June Blog 2010

Waves, wind and Sun

It is official, the summer is here, as if the weatherman were in control of the season, somebody hit a switch and the temperatures soared in to the 40s. Punctuated with heat influenced thunder storms, we enjoy mostly clear blue skies, sunny days with nice calm winds in the mornings and brisk winds in the afternoon. Perfect for a morning swim, some water sports if you feel active, lunch and an exhilarating sail to another destination waiting to be explored. The afternoon gusts keep the cabins cooler and the insects at bay (most of the time). They also offer our guests on board a real feel for Kealohas’ love for getting going. Give her 10 knots of wind and she is begging to flaunt her sails and try to dip her toe rail into the cool blue sea.

Our guests and friends aboard have all loved putting K8 through her paces and the smiles crack into wide grins as soon as they grasp the helm and feel how responsive the boat is and how she enjoys the wind.

Travels along the Turkish Mediterranean coast

Everyday blesses us with another experience and together with all aboard we often wonder if it can get any better….

Be it people, places or just seeing something in an exceptional light all contribute to our satisfaction.

The romantic sunsets over the hills in Marmaris bay are stunning.

The charm of the waiter in Selimye called “Golden Teeth” who just helps out with your mooring lines to make that important first connection and perhaps persuade you to stop in his establishment and drink a homemade lemonade with the fruits from the tree behind his home. In the same bay, the ship building yard is open to view where the skeletons of future gullets lie and the local workers skilfully lay planks on the frames of thick hard wood pausing only for the imams call to pray.

In Bozubuku a young guy greeted us in a small tender as we lay the anchor and offered to take our line ashore. The next morning, he brought us fresh warm home baked peasants loaf of bread laden with olives. This bay has no electricity, the settlements on the shore line nestle between Byzantine ruins and only have power supplied by generators. You wake to the bray of donkeys and the jangle of goats bells.

Cooking up a storm

Inspired by the freshness of the local ingredients and the variety of spices, cooking aboard Kealoha has been a delightful experience. We have enjoyed the fresh wild sea bass, the calamari and octopus and the local lamb. We would like to hope that our friends and guests have left us satisfied and there have been plenty of requests for recipes for “cooking on K8”.

One of the more unusual requests was for fresh sea urchin eggs, so we clambered into the dinghy and methodically combed the coast line seeking the urchins. We opened them our selves carefully and scooped out the eggs for a delicious aperitif with a dash of lemon. Had we had a little more time before the sun set, we could have collected enough for sea urchin linguini

St Tropez of Turkey

The most Northerly point of our cruises so far has been Bodrum. What a contrast between the other towns and villages we have visited so far. The guests enjoyed breakfast the other morning under the shadow of St Peters Castle before alighting to visit the St Tropez of Turkey. Sharing the streets with the crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s wife, you can browse the designer shops and savour international cuisine on a shady esplanade. But keep walking too far on the esplanade and you come to the largest outdoor discotheque in the world. It boasts the biggest speakers pointing directly at the yachts in the anchorage. On a sliding scale, the later into the night it is, the louder the noise from the club. In case you do not get the full effect and this has not shaken all your fillings out, the club sends a strobe lit, floating disco out into the bay among the yachts and to quote a guest aboard who “slept” in the cockpit, he thought they were actually dancing next to him.

Starting the season

Despite the volcanic ash cloud which disrupted some of K8’s plans, Visits flowed in steadily. We were eager to blow away the dust from the yard, and concentrate on exploring the blue cruise coast line which we had heard so much about. The photos in the literature do not do it justice, as it is all about the experience too which can not be portrayed in a still image.

Provisioning

Provisioning alone is an experience to behold – the market runs every Sunday and Thursday in the centre of Marmarais town. Farmers from neighbouring villages set up stands with their wears and tout for business as potential customers wander about. You can buy the freshest fruit and veg, but only the local produce that is in season, there are spices piled in colourful sacks and wicker baskets of dried fruits and nuts. You can taste all the local goat, cow and sheep cheeses and gorge yourself on a million different olives. Some of the vegetable were new for me and a stand holder took me under his wing and cooked a wonderful stew on a gas camping burner right there as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Friendships were forged over a quest for understanding the Turkish for coriander and a place to buy some.

Visitors

Our visitor are arriving and sadly leaving, but all I hope are taking a little bit of Turkey and the magical Kealoha experience with them. As we visit different places we are making new friends. The coast line seems an endless discovery of little bays and historical ruins. The people we meet are so full of knowledge and very proud of their history. We have got to know a number of Turkish Gullet Captains and International Cruisers in their own boats who are eager to share their knowledge of the coast line with us so that we can get the most out of it together with our guests aboard.

None the less, nothing replaces your own experience of each special place. A few weeks ago we went to Gocek town for the evening; a friendly waiter served the guests with drinks on the quay side and upon learning that they were cruising the coast on a yacht, insisted they take freshly made stone oven bread with them free of charge. We devoured it with some home made Hummus and salad for a light lunch. Last week we went to a restaurant with guests in Selimiye and some German Crew kindly entertained all the diners with a jamming session on a banjo and saxophone. A few days later while crossing the bay of Marmarais in the tender, we were joined by a curious loggerhead turtle, which swam with us for a few meters before departing to the depths of the bay. He must have been 1.5m large, I wonder how old he is and what he has seen in his life?

Work through the winter

While the winds howled and the rains lashed down, winter work on Kealoha 8 remained as relentless as the Turkish winter. Punctuated by balmy sunny days you could not believe that it could also be so cold and hostile. I often wondered how the oranges and lemons managed in climes that were 1 degree centigrade sometimes.

Like the hardy citrus fruits, Thanks to a team of some exceptional local specialists, Kealoha 8 was refitted inside and out during the months of January through March and by April she was smugly gleaming in the yard awaiting transportation to the launch pool.

Friends and pricing benefits

For ourselves, the crew, Turkish refit doubled up as a Cultural lesson and one day, while seeking some obscure small but crucial piece of equipment, we befriended a well dressed local gentleman in a suppliers shop who offered us a lift in his car to another outlet where we could source the piece we were seeking. The gentleman turned out to be the buyer for the Turkish Navy and we gleaned a valuable lesson in how to manage price negotiations with different sources. A very large bladder is a key point as it involves several cups of chai (thimbles full of tea) before you can arrive at a mutually acceptable agreement. Also do not judge books by their covers, craftsmanship is understated generally in Turkey and the shop with the biggest front and most advanced advertising statements does not necessarily tick the boxes. The little shack at the dark corner end of the road probably supplies the gleaming shop that catches the naive crews’ eye!

Launch on time

Kealoha 8 sat snugly surrounded by perhaps 2000 boats. Thanks to our exceptional team the ship and the work aboard was completed in a timely manner though from my inexperienced eye, I could not see how the marina were going to get Kealoha and her mast into the lift pool for the date that was emblazoned on her rudder. But true to their word, the marina played out an extravagant game of shuffling boats (sometimes into the small hours of the morning) and K8 kissed the Mediterranean with precision timing and precision driving by the travel hoist driver.

Sea Trials

Sea Trials ensued – our sails were put on by one of the fantastic teams we have a lot to thank for at 9pm on a Sunday – where else do you enjoy such a dedicated attitude – including a sparkling new stay sail. After a seemingly mammoth amount of paperwork in order to be let out of the marina (one of the few down sides) We slipped the stern lines carrying a posse of 10 stoic work partners out, to put Kealoha 8 through her paces. It really did not take long for every one of them to break into a smile, enjoying over nine knots in a moderate breeze.

We knew then that Kealoha was just itching to get on with the exciting season ahead.

The first glimpse of Kealoha

Ben and I have joined the boat in Marmarais, Turkey, where she is on the hard, having winter maintenance and up grades completed. She is very clearly well looked after and is in good hands in the yard in Marmarais where teams of workers are pouring over her. There are thousands of yachts here being worked on, the yard is very active so it is all a good sign.

Kealoha 8 is resting comfortably in her chocks after her exciting trip around the world, you can almost see that she is a proud experienced “seagoer” and as the new crew, it gives you a warm buzz. You have to sit back and appreciate the Oyster workmanship, continuous top spec. maintenance and investment, and hard graft of previous crews which have kept her that way. She is clearly a boat that is “loved”.

Hard work for a great advantage

When Kealoha is launched in a few months, she will be one of the few boats of her size to boast her own waste water treatment system, giving her an ecological advantage over many other vessels. Guests will be able to enjoy all facilities on board such as showers and toilets, whether in the most secluded bay or in the marina, knowing that the water consumed will be returned clean to the sea.

Bye bye soapy residue pumping out of Kealoha!!

An exciting sailing ground

As crew we are looking forward to sailing the Eastern Mediterranean. Even arriving in winter and winding through the roads from the airport you are impressed by the majesty of the surrounding mountainous countryside. The dark green of the pine forests contrasts with the glittering blue sea. The snaking roads are littered with stalls buckling under the weight of oranges and lemons which have been harvested freshly from the groves at the road sides. Once in Marmarais town, there is a distinct hustle and bustle, a town getting ready for summer trade. Restaurants are having boards taken down and being cleaned, the yacht chandleries are eager to attract your business. There is still a lot of local trade though, supermarkets stand side by side with covered bazaars re-iterating the East meets West culture that makes Turkey such an interesting destination to explore. There is so much ancient history scattered along the shores of Greece and Turkey, evidence and stories dating back thousands of years. We are spoiled by the dream coastline and islands only short hops away, made even shorter by the prospect of  decent winds that will carry us there all the quicker. There seems to be no box that is left un-ticked in my mental list of criteria for exceptional sailing boat holidays that I have compiled over the years.

We will update this section with current news over the coming weeks.