“Where are you? Where is the blog?” The truth is this part of the proceedings isn’t what we would consider the glamorous portion of the trip. You’ll notice that even our dearest friends don’t sign up for the very beginning of our trips.
The teak is being refitted in places, the head has been reseated and cracks in the gel coat are being repaired and the swimming platform has been reinforced. Our Dock n Go had a visit from Nicolas, who has carefully adjusted the new “brain”. The ZF Dock n Go system over promises in our humble opinion, but Beneteau has decided to create Beneteau Dock n Go specialists (the manifique duo: Jean and Nicolas), which has been a wonderful boon to restoring the confidence of Mercier’s Crew. Fingers are crossed.
We spend our days moving between Yacht Marine and the town of Marmaris. James is so lucky that Marmaris is not an exciting shopping centre like Kas, Istanbul or Kalkan, so that shopping doesn’t keep me from polishing the stainless. Marmaris is however, ship chandler heaven, everything for boats in several different chandlers in town.
We have met several lovely people here at Yacht Marine. There is a pool, a lovely restaurant, a ship chandlers, The Library, a reading room which has free wifi. The ladies in the office are very helpful and friendly; they also have wifi, so see us regularly.
In Turkey, they have a law about sim cards, which no one has clearly explained to us. If you are going to be in Turkey over two months, then do not buy a sim for your own phone. If you do buy a sim for your own phone after two months, it will be disconnected until you pay a substantial tax. No one mentions this at any of the Telco offices. Instead buy an inexpensive phone in Turkey and use that phone. There might be other strategies, but we are just going to those places with free wifi.
There is a large live aboard contingent at the Marmaris Yacht club and they have a very interesting social club which includes tours around Turkey.
Boat watching is the activity du jour each and every day here. Beautiful gulets, extraordinarily large motor yachts and catamaran, small yachts and it is like a ballet watching the travelers take large and small yachts in and out of the water. But like every big town, there is always one neighbour that likes to “collect” and Yacht Marina is no exception. We hope to be ready to sail very soon, wish us luck.
