ENVOY ARRIVES AT FOCA, GULF OF IZMIR

We arrived at Foca, about 320 NM from our departure point of Marmaris on 1/6. This is really great, as firstly it’s here that we meet Morris & Gail, and secondly everywhere from here on is new territory for us.
We’ve been cruising loosely in company with NZers Bruce & Lesley Tebbutt from Kawakawa, who have a beautiful sailing catamaran called Midi. Like us they enjoy playing 500, and we’ve had some good contests with the boys winning of course. We’ll cruise further north together to Ayvalik, then we head west to the Greek island of Lesvos, and they head up the Dardanelles. It seems that we have similar plans next year of heading towards the Adriatic.
We went into the marina at Alacati for a couple of days to allow easy access for the engineers fixing our water maker. The cost there is Euro 80 per night including power and water. On Saturday night we went into the very pretty town of Alacati for dinner, and while waiting for a bus, some guys stopped and gave us a lift. This happens quite regularly, including a couple of days later when an old sewage pumping truck stopped, and Diane & I jumped up into the cab for a ride to Cesme. I doubt that I’d be getting lifts if Diane wasn’t with me! Alacati has probably got a bit too trendy and expensive now, and I noticed a bottle of NZ Sauvignon Blanc on the wine list for TLK120 (about NZ$100). I’m not going to go into details re Alicati & Cesme as they’re well covered in last year’s blogs.
TECHNICAL
While we were in Alacati three engineers drove up from Marmaris with our watermaker. It’s quite a distance and the drive took them six hours. To recap, last year we had to cruise without our water maker, because it needed new high pressure membranes, and the delivery time was very long. The service agent then ordered them to arrive in Marmaris early this year, but they ordered the wrong size. So finally we have the right size.
Two of the engineers installed our unit, while the third one watched, until tiring of that he had a sleep in their car. The installation seemed to go OK, and we made fresh water for two hours. We said our thanks and goodbyes, and the guys left to drive back. Then about 30 minutes later, I noticed water starting to leak from the water flow control housing. I phoned the engineers, and they came back. They stripped the leaking housing and checked the seals, finding that four of them were defective – two were old and flattened, while two had physical damage. As the engineers couldn’t speak English I didn’t find out how this happened, but think it happened during re-assembly of our unit in Marmaris. Then we ran it for a further two hours and all was OK with the guys finally leaving about 7pm for the long drive back. Since then we’ve used the unit twice for a total of six hours, and so far so good. This is absolutely great for us, as it’s quite a pain finding and getting water, most of which is not drinkable.
LOG: 28 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 320NM cruised for 71 engine hours.