Does winter start here?

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Thu 24 Sep 2009 19:12
36:49.1N 28:18.5E

Thursday 24th September

Said our goodbyes to Anthony and Alex and they shot to the very top of
Sarah's christmas card list when Alex gave her copies of Vogue and Red
before we set off back to Marmaris to keep our appointment with Demir
Marine. Motored yet again as there was no wind and also chose not to try
fishing as we clearly were just upseting the poor young tuna! Although
approaching the bay off Marmaris, there was a sudden flurry of flying fish
again.

Maramaris bay is a really refreshing sight at the end of a summer where we
have seen more than our fair share of bare rocky islands. The big bay is
fringed with hills covered in forestry, by which I mean proper trees, not
the usual scrub and olive grove types! The only real blot is the town of
Maramris itself which was mostly flattened in a huge earthquake in 1958 and
so almost all the building date from then on and it is not a pretty sight.

This just might be our last outing in Serafina for the year as we now hope
to get work done on her and so she will need to stay in the marina, with us
overseeing the work. Of course we also have our own winter layup work to do
before we crane out next month so we are getting ourselves prepared to just
get stuck into it all a bit sooner than orginally planned.

John, the antipodean manager of Demir came bang on time and won us over very
quickly with his evident experience, understanding and professionalism. Mind
you we have yet to see his prices, but he clearly understood what we were
after and left us feeling very confident. He also is sending a sailmaker
along to discuss the lightweight reaching sail we want. John has the exact
sail we are looking for on his own boat and is happy to help us brief the
sailmakers with a view to making the same sort of job for us. The
Australians call this a 'Screamer' which doesn't quite fit the cruising
image, but sounds very promising!

Talking of Australians, Manni and Belinda and their daughter Amy have just
arrived here too and so we had a chat briefly and plan to go out for a meal
tomorrow night after which they are off home, however we all met this
evening for a few swift drinks - don't really know where all the time went.