Turkey

There's nothing worse than some smug git's holiday pics so I thought I'd post a shedload

Actually only three, I don't want to bore the pants off you all. This here is sailing out of a place called Selimiye, on the way to Sogut.



and this one is arriving at Sogut. I might have got a bit ****faced in the restaurant there:



and well you can't go to Turkey without having a Turkish shave, cut throat razor 'n' all, I so wanted the bloke to do my head as well but he looked a bit shocked when I asked, you don't see any Turkish skinheads:



It's a beautiful place with terrific food. Cheap-ish, not in Euroland so much cheaper than France Italy etc. Hot but not humid. Muslim, but booze is available everywhere, and you can have bacon and eggs for breakfast if you want. I much preferred it to Spain. If you get the chance to go - go!!!!!

[Quiff Wichard]

nice Ed.

You have had a tough year this year I know- with business and decisions whether to sell the bike etc.

Working for yourself aint east- espesh in your pressure job..

You deserve a break mate-

glad you enjoyed it..

I dont see your wife or daughter on there- did you go alone you selfish bugger. !



Turkish bath is ace too..

and I had a hair cut and wet shave in turkey- then they set fire to the hairs in my ears .. and then all the time a little lad of about ten was massaging my hands and cracking my fingers ! all for about £2.

GOOD TIMES

Yes, it has been a damn stressful year. Mrs Ed came with, here she is nose into a Michael Connolly book:



Sophie didn't want to come, which was just as well cos she would have been very bored on a sailboat. Rob let me sail the boat a bit, the principles are the same as a dinghy, but it's er 42 feet long, with a whacking great genoa and mainsail, and weighs 8 tons. I'd love to go back for longer but I've got to do a RYA Day Skipper course to charter a big boat for a week - that's if I can ever afford to...

[Scoobs]

Originally Posted by Quiff Wichard

I had a hair cut and wet shave in turkey- then they set fire to the hairs in my ears ..

.... had to call the fire brigade in. Took 6 hours to bring the blaze under control.

PS. Looks cracking Edward.

[Quiff Wichard]

ha ha scoobs funny man

Oh Ed I didnt realise you had done a sailing holiday

brilliant.

would like to hear more..

Well OK Quiffster...

I've had a crap year one way and another, and when I was sposed to be on hols in August I had flu. This hols was arranged at fairly short notice, I only booked the flight a week before. Clients Rob and Helen have become friends - I knew they had a boat at Gocek (about half an hour from Dalaman) and we had seen piccies of it at their house, and it looked fantastic. It's a Beneteau Oceanis 411 yacht, the only non-standard item is a genoa sail instead of a jib - it's much bigger so you can sail on just the genoa alone but with the main up as well the boat goes fairly quick in the right wind. It's got a spinnaker too but Rob never uses it. A 42 foot boat sounds huge but inside it's not as big as you'd think and in particular the 2nd and 3rd cabins are very small, you have to slide into bed cos it's so low on ceiling height, if you were a hefty party you'd struggle a bit. Anyway Rob and Helen asked us would we like to go with them, we couldn't do 2 weeks cos S is at school, but we could do 5 days, granny came to child mind.

So we arrived at Dalaman on the Saturday evening, a waiting transfer took us to Keci Buku, as they had already left Gocek. It was about 2 hours in the car - dark but moonlight so I could see the mountains. But I didn't realise just how stunningly beautiful it is there until the next morning.

This is sailing out of Keci at about 11am on Sunday morning. Note how all the boats are moored stern-to, rather than alongside which is more common in the UK:



It was very calm to start with, no wind, but 27C – oh I felt the stress just dropping away, especially with an Efes (pronounced ‘effess’ - beer) or two. We were headed for a port called Datca, about 5 – 6 hours sail away. But once out on the open water the wind picked up and we had a fantastic sail, me watching Rob do all the tacking. Don’t want to teach grannies to suck eggs but you can’t sail straight into the wind – you have to turn through the wind (‘tacking’) and sail as close as you can for maximum efficiency. We learned to sail a dinghy on Plymouth Sound in 1992 but we haven’t done much sailing since but it all came flooding back. This is a pic off the stern of the boat:



It might sound boring just sat on a sailboat for 5 – 6 hours in the middle of the sea – but it isn’t. I dipped in and out of a magazine, occasionally sunbathed but the sun was very strong, and spent most of the time yapping to Rob and pulling on the jib sheets (ropes)

And so Sunday evening we arrived in Datca:





Note the minaret. The Imam woke us up next morning, not just the call to prayer, we had the whole wailing shebang. Went on for about 40 mins I spose. I don’t speak a word of Turkish so only recognized ‘Allah Akhbar’



The good ship ‘Far Away’ at mooring in Datca:



Nice spot. We ate dins at the resto on the quayside, very tasty. And just a hop back onto the boat to talk bollox, play Yahtzee, sup brandy (lots of) and slowly slide into bed.

Look at this damn great gin palace. This does nothing but nothing for me, it’s hideous. Just think of the cost of keeping this thing going.

We left Datca at about 11am Monday, headed for Selimiye. About 4 – 5 hours sailing time, Rob thought I’d learned enough and Cap’n Ed took the helm. Mind, it was on autopilot, so all I had to do was press a few buttons every now and then to avoid bumping into Turkey, and with the wind behind we were on a beam reach so no tacking required – the wind just blowing the boat along. Time to crack an Efes or three



Very happy Dr and Mr Ed




All around the Turkish coast you find gulets – ships of shallow draught to allow them into shallow coastal waters. Like this elegant example:



I handed over to Acting First Officer Williams when we started getting near to Selimiye. It’s only a small place but oh so atmospheric. It’s very common for restaurants to be at the waterside and have their own deep water mooring. We moored at Aurora restaurant, where Rob and Helen know Suzanne and Hussein very well. Right out of ‘Mama Mia’ (well she would be but this is Turkey, not Greece!!!!), here’s Suzanne, she is so larger than life I loved her straight away:







Time to let you into something I’m not proud of, which will surprise most and disgust some. I went drinking with the 675 lot a month or two back and I got ****faced. It was well deserved. Some years ago I used to do a packet a day and as I got slowly ****ed I couldn’t resist one of Nige’s rollies. It hit the spot… One led to another to another to another, and now I can’t stop the Golden Virginia, I’m finding it very hard to quit again. From Friday through Monday without a cigarette was driving me mad and I couldn’t hold out any longer. Anne hates it and is demanding that I stop but it isn’t that easy.

The bar at Aurora under the trees. The white globes are garlic bulbs drying off:



Busy harbour there:



We stayed there two days. Second day we went for a sail across the bay. This is not western USA, this is Turkey! But we called them the Abraham Lincoln rocks all the same:



I was jumping off the side of the boat and generally dicking around in the clearest blue water imaginable when suddenly a speedboat rounded the headland at huge speed and came straight at us. I thought ‘oh oh, here comes trouble and a half’ but in fact it was the ice cream van:



More follows… but not that much more…

[Bluepete]

That looks lovely Ed, you deserved it and I'm pleased you had such a good time.

Pete

I like this one



See above for leaving Selimye for Sogut. On the way we stopped off at a place called Sailor’s Paradise, it’s even called that in Turkish. The waiter spilled a huge glass of Raki down my shirt so he gave me one of their Ts, and of course a refill. If I look a bit out of it - well, I was!!!!



I’ve never seen pomegranites growing in the wild:



And so it was time to leave – transfer to airport, went through Marmaris. This town is built in a valley between the mountains that runs down to the sea, I got a great pic of it from the mountain road behind the town (taken through the taxi window):



I want to go back. Soon. But I want to learn to sail a boat properly… only it’s so damned expensive. One day, grasshopper…

[Quiff Wichard]

Ed-

me off to bed.. lookin forward to reading this tommorrow with a brew and a slice of cake..