Turkish Visa renewal

Yesterday we took a ferry to Rhodes (Greek island) to renew our Turkish visa, yes all we had to do is take a day trip to Greece and when you came back into Turkey we were issued a 90 day visa, so we will have to do this again before the 90 days are up. It is important not to let it expire or we will be heavily fined buy Turkish Immigration. The fast catamaran to Rhodes costs €45.00/person for a same day return thicket, we left at 9:30 am arrived in Rhodes one hour later and then spent the day touring the city of Rhodes. We started off with a one hour double-decker bus tour to get an idea what is around and the best places to visit, then we stopped at the New Market and had the best Gyros ever with big chunks of pork cost only for only  €1.80 each but a cup of tea from the same place cost €2.40, go figure.

We then went into the old city of Rhodes, built in the 1100 AD by the Crusaders, it is incredibly well preserved and also it is very big the surrounding wall is over 7km around, this gives you an idea of the size of it. The grandmasters Palace is worth seeing with its many mosaics and a lot of furnishings from the many Grandmasters that lived here. Within the walls there is Christian churches and Moslem Mosques but the Venetians where here too and a lot of brogue architecture can be seen the most noticeable being the Roloi clock tower. Within the walls there is restaurants, fashion boutiques; cafes; souvenir shops etc…

Took the ferry back to Marmaris Turkey at 16:30 hrs 

We had a great day here and we look forward to revisit in 90 days 

Marmaris Yacht Marina

We have already been two weeks in this marina and we have become attached to it psychologically speaking, we feel very relaxed here, it is a peaceful environment, easy access to Marmaris via a 20 mins bus ride that runs from here every 30 mins. The marina has a lot to offer to the live-aboard cruiser, such as repair facilities, use of employee canteen where we pay 7 TL ( 2.85 Euros) for 3 course lunch or dinner, supermarket where you can have any type of gas/propane cylinder filled our 10 lb cost 55 TL which is not the cheapest but no other easy alternative,  a very nice bar and restaurant, swimming pool and sauna, gym, clinic with doctor on call,  a barber shop, laundry facilities do yourself or get it done, and a very well equipped library which Lillian decided to take care of  and has done a fabulous job with it, in the library there is also a snooker and pool table, it cost 10 TL to play.
We have met very wonderful people here some of them staying over winter and most of them are heading home and will be back in early spring.
The marina staff are very helpful and friendly, we had a SW blow a couple of days ago and all three marina boat where seen running around helping boats in trouble , re-arranging lines and fenders, we are well tacked and managed to weather the storm quite well. No swell or waves come into the marina it was just very strong winds that put some strain on the lines.
Click link below if you like to see more about this marina.
http://www.yachtmarin.com/marina/index.php

In for the winter

We have now moved into The Marmaris Yacht Marina for the winter. The boat will be here till the end of March 2012. This is a very big marina with about 800 berths and a massive yard that gets packed like sardines during the winter months when a lot of foreign yachts are hauled out for the winter.

Since arriving in Turkey we have been as far west as Bodrum and as far east as Fineke. The longest we stayed was in Bozburun and the best city we have been to is Fethiye with its rock tombs, fish market down in the old part of the city and the incredible fruit and vegetable market that is held twice a week Tuesdays and Fridays. From Fethiye we rented a car and sped east towards Fineke, then north through the mountains and back down towards Oludinez and KayaKoy, then back by nightfall to Fethiye. The anchorage in Fethiye and Bozburun are both excellent if you want to head inland for a few days or longer.

Most anchorages in Turkey deep and you will need to drop the anchor on a slope away from shore and then take a line to shore and tie it to a rock, this is very popular here but we have not had to do it our selves as we always found an anchorage with a depth that suites us, we only have 67 meters of chain therefore we are restricted to anchor in about 12 meters depths to have a 5 to 1 scope. We need to get a 70 meter 17mm polypropylene line so we can easily swim it or take it by dingy to shore, then next season we will be able to anchor in deeper waters and take the line to shore.

For now we are going to relax and do some maintenance on the boat, re-galvanize the chain, some varnishing and re-grease the windlass and a few other chores.