NEARLY READY TO LEAVE MARMARIS

Amy’s visit at short notice was really great, and it was not so sad seeing her off at Dalaman airport knowing we’re in the same hemisphere and will see her again soon. We hired a car to collect Amy and then take her back to the airport. Quite a good rate at about $55/day, but petrol here is outrageous at nearly $3 per litre – so we can understand why taxis are expensive.
Apart from enjoying Amy’s visit we haven’t done much except focus on getting Envoy ready to depart, although a few days ago we had a bit of excitement as there was quite a large bushfire on the hillside across the bay from the marina. The response appeared to be pretty good including a large helo with a monsoon bucket, but it took a couple of hours to bring under control.
We bought a SIM card for our Vodafone Mobile Connect 3G/GPRS plug-in. Quite involved as you have to show your passport and fill out copious forms. Cost is about $42 for 1 Gb. I wanted to buy 2 Gb, but was told you are only allowed to purchase 1 Gb in a month. Anyway – no luck with connecting to the internet, so back we go to the Vodafone shop. They then tell us the Mobile Connect card is obsolete and replaced by a Mobile Broadband USB stick – why the heck didn’t they tell us that in the first place instead of plugging our new SIM card into the obsolete bit? Anyway, the folks at Vodafone were helpful and now all working well.
The new s/s water tanks were completed and installed last Thursday. Now the new (removable) decks are in place and the Guest Cabin is nearly rebuilt, and then the aircon can be reinstalled. Having the water tanks in has enabled us to reconnect the cold and hot water supply, and last week we had our first on-board showers – no more need to go to the communal marina showers. The toilets are working fine except that the for’ard Vacuflush toilet’s vacuum pump comes on quite a lot – indicating there is some vacuum loss in the system somewhere. Tightened all the hose clips but no improvement, but its working and we’re going to leave it that way for time being and maybe it will settle down. In case it doesn’t settle down we’re going to put a separate on/off switch in the head so that this toilet can be switched on only when needing to be used.
The watermaker filters were all changed and the unit tested yesterday. Running OK but there is a water leak from one of the tubes – too large to ignore. So the unit has been pulled out of the boat and taken to the local agent’s workshop to change the 0-rings. They don’t seem to think this should be a problem so here’s hoping.
A new “challenge” has emerged. The Naiad hydraulic stabilizers had their seals replaced while we were on the hard – quite an involved and difficult job, but all went OK. The servicemen couldn’t test the system until we were in the water, so Monday last week they arrived to do this, and we found two problems. The first was easily resolved – a crack in a weld on the steel plate holding the Vickers hydraulic pump to the engine. The plate was taken away, repaired and re-fitted. The second problem is not so easy – the electronic controls are “dead”. The local Naiad agent’s electricians have spent some hours on this and have managed to restore the 24v power supply, but they struggled to find why the actual control system does not power up and got help from Naiad USA. It seems we need a new power board for the electronics. The hydraulic stabilizers are a nice-to-have, rather than essential equipment; in 2007 we spent two months cruising without them using our alternate paravane stabilizers when necessary. Many Nordhavns only have the paravane stabilizers, and have cruised extensively with just them, so it’s not an issue and we’re likely to depart without the stabilizers and get them fixed later when the parts are here.
The reconditioning of our large inflatable is completed and looks great. Our small inflatable is fine, except the Honda 2.5 o/b wouldn’t start. This has now also been fixed. So fingers crossed, things are coming together for us to depart Marmaris early to mid next week – the watermaker is “mission critical” so hopefully all will shortly be OK with that – watch this space!