Posted 10 June 2011.
New Zealand couple Bruce and Lesley Tebbutt purchased their Orana 44 in 2009. After picking their new catamaran up from the Foutaine Pajot factory in La Rochelle, France they have enjoyed some magnificent cruising in the Mediterranean.
Here is their latest update …
An Ode from Lesley
Oh woe is me
A sailor’s wife I did not plan to be
Sheets, Egyptian cotton 300 thread count, that I do know
Not bits of rope that need adjusting when the wind doth blow
Tacking, something as a young girl my Mum taught me
Bears no resemblance to what we do on Midi
Okay is a word that needs no explanation
Except when Bruce says okay when pulling the anchor up, I need more direction
“Okay”, (does he mean stop or should I go)
Does he mean left or right, who would know
Perhaps a tad in reverse, haven’t done that for a while
Might do that for a metre, or perhaps for a mile
Oops better not do that any more
We are getting mighty close to the shore
“Out, damn spot” many years ago Shakespeare wrote
But they are words that many days I do quote
As I try to get out those damn spots that appear on our new teak
Perhaps I’ll buy a new pot to put over that mark, next week
Oh, to be able to sit on the loo
And not have to contemplate how many bits of paper to use when I do a ……. No 2
Blocking the holding tank is something we don’t want
Something you have to think about, when you squat
All in all, it ain’t a bad life
For Midi, the skipper and his good wife
Now it’s time for things less iambic
“Stop mucking around woman and pull up the pick”
I’m sure he said that with love in his voice
Better had, of that I give him no choice
“Come on, let’s get the anchor up, without any hitch
Better go, or else he’ll be calling me a lazy old …..!
Well that’s enough waffle. Since we last conversed, we have anchored in Alacati, lovely place buts lots of wind at anchor and a favourite hangout for windsurfers.
Next we visited Karaada Island, uninhabited except for one home, with wind generator and solar panels and many donkeys plus rabbits. A beautiful anchorage, apart from the local gullet that decided to almost anchor on top of us and the skipper did not quite understand Bruce’s sarcasm when he suggested that he could anchor closer if he wanted to! Caught up again with Laurie and Diane off Envoy. Next anchorage was Foce, (pronounced Fo-chay, not what Bruce was saying that sounded like something from “Meet the Fokkers’). Beautiful town that had a very Greek feel to it. Tavernas around the harbour edge and a town square, just like we saw in the Greek islands.
We also met up here with our friends Alastair and Vivian off Largo Star and they introduced us to another Kiwi couple, Bryce and Martha off Silver Fern. They had two friends on board who are staying with them for 6 weeks and guess where they are from – Kerikeri and they live about 1km away from us and we had to sail to Turkey to meet them! Four Kiwi boats in one anchorage was quite spectacular.
Next anchorage was Candarli which was a pretty anchorage but the wind blew up and we dragged anchor so we decided to re-set the anchor which held well but we soon found out why, the next day.
But more on the town – we went for a walk along the sea front and there were the usual young Turkish ladies on the beach in their bikinis but also we saw swimming, four young ladies, fully covered from head to toe, scarves, long sleeved shirts, dresses with trousers underneath and bobbing along in the water. Complete contrast to the bikini clad nymphets. That is the Turkish paradox! Any way the next day we went to pull up the anchor to find it was hooked through some heavy chain and what looked like an old net along with black, gooey, slimy mud. Took a lot of huff and puff from Bruce, but he got it off eventually but we sure would not have dragged anywhere with that lot on the end of our anchor.
Next anchorage was Bademli where we walked to the village and spoke to a local man who had met the Whetton brothers when a rugby tour came through in 1988. Just as well for the All Blacks or most of these northern hemisphere types would not know where New Zealand was. We must mention here that we had a beer at this man’s (Bulent) café. He gave us his card and on the back there is a web site which he said has him on it. So we looked it up and it is like Youtube and it was 7minute video of him talking of the plight of the poor people (www.vimeo.com/1485533). It is quite interesting as it is a story as old as time and is international.
I have to mention at this stage, that we have seen the longest single boat name ever. Lumpazivagabundus. The name was about as long as the boat. I could just imagine them coming in to port. The conversation would go like this – “Harbour control, harbour control, this is sailing vessel Lumpazivagabundus, do you copy?” “Harbour control here, could you repeat your boat name?” “Yes Harbour control, it is Lumpazivagabundus – I will spell – Lima-alpha-mike-papa-alpha-zulu-india-victor-alpha-golf-alpha-bravo-uniform-november-delta-uniform-sierra”. By this time Harbour control, has either – gone and made a cup of apple tea and fallen asleep or gone outside and shot himself in exasperation! Midi – Mike-india-delta-india – short, sweet as, easy peasy!
We have had some lovely sailing and even though it has been on the nose, it has not been too hard. Midi seems to be performing well (touch wood) but there are always the little challenges to be had, like the wash down pump stops working but for no apparent reason, one of the fans has stopped working and now I have to half disassemble a cabin to find out where it has been connected etc and it is too hot to work. Oh woe is me. We have entered the ‘clothing optional’ phase of our travels, when ‘less is more’ as the temperatures have hit the 30 degrees range and the water temp, where we are now in Ayvalik, is over 26 degrees. Anyway, no photos on board Midi at the moment because we don’t want to put you off your cornflakes! Our last few sailing journeys, we have been accompanied by dolphins. At first there were only one or two (which we named Athol and Max, (after Bruce’s Dad and uncle). Then we had more, that stayed and played with us for quite a while. Bruce even saw a turtle swimming by.
Here we are in Ayvalik, a place they call the lake as it is such a protected anchorage , it is very lake-like. You enter first through a channel about 200mtrs long and maybe 40mtrs wide than on to our actual anchorage which is called Camlik (pronounced Chumlick) which is again almost landlocked with just a narrow entrance but opens up to a wide bay about1.5miles wide or so. Only about 3 – 4mtrs deep and very sheltered. We had a French-Canadian couple, Marie-Andre Champagne (love that surname) and Emilien Arseneault, on board for drinks one night and it was very interesting as we got info on the Quebec campaign to be a separate country. They were very passionate about their cause. Emilien is a retired engineer and Marie-Andre is a Doctor. They would have to be in their 70’s and Emilien is a real linguist and speaks eight languages and a wonderful historian who could not get enough of Turkey. They have been here on and off, for ten years.
We went in to the town on the bus and went for a wander around the very pretty town. Very narrow streets in places and they deliver goods by horse and small carts. A delightful sight. Came back on a bus that was absolutely overloaded with passengers. No health and safety regulations here. Been to the market, that was wonderful so are all stocked up on the local fresh produce once more. We came across, once more, the tradition of feeding the village when a family member dies, so while Bruce queued up for our free food (cruising is expensive you know – got to get free grub while you can), I spoke to a man with good English and he told me that if the family could afford it, every year on the anniversary of that person’s death, they gave food away. 
They were cooking a batter of some sort in a large vat of oil. I was given 4 of these things which were very oily and had no specific taste. I have to say that 3 of them found their way into the bin which seemed a bit of a sacrilege. We have found the Turks to be exceedingly polite. When I joined the queue there was about a dozen people ahead of me but they wanted me to go to the head of the queue. I insisted that I wait my turn. Also if you get on a crowded bus they will always make room on a seat for you and stand themselves. If only such politeness still existed at home.
At the moment, Turkey is gearing up for their general elections, to be held on the 12th June. We have been bombarded with electioneering from vans. This is like boy-racer boom box type stuff on steroids. They have vans, painted with their party candidate, with huge speakers on the top, blasting out Turkish snake-charmer sort of music but really heavy on the base so you hear the beat from miles away. Deafening if you happen to be passing by them in the street as we did the other day when a whole cavalcade of them went by. The elections are this weekend so hopefully things will then settle down. It is expected that the ruling party will win with a landslide, this is despite quite a lot of unrest by the younger generation who want more work and better wages. Sounds familiar but here we struggle to understand how they survive on their basic earnings. They are all always well dressed, no shortage of cars and all have cell phones.
However houses etc are quite often showing signs of decay as do the towns in general. There seems to be a lot of works happening in various places but they never seem to quite finish things properly. Like new paving being laid but it won’t quite meet up neatly with existing paving. Or as in Bodrum where they have laid a lot of new paving and installed many bollards along the edge. But they have installed the bollards right at the edge of the paved area so the vehicles coming down the street hit them and rip them out or knock them over. That is Turkey!
Have found a use for Grandma’s old Turkish rug. Every little fishing boat seems to have a rug underneath all their nets and gear. Some of them I just want to grab and clean and take home. They must have been beautiful once. Just imagine the smell now though. Note the engine exhaust sticking out the side of the boat!
Well Bruce is busy trying to fix the fan at the moment and words are issuing forth that I know he did not learn at his mother’s knee so I had better get this off and appear to be doing something more productive. All the swearing & cursing didn’t work and the fan is kaput.
Hope everyone is well at home and if you know of someone who used to get our emails but doesn’t now, please let us know as we have found that not all our email addresses transferred over to our new laptop.
Cheers
Lesley and Bruce
Posted 11 June 2011:
Well today we are off to the Island of Lesvos on the Greece to renew our Turkish Visa and hopefully get in and back out of Greece without being locked up. Wish us luck!