Our 2nd Test of updates by email

This is just to test the theory.

Dave

Ephesus 01

Update 21 Oct 2009

We should apologize for lack of communication. We spent from 1 June 2009 until 13 Sept (mostly hauled out on dry land) at Yacht Marina across Marmaris Bay from Netsel. We repainted the hull, deck & cabin top.

Then we did sail a little to Finike, Turkey, arriving 27 Sept. Alegría will winter in Finike. It is a very quite, much more “Turkish” town, with about 1% as many tourists and less than 1% as many Turks preying on tourists.

“Yes. Please”, “Buy my carpet!”, Buy my jewelry!” That sort of tout activity is nearly unknown here. Also, food is much less expensive and there is a bigger weekly market.

We have been travelling inland for the past two weeks with friends Richard and Ann from Baltimore. We met their plane in Istanbul and spent a few days sight-seeing there. Then we bussed back to Finike stopping at Troy where Ann stepped into the hole in the floor and fell down a 12 foot staircase inside the Trojan horse. Other than a lot of bruises she didn’t break anything but she really could have easily been killed. She is one tough lady. She does have training in karate and she thinks she may have done a karate roll but everything happened so fast she isn’t sure. All I (Janet) saw was her head and one foot as she fell through the hole in the floor.

In the film "Top Gun", they ask Tom Cruise, “What were you thinking in (at a tricky part of practice aerial combat).” His answer was, “Thinking? What are you talking about? In that situation there is no time for “Thinking.” You just react. Either you react correctly or you die.” Ann knows what he means.

After Troy we visited Ephesus, Miletus, Pamukkale, Fethiye and Olympos. They are all different and all wonderful. Yesterday (20 Oct) Richard and Ann caught the bus for Kapadokya and then back to Istanbul from where they will fly home in a week. We had a great time and saw a lot of the places that we have wanted to see. We rode with them as far as Antalya and saw the excellent museum there.

So far we like Finike a lot. There is a fairly large live aboard community but we’ve only been here aboard the boat for about a week in total days, so we haven’t met a lot of people yet. We hope to remedy that at the next Sunday BBQ and the “morning coffee” tomorrow.

We fly to Houston, Texas on the 11th of November and return to Turkey on the 2nd of February. We’ll stay a few days in Istanbul and then do some sight-seeing in Ankara and then back to the boat and the boat jobs….

Janet & Dave