Winter at Kemer Marina, Maintenance March 5, 2003 This will be more of a journal rather than a log, as we have not taken Veleda anywhere since we arrived at Kemer on Nov. 1, 2002. Since then we have enjoyed the social activities of the marina, visited Cappodocia, done some maintenance on Veleda, and flew back to Toronto from Dec. 19 to Feb. 25. The winter here in Kemer has been, according to the cruisers who stayed here on their boats, similar to what we are experiencing right now as I write this, cool, rainy and stormy. We had a few good days since we returned to Kemer, but it has been raining and stormy for the last two days. Our return trip from Judy's parents' home in Toronto, until we boarded Veleda here in Kemer took 40 hours. We fortunately left home quite early and arrived at the airport before the check-in counter was open, when we realized that we left our carry-on bag in Henry's (Judy's dad's) car. When we called, no one was at home yet. At the check-in, things should have gone smoothly as all our bags were within acceptable weight limits, and we had our return (to Istanbul) tickets and our new passports. However we were caught in a Catch 22 situation. Air Canada would not let us fly to Turkey unless we had ongoing or return tickets to Canada. They would not accept the fact we had our boat over there, and suggested we go and purchase another ticket out of Turkey, and then turn it back in for a refund when we arrived in Turkey. OK, so Judy went over to the ticket desk while I waited at the check-in counter. Half hour later I went over to her to ask why the delay in getting another ticket. It had something to do with finding an open ticket that could be refundable.  Another half hour later, Judy's dad showed up with our carry-on bag that he discovered in the back seat. At last a ticket to Vienna was found that could be refundable. However, when the agent confirmed the ticket, she realized that Judy's ticket to Istanbul was in her maiden name yet her passport was under Millard. Fortunately we had our marriage certificate with us, and that finally allowed the bureaucratic bound agents to give us a boarding pass. That process was two hours.  The plane was delayed with all of us on board, an extra hour before taking off. The flight to Frankfurt and on to Istanbul was long (12 hours), but the Istanbul leg was interesting as we had a good window seat to see the Alps as we skirted them flying across the Balkans. However we had no trouble clearing customs as there was only one unconcerned official reading his newspaper, and did not even look up as we walked through unquestioned. Istanbul was wet and snowy, and we had to wait five hours for the earlier bus to Antalya at 1730 local time. It was, unfortunately, a local not an express bus, and it was a 14 hour bus ride. However, Hasan, the marina manager, picked us up at the Antalya bus station, and drove us right to our dock at the marina. Thanks Hasan. It was good to get back on board! We have been busy with major and minor projects as well as the whirlwind of social activities here at Kemer. Concerts in Antalya and at the Navigator Bar/Restaurant here in the marina (for me), movie nights (for me), quiz nights, farewell celebrations for an Australian boat heading back home, aerobics (for Judy) Turkish lessons (for Judy) - have kept us busy outside of the many maintenance chores. Judy's definition of cruising is "Doing maintenance in exotic locations". We have spent several days installing our new hot water heater, with everything pulled out of the starboard cockpit locker. It should have been a straightforward task, but was frustratingly complicated when after the "first" installation we found it leaked! All the fittings we attached seemed fine, so we thought it must be the tank. Oh boy! It is covered under warranty, but to send it all the way back to the US would have been long and expensive, even though we would only have to pay for one way shipping. (Of course we had thrown out the original box!) However, Peter at Holland Marine where we purchased it in Toronto got right back to us by phone the next day after my E-mail suggesting we open it up and take off the insulation to identify the leak. Well, to make a long story short we had taken it out, checked it, and reinstalled it three times, only to find out that after the third time when we had taken off all the fittings, including the pressure valve to get the face plate off and remove the insulation, when we replaced all those fittings and filled it with water, it didn't leak! We suspect that the pressure release valve was not screwed in tightly enough at the plant, and when I unscrewed it and screwed it back on tightly, it stopped the leak. So we reinstalled it again inside the starboard locker and it has been fine since. However, we didn't need that aggravation. Our next major project was/is our new electric anchor windlass. There was only one small hitch with it; they sent the wrong neoprene gasket. However the marina chandlery got some neoprene from a local diver and we made one to fit. Running the electric cables has been a chore, especially for Judy as she fits into the small spaces better to feed and mount the wires. We have ordered 60 metres of 8mm chain to fit the windlass and 30 metres of line to be spliced on it. So we have the same amount of our old 3/8th inch chain and old braided line to sell or give away as well as the old manual windlass. (We may keep the chain for forward ballast to counteract the weight of the dinghy on the stern.)We saved a bit of money (about $200 CDN) by not buying a remote hand held switch, but making our own for about $9.00 of material. All the wiring is done and tomorrow we finally mount the unit, and store the chain. We need to fix our decompression stop cable on the engine, as it is seized up, and so we cannot go out for a trial anchoring until it is fixed. Hopefully the day after tomorrow. We are having new windows put in the dodger, and replacing a couple of zippers. I don't know if I have mentioned it before, but if we had the time, money and skills we would install a hard dodger. We have hanked on our mainsail which was re-stitched, and our genoa which was re-cut to give us a higher foot and clew so we can see beneath the sail. For some reason our halyards are binding in the sheaves and pulleys so that hauling up the genoa was backbreaking work. Perhaps next year we will get a rigger to assess all the sheaves, blocks, pulleys and mast fittings, as I am definitely not happy with the tension needed to haul on several of our lines. Incidentally our main is the original sail that came with the boat when it was built in 1978, seams re-stitched several times and a few new panels and luff tapes, but still quite serviceable. We do have a spare if this one blows out. Other tasks include; re-bedding a couple of stanchions and replacing the lifelines, varnishing all the wood fixtures on the upper deck, getting Sprite and our outboard motor operational, cleaning the waterline, washing the hull and fixing a couple of paint chips, replacing our wind vane indicator at the mast head, and finally, hopefully replacing all three blades on out wind generator. We hope to be ready to leave the first of April, going down the SW Turkish coast for a couple of weeks, then into the Aegean at Kos. Up the Aegean to the Sporades and back over to Turkey to see Troy and Gallipoli, and go through the Dardanelles into the Sea of Marmara. From there we will go to Istanbul for a week or so to do more sightseeing and wait for Judy's visas to Romania, Bulgaria and the Ukraine. I only need a Ukrainian visa as Veleda and I will be doing the Black Sea on my British passport. We will do the north coast of Turkey, perhaps as far as Trabzon, before crossing to the Crimea in late July. After the Russian fleet review in Sevastopol the end of July, we will go up to Odessa, and over into the Danube, and along the Romanian and Bulgarian coasts until the end of August. We hope to get up to Kiev, Bucharest, and a few inland sights in that area before returning past Istanbul, and spending more time on the northern Sporades, Thessalonika, and down the Aegean islands, to get to Crete for the winter by late October. We anticipate that any war the US may wage on Iraq will not restrict us. However the EMYR we went on last year may have problems, as Iskenderun and Mersin on the SE coast of Turkey are the ports where the main US supply bases are. On another note, the Turkish economy is having a hard time already. Gasoline (petrol to you Brits) is now $1.50 Cdn per litre. The Canadian dollar when we left last December was worth about 865,000 Turkish Lira; now one Canadian dollar buys 1,100,051 TL. It is nice for us Canadians but bad for the Turks. Turkey is in a bind. I like Turkey and the Turks I have met in the last year and a half. I admit I am biased in favour of Turkey. I wish the best for this developing nation.
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