Sunday 26^th June – Yalova (It’s official)

40:39.680N 29:16.603E

It’s official:  I have finally succumbed to the cold I have been fighting since Istanbul.  It has just been a sore throat for the last few days but now it has developed into a full blown cold, so coughing and sneezing all over the place.  I have had to resort to the day-time cold/flu tablets and have allowed myself a day on board feeling sorry for myself. 

As it happens it has coincided with the arrival of some bad weather so it hasn’t stopped us moving today.  Overnight it rained quite a bit, and today there are gale warnings out for the Black Sea and the Aegean and here the forecast for Marmara is F5-7.  Fortunately, tucked up here at Yalova, we seem to have escaped most of it and it has remained fair.  There is obviously wind out in the Sea of Marmara though as there has been swell reaching the harbour breakwater and trying to creep in.  Despite the forecast, the yacht rally were all away first thing and hopefully are tucked up safely back at Istanbul.

Richard seems to have escaped my cold so far.  He has been pottering around most of the day.  He went off to town for a walk and found that the market just outside the marina has metamorphosed yet again – a new surprise everyday; at first he thought it was a car boot sale but looking closer it was apparent that people have brought their old cars there to sell J 

On his way back he picked me up some fresh lemons and has been feeding me a home-made hot lemon and honey drink and it’s really delicious – almost worth being ill for.

The internet access was still a problem this morning; it didn’t spontaneously register over night and start working.  As we depend on the internet for comms and weather whilst passaging we needed to get something sorted so we can move on.  So this afternoon Richard went for the expedient solution - having noticed the major mobile phone shops were open whilst out for his walk earlier, he set off with the notebook and his passport to ‘the competition’ and started again from scratch going for a new SIM and dongle to avoid any further complications (and managing to get quite a good deal in the process).  He had the software installed and the connection up and working even before leaving the shop!

Tonight Richard is a happy soul now we are back on line – this time with Vodafone.  We will fight the battle of getting our other account and dongle sorted another day.