CLICK ON ANY PHOTOS TO ENLARGE THEM ***Mark with hose at the top of the mast*** ***Was that a seagull with bad diarrhoea or just the first splats of dirty brown hitting the deck as he cleans above*** ***Dinner out in Finike with Bill and Tony, the big round thing in the middle is turkish bread, its full of hot air and its fun bursting it. It also tastes excellent with the accompanying dips***12 - 20 July 2008
Another day and no new hot water cylinder. Its day 19 since ordering, eta was 10-14 days, oh well, this is Turkey, and its a great place, beautiful weather, lovely people and the food is just so good, what's the hurry to move.
We anchored outside Finike Marina when we returned from our little tour east. We had 5 nights out there, its pretty comfortable and we could bring the dinghy into the marina to come ashore, but yesterday strong winds were forecast so we decided to splash out and come in and tie up for a few nights until the Water cylinder arrives. We are all snug, power plugged in, wifi booming in, step ashore and endless water on tap. Shame not to take advantage of all that water really, although we have cleaned and cleaned the boat since leaving the Red Sea the dirt just keeps coming out so Mark decided to attack it
from the top, so up the mast in the bosuns chair he went, with me on the electric winch sending him on his way - right to the top - along with hose, can you see him, that little spec in the photo. And what about the mess he made, look at the first few drops that came down, yuk, soon the whole deck, basically everything on the boat including me was just covered in brown sludge. After a couple of hours we had Mark back down to sea level we then hoisted the mainsail to clean it. It had done an excellent job of catching much of the brown sludge to add to the layers of Red Sea dust it already had accumulated, so as it went up, more muddy water came down, oh what a mess. Anyway we hosed down all the sail, pulling it up and dropping it more times than we should have, something went wrong with our planning and strategy and we sort of did it all back to front, but eventually it was done, dried and lower just before the wind kicked it. By then it was definitely time for lunch and to admire the work we had done, but only if we looked upwards because deck level wasn't pretty. So all afternoon was spent by me finishing the deck, stainless steel, all the dodger, even got the clear zip-in windows out attached them and polished them up. Meanwhile Mark was in the dinghy and washed then cleaned and polished the hull, it is gleaming. Somewhere inbetween I took down all the mosquito screens which I'm
sure had been black at one stage but all looked chocolate brown, amazing they are all black again and the air can even get through them again now that all the dust has gone. Plus I even managed a load of laundry by hand, and replaced some bungies that didn't bungy anymore, and did I mention that I broke my toe this morning!!!!!, nasty cracking noise and we have been watching it change colour all day long, oh well life goes on!!!! Then about 6pm we walked over to the swimming area here and cooled off, followed by a nice long shower, then we met friends Bill off Mariah and Chris and KT off Billabong for a few well earned drinks ashore and finished off the evening with excellent "pides" (turkish thin and crispy pizzas) for dinner, at 5Lira (NZD5.50 or Euro2.50) for the 2 of us why eat in. So phew, no wonder we are sitting here at 11.30pm feeling total wrecks. Maybe we will take tomorrow off for good behavior!!! Still the end result it outstanding, after 2 full days of cleaning and polishing Balvenie is absolutely gleaming, and we need a holiday.
