AROUND ILDIR AND ALTINKUM

Our last visiting friend for the year - Chris O'Brien arrives today. Just happens to be the coldest day so far at 15d due to a front coming through - yet another gale warning. Will get back over 20in a day or two.
Our cuts are healing and we hope to get the stitches out tomorrow.
A Turkish gentleman has left a comment on the last posting that if we paid that much money it must have been a private hospital. In fact it was the Didim Public Hospital.
Going ashore in Turkey and Greece is always a bit of an experience, and even mundane things like grocery shopping or having a coffee or a beer can become exciting, especially away from the main tourist areas. We saw an interesting-looking café in Sigacik partially built into the crumbling walls of the medieval castle. It had a décor reminiscent of Gaudi, with basic wooden furniture, the floor being a mosaic of broken pottery, and decorated with marine artifacts and shells. We were the only customers and the owners made a real fuss of us as we had our cup of Nescafe at Lire 2 (NZ$1.40 each). They couldn’t speak any English, but they showed us the huge pumpkins they grow in their garden behind the café. They also showed us an article about their café in a tourist guide, and the owner pointed to a photo of himself. His name was Captain Pasha, a retired sailor, and that explained the nautical flavour of the café.

Captain Pasha’s café in Sigacik



Rustic interior of Captain Pasha's cafe



Nearby was a derelict, rust-streaked, steel-hulled yacht, and we found out the Greek owner had been suspected of using his yacht for smuggling, so it had been impounded. The owner is still fighting a legal battle to get it returned five years later.

Derelict yacht impounded in Sigacik harbour for suspected smuggling



We often see tractors with trailers carrying people and goods around



Herd of goats on the road in Sigacik



Sadly Turkey has a major litter problem despite the provision of numerous rubbish bins



We saw this tortoise crossing our path



Sunset on Envoy in Ildir harbour



Envoy at anchor in Ildir



View from Envoy of Ildir. In ancient times there was an acropolis on the hill



After an early morning swim we left Sigacik in a cool 20dC temperature with dark grey skies, thunder and lightning bolts. All the previous night the sky had been growling with distant thunder, and the portholes illuminated with lightning. This was not close-by, but kept our attention as we know too well how a thunder storm can quickly whip up violent, unpredictable winds.
Five hours later we anchored in Port St Paul, where a boat carrying St Paul is believed to have stayed. This is not in fact a “port”, but a sheltered bay, and once again we were the only boat there.
Later we saw a large Coastguard patrol boat passing outside the bay. It was around 25m long, with a large cannon on the fore-deck, and machine guns on the bridge. It stopped about 200m from our position and the crew seemed to be looking at us. Then we saw them launch their RIB, and soon it was speeding towards us carrying three crew. Their leader, wearing a pistol in a holster politely asked if he could come aboard – who were we to refuse! He wanted to know why Envoy has so many antennas.

View of Envoy’s antennas and radomes



To explain, Envoy has a total of eleven antennas for 3 x VHF, 1 x SSB, 1 x Navtex, 4 x GPS, 1 x Weather fax, and 1 x Satphone. She also has radomes for the 2 radars. We explained that Envoy is an ocean-going vessel and described the function of each antenna. They still seemed mystified, but must have been satisfied that Envoy wasn’t a spy-ship, and after checking all our documentation they left us.
For the last week we've been anchored off Altinkum as they have many sports bars, and we were able to watch some Rugby World Cup matches. Altinkum has a great sandy beach and attracts mostly British visitors. It is south-facing so provides good shelter from the prevailing northerlies.
One day we saw a seagull on the water that was unable to fly, and decided to investigate. We took the RIB over and discovered the seagull had a long-line hook in its mouth. We weren’t able to remove the hook, but cut the monofilament very close to its mouth and saw it happily fly away. Hopefully the hook will eventually drop out.

TECHNICAL
All is still going well. The fresh water circulating pump on the generator, which was repaired with cold weld, lasted for about 70 hours before it failed again. We used an engineering firm in Didim Marina to install the new one that we’d flown out from US. It’s a difficult job due to very limited accessibility, and it took 2 engineers about 3 hours to do the job. They also patched up the failed one for use as a short term spare.
I’m going to talk about cosmetic maintenance.
The most important thing to do in maintaining your stainless steel, gelcoat and varnished teak in good condition is to regularly wash all the salt off with fresh water. Many days we don’t take any salt spray at all, but on the days we do we always wash all the salt off after anchoring, except for the hull topsides.
Every couple of weeks we spend about two hours going over all the stainless steel with a product called “Miracle Cloth”, and this gets rid of any blemishes or rust stains, and brings it up nicely.

Diane polishes stainless steel bow rails with Miracle Cloth



To get stains off gelcoat and most other substrates we use “Power Sponge” – a sponge made up of melamine microfibres, and it’s amazing to see the difference this makes compared to a normal sponge. This also works well on stainless steel.
Our windows are coated with RainX, and this is great for keeping them clear of spray (we never use the pilothouse windscreen wipers). To get any salt residue off the windows we only need to use fresh water with a lamb’s wool mitten.
When we purchased Envoy all of the exterior teak was varnished. We’ve now stripped the varnish from some areas and gone for the natural look. In other areas we’ve maintained the varnish, and find this needs to be re-applied annually. It’s not a big job – we just wash the teak, lightly wet-sand it, wash it again, wipe it over with thinners, and then apply two or three coats of Epiphanes over consecutive days without sanding between coats.
LOG (to 2/10/11): 152 days aboard since leaving Marmaris, 1,913NM cruised for 393 engine