Final thoughts for 2010
Arwenofbosham
Rob and Jacky Black
Thu 2 Dec 2010 13:11
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36 33.5N 31 56.9E
ALANYA
Following our repairs completed in Kenova we headed
east again with a visit to one of our favourite bays for a final overnight
anchorage
and some sea swimming. We then made for Antalya
(the regional capital) where we spent two nights in the new marina. This enabled
us
to make a visit to the old city which has some
charming alleys and old buildings as well as Roman arches and walls to be
seen.
We also went to the museum where many of the
marvelous artifacts from the region are housed - the most spectacular being the
numerous
statues taken from the Roman sites of Perge, Side
and Aspendos. The weather continued to be quite unsettled with thunderstorms and
rain
so being in the marina had its compensations
despite the high cost!
We returned to Alanya and were pleased to meet up
again with our many friends who are based at this marina. the winter programme
of activities
was being set up and we were soon involved in some
of these. We had a great Halloween party and the usual Sunday cricket was on
with Rob captaining the 'England'
team who beat the visitors - Australia!
In between the fun and socializing we busied
ourselves with a long list of 'jobs' to get the boat ready for her winter
lay-up. We had a massive thunderstorm one night and unfortunately
several boats had some damage.One - our good
friends on Yoko received a direct hit and as a result they have major electronic
failure. We were only 50 metres from them but thank
goodness went unscathed. Our lift out went smoothly
and apart from the 'meadow' of coral weed on the hull all was well and the boat
is now chocked up for the winter. We had an invitation to
visit friends in Yalikavak (near Bodrum) so decided
to take this up for a few days. We managed to get an overnight coach to Bodrum
and were met by Hugo and Marlene (owners of Yoko) at 0700
whose home we would stay in for a few days. We had
a whistle-stop tour of the area before heading for their villa set on a hillside
overlooking the bay of Yalikavak. We were surprised at the difference in
temperatures
here - at least 6 degrees lower than in Alanya - we
were glad to have taken some jumpers to wear.
Later we met up with our other friends Wendy and
Bryan (Future Options) and proceeded to spend a super few days being wined and
dined by both sets of friends. We had a major panic on Friday when we discovered
to our horror we couldn't get any seats on the bus back to Alanya (it was a
national holiday weekend and everything was booked!). Finally we were able to
buy the last two seats on the overnight bus on Sunday 14th of November - cutting
it a bit fine for our flight home on the 16th! Our last 24 hours in Alanya were
spent in a flurry of activity with packing, de-frosting and cleaning the fridge
and freezer and generally cleaning the boat for our 4 month time
away.
Returning to the UK was lovely despite the
cold and we have enjoyed catching up with family and friends. Today we are
snowed in as we had 6 inches of the white stuff fall overnight - a bit of a
contrast to Alanya!
We will not be writing this blog now until the
spring - thanks to those who have been reading it - we hope to see you while we
are at home.
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