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.