Tuesday 1^st June

Rather than just kick our heels today we generally set about different tasks.

Lesley took Steve from Scott Free shopping for fishing gear which was not a total success, whilst Trevor and i both spent time in the office. The ‘office’as it has become known throughout the rally is the local branch of Burger King who have a strong WiFi signal and are happy for everyone to sit there and send emails, skype and browse the net etc.

I also was tasked with attending the skipper’s meeting at 10 am for our group this morning as Sarah knew full well that as it was going to be all about completing the transit logs for departure from Turkey and that certain skippers might be rather slower at picking up how this was done than others.... I can hardly talk really as I was going pretty slowly but fortunately Sarah from Limbara was sat next to me with all the answers prepared!

All four of us then went off for lunch in town with Jackie and Robert from Arwen, nominally heading for a kebab house that had been recommended, but we never found this one and settled for an excellent alternative and enjoyed a selection of kebabs, some made with  wraps (doner kebabs) and some with bread rolls along with a plate of salad and chillies.

After lunch Sarah, Trevor and Lesley headed off by dolmus to the ‘Forum’ which is a posh rather European shopping centre in another part of the city (complete with M & S) and Lesley came back with a sophisticated black cocktail dress. Lesley actually had a very flamboyant haircut done yesterday and her freshly flowing tresses were the talk of the rally at the dinner. She has had to endure references to ‘Sindy’ and ‘Barbie’ although the older ones amongst us saw her more as one of the original Charlie’s angels, but Trevor found all this less funny when someone called him Ken!

Sadly Lesley was also the subject of the days less auspicious event when she and Trevor were sharing one of the portacabin shower units that have been installed in a car park nearby. These are very basic and have no locks which makes it all quite exciting, but their day deteriorated when Trevor discovered that the dividing wall was missing sections affording their neighbours a very public view! It was around this point that the single hook that they had hung all their clothes on broke off the wall and all of  Lesley’s clothes and wash bag fell into the pool of water below.

On their slightly grumpy return we all set off to our group’s pontoon party (group 5, Light Blue) armed with several loaves and a huge Greek salad that Sarah had made and had a great evening with some very tasty dishes and a particularly fatal Blue cocktail courtesy of the crew of Limbara.

Finally we returned to Serafina for a session of Mexican train which is growing on me fast although Sarah has proved herself very adept at this and won yet again!

Today was very hot and sticky making it the second very hot day in a row and definitely a clue to what we can expect for the next few months in the middle east. Air conditioning would have been very welcome, but we are just going to have to get used to this and hope to acclimatise quickly.