Mark (me, the author of this blog entry) came to Marmaris for the week on Sunday, 20 Feb, in order to check on progress with the maintenance and refit list (all lists being endless, we are talking about those items in focus at this time).  I also brought in my luggage (i) a shiny new satellite phone from Thrane & Thrane, (ii) lots of books and charts, and (iii) a selection of chandlery.  There was very little room for clothes and Pegasus Airways kindly took care of everything while also taking money for all the excess baggage.

 

First impressions:  the weather is terrible!  Itâs cold, wet and stormy. Check out the photo.  And the forecast is that this will last all week â not very convenient.  And I wish I had brought more clothes â warm ones. And ah yes, Lovesail.  Sheâs beautiful even when on the hard amid a veritable forest of yachts of every description including numerous gulets  which look enormous and I canât imagine how the travel lift can manage.  LS is buried in the midst of all of this and it seems that the marina is going to be awfully busy launching between now at 15 April, which is the launch date for LS, because there are so many boats between us and the sea.  And Christian has done a wonderful job with the stainless steel fabrication for the new solar panel, the bracket for our satphone antenna, and the mast for the wind generator that doubles as a lift for the outboard.  It is thing of beauty indeed.  We review the various jobs which remain in hand and then discover a âslightâ problem with the wind generator mast: there is insufficient clearance between the rotor blades and the boom.  Oh dear, back to the drawing board.  We figure out a modification that will work fine and I leave it to Christian to implement.  He is such a craftsman that I have every confidence that the end result will be just great and pleasing on the eye and warm the soul.

 

Marmaris out of season is quite strange.  In the town, all is normal, but out on the beach strip, there is one hotel/apart block after another closed up for the winter.  A ghost town.  Then there is the ManU tavern across from the Everton Bar, as well as numerous other Premier League team bars closed, no punters in sight.  How different it must be when the beer is flowing.  Either way, Iâm glad to leave it be.

 

We had a very nice dinner last night up in the hills in a traditional restaurant serving mainly fish â the owner is an ex-fisherman.  There were Christian, Anna and me.  We sat next to the big iron stove in order to keep warm, ate fish, drank wine and had a nice time.  Anna makes lovely jewellery using beads, stones and other materials.  Check it out on annamei.etsy.com . She and Christian have been in Turkey since 1988 and so have seen a few changes over the years; in fact they have been a part of that change, certainly as it relates to the boating industry here.

 

Tomorrow, Friday,  we aim to complete the installation of the satphone and then I can make my first call, which will probably be to myself â just testing.  So this my first blog entry is a trial too for the ones that may follow once we set sail again in May.  If this works from my WiFi connection, then others can come from the boat â in mid-ocean!  Hurray!

 

I leave in a couple of days so there may be little more to report.  Will be back in April.