Fetiye and all Skopea Lamani, to Marmaris, Istanbul,
15th to 19th Sept Skopea Lamani, Marmaris, Wrighteau to bed, and off to Istanbul
The Final Wrighteau Rant
The 8th and final rant is upon us, where has the time gone. At the end of the last one we were indulging ourselves at the beautiful Yacht Classic Hotel, without the lavish room prices of course. We went to the big Fetiye Bazaar, but it is a challenge to dodge the stall holders, who start their prices so ridiculously high, bartering is a real game, but when they win they win big time. We managed to escape that with one tiny purchase of a bracelet for me, which started out at 25 lira ($16) I finally caved in at 10 lira ($7). I must admit is it very special, turquoisy stone, but also I must admit I paid $2 more than I paid for similar things in a Marmaris shop a week later.
Then, on the recommendation of the third and final straw person, we decided to go the Turkish way and have a Hamam. Mind you, it took a bit for me to convince Joe that this was going to be a good experience. It started with a sauna, well that nearly killed me before I really got off the starting block, but after that it was heavenly, we went into a big room with dimmed lights, and lay down on a huge warmed marble slap, when the assistant scrubbed madly and relieved us of all the dead and useless skin lying about our person, then a very sudsy and bubbly fluff down and soapy massage, and water splashed about all over the place, followed by a rest up and then lovely big massage. Could have taken or left the mud pack on the face, what an hysterical sight, but I am reliably informed it is good for the face, and some of us can do with all the help in that regard. Yes I think I could easily do another Hamam, and next year perhaps I just might.
So we left Fetiye to return to the closed bays of Skopea Lamani, as we came in between the islands we thought sadly that we were looking at a dead very big dolphin floating on the water, when we suddenly realized that we were looking at a very big turtle, with a little head bobbing about at the front of it’s big shiny grey shell. Unfortunately I could not retrieve my life recorder quick enough to get a snap. We returned to Kapi Creek, and it was as beautiful as we remembered. The staff however were a different story. People talk about how expensive it is to eat around these little hidden restaurants now, and I don’t think it is the expense, as for the money one pays, one gets 3 or 4 mezzes, a huge meal and sides, and bread, but it is the fact that all this food arrives like it or not, along with the extra inches around the girth. The food here we remembered to be much better 10 years ago. We walked over the hill to see some little subsistence farming, amongst the barren scorched earth, with chickens and goats existing on goodness knows what. As always the views are spectacular, but easy to take for granted. But the next stop surpassed all, Sisala was very cosy, the colours are outstanding, the friendliness of the owners, and the food, though as plentiful, much better. Lots of swimming and very nice neighbors. Again computer complications hit me, when Turkcell runs out of credit, it doesn’t just come out and tell me, it just refuses to let me open internet, though it says its connected. Well it was looking like no updated Tonga NZ rugby, sad, so we wandered up to the restaurant to discover the flotilla skippers had it on the tv there, so it was very exciting to watch it live on TV
But all good things come to an end, and it came time to leave this area and return to put Wrighteau to bed. For the yachties amonst you, you know what that entails, but just to run through a few of the things we have to think about, as we leave a boat for 9 months it is most important to have everything bone dry as we hear of people with mouldy sails and squabs when they return, so we wash the sails to get all the salt off them, and they hang for a few hours to dry, we mouse our halyards, which entails attaching thin line to the halyards which lift the sails, and other lines, and pull them to the top of the mast, wash all the salt out of all them, dry them bone dry, and cover them to protect them from the harsh winter elements. The dinghy gets a great scrub, dried, folded and stowed below, we used to empty the anchor well of the chain to prevent rust, but a new trick we learnt this year was to mix up a sudsy bucket of strong dishwashing liquid and water and tip over the chain, which had been well cleaned of salt already. We are hoping this will do the trick for us, as 80 metres of chain is expensive to replace. Then of course wash and dismantle the bimini and Spray cover, our sun protection. Then of course there is the inside of the boat to attend to, and finally to remember to take everything with us that we will want, if anything is left behind, behind it will stay for 9 months. The engine needs maintenance also to keep it working well, most important, this year it was due to have a new cutlass bearing between the shaft and prop, with new zinc anodes put on, but I won’t delve into that right now, an engine service of course, and this year also we were due for more antifreeze to be put in. Finally we take out the impeller, a little wheel which pumps cooling water through the engine. So you can see there are quite a number of things to occupy us for a few days, but we have often come across people who take 1 week at least to cover off all their list of things. Marmaris was an efficient yard, but they have been bought out by the Russians, and their prices have been put up 40%, so this will be a one off for us. At Preveza 3 years ago it cost us 1700 euros for 9 months and at Marmaris this is a horrifying 2500, and that includes our 10% discount because we belong to the Cruising Association of Yachtsmen. And for this privilege we seemed to end up in the very far corner of the yard, I called it the back of Siberia. By the time we got back from the pool, we really needed to return to cool down again, the temps were still 35 degrees, amazing for autumn. At Marmaris there is a great comeradery between all the yachties, and every evening there is a happy hour between 6 and 7.30, we met a lot of people, and ideas flow with the ale
When we got on top of the pack thing, we took ourselves into Marmaris where we did some shopping, all in one shop, just the type of shopping I like. Actually this was where I learnt that it is easy to be duped by the market stalls, as this lad was selling cheaper than the market, he actually said the market blokes buy from him to sell in the market, so I let this sift through my mind while we enjoyed a beer at a bar with the most eccentric man we have ever taken a drink from. We usually share a small beer between us, but he wouldn’t hear of sharing, he made us buy one each, he had a very quaint British way about him, but he must have been watching an old fashioned British show with an old fashioned waiter. He was stooped, and came out with such as “it is a delight to see you again” (but he hardly spoke English) and when it came to putting a table cloth on the tables, not the white gloves, but a pair of cloth gardening gloves were donned.
A bit more wandering around and window shopping, a meal and wander up Bar Street, which we hear a low drum hum from the marina 2 miles away, we were only 10pm so things were just starting to fire up, but by day this is a ghost street, and at night there is a babble of bellowing music, if that’s what it is called, people milling along, the roll down doors suddenly are opened and there is a world of spaces like a television set making films all along the street. And amongst all this there are all ages starting from 3 years to 7 years, then on upwards from there, even to the treasured relics like us, though we did get some sideways looks. There are a lot of young and beautiful Russian ladies of the night stalking about. We skulked away and left the rest of them to it, caught our little dolmus at midnight and returned to the quiet of the Marina.
I actually went to the Customs agent in the office to put our boat into bond, unlikely as it is to happen, if for any reason we could not return before our yearly boat papers expired there is a very big fine, and they are completely unmoving on it. It was while I was here that I learnt that they are pressing on with the laws of environment, they are bringing in a Blue Card, and we won’t be able to leave the marina without it next year, this will be a card which will be stamped each time we go into a marina to have our Holding Tank emptied out. It is going to be forbidden to empty a black tank within 12 miles of land, a German was once charged 45000 euros for emptying out his tank too close to land, and he denied actually doing it. But again, the Gullets have their own law, as a NZ yachtie told me just the other day he came out of a little bay near Marmaris, and only 400 metres the Gullet full of day trippers just let the whole lot out there and then, and these are the brutes who dob in the yachties who might let their tanks out 2 miles out. They say that they will say, there are no stamps, what have you been doing with your holding tank contents, but it is easy to say that we go into the restaurants, or we have been inland for a few weeks, or even we have sailed 12 miles off shore. But it takes a lot of planning to empty well away from a Gullet, keep an eye in the sky for the hawke eyed helicopters and on water for beady eyed coastguard etc etc.
D day came, and off we set on the taxi to Dalaman airport and onto Istanbul. We are staying in Sultanahmet, the old part of town snuggled amongst the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sopia, and the Topkapi Palace. We did venture into them all last time we were here, so probably we won’t this time, but they are a treat just to wander around, and to look at by night. We tackled the big Grand Bazaar, and were surprisingly unharrassed, before wandering down the hill through the obviously known street for buying headscarves, as there are a lot of muslim women needing a multitude of head scarves around here, and into the Egyptian market with all the spices.
We crossed the bridge over the Golden Horn, this used to open up for the ships, but now it is always flat, and underneath it is a line of restaurants. All pretty cheesy and touristy and a little garish, so we didn’t linger. To the fish market, which I remembered as being bigger, but fish markets always fascinate me. We got lost trying to get to Taxim, and got totally over the mad hustle and life threatening need to dart infront of cars and people, so we returned to the old town by tram, and settled for lunch. Here we fortuitously met an Australian lass with her little people, who has been here married, and looking at her little boy, she must be married to a hunk of a man, and she gave us some wonderful tips to get to places not frequented by the tourists, but a lovely middle class suburb, we are headed there now, so I shall report on that later.
Well an outing we had, all the way across the Bosphorus to Asia. The sea traffic is a buzz, making the water like a washing machine, and quite a challenge for them to safely avoid each other at night time I think. And for a whopping 2 Lira each, or $1.40, plus another $1.40 for the tram to get to the ferry. Transport is terribly cheap here, but then again there are so many people to keep it going it is no surprise. Kate, who gave us the recommendations, had a lot of trouble with her little one and colic as a baby, so she got on the tram and just went round and round for hours, and when her son was bored with that, she paid a couple of lira and went backwards and forwards on the ferry until the little baby settled and they all went home.
The outing was nice, but I wonder if Istanbul is sending the earth off its axis a little, as most of the world seems to be stuffed into this one city, we just couldn’t believe how anywhere out of Sultanahmet we went, it was shoulder to shoulder with people. So we are now very pleased to be tucked up safely and quietly in our own little space, ready for our journey to Dubai tomorrow.
So that is the last you will be hearing from us Rantwise, so until next year, that will be Wrighteau over and out.
Then, on the recommendation of the third and final straw person, we decided to go the Turkish way and have a Hamam. Mind you, it took a bit for me to convince Joe that this was going to be a good experience. It started with a sauna, well that nearly killed me before I really got off the starting block, but after that it was heavenly, we went into a big room with dimmed lights, and lay down on a huge warmed marble slap, when the assistant scrubbed madly and relieved us of all the dead and useless skin lying about our person, then a very sudsy and bubbly fluff down and soapy massage, and water splashed about all over the place, followed by a rest up and then lovely big massage. Could have taken or left the mud pack on the face, what an hysterical sight, but I am reliably informed it is good for the face, and some of us can do with all the help in that regard. Yes I think I could easily do another Hamam, and next year perhaps I just might.
So we left Fetiye to return to the closed bays of Skopea Lamani, as we came in between the islands we thought sadly that we were looking at a dead very big dolphin floating on the water, when we suddenly realized that we were looking at a very big turtle, with a little head bobbing about at the front of it’s big shiny grey shell. Unfortunately I could not retrieve my life recorder quick enough to get a snap. We returned to Kapi Creek, and it was as beautiful as we remembered. The staff however were a different story. People talk about how expensive it is to eat around these little hidden restaurants now, and I don’t think it is the expense, as for the money one pays, one gets 3 or 4 mezzes, a huge meal and sides, and bread, but it is the fact that all this food arrives like it or not, along with the extra inches around the girth. The food here we remembered to be much better 10 years ago. We walked over the hill to see some little subsistence farming, amongst the barren scorched earth, with chickens and goats existing on goodness knows what. As always the views are spectacular, but easy to take for granted. But the next stop surpassed all, Sisala was very cosy, the colours are outstanding, the friendliness of the owners, and the food, though as plentiful, much better. Lots of swimming and very nice neighbors. Again computer complications hit me, when Turkcell runs out of credit, it doesn’t just come out and tell me, it just refuses to let me open internet, though it says its connected. Well it was looking like no updated Tonga NZ rugby, sad, so we wandered up to the restaurant to discover the flotilla skippers had it on the tv there, so it was very exciting to watch it live on TV
But all good things come to an end, and it came time to leave this area and return to put Wrighteau to bed. For the yachties amonst you, you know what that entails, but just to run through a few of the things we have to think about, as we leave a boat for 9 months it is most important to have everything bone dry as we hear of people with mouldy sails and squabs when they return, so we wash the sails to get all the salt off them, and they hang for a few hours to dry, we mouse our halyards, which entails attaching thin line to the halyards which lift the sails, and other lines, and pull them to the top of the mast, wash all the salt out of all them, dry them bone dry, and cover them to protect them from the harsh winter elements. The dinghy gets a great scrub, dried, folded and stowed below, we used to empty the anchor well of the chain to prevent rust, but a new trick we learnt this year was to mix up a sudsy bucket of strong dishwashing liquid and water and tip over the chain, which had been well cleaned of salt already. We are hoping this will do the trick for us, as 80 metres of chain is expensive to replace. Then of course wash and dismantle the bimini and Spray cover, our sun protection. Then of course there is the inside of the boat to attend to, and finally to remember to take everything with us that we will want, if anything is left behind, behind it will stay for 9 months. The engine needs maintenance also to keep it working well, most important, this year it was due to have a new cutlass bearing between the shaft and prop, with new zinc anodes put on, but I won’t delve into that right now, an engine service of course, and this year also we were due for more antifreeze to be put in. Finally we take out the impeller, a little wheel which pumps cooling water through the engine. So you can see there are quite a number of things to occupy us for a few days, but we have often come across people who take 1 week at least to cover off all their list of things. Marmaris was an efficient yard, but they have been bought out by the Russians, and their prices have been put up 40%, so this will be a one off for us. At Preveza 3 years ago it cost us 1700 euros for 9 months and at Marmaris this is a horrifying 2500, and that includes our 10% discount because we belong to the Cruising Association of Yachtsmen. And for this privilege we seemed to end up in the very far corner of the yard, I called it the back of Siberia. By the time we got back from the pool, we really needed to return to cool down again, the temps were still 35 degrees, amazing for autumn. At Marmaris there is a great comeradery between all the yachties, and every evening there is a happy hour between 6 and 7.30, we met a lot of people, and ideas flow with the ale
When we got on top of the pack thing, we took ourselves into Marmaris where we did some shopping, all in one shop, just the type of shopping I like. Actually this was where I learnt that it is easy to be duped by the market stalls, as this lad was selling cheaper than the market, he actually said the market blokes buy from him to sell in the market, so I let this sift through my mind while we enjoyed a beer at a bar with the most eccentric man we have ever taken a drink from. We usually share a small beer between us, but he wouldn’t hear of sharing, he made us buy one each, he had a very quaint British way about him, but he must have been watching an old fashioned British show with an old fashioned waiter. He was stooped, and came out with such as “it is a delight to see you again” (but he hardly spoke English) and when it came to putting a table cloth on the tables, not the white gloves, but a pair of cloth gardening gloves were donned.
A bit more wandering around and window shopping, a meal and wander up Bar Street, which we hear a low drum hum from the marina 2 miles away, we were only 10pm so things were just starting to fire up, but by day this is a ghost street, and at night there is a babble of bellowing music, if that’s what it is called, people milling along, the roll down doors suddenly are opened and there is a world of spaces like a television set making films all along the street. And amongst all this there are all ages starting from 3 years to 7 years, then on upwards from there, even to the treasured relics like us, though we did get some sideways looks. There are a lot of young and beautiful Russian ladies of the night stalking about. We skulked away and left the rest of them to it, caught our little dolmus at midnight and returned to the quiet of the Marina.
I actually went to the Customs agent in the office to put our boat into bond, unlikely as it is to happen, if for any reason we could not return before our yearly boat papers expired there is a very big fine, and they are completely unmoving on it. It was while I was here that I learnt that they are pressing on with the laws of environment, they are bringing in a Blue Card, and we won’t be able to leave the marina without it next year, this will be a card which will be stamped each time we go into a marina to have our Holding Tank emptied out. It is going to be forbidden to empty a black tank within 12 miles of land, a German was once charged 45000 euros for emptying out his tank too close to land, and he denied actually doing it. But again, the Gullets have their own law, as a NZ yachtie told me just the other day he came out of a little bay near Marmaris, and only 400 metres the Gullet full of day trippers just let the whole lot out there and then, and these are the brutes who dob in the yachties who might let their tanks out 2 miles out. They say that they will say, there are no stamps, what have you been doing with your holding tank contents, but it is easy to say that we go into the restaurants, or we have been inland for a few weeks, or even we have sailed 12 miles off shore. But it takes a lot of planning to empty well away from a Gullet, keep an eye in the sky for the hawke eyed helicopters and on water for beady eyed coastguard etc etc.
D day came, and off we set on the taxi to Dalaman airport and onto Istanbul. We are staying in Sultanahmet, the old part of town snuggled amongst the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sopia, and the Topkapi Palace. We did venture into them all last time we were here, so probably we won’t this time, but they are a treat just to wander around, and to look at by night. We tackled the big Grand Bazaar, and were surprisingly unharrassed, before wandering down the hill through the obviously known street for buying headscarves, as there are a lot of muslim women needing a multitude of head scarves around here, and into the Egyptian market with all the spices.
We crossed the bridge over the Golden Horn, this used to open up for the ships, but now it is always flat, and underneath it is a line of restaurants. All pretty cheesy and touristy and a little garish, so we didn’t linger. To the fish market, which I remembered as being bigger, but fish markets always fascinate me. We got lost trying to get to Taxim, and got totally over the mad hustle and life threatening need to dart infront of cars and people, so we returned to the old town by tram, and settled for lunch. Here we fortuitously met an Australian lass with her little people, who has been here married, and looking at her little boy, she must be married to a hunk of a man, and she gave us some wonderful tips to get to places not frequented by the tourists, but a lovely middle class suburb, we are headed there now, so I shall report on that later.
Well an outing we had, all the way across the Bosphorus to Asia. The sea traffic is a buzz, making the water like a washing machine, and quite a challenge for them to safely avoid each other at night time I think. And for a whopping 2 Lira each, or $1.40, plus another $1.40 for the tram to get to the ferry. Transport is terribly cheap here, but then again there are so many people to keep it going it is no surprise. Kate, who gave us the recommendations, had a lot of trouble with her little one and colic as a baby, so she got on the tram and just went round and round for hours, and when her son was bored with that, she paid a couple of lira and went backwards and forwards on the ferry until the little baby settled and they all went home.
The outing was nice, but I wonder if Istanbul is sending the earth off its axis a little, as most of the world seems to be stuffed into this one city, we just couldn’t believe how anywhere out of Sultanahmet we went, it was shoulder to shoulder with people. So we are now very pleased to be tucked up safely and quietly in our own little space, ready for our journey to Dubai tomorrow.
So that is the last you will be hearing from us Rantwise, so until next year, that will be Wrighteau over and out.
