up to in the morning.

Islay Mist anchored and tied back to a bollard in the bay at Tersane.

Firstly we climbed the hill behind the boat.

It was actually far more of a climb than any of us had bargained for!

A view of the whole bay with us and the other boats tied back. There are a couple of houses in the island and he people raise goats, cows, chickens and go fishing for a living as well as running a restaurant solely for boats in the summer they were just setting up when we were there in mid April. Apparently in the summer there can be wall to wall boats in here, another perk of setting off pre season, you don't have to be into the anchorage before lunch time to get a spot!

The view from the top of the hill. The bay looking towards Fethiye. there are loads of little islands and nooks and crannies for anchoring at all over.

We found a little beach at the other side of the island.

The restaurant 'pier,' berthing at your own risk......

Islay Mist going through one of the channels between Tersane and another island and out to sea as we set off for Marmaris.

A gulet in the channel, you keep out of the way of these guys they are the maritime equivalent of a road hog!

Marmaris bay in moonlight, it is totally protected from open sea too but large enough for a fair slop to set up if it is windy, which it was at times.

We had intended only to stay at Marmaris for a couple of days to meet up with Harald, Natasha and Sil a Dutch family we sailed with last Autumn and head up the coast before signing out of Turkey when our visa ran out. But the anchor winch finally gave up the ghost just as we had decided not to try and replace it as it seemed to be working better with the new brushes! This happened at the anchorage at marmaris town which we had only gone to for a day trip and were going to return to the more settled anchorage at Yat Marine for night time. Now we were stuck unless either of us wanted to pull up 55 metres of chain by hand. Lucky for us, there were quite a few of the chandlers who could supply a new anchor which, so we ordered a much biger and powerful replacement, which would take two to three days to arrive.

We were a little annoyed as anyone we knew was down at yat Marine, 5 miles across the bay.
But fate intervened and we met up with the crew of Wild Bird who were anchored alongside us. Rich, Penny and their daughter Libby called us over as thy had seen our little people and Libby is just as eager for girly company as our two. We too like meeting new people and we quickly found out that Rich and Penny are also haeding the same way as us this year and Rich also plays guitar and sings. He can even remember all the words to a whole song without a song sheet whereas we generally get the chorus and that is! Two days of girly play on both boats followed and of course evening soirees for the adults too. It turns out that libby is a Barbie movie fanatic too so she was in very good company!

A painting session onboard Islay Mist.

Wild Bird

Marmaris town turned out to be a much nicer place than we had expected. I did my last Turkish supermarket shop, Ali toured the chandelries and found a watermaker servicing shop where he spent three happy hours fixing his one with the owner guy and it now works, fresh drinking water from the sea at the flick of a switch! A bargain if ever there was one which was lucky as the saving is just about the same price as........... as the new anchor windlass! Ooh yes and we bought bacon and sausages at 'The Pork Shop' which we were told about by John from Alanya whom we also bumped into in Marmaris, thanks John, that bacon fairly perked up pancake Sunday!

When our anchor winch came a day late but still within our visa dates (thank goodness!) Ali got it fitted and we niped back down to Yat Marine to see Jackie and Rob (below) members of the Alanya Hanse 411 club. It was great to see them and Ali was desperate to show off all the things he had done to the boat over the summer.

Jackie and Rob coming to say goodbye. The girls are really fond of Jackie, she was very good with them in October in Alanya.

We had heard from a lot of people that signing out of Turkey is quite difficult and that you must employ an agent to do it for you. There is no reason for this though if your boat is under 10 ton which our is (when empty!) So on the day before or visa ran out we headed back up to marmaris town and off to the harbour master. Twenty minutes later and twenty Lira lighter, part one was completed and we thought what a breeze. Now it was off to customs and the Passport police at the ferry terminal. We had been there two days before just to check it all out and had been told that yes this was the place to come. When we got there it was 5 to 12 and the lady police officer said closed 1 hour. We decided to wait there as it is a little aout of town and we didn't think we would get the girls back there a second time. We waited outside the ferry terminal building and the girls complained about being hungry for an hour. when the hour was up the lady took our papers started talking at us in Turkish and handed us a little piece of paper written in Turkish and said "Go" We went to the lady in customs who had told us she would not talk English as she didn't know how, but Ali got her to come through to the police lady who was bristling (and scary!) thankfully a nicer policeman finally told us that all we had to do was to go into the ferry terminal to the passport desk and customs in there.... Exactly where we had been sitting for the last hour. We got another policeman who had been standing there all the time we had been sat outside and he was nice. But! then he started saying Problem problem and talking in Turkish. He got out a peice of paper and started writing January Feb and March in Turkish) and from what I gathered he was trying to tell me that in Turkey February has 30 days not 28!! ( which would have meant that we were now over our 90 day visa ) He was quite insistent when we pointed to a calendar with 28 days on it but I think he decided he couldn't be bothered to be nasty and gave up. We were just relived it wasn't the grumpy policewoman who had stamped our passports..... Yay we got signed out. At least Turkey is more reasonable as to when you can leave as you have 24 hours to go whereas in Croatia it was a case of you now have 20 minutes to leave the pier and head out of Croatian waters! So obviously that meant another nip down to yat Marine to finally meet up with Harald and Natasha at happy hour in the marina bar and our last Turkish thunder and lighning before heading the 25 miles to Rhodes the next day...........

We loved Turkey, the scenery is stunning, the people are nice (except nasty police woman and dodgy fisherman but thats only two in 6 months so not bad really!) the food is fresh and we would have loved to stay longer really but we have a lot of miles to sail and we had pottered around for long enough. The next post will be on Greece where we are just now and all I have to say for now is that the last two weeks in the Aegean sea have been the windiest we have had since we left Shetland two years ago!

Martin's Trip March 2010

2011-04-30T07:40:00.000+01:00

In the middle of March before we left Alanya, Martin Nicolson came out to see us for 10 days and here is some of what we did, I'll not repeat the photos of the BBQ's, darts and other carry ons that went on before we left Alanya as i believe everyone has seen wnough of that!

Ali hired a car for the fist few days of Martin's trip which meant they could go and see all the bits of Alanya we had already seen like the castle and the old town etc. One place we still hadn't been to was the Dim Caves just south of Alanya. The Dim Cave is the second largest cave in turkey and is 400 metres long and sits at an altitude of 232 metres inside the slopes of the Cebel i reis mountain. In other words a really cool place to go and see......

Sailing away.

Well not really as we had very little wind the first day we set out from Alanya but Ali thought he had better try and sail so here is the result. you can tell it's not rough as no one in their right mind would choose to sit up front to read a book in windy conditions.

First dinghy run of the year, after a very uncomfortable night of swell at the anchorage at Side.

Ali, Martin and the girls went ashore to see the temple and ampitheatre. The pictures I have used here are from when we went there with my sister Jayne as Ali didn't take a second batch and all Martin's ones i copied got lost in a huge virus infection on my computer.

Side

The temple of Appolon stands on the seashore at Side, or whats left of it does, it is a lovely backdrop to the harbour, it is a shame it wasn't deep enough for us to go into.

It was a highly decorated temple made with a lot of marble and it must have ben a very grand place.

The stone sculptures are simply fantastic!!

A peerie picture of Jayne in Side as I didn't do a proper blog on her visit (most of the pictures are not for publication!)

Behind the town you can walk through a great expanse of ruins of the old city of Side it was a major settlement in the area and large enough to have it's own army and fight with the neighbours.

Fancy stone carvings and some mosaics which you can just wander across, it really is crazy. the girls love these old ruins, not for the history but for the great rock climbing you can do.

An example of a mosaic floor- only over 2000 years old!!!!

The amphitheatre at Side is the must see bit of the ruins. It is pretty big and as with some of the other ampitheatres around here,they hold classical music concerts here in the fine weather. We haven't been, but others who have says it really adds a new dimension to a concert when you are sitting in an ancient amphitheatre.

Antalya

After Side it was on to Antalya we did manage to sail an hour or two on the way there but it was a bit dreech and miserable really. Not as bad for us as it was for Ali though as it was on this trip that we realised some of the debris from the mudslide had blocked the outlet for our holding tank (the tank which the toilet pumps into when we are in harbour) and he spent a lovely couple of hours fixing it! Yuk!

The Duden waterfalls a couple of miles south of Antalya old city.

We managed to get a berth in Antalya old town harbour which would have been impossible any later in the season but there has to be some perks for setting off earlier than everyone else in the marina! Unfortunately Turkey doesn't have a winter pricing policy though, and going in for a night in any harbour is not cheap no matter what time of year it is.

Antalya old town harbour. Islay Mist's mast is just visible above the white motor boat at the farside of the harbour. It was a bit of a squeeze to get into the harbour and we had to be very careful no to snag our rigging on the bow sprits of the gulets as we weaved to our spot.

The boys were very interested in this wreck being salvaged just outside the harbour entrance. The ship is caled the Seabright and she ran aground during the storm on 18th December 2010 ah yes I think we in Alanya may just remember that night too. 18 crew members were taken to hospital but thankfully no one died. The sign painted on the fron of the bridge is a little unfortunate....

Surrounding the old harbour is Antalya old town, a lovely old ramble of alley ways, mosques tea houses and shops. It sits snugly inside the urban sprawl of modern Antalya and you wouldn't know you were in a huge modern city when you are in the old lanes.

Turkish tea house with water pipes.

Hadrians gate a triumphal arch built in the name of the Roman emporer Hadrian who visited Antalya in the year 130AD. Legend also says that the Queen of Sheba passed through this gate on her way to visit King Solomon.

Antalya Museum

Antalya museum has a huge and very impressive collection of artefacts ranging from neolithic times to the great ancient cities of Perge and Aspendos.

Neolithic displays one showing the treating of hides and the other showing burial jars.

After the stone age bronze age rooms you go thhrough to the later decorated vases etc but many of these were actually complete unlike many other museums we had been in.

Most impressive were the statue rooms, all of these statues have been taken from the ancient cities of Perge and Aspendos and they give you an idea of the grandeur of the cities when they were in their heyday. You will see the actual ruins below.

Then there was the head room ......

and the bodies without heads room, why they couldn't just have glued them together I don't know!

There was a huge room with very ornamental sarcophagi (basically a stone coffin ) and very interesting were the stories printed in English on the sides of how many have been recovered after being 'stolen' by a museum in Boston!

Martin cooked us all a lovely meal of spaghetti bolognese one night, you now it's a good meal if the girls eat it and they ate every last little drop of this!

On Martin's last day with us we hired a car to go and see the huge archaeological sites of Perge and Aspendos which are both within 20km of the city.

Perge

Perge is a huge site with ruins dating back to the bronze age. Perge was supposed to be one of the richest and most beautiful cities of the ancient world and it was easy to see it had been a very grand place indeed. Some pictures....

The Hellenistic Gate

Some of the columns have been restored but as you can see it is one hell of a jigsaw puzzle to work out!

This is the water canal which was constructed to take water through the town.

Alisha and Kaylee taking in all the history around them or would that be skipping through the daisies?! They actually had their photos taken by lots of tourists as they sat there completely underwhelmed by the whole thing making daisy chains.

Inside the hellenistic gate you can see the recesses where all the huge statues from the museum would have stood.

The roman street.

A view of the whole site with he roman street in the foreground. It begins to give you the idea of the sheer size of the place when it was built....

Aspendos.

Inside the ampthitheatre.

The stage building along the front of the amphitheatre with doors for the performers to enter and leave from the two small doors at the bottom lead to long corridors where they kept the wild animals.

The accoustics are amazing in the theatre and it is still regularly used for concerts today.

It's kinda high up at the top!

Two little girls calling their mum a scaredy cat for telling them to stop running around at the top of the amphtitheatre......

The ampthitheatre is only one part of the site at Aspendos it was built next to the ancient city of the same name which sprawls out over the hill behind it.

A view of the acropolis.

The remains of the roman aqueduct which brought water to the city from the mountains to the north.

Farmland in the plains below the mountains surround the ruins.

This blog more or less concludes the historic sites which we have visited in Turkey.
It is difficult to convey in such a small collection of photographs the vast amount of ancient history which is available to the ordinary tourist to see. Considering that much of what we have seen is 2000+ years old.
It is more than amazing how much has survived, and the quality of the original building is almost beyond belief, and would be difficult to repeat even with the modern methods available today.

The next day it was time for Martin to fly home and for us to continue on our travels. We really enjoyed having Martin with us though it was only briefly and he knows he is welcome back anytime. The girl's cabin has never been as tidy this whole entire trip as it was for those ten days!

Cappadocia trip March 2011 by Alistair.

2011-04-08T06:47:00.001+01:00

We had talked much about all the things that we would do whilst we wintered in Turkey, but all too soon our time was running out, so action had to be taken. One of the "must do" things was a trip to Cappadocia. We had choices, hire a car, public service bus or an agency tour. Having been offered a very cheap tour deal, we took the plunge and bought the tickets for the agency tour.

We were due to be picked up outside the marina gates at 05.30 am on a cold Tuesday morning. We had noted that snow was forecast inland and at almost any location higher than sea level.

Cappadocia, I should mention is almost 600 km inland, on a high plain, originally formed by volcanic erruptions millions years ago. Due to the nature of the volcanic rock, nature and man (who began to inhabit this area over 10,000 years ago) turned the whole area into a weird and quite amazing area, as I hope you will see from the following photographs.

So, we boarded the bus, armed with bags of crisps, boks, etc to keep the family fed and amused.

We were part of a small group, with tour guide, "Sueit" who kept us all interested with talks on history, nature, politics and even the odd funny story.

We had not gone far when we stopped at a road side resteraunt for breakfast and toilet break.

Everything was organised to quite a tight schedule, so 45 minutes later we were on the road again, climbing into the mountains and crossing a high pass, where we stopped for a photo shoot.

As we continued, our guide advised us that our first main stop would be in the cite of Konya. If you read up on the history of Konya, you will find that it is very old, the scene of great battles, the center of all kinds of religious beliefs, and is now regarded as a holy city where the Koran is rigorously observed. Women are veiled, there is a prestigious university, and you may not have much in the way of "fun" night clubs.

Oh, and also there is a very large industrial Aluminium Smelter, originally built by the Russians, so now not all that modern, but it is a big employer, although it apparently has created a bit of local polution which may not have helped in increasing longevity.

This was a photo taken from the moving bus, which shows only a small part of the aluminium smelter site.

Our stop was to see the Mevlana Monastery, which was once the monasetry of the Dancing Dervishes..

These Dancing Dervishes are what is left of a very old religious group, who worshiped god through the medium of music and dance. A non believer might sum the performance up as a few guys whirling around in a sort of trance, but there are stages to the dance, which is always followed in an exact routine. This includes the portrayal of being poor, with the exception of God,- that the dancer has lost his worldly troubles, that they will receive a blessing from heaven, and with further high speed spins, the dancer will reach a trance like state and apparently will achieve ecstasy? wow!!

I am not going to suggest that the religious zeal has gone, but these days I think that the most of the dancing is done for the benifit of tourist trade.

The mosque/museum also houses a Museum of Islamic Art, which was very interesting.

There were examples of manuscripts, carpets and musical instruments.

Regrettably we could not take photos inside, but the building itself was quite spectacular.

The tower is decorated in green majolica, and is very majestic.

Even the grave stones have the symbolic Dervish hat.

It was a bitterly cold day, and although the history was great, we were very glad to get back into our heated mini bus, and thankfully to our next stop which was lunch. This was fast food Turkish style, all inclusive buffet eating, but still done in 45 minutes.

The next part of our journey was a long, (200km) and boring stretch of road, almost straight and at a level of over 1000 m above the sea. Our guide advised an after lunch nap!

By late afternoon, we reached Cappadocia and our next and final site visit for the day, an underground city at Saratli..

This sounds a bit grand, what we actually saw was one of many examples of an underground cavern system where people variously lived, hid from enemies and worshiped.

There are many examples of these underground cavern systems in the area, some are in fantastic condition given the fact that excavating the first of the caves may well have started in 3500BC.

It is known that the cave systems were excavated in stages over a long period of time, but it seems that they were not used much after 1100 AD.

Incredibly, there is not much recorded about the underground cave systems until the early 1900's when mostly by accident they started to be rediscovered. Now there are at least 26 major cave sites in the area.

There is no doubt that the soft volcanic lava/rock was a major reason the the caves were first excavated, and it could well be that being underground, they were hard to find and easy to defend in time of war.

Another benifit of being underground is a more stable temperature, cooler in summer and warmer in winter, so an obvious attraction to a local trying to get a foot on the property ladder.

The family entering a cave.

Round wheels were used as doors. These were carved out underground from seams of much harder "basalt" rock, and ran in grooves, so that the wheel/door would pretty much seal up an entrance.

Ventilation shafts were in evidence, as were wells, drainage for waste, food storage, cooking and general living areas.

The early cave dwellers may not have been all that big!

Just the place for your pots and pans!

Looking down into one of the wells,- look at the sides and you will see holes, which were foot rests for climbing up and down.

No cheap aluminium ladders from B&Q in those days!

Well, after a couple of hours of squeezing ourselves through various low and narrow cave routes, we returned to the surface and were whisked to our hotel for the trip.

Thank goodness, we had radiators and plenty of hot water. so time for a quick wash up and then down to the dining room for a good feed.

Next morning was an early start, which was good for us , as the girls tend to be up and about very early.

There was almost a very big disaster when the girls, and us, thought about a bit of early morning TV- it turned out that out of 10 TV channels, about half of them were pornographic!!, luckily for the good of our girls minds, Linda made a dive and pulled the plug from the wall socket before any harm was done. So much for the religion!!

Anyway, suitably fed, we set off on our first site visit of the day. This was to see the first of many rock formations, which have been formed by thousands of years of weathering and a bit of hacking and gouging by the locals of the period.

These rock towers are generally termed "Fairy Chimneys" or "Fairy Houses". The evolution of these formations is really quite simple. The rock is generally very soft, and over the years has been eroded

by wind, water and at this altitude, the action of freeze / thaw. However, where a harder stone/rock lay,

it gve a degree of protection against erosion, and that is how the towers were formed.

The "fairy" term came about before people came to understand geology, and folk assumed that the large stones were placed on top of the towers by some Fairy or other being.

The girls of course firmly believe that fairies did indeed form these towers!!

It really is an amazing sight to see the sculpture that nature has created.

They are so odd looking, that it is no wonder folk thought it was the work of giants or fairies.

This one also in the 'valley of dreams' looks just like a seal.

This is one of the chimneys that has been excavated / hollowed out to form a shelter. This could have been an early council housing scheme, but infact was a monastry.

Many of the walls have collapsed, and it is easy to see the work that has been done to create living space.

The Fairy houses were big and small, very often with internal stairways to several floor levels. Also, quite often, the access, ie the front door was up high, presumably to deter an unwanted guest.

There are literally thousands of these Fairy Towers in the Cappadocia area.

After a good look around one of the sites, we moved on to another, this time to see the inside of one of the 400 or so, that had been used as a church. Our guide told us that this church and adjoining cave were where Mary and Saint ? travelled to and stayed in for a year or two after the death of Jesus.

It was a particulary good example, which is still used for special occasions today.

The condition of the internal rock carving is very good.

This is Yusuf Koc Church, and unbelievably was used as a dove-cote until recently. Now it is all cleaned up, and the original frescoes are still in good condition. As you would expect wear and tear + vandalisim has not helped, but the artwork is still very good.

Our morning visiting was over, and we were whisked away for a quick lunch, then a bit more sightseeing from various view points in the area.

This valley is called the "Valley of Love"- goodness only knows why??

We called it the cold valley, as it was again a bitterly cold day. Lucky for us, there was a guy with a roadside tea shack, compleate with stove, which we all crowded into, to have our tea. The girls had turkish apple tea-very good it was too.

To round off the day, we were taken to see a pottery and then a carpet shop.

Our guide demonstrates a local wine jug, hand made, only in this part of Turkey, everything done "in-house".

All the items made were finished to a very high standard, very inticrate hand painting, but not cheap!!

Next the carpet house- again very inticrate work, but by god, you would need to win the lottery to by even the smallest rug!

It was a very interesting visit- we were shown the various stages of making a traditional Turkish carpet. It is entirely hand made, the fibres used can be wool, cotton or silk, in various combinations.

I used to think that a "Fair Isle" jumper was a big undertaking, but this is monumental. With over 500, yes thats five hundred knots per square centimeter, it can take a woman three years to make one of these rugs.

The rugs are mostly made at home, and in a way similar to the knitting industry back home in Shetland. The carpet warehouse hands out the materials and equipment to women who have been trained to weave the rugs.

It is an industry that fits in well with the traditional role of the "house-wife".

These ladies are probably on a wage, for the benifit of us tourists.

The silk is also home grown. This is the procedure to recover the silk thread from the silk cocoon.

A single cocoon can produce up to 1500m of fine thread.

I dont know if the warehouse owner really expected anyone to buy a rug, but at prices ranging from 1000 Euros to 20,000.00 Euros and up, you would need to seriously want one of these rugs, before you even bother to look at them.

By now, it was time to head back to the hotel for a wash up and then our dinner.

Also, tonight was the "Turkish Night" - an evening of genuine Turkish entertainment, and a genuine "Fairy House" underground night club. It was a "drink all you can" type evening, with snacks and dancing, and boy what dancing it turned out to be.

It actually ended up that the same group, more or less, came out in different costumes, but they were very good and very entertaining.

And not that bad on the eye either!!

Our happy go lucky table- trying our best to lower the level of the bottles in the "Drink all you can" festival!

What fun!

More costumes........

Then the highlight- the belly dancer. She had a few of us up on stage wiggling around like idiots, but what could you expect after the effect of a bottle or two of Raki!

Then it was a free for all. The girls had taken a little nap earlier, but when the woke up, it was all go!!

By now, it was fun, fun, fun, although some of us wondered if our bus driver was in a fit stste to actually drive us back to the hotel.

Well, 15 minutes later, we go our answer, he did not drive, but our tour guide did, so we were safely delivered back to the hotel, although there was a definite party bus atmosphere.

Next morning, this being the final day, we were up early as usual, but amazingly a blanket of snow covered the ground.

This very misty photo shows a hot air ballon drifting throught the snow shower. The ballon ride is a popular tourist thing, but again quite expensive, and especially not worth doing in a snow storm.

The girls were at home in the snow, and well kitted out in their ski jackets, etc.

After breakfast, it was time to pack up, board the bus and head back to Alanya, a very long bus journey.

The Fairy towers look a bit different in the snow.

On our return trip, we were entertained by one last factory visit, a producer of stone ornaments.

This small factory make a range of stone items, jewellery, etc, again not something that we came for.

It was all quite basic, nothing high tech. but good results.

I spotted this interesting bit of artwork out the window of the bus- I suspect that it is not that old.

This is the inside of a very old building, which we stopped at on our return trip. It is an original resting house for the traders "caravans" or convoys of pack horses/camels carrying goods along the famous "Silk Road"

These buildings were sited aproximately every 15 - 20 kilometers, which was about as far as the convoy would travel in a day. The "caravan" would bed down here, obviously for a small charge, safe from robbers and bandits, the animals on the lower floor, and the people on the higher level.

The return journey was a bit of a struggle for the bus and driver, especially the 200 km stretch, which was covered in snow, and some of the time we were just crawling along in 1st gear. It really is a desolate place, not much to see out the window.

We obviously made it back, and although it was a whirlwind type tour, it was really very good, and very interesting. Further proof, if proof were needed, that Turkey is a very interesting place to stay, and so much to see, its difficult to know where to start.

Next blog- very soon..............

Life in Alanya Yat Limani Winter 2010/11

2011-04-01T12:07:00.000+01:00

Well we have had a great winter in Alanya, we wondered what life would be like in a larger marina than we were the year before in Barcelona but it was difficult to wrench ourselves away in the end!

Mostly we chose Alanya because of the price, it was cheaper than most of the other Turkish marina's and also because it was so far east and south as we thought we would like a warmer winter than the one before!

When we pulled into Alanya it was the middle of the Sunday cricket match and we thought how English is that! Little did we know that within a fortnight we would be part of the regular cricket playing fraternity (and enjoying it!)

Here are some pictures from our winter with brief explanations as I don't want to bore anyone too much, firstly I will start with the weekly regime!

Monday to Saturday mornings there was the morning 'NET' to listen to on VHF Ch 69, this gave the weather report, activities, special announcement, items for sale and Hellos and Goodbyes which we listened to most mornings. when the marina thinned out a bit over Christmas Ali even had a weekly spot announcing, we had to throw the girls out each time for that as they made too much noise and Ali was having a hard enough time as it was.

Two other daily events were the morning walk at 7am - a brisk four mile jaunt up through the fruit plantation to the mosque and back down again. I did it a few times and was impressed by all the older ladies streaking ahead not out of breath at all (unlike me!) Then much more up our street, the happy hour in the kings pub every day from 6.30 to 7.30pm! We didn't go every day though....

The marina is about 2km outside Alanya town centre but there are buses every 20 minutes or so and also it is an easy cycle, even so the marina put on a free bus every Tuesday and Friday morning to the fresh produce markets. They were great we especially liked the Tuesday one and so we always got school over with quickly so we could go on the bus.

The vegetables and fruit were so fresh and so cheap at the markets we could live for so little (if we were tee- total vegetarians we could have lived even cheaper as meat and alcohol are the most expensive things to buy!) Sometimes we were shocked at how little money we were asked for for a bag of fruit. Grapefruit were 50krs per KG that is about 20p so you could get three medium grapefruit for 20p!

Strawberries were in season early in the spring, 5 TL per 1/2 Kg for the best quality thats about £2 per 500g.

As Alanya is a huge banana growing area so you could buy them by the sackful if you wanted to. You ask for the big bunches to be cut down which the seller duly does with a fairly big knife!

I think these qualify as the biggest cabbages we have ever come across!

Spices spices everywhere but surprisingly I still find that 'Scoop' at home is one of the best spice shops I have ever come across, in other countries you can buy all of the spices they use very cheaply but try to find a can of coconut mik or garam masala or a piece of fresh ginger then you have a real challenge on your hands!

As well as the two buses to the markets a week on the third Wednesday of every month the marina put on a bus that goes to Metro a large cash and carry type supermarket but also one where you could get coconut milk and Mango chutney if you wanted to pay for it! Maple syrup a great favourite of ours for Sunday morning pancakes is so expensive in Turkey ~ £20 per bottle! Needless to say we haven't bought any. All imported items have a huge tax on them which didn't really bother us as we quite like to eat what is available in each country although it would have been nice if Gordon's Gin was a little cheaper..... And we will be having a pork chop as soon as we get to Greece!

Over the winter season the cruisers put on weekly activities, if you went to all of it you would have had no time left to do anything else and certainly hardly any time to actually leave the Marina.

Tennis.

Had I known that I was to become a 'tennis widow' I would have nipped it in the bud very quickly. When we got to Alanya, Ali (after a little kerfuffle about signing up sheets) had tennis training two mornings a week and played in the tennis tournament every Saturday and had almost daily games with others too. Unfortunately just after Ali discovered his new love the big storm in December came and put it on hold for a couple of months, more on that later.......

Cricket.

For the first few weeks we played cricket each Sunday afternoon with a break for cucumber sandwiches and cake (and beer in some cases) At first we played in the boat yard. This adds a new element to cricket ' if the ball lands on a boat then you instantly got 4 runs and fielding was sometimes pretty tricky as the ball would bounce between the boats this way and that. The ball they use is a tennis ball as obviously people wouldn't really like a full size heavy cricket ball hitting their boats! After a few weeks the boat yard became too full with boats laying up for the winter so we moved to the beach as in the above pictures, alas only for one week also because of the storm which wrecked the beach. We thoroughly enjoyed cricket it certainly blasted the Sunday hangover away.

Darts

Every friday night was darts night for which we trooped over the dual carriageway to the 'Marina' restaurant for a 10 lira buffet then darts. It was a good laugh and the food was so cheap and usually good that it made it a nice way to get out of cooking one night of the week. The kids ate for free too which always helps.

On our last darts night these guys came to watch. Some one said, "look he's got a Kalashnikof," and the little boy said, "yes yes Kalashnikof!" Oh the international language of weaponry, breaks down all barriers......

Pub Quiz.

Pub Quiz on Monday nights was certainly a highlight of the week for us. I have no pictures though as once it starts each week you were always concentrating so hard that I forgot all about having a camera in my bag. The quiz certainly did bring out a very competitive streak in many of the cruisers. The teams were drawn out of the hat which was nice for new comers especially as usually there are only two people on a boat. Richard was quiz master and a very good job he did of it too. It reminded me of working in the Lounge Bar every second Tuesday on quiz night and playing in the bar team. Amazingly enough both Ali and I ended up on winning teams occasionally! The last week we played our two teams drew for first place and Ali the little rat got the tie breaker for his team grrrrr.

Alongside all these night activities there was also computer clinics, French conversational lessons (I went but just sat there mutely!) Turkish lessons, Pilates classes (I went to those and never knew just how much you can scoop scop scoop that tummy!) Wii Chung Gung a Chinese exercise class, Ali joined the singing group as the guitarist (and was amazed to find that people can sing together without being half plastered first), coffee and craft for the ladies (the girls went a couple of times to get the cake that went along with it) and whilst the girls had cake and craft some of the guys had a braai and beer!

Saturday BBQ

The BBQ was for us another highlight of the week and I don't think we missed one the whole time we were there. Not all but a lot of the cruisers would proceed to the BBQ area every Saturday night and have a feed, we all took our own meat and a dish for the shared table. We loved the shared table as most of the food on it was excellent seeing as there were a lot of ladies around with many years culinary skills under their belts and plenty of time on their hands, yum! The competition I suspect was quite fierce between the ladies although never voiced.... One week there was a definite competiton as quite by chance three women had taken curried eggs as their dish, a windy night in Alanya marina that one! There was a bit of a problem with not enough seats on busy nights but we took our little foldable stools up with us which solved the problem for us anyway.

After the food had been consumed the tennis results read out and a few glasses of wine imbibed it was usually then time for the sing song.

Alisair on guitar, Leighton on harmonica and their groupies! Only joking ;-)

So those were all the weekly activities and if that wasn't enough there were special events to go to too! I'll go through them in chronological order from when we got arrived.

Halloween

Halloween fell just a week after we arrived at Alanya and we got duly roped into getting the marina pub decorated and of course getting our girls decorated too.

Our girls dressed as witches and a slightly older grandaughter of one of the cruisers.

Jackie dressed as the vicar of Dibley.

The rowdy table!

Wolfgang and Ursula

Toyah maybe?

Thanksgiving

The next big night was thanksgiving organised by the Americans amongst the cruisers we went over the road to the marina restaurant for a set dinner of Meze, turkey and pudding which was very good. The girls and I made little indian costumes on a very rainy day.

Us and Mary Lou- everyones favourite Squaw!

Mary Lou AKA Hiawatha telling us all the true meaning of Thanksgiving....

Mary Lou and the restaurant owner Mustafa being interviewed for local TV they must have thought it such an oddity as it was on the local news and in the papers.

The singing group had practised a few American songs for the evening and would get up for a song every now and then this is Alisha and Ali on the stage.

'This land is Your Land'

Lowie and David from Connecticut the queen and king of Thanksgiving.

Richard and Kim doing a little 'American Deep South/Queens English' translation sketch.

And then the most traditional part of a Thanksgiving the Belly dancing?!

How glad was Ali that he had a littl sleepy girl n his lap when the belly dancer was looking for volunteers!

Alistair's Birthday

We took a cake to the BBQ as our shared dish and then had a small soiree later.

The big winter storm!

OK not exactly a planned activity but certainly a big feature of our winter! At the end of November/ beginning of December Alanya was buffeted by lots of thunder storms and a couple of big storms too. We had never seen rain and persistent thunder like it. One bout of thunder rumbled on and on for three days, the first reaction of awe listening to the thunder rumbling in the hills turned to annoyance as we couldn't go on the internet and the rain was pretty serious...... I actually saw one of the boats in the marina get struck by lightning when I was up on deck what a shock that was, three boats had damage to their electrical equipment that day!

However it wasn't the thunder that caused the marina or us any problems the swell and the rain however did! The rainfall was even on CNN as it was so unnaturally high for the area.

The stream that comes down the hill and under the dual carriageway and out into the marina was over loaded, couldn't cope and sent a flood of mud and debris over the road and down through the marina in amongst the boats

It looked like you could walk between the boats it was so full of mud and trees. We didn't think we had any damage from it until after we left Alanya and discovered that some bits of wood had completely blocked the outlet to our holding tank, another nice toilety job for Ali!

Some of the debris the marina staff collected from between the boats.

Poor Sherife's shop was flooded and he had to close for a few days to fix every thing. The pub was also flooded and had to get new carpets. And of course poor Teeny from our previous blog was never seen again.

The road into the marina complex - diggers spent a couple of days getting it cleared and it was a while before you could say it was back to normal, as the tennis courts are at the same level you can just guess what state they were in! Hence the stoppage of play for a couple of months and the cricket too as the beach had so many big boulders thrown onto it.

The top of the road going down to the marina where the ground was just washed away

After the rain came the swell! There was actually a really big storm passing through the East Med and many places were quite badly hit, Israel and Lebanon had huge seas built up and many boats were damaged there.

The swell breaking right over the breakwater and over La Porta restaraunt and nightclub. The water actaully smashed a few windows at the back and one car that had been parked there was squashed and the swimming pool was filled with debris. When Ali went up to get a picture he got a good soaking and no picture which we all thought was very funny.

The swell rolled in for about two days, it did make life on board a little rolly and I had to take Kaylee off one morning as she was feeling seasick. Apparently the year before they had a big swell storm too but they have made improvements to the pontoons and as long as you were tied up well enough like we were you were OK. My sister Jayne's first night of her visit coincided witht the worst night of swell poor thing and I think she felt a bit dizzy by morning! A couple of boats broke mooring lines but that seemed to be the worst for the boats in the water the marina staff were very dilligently attending those boats which had been left unnattended and were quite happy for us to tie lines across to the facing quays to keep our boats off the quay. The marina is in the process of constructing surge barriers to put near the entrance to the marina, whether they work or are completed by next winter who knows? We certainly didn't find the swell any more troublesome than Port Forum/Cannes/Cartagena/Trapani etc etc and it was certainly less persistent than in Spain!

Next for Xmas!

There were a couple of pre Christmas parties which most of us attended, the first at the Red Tower Brewery and Restaurant. We had a set dinner again with very nice food and good draught beer. The singing group had prepared a medley of carols with a guest star appearance from two little girls....

Then for Christmas day itself!

It started quite early as expected....

We were delighted with our survival package from Brian Leask and Marie Fullerton too.....

Shetland bisuits, a cup o' tay and the Shetty Times I had a great morning whilst Ali and Alisha were away singing in the international church (true! honest!)

Some of the ladies in the marina had arranged with the restaurat across the road to be let in to cook a proper full Christmas dinner with Turkeys and all the trimmings. We all put in money for the ingredients and obviously everyone bought their own drink. I did offer to help with the dinner but was told it was covered I suspect after a couple of my BBQ side dishes had been tasted they were quite wise to keep me out of the kitchen! The day turned into a bit of a carry on but in a good way though. The reataurant also had a school fundraiser booked in for the afternoon but instead of 100 other people about 300 mums and kids turned up! The lone chef and his collapsing doner kebab stand couldn't keep up, the ovens went out half way through cooking the turkeys and the full blast Turkish music most of the day made it a very unusual Christmas indeed!

Some pictures......

We thought the restaurant had provided polystyrene balls as aspecial Xmas snow for al the kids but no, the little blighters had emptied all of the big bean bags into the play area. But what fun they had Alisha and Kaylee were in heaven, they were all shovelling the snow into piles and jumping in or throwing it at each other and on a couple of occasions the lasses came up stairs gasping for a drink of water. This was good as dinner was a little than planned (two hours) due to the oven malfunction and the general craziness of the situation so at least they were occupied!

The Chrismas cooks, Maggie, Izzy and David, a blooming marvellous job done in extraordinary conditions!

Whilst waiting for course one Santa arrived!

We all got a little present!

Even Jayne!

and Ali!

When we were about to sit down to dinner darkness had fallen and the lightbulbs above our table had busted now, how many turkish waiters does it take to change a light bulb????..............

There you have the answer 4! Two to steady the chair, one to hold the legs of the final one changing the lightbulb! At least we could now tell our roasties from our brussel sprouts!

All I can say it was well worth the wait! And we had enough left over turkey for a Boxing day BBQ party!

Hogmanay.

I don't really have any pictures of New Year's Eve, we had a BBQ at a bit later time so there was a chance we would last until midnight. We all took two shared dishes a hot and cold one, we took rum punch for our cold dish it went down so well we had to go back for a refill! The girls came out with blankets as you can see but I actually took them back to the boat before midnight as it was a little cold so I spent 'the bells' on the phone to Aunty Janet's annual party!

The girls well wrapped up at the BBQ

Ali did however bring a boatful of people back with him after the BBQ ended and we had a small soiree until around 5am which thankfully I don't have any photos of and the videos Mary Lou took of Ali at around 4.30am are not for public viewing if I know what is good for me!

New Years Day.

Ali and a few others took part in a 1st of Jan dip in the sea although I don't think it was as cold as it is in the Serpentine!

Alisha's birthday.

This was the next big event for us after we returned from France in January. There was a lot of excitement baking the cake and going into town to spend the birthday money Alisha had got from Granny and Pop.

The clothes Alisha bought with her money and Kaylee even got a cardigan too!

We again took the cake up to the BBQ as our shared dish.......

The official opening of Alanya Yat Limani

We were all invited to attend the official opening to the marina over in La Porta at the beginning of February and the marina staff asked if Alisha and Kaylee would present flowers to the Turkish Tourism/Tranport minister who was opening the marina.

This is them presenting the flowers but we couldn't get a proper picture of it. We did get the next day's newspapers though and they had their faces twice in that! It was a strange affair really, apart from us berth holders it was mostly all men in suits and when the minister arrived it was all high security and loud booming music and cheering like he was a rock star!

One of the speeches.

The cutting of the ribbon! (With more dramatic loud music)

For the girls the best bit of the day was as soon as all the officials had left the guys who were clearing up the decorations gave them all the balloons from along the road!

Valenntines Night

Mary Lou and Olwyn organised a night at the La porta restaurant for Valentines where we had a nice meal and the girls loved it as they got all dressed up, (Alisha in her new dress Granny Trondra had sent her) and got to do some dancing!

Then all too soon, it was time to leave Alanya, March came around, Martin Nicolson came out to visit and it was time to set off.

Alisha and Kaylee practising rowing before we left. They will really miss the freedom they have had this winter, the boat yard had a big fence all around it and there were security guards at the exit so they could roam free anywhere in the marina. The big gullets in the boat yard provided the perfect place for pretend Harry Potter worlds and very often when I came to get them for lunch or tea, all would be quiet until one of them appeared from behind a boat shouting "Stupefy" with a pretend wand in their hands.

So it was time for the last Saturday BBQ......

Alisha and Kaylee toasting marshmallows given to them by Jeanette, if you are wondering what is wrong with Kaylee's face it is completely clerted in make-up given to her by Olwyn who obviously saw the need for cosmetics in the little girls lives as their mum is a bit of a scruff who doesn't have much!

Sing songs for the last time.

And then back to the boat for the last Saturday night soiree on Islay Mist, Oh dear!

The girls and Olwyn got the jewellery box out and what fun they had.

Izzy wondering what is going to happen next or was it me dancing there and she was just hoping I wouldn't fall over onto her......

And this last picture of Kaylee and Olwyn dancing really says it all......

After a fairly hungover Sunday cleaning up the boat ready for the offing and a last happy hour in the Kings pub it was time to say goodbye.

Kaylee and Alisha said goodbye on the morning 'Net' broadcast whilst they were on the rounds saying goodbye to their four legged friends and owners.

Bye bye Danny.

Getting ready to go took a little longer tha expected due to all the goodbyes.

John, Avi and Jeanette.

And then we were finally off.

Ursula and Wolgang.

Don't know who this pair were trying to hitch a lift but we decided against it, they looked a bit dodgy!

The Dogs and Cats of Alanya Yat Limani.

2011-03-19T11:05:00.000Z

Firstly I apologise if this is formatted wrongly but I can't preview this to look at the final layout, I think it has to do with the Turkish government shutting down Google blogspot so if it is higgledy piggledy I apologise, and obviously none of our new friends in Turkey can even read it!

Although Alisha and Kaylee have had a fairly lonesome winter with no other kids to play with they have had plenty of animals to run around with.......

Tarcin feeding lady the puppy who went to a Turkish family.

When we got to Alanya way back in October the first dogs we came across were Tarcin the 'marina dog' and her four puppies. They were soo cute, one was being kept by a couple in the marina, one went to a Turkish home (which was lucky as I think we would have ended up with her onboard....) and the other two boys are being kept as marina dogs, they have got bigger and bigger......

Rex

and Sherrif

Lovely dogs on the whole but a bit boisterous, they come running at the girls and sometimes knock them over which is OK when it is dry but a bit messy when it is raining and muddy. Unfortunately the mother Tarcin is a little unpredictable and has bitten Kaylee twice but only little nips to tell Kaylee to back off. I think she sees Kaylee as a schreeching annoying little puppy. The girls tend to stay well away from her which is no bad thing as it means they always play at our end of the marina and not near the entrance. A lot of the cruisers feed the dogs, us included as they don't seem to get enough to eat from the marina which is a real shame as everyone will be moving on in a months time and then what will happen to them? The mother dog was apparently owned by a fisherman who was quite keen to sell her puppies and wouldn't get her 'fixed' even though she had her first litter when she was only 18 months and it really took a lot out of her so one of the cruisers payed for her to get the operation instead. The dogs do bark a lot at night especially at anyone they don't know which i suppose is kind of the idea of guard dogs. Thankfully our boat is away form the office area where they live as it can be a little noisy.

Danni Doodles.

Danny is a labradoodle owned by an American couple on their motor boat 'Salty Dawg' and she really is a salty dog having crossed the Atlantic a few years ago! This is Sue who was dog sitting Danni and was trying to walk her but with Kaylee around that can be difficult as she always throws herself at Danni. Luckily Danni is one of the nicest natured dogs ever and doesn't even bark really.

Savannah the luckiest dog alive.

Savannah was found luckily for her by an american lady called Mary Lou when she was cycling home one night. Savannah was lying in a ditch and looked like a pile of rubbish. Mary Lou saw it move out of the corner of her eye and stopped to find the poor little thing with a broken leg and a skin condition (which you can see on her face.) Mary Lou tried to get the authorities to take her but they weren't interested so she took har to the vets, paid for her treatmen, nursed her back to health and found her a home! Of course having a puppy to look after was pretty exciting fot the girls too.....

Mary Lou, Alisha and Kaylee taking Savannah for a walk in a trolley to get some fresh air!

Of course when Savannah was all better, she proved to be a pretty good tow for rollerblades.....

Kavai the party pup!

Kavai is one of the marina puppies who was taken on by an English couple called Paul and Liz and has to be the cutest little puppy in the world. She is always so excited to see the girls and poor Paul and Liz never get to go for a walk on their own with her if the girls spy them. She has been on our boat on a number of occasions, usually for small soirees and she fits right in as you can see above! That was a night that Mary Lou came over to watch the 'Frog Princess' and Kavai got a prime viewing seat too!

And now for the cats.....

There are three marina cats or bin cats who are very lucky to be fed by the cat loving boat owners.

Joey 'smelly cat'

This is Joey who along with his buddies, Dolores and Gingerino walk all over all the boats on the hard standing. We couldn't believe it when we had our boat out of the water and we saw these little paws walking past the saloon windows. We thankfully didn't have the experience of one German couple who had bought some smoked mackerel from the market andleft it out in the cockpit until dinner time so it didn't smell up the boat. Well it never did get the chance to do that they found Gingerino licking her lips after she had finished it....... Thankfully these cats don't come down the pontoons especially smelly Joey who really stunk up Mary Lou's cockpit whist she was away.

And now finally for the sad tale of Teeny.

Teeny was a little kitten who turned up a the marina bar in October. She really was skin and bones hence the name Teeny. Every one gave her tit bits, we would go every day and feed her a little kitten food and the girls just loved her. It was great for us too as the girls were quite happy to sit in the bar on Pub Quiz night and any other night we decided to go up for happy hour. Kaylee would curl up sleeping with her on the sofas which I wish I had taken a picture of. We did think of adopting her but as we are coming home in the summer for two months we would have had to get her into a cat home or fly her home which was just not going to happen.

Well poor Teeny was never seen again after the big storm when the stream coming down the hill broke its banks, flooded over the duel carriageway and down into the marina through the shop and pub and into the water taking trees and all sorts of debris with it. A little kitty like teeny would never have stood a chance :-(

The girls however were told by the barmen that she went to a new home in the hills. It probably was kinder in the end rather than trying to live of meagre scraps around the marina.

Anyway as you can see there have been plenty of animals to keep the girls amused over the winter. There are actually lots more dogs n boats in the marina, Bobo a very cute little French dog who has also crossed the Atlantic, a little Belgian dog and even a malamut too.

Alisha has told us we will definitely be getting a dog when we get home, we'll see.........