28 April 2006 - Back to Kemer – postcard from Mags

Where is home? We have torn up our roots again, left beautiful Devon just as it was beginning to blossom and warm up, said farewell to some lovely new friends and come back to beautiful Turkey and re-met some old and valued friends here. The weather of course is warmer although today Friday 28 April it is definitely just a little Devon-like, grey and rainy.

Bill our engineer friend is out with us and has already installed a new, very bright radar which required changing the scanner up the mast as well as installing the display unit down below. As with all engineering tasks there are highs and lows and at present the radar is working beautifully but the GPS connection to it is not. There is much to do and he is busy at present working on the fuel tanks. We are converting one of the water tanks for fuel which will give us 700 litres of fuel. We have installed a water maker (desalinater) and hope that this will eliminate the need to find a marina to top up with water quite so frequently from now on.

After a heavy morning's work a pleasant "staff lunch" with Bill at the marina's club house and restaurant

And what are the plans for the year? We have now determined to cross back to Barcelona for the end of July and then proceed to the Cape Verde Islands with the aim of crossing the Atlantic at the turn of the year. From there we don't really know what we will do and will only decide at each step of the way. We are motivated to cross the Atlantic from a rather inverted perspective. Rather than really wanting to do it we feel that we will really regret not having done it when we are more aged and look back and realise we missed an opportunity. Not really the best approach perhaps but that's ours.

Since I find leaving so hard (tearing up roots) I am already looking forward to when we return to Turkey! However I know that each place we visit has something new to offer, people to get acquainted with and interesting sights to visit, different dishes to taste and enjoy and locals to get to know.

In the immediate future we have the pleasure of pottering along the Turkish coast first to spend a week or so in the Fethiye area sailing with new friends from Devon Roger and Felicity and then continuing on passed Bodrum and up towards Kusidasi to spend 10 days or so with our life long friends Roger and Merril before leaping off towards Barcelona.