Marmaris Turkey.
We are back in Marmaris yacht marine again after spending a wonderful two weeks with Natalie and Derek, They arrived at 0300 on the 6th of Oct. very tired but excited to be with us. They slept until 1100 and then seemed not to be bothered by any jet lag. We spent the next two weeks touring the local coast with lots of swimming and seeing lots of old stones and bones as well as having some very good meals at local reasturants where ever we were. The good news to all is that Natalie seems to be doing very well and all of her tests to date have been positive. It was a delight for us to have them with us and we miss them already. They had the chance to meet our new friends on Emotion 1 and Sea Mist and can see that we are not all alone out here. The last day we took them to Ephesus to see all the ruins and then the next morning out to the airport where they were off to London for a day before returning to Calgary.
After they left we ourselves left Bodrum to return here. The distance is not that far, about 80 miles. We stopped in a bay called Knidos on the way back only to have a real storm move thru at night. There were no gale warnings up only ten to fifteen knots of wind forcast. This is a problem that we have encoutered a number of time before. The met people seem only to forcast what has already happened. The winds were up over 50k and the holding was not that good as we lost our anchor a couple of times and had to reanchor. Not an easy task in the wind, rain, and lightning!! We were up all the night taking turns at being on watch so it was good to have daybreak and be able to see again. Amazing how much harder it is in the dark to do anything!! Anyway we knew it was a bad night as in the dinghy we found a two foot baracuda that obviously wanted out of the storm and thought our dinghy was a life boat. Too bad he is not a good eating fish. The next day the winds switched and we motored all the way to Marmaris. The marina is very full as there is another storm this time forcast for Monday. Well today is Monday and they were right this time as we have lots of wind and rain. The boat loves the rain as all the salt and stuff has washed off the masts and areas that we have trouble getting at. The boat beside us is an old Gullet, a type of local boat. I noticed it was low is the water and mentioned it to the marina staff and within five minutes we had ten guys climbing all over it, cutting the lines and towing it out to put in the travel lift and haul it out of the water. Very impressive as the winds were over 40k. I found a couple of things to fix today so will have them done tomorrow. The bad news is that our antenna for the computor that allows us to get our email and skype had water leak into it and I think fried itself so we cannot get online. This is a major problem for us as the computor is our lifeline to you all. Hopefully we can get it fixed or it will have to go back to California and we will be lucky to get it back by January. The joys of boating!
Comming events are Kelly and Deborah are arriving on Thursday for a couple of weeks and then Larry and Elaine also for a couple of weeks. So as you can see we are never bored and constantly busy. Who said retirement wasn't fun.

Turkey

Yes we are still alive and well.

Good intentions to keep up the blog have again fallen short but don't give up on us. We are now in Marmaris Turkey enjoying the cooler weather as the temperatures have dropped to the high twenties in the day and comfortable teens in the night. Not bad for the beginning of Oct! When we arrived back to Israel it was really hot with the daytime temps in the 40's and not much cooler at night. Those temperatures lasted right up to the arrival of Jack and Marsha when we picked them up in Antalya on the on the 08th of Sept.

It took us a day and a half to sail up to North Cyprus from Israel and we anchored in a small bay for a couple of days before heading to Girne. The water was warm and clear so just relaxed and swam and tried to stay cool. We then spend a few days with friends from the rally, Dave and Kath, who kindly put us up at their home and toured us to southern Cyprus, which is Greek, where we were able to buy some food stuffs that are not available in the north. We even managed to play a game of golf with them at their club. Very very nice. Next it was off to Kemer Turkey 150 miles away. All was going well for the first few hours but then the wind switched to the west at about 30 so we headed north and anchored up behind a headland on the Turkish coast for the night. An interesting anchorage as there is a complete old Roman town on the headland with aqueducts still standing as well as most of the buildings minus their roofs. Next morning we were off again as things had calmed down and did not kick up until evening. We plodded on through winds and waves that kept switching directions and finally arrived in Kemer at 0300 in the morning. Just as well as Jack and Marsha were arriving that evening.
We spent the next two weeks sailing along the coast stopping at old castles, Lycian tomb graves, and old Greek and Roman ruins. We had some wonderful meals at local restaurants and met up with two other boats from the rally. We ended up in Bodrum where Jack and Marsha had a condo rented for a week and we stayed on board at the marina and met up each day to tour the area. We went to Ephesus for a day which is one of the best and most popular ruins of the ancient Greek civilization that exists. There were a lot of people there as a number of cruise ships were in and I'm sure the place would be much more interesting with fewer people. Anyway we all had a marvelous time. It is great to have visitors from home.

We have spent the last few days sailing to Marmaris where we will base ourselves for the winter months. Now we are preparing to welcome Natalie and Derek who arrive in Dalaman in the wee hours of Saturday morning from Calgary. They will spend a couple of weeks with us. We are very excited to see them. The weather over here apparently stays warm though November and you can swim till Christmas!