And It's Getting Hotter

And we thought yesterday was hot. I think the temperatures are maxing out today or tomorrow around 37-38 degrees Celsius (99-100 degrees Farenheit!). Brutal. But again, a good day of accomplishments. While we were just about ready to leave the boat to finally get into town, the metal guy came by with the stainless steel pipe for our spray hood…and even installed it! Then we were off with our list of things to do, which we did quickly so we could have time to stop at the beach for a quick swim before going back to the boat. Despite the garbage laden beach, it was refreshing. And the biggest accomplishment of the day….laundry! It has been a long, long time and it was getting desperate. Mike finally washed our work clothes in a bucket a few days ago (not sure if they came out cleaner or even dirtier). And I got tired of washing my underwear in the shower every night. So with the assistance from the car, we dropped it off and then I kept the car just so I could drive back and pick it up. I didn’t feel like carrying a 20# bag of wet laundry back across the boat yard.
In the afternoon I started scrubbing the forward decks to get them ready for paint. Mike got the rusty bits on the cockpit floor ground down and a coat of epoxy paint on. After a long afternoon and evening we were ready to quit. Since we couldn’t hang out in the cockpit due to wet paint, and the cabin was much to warm, we went to the bar for a drink. We were sitting at one of the outdoor tables enjoying the evening when hunger began to creep in. Once again, we couldn’t eat at the table we were sitting at so had to move a few feet into the ‘restaurant section’. A bit too fancy for our mood but the only option available. Why they can’t just have simple bar menu, we don’t know. But every so often we are struck by the fact that we are in a pretty nice place. Tables set up on a pristine lawn, surrounded by palms and marble statues. And an incredible sunset, the sky changed every color of purple with a beautiful crescent moon and star illuminated.
After dinner we made our way back to the bar to watch the South Africa vs Uruguay match. But we only lasted the first half since bed was calling to us. And tonight there was no way we could sleep in the aft cabin. The cabin was stifling hot! So made the day bed once again, set up 2 fans and hoped for a good night’s sleep.

It's Hot

By 9am we are sweating and hadn’t even made it out of the cabin yet. And Mike had a minor meltdown this morning while trying to install new through hulls in the engine room. A combination of a tight space and the pipe wrench being to big almost caused another close call with the green man emerging. But after taking a few breaths and some encouragement from his wife, he searched out a smaller wrench that got the job done. That then led to Mike getting some small projects crossed off the list that have been lingering. And no surprise, I continued with my work on the decks…sanding and more sanding. But I could feel my energy quickly draining around 4:30pm. And we had the car reserved at 5pm to go into town and run errands. The last thing that I wanted to do was to run around in this heat. Fortunately, Mike came to the same conclusion. And with his help, we got the last round of putty on the decks! And then took advantage of the car to go back to the restaurant ‘The Missing Link’ for a cocktail and dinner. The cocktail was questionable but the food was amazing again. We were entertained by the incredibly friendly (borderline obtrusive) waiter and the host, Hardy. We found ourselves lingering longer than we thought due to the cooling temperatures and very pleasant surroundings. Hardy has a good thing going on there…beautiful location, nice home/hotel/restaurant, incredible outdoor marble patio surrounded by palms and fruit trees, a waiter being at your beck and call for food and drink. It also helped prolong our stay when the tv was pulled outside for the Brazil vs North Korea match. And if the outdoor sleeping terrace (which is being built upstairs, complete with carpets and blankets) had been completed, I don’t think we would have returned to the boat that night.

Summer is Here

The morning started off on a solemn note due to ‘The Net’ announcing the death of the marina manager and deciding to cancel this morning’s chat amongst the cruisers since talking about ‘social events’ and announcing ‘hellos and goodbyes’ seemed a bit inappropriate. We also learned that Demokan had only recently turned 31 years old and left behind a fiancée. And it’s going to be a quiet Monday around here since the marina is running on short staff due to many of the office employees flying or taking an overnight bus to be present at the funeral in Istanbul this afternoon. Again sad, no matter what the circumstances.
And summer arrived a week early in Marmaris! It is hot, in the 90s. And working on steel decks doesn’t help. At least a good breeze came up in the afternoon to help cool things off. As for work,I am hoping that I put the last of the putty on the forward decks. Then the prepping of the cockpit started. It’s a mess from all of the surfaces being used as a work table. Mike spent his morning cleaning up the mess from yesterday’s failed attempt at installing the window. The automotive sealant was rock hard and no scraping was going to get it off. So out came the grinder and then the epoxy paint to cover up the bare metal exposed. That led to a little research on what is actually the best material to use for our windows… and then a nap for Mike. Siestas may have to be made mandatory this week.

Mike's Turn

So since when did we start taking candidates for the ‘worst day ever’? As mentioned above we are a wee bit behind where we thought we would be at this time, and looming dates, dragging projects, and closing weather windows has helped add a certain level of stress. We’ve forsaken our Sunday pledge of not working and have been working partial days the past few weekends in attempts to gain some ground. Probably a mistake. I thought that starting to install the windows into our new dodger would be sort of a low-impact activity, and therefore a good option. We have had some experience with this as we have replaced all the windows in the cabin, and this seemed like it would be the same bus, just a different stop. We were mostly right. However, this particular bus started going downhill when we removed the tape used to mask off the glass and noticed that we hadn’t applied enough of the spoogy-goop (adhesive-sealant) in some places, leaving gaping… well, gaps. We attempted to add more with mixed results, and that’s when we noticed that some of the masking tape itself had torn off and become embedded in the spoogy-goop also. Not only was it’s strength and seal questionable, it was just plain ugly. Of course, any spoogy-goop that’s going to hold on a bus’s windshield at 100+ km/hr in most any kind of inclement weather (we were using automotive sealant), isn’t going to easily allow itself to be removed once in place. And it’s really, really sticky and gooey. I mean really sticky. And really gooey. And we just ran out of latex gloves. Great! I was trying to remove this stuff before it set up on us (of course it’s fast-cure), and was busily smearing it all over most of the rest of our newly painted dodger as Serena ran to the store to buy more gloves and acetone. I had slipped a knife’s blade between the glass and the frame to cut the seal when the glass itself cracked and split right up the middle. I think that’s when I snapped. I felt like what Bruce Banner must have felt like when he finally reached that point of tipping over the top and knew there’s no soon return to calm. I felt like I was going to explode. I think I yelled something inappropriate, threw the knife to the ground, and stormed off ranting. Fortunately, no big green man appeared. But I did need to take a walk and bawl my eyes out for a while before the risk of monsters subsided. It was definitely enough to scare off any lingering ideas of continuing work. (I’m really glad that Serena and I are able to time our meltdowns so well. If we were both to freak out at the same time I’m not sure what would result. But thankfully, so far one of us has been able to be the rock for the other during these episodes.)
We decided that a walk to the beach and a swim would help cool us down, but when we got there a foamy streak of something not unlike raw sewage put us off of swimming. But damn! We needed to get in the water! Fortunately the car was available when we returned to the marina and we drove half way into town to one of the beach cafés that dot the shores of the bay. A long swim, a shaded lounge chair complete with a cold beer and a very bad, overpriced sandwich enabled us to forget about the boat for a while. The beach was crowded with local families and other tourists, and it was fun to watch the frolics and to see so many people engaged in leisure. Oh Yeah! That’s what Sundays are supposed to be like!







And remember us telling you about talking with the marina manager when we had concerns about one of the workers in the yard? Well, as we returned back to the boat we were shocked to hear that Demokan, the owner’s son and acting manager of all the marina’s operations was shot and killed in Fethiye the night before. There was a motorcycle festival there and apparently the shooting was in response to an argument about a parking space. I thought that shit only happened in the USA!? Although I have to say that we have our own questions as to whether this is the true story of what happened. Needless to say it was completely tragic and threw a pall over the place and created a lot of stunned silence from most of the employees. Again, tragic.
With that kind of news on top of an already shaky day, we decided we needed some cheering up. We returned to the boat and drank some raki, watched a mindless superhero movie, and skyped our friends Heather and Shan back home. It was not only a relief to hear the voices of dear friends, but we also cleared some anxiety by explaining our situation and putting our heads together about their upcoming visit.

Thank God for the World Cup!

It’s getting hot out there and the forecast only calls for increasing temperatures next week. By 3pm I was so done with working and looking forward to quitting time. Fortunately it came soon because there was the World Cup playing in the bar that gave us an excuse to get off this boat and into a dark and air conditioned bar. While watching the game, we hung with Paul on ‘Zachariah’ and shared common frustrations about how everything is always more difficult than it should be when working on boats. It makes me feel better to hear that other have the same experiences and fight the same battles that we do. We also indulged in another cheeseburger but for some really bizarre reason food is ‘forbidden’ in the bar and only served in the restaurant. So we got up from our bar stools, walked up 5 steps, sat at the first linen covered table where we could still see the bar tv, ate our burgers and then returned to our bar stools. And the restaurant and the bar are technically one in the same. Just one of the many things about this place that makes absolutely no sense. Then after a short siesta on the boat, we headed back to the bar and watched the USA vs England match. We were the only two Yanks in a bar full of Brits. But they were all old, we could have taken them!

Evolution of a Dream

It was another full day of work on Independence. Progress is slow but sure... Mike got the plates that will hold the deck blocks for the rigging welded in place. Also the winch and rope clutch in the cockpit got mounted into place! I continued with my sanding and filling any cracks or divits on the forward deck with putty.
But besides the actual work on the boat, we are trying to figure out our game plan and how this boat fits into our future life. Our big realization is that it is too hard to have this boat so far away from Seattle. It was a dream that at the time we felt we couldn’t turn away from. But after a few years of working at home to save money for a few months on the boat, it has proved kind of difficult to sustain. We find ourselves constantly battling the deterioration that happens when she sits alone for most of the year. And add that on to projects we need, and want, to get done. It all adds up to a whole lot more work than sailing. We did the math and realized that since we bought the boat we have physically been on her for 15 months. Now comes the sad part…11 months have been working on the boat and only barely 4 months sailing. Given, a lot of the projects we’ve done/are doing are once every 10 years-or-so projects. Once they’re done, we hopefully won’t have to address them again for many years, but regardless, it’s been very unbalanced. So this time around we decided to take a whole year off to spend on the boat, not really knowing where we would end up. Would we play around all spring and summer and explore all of the amazing countries and water the Mediterranean has to offer and then winter over somewhere in Tunisia, Spain or Sardinia? Would we be brave and sail her across the Atlantic? As reality sinks in, it looks like our season of good sailing weather is passing us by. We are striving to be in the water in 2 more weeks…it’s always ‘2 more weeks’. And then there will be at least another 2-3 weeks of tying up loose ends. And we are a little worried because so many people who have been here all winter with big plans to leave only find themselves getting stuck for an extended period of time because of some unforeseen circumstance. And we are a little worried because this boat hasn’t been in the water for 2 years. So at this point we will be lucky to be out of this marina by the end of July.
Another factor in planning our lives is that we are realizing that we want to be home. We miss our family, our friends, our puppy. There are growing reasons we want to be nearer to our family, and we want to start a family of our own (and we're no spring chickens). So what are our possibilities? We can still enjoy our time with the boat, sail around the Med, winter over somewhere and leave her again next winter/spring for unknown length of time. And lose all of this progress we have made? We could put her up for sale but it seems like half the boats in this marina have ‘For Sale’ signs on them. You could also say that we have bonded with this boat over the past couple of months and it is hard to let that go. Although, if it was for the right price…. So that leaves us to the idea of bringing her home, at least closer to home anyways. And that means sailing her across the Atlantic. Which also means our year of leisure is turning into one of work, preparation, logistics and making miles. Most people we talk to say you want to get through the Med by mid-October because weather can get rough and unpredictable after that time. So…that gives us 2 ½ months (hopefully) to go back through Greece, head up the Adriatic to Montenegro and Croatia, travel west and visit Venice, cruise down the east coast of Italy and around the boot, visit Sicily, then back up the west coast of Italy with visits to the Amalfi Coast and Rome, jump across to Sardinia, maybe head north to Corsica, then to the Balearic Islands, with some time in Spain before heading through the Straits of Gibraltar with the Canary Islands as our destination. Whew! I am exhausted already. And in case you missed my sarcasm, this itinerary is completely impossible in that short of time. We’d be lucky to hit half these stops. In addition, we have been planning the past year for our friends Heather and Shan, and their little boy Lucca, to come out and meet us in Croatia which we are so looking forward to. They have tickets to Rome in August. Now we are realizing that we have no idea where we will be. And traveling with a 2 year old requires a little bit of planning. We can only hope that they can be flexible and be ok with a ‘surprise’ destination.
So these are our latest thoughts/plans at the moment. Our dream of sailing in the Med may come true after all, just a really fast and abbreviated version. And maybe we will find ourselves in the Caribbean next January. Doesn’t sound so bad… First, we just have to get this boat in the water, and then hopefully everything will fall into place.

Dinner and a Movie

We finally had some good progress on getting the canvas project started today! The metal guy (who was referred to us by the canvas guy) came and measured for the stainless steel piping which we need first. Money exchanged hands so it should be coming in another week. Then we can get the spray hood made and once that is installed figure out how to make the bimini for shade cover. Our cockpit is small and with the main boom, mizzen mast and shrouds, it makes configuring all of this a little tricky. We really didn’t want to do it in two stages, spray hood and then bimini, because of time but it seems to make the most sense to come up with something that works.
After a full day of more deck prepping and Mike doing various jobs, we jumped in the shower and then headed into town with the final goal being dinner and a movie! But first, some boat errands. And even more progress with our canvas guy! We stopped by his shop and picked out foam and material for our cockpit cushions. It seems a ways off until our cockpit will be in a state where we can use them but they will be a welcomed addition after sitting on hard steel for so long.
And then we headed out on a mission for Mike…a much needed haircut. As we were going towards the center of town the skies were growing dark and a little rain was falling, but by the time we made it to the covered mall the skies completely opened. We took shelter in a little restaurant and waited out the thunderstorm. It has been a long time since I have seen rain fall like that. I was a little stressed about all of that water finding its way inside the boat through open holes or leaky windows, but tried to let that go and just enjoy being cozy and dry with a beer in my hand. As the rain began to let up, Mike went in search of the ‘kuafor’. After a failed attempt at buying a bathing suit, I found Mike in the barber’s chair and was thoroughly entertained while sipping on my cup of complimentary Fanta. The barber was obviously very experienced and had a young apprentice (with a very hip haircut by the way, I guess a perk of the job) watching every move. But the biggest fun was when he brought out the long cotton swab set on fire to burn off the hair in Mike’s ears! And I was thankful to him as well for trimming Mike’s eyebrows. For some reason, he doesn’t let me near them!


We then took off in search of a certain restaurant that came highly recommended from another cruiser. He told us how great the chicken sish and lamb were…and he was not lying! As many of you know, I am not always the biggest fan of meat. But this chicken sish was the most amazing chicken I have ever had! Oh my god, it was soooo good! Tender and flavorful. It may sound trivial, but we have grown to appreciate little things like a good meal. After stuffing ourselves silly with mezes and three main courses we set off for the movie. For some reason we thought “Prince of Persia” would be fun to see. Going to a movie was fun but the actual movie kinda sucked. But we got to see where the bootleg movies come from. Maybe the tops of our heads will be featured in one! But it was just really nice to get away from the marina and do something non-boat related. It’s funny how something that would be so simple and ordinary at home turns into something really exciting over here!