Rhodes in the Morning, Marmaris in the Afternoon

Back on Tara, October 30^th was also ‘fall back’ day so is it 07:30 standard time or daylight time the catamaran whose dock we’re poaching comes in? Both Marina and I ended up waking up every hour during the night to make sure that we weren’t going to be late. At 5:45am the 60 foot powerboat beside us lit up and left. At 6:15am (or was that 5:15 am) we gave up on sleep, woke up Ross and moved the boat to an anchorage on the outside. It actually turned out to be 5:15am so we crawled back into bed for an hour or two before we set off for the day.

We wanted to walk through Rhodes during the morning, then head to Turkey in the afternoon. While the kids and Marina set off into Rhodes, I started the exit procedure.  Port Police, Passport Control, Customs (all in one place) then over to the Port Police (2 km away), and finally back to Customs (though they let me slide it under the door in at a closer office rather than walk another 2 kilometers). After about an hour and a half of fooling around – they originally tried to send me to another office until I pointed at Tara and said – that’s my boat, it is in this harbour, I joined the family walking through the old parts of Rhodes. You can see the castle and how it was rebuilt by the Italians when they occupied Rhodes in the early 20^th century.

The castle and old city are one of the biggest tourist attractions in Greece – and it’s not hard to see why. The weather was beautiful, about 25 degrees C and sunny so we walked around until we got hungry, then had  a nice lunch tapas-style – pizza, cheese balls, dolmades, roasted veggies, meat balls … lots and lots of food. After lunch we retired to the dinghy, went back to the boat, lifted anchor and started towards Marmaris Turkey. Again not much wind so we powered across from Rhodos to Marmaris – a place that looks quite a bit like Pender Harbour BC. Along the way we stopped and had a swim. Water is still above 20 degrees here so quite swimmable. Marmaris is a bustling town of about 40,000 people and they have a couple of marinas to choose from. Every time you enter a port you choose where you go based on what you need – close to groceries, or we need fuel. In this case it was driven by laundry. We hand wash our things in the sink and hang them to dry on the lifelines but there is only so much dirt can be removed in this way. The last washing machine cleaning we had was in Kremik. We left Kremik September 9^th. Today’s date is November 1^st. We figure doing laundry properly every couple of months is not just a luxury, it’s a necessity ;-).

So we went into the Yacht Marine – one of the biggest marinas I’ve ever seen. They store 600 boats in the water and another 600 on the land. Their Travel-lift is 330 tonnes … to give a comparison, the one at Granville Island is an 40 Ton Travel-lift. They were lifting some incredible yachts – some as long as 150-200 feet. The entire marina is like a jigsaw puzzle with 500 boats being arranged based on the day they will be put back in the water. Based on the dates (all written on the rudders), the first week of April will be a busy time indeed. The boats get hauled and pressure washed, then put on a trailer, taken to their  yard location and blocked onto the ground. A good percentage of yachts are being worked on as well, from minor cosmetics to full on refits. There are engine repair shops, a chandlery, canvass, electrical, welding, fiberglass, painters, and sailmakers all on site. Marmaris itself has dozens of good marine shops including a West Marine that got several hundred dollars from my pockets.

Relaxing...not the dog house...

Oh, look!  A camera!

 There are a number of people that also live there and spend the winter on their boats. This little community has access to a rather grotty gym, a common room, bar, restaurant, pool and many other facilities.  The irony is that because of the liveaboards, the washer/dryer was queued six deep when I got there in the morning. Quick change of plan, we paid for our laundry to be done for us – worked out to be 20 Euros but putting on a freshly laundered t-shirt …. Priceless.

Could you think of a better classroom?

In some ways Marmaris Yacht Marine was really neat – but Marina and I decided almost immediately that it isn’t for us. We’re travelers and we want to keep going. If it came down to living in the marina for a few months I’d vote for putting the boat up on the tarmac and flying somewhere else and do an overland portion of our adventure.  One of the things we talked about at dinner would be extending our Israel and Egypt trip to potentially go through the Suez Canal. We’re going to do the research on it to see whether it is feasible and safe to go there – we have heard two different (180 degrees opposed) viewpoints on whether you should go through. Apparently the pilots you must hire to take you through often hold up their customers for very large additional charges (what we’d probably call bribes). I read of one person needing to buy 100 cartons of cigarettes – even at $1 per pack that’s a lot of baksheesh.

Getting the Q flag ready - must be up so customs knows we're not checked in yet.

After three days in Marmaris it is time to move on, so we’re off to a bay close by and hope to tour some of the tombs carved in the rock above the Dalyann River above Caunos. No wind today so we are powering to get there, will hope to anchor out and arrange a tour boat for tomorrow.



Oh to be so relaxed.....