Turkish Time

We've been cooling our heels for the last 3 weeks in Orhaniye, a very pretty coastal village in Southern Turkey. We came here to get some work done on Pavlov. We needed some repairs to the teak decks, new canvas sprayhood and bimini, new stainless bimini frame and radar arch, holding tanks for our heads, some electronic repairs and an engine service. We've been slowly progressing on all these fronts, but we've had to adapt to what is locally known as 'Turkish time'.

Gulet anchored near island fort in Selimiye

Turks don't have the same obedience to the slave-clock as we are used to. If the weather's fine and the fish are biting, well, what else to do but throw out a line. If its too hot in the sun, a chai and chat with friends sounds a lot better than toiling under a hot sun And so it goes, which means that we just can't create deadlines. We thought we'd only be here for a week, and now, 3 weeks later, it looks like we might be here for another 2 weeks.

Fishing boats

In between frantic searches in Marmaris (a larger, yacht oriented town) for plumbing fixtures, co-axial connectors and macerating pumps, and chaos-making dissembly of Pavlov, we've managed a few 'pleasure trips'. The photo's here are of Selimiye, two villages down the coast.

The promenade along the waterfront

An interesting cafe

We've wandered all around such villages. Although some traditional pursuits still happen, such as boat building and fishing, a large percentage of the employment comes from tourism. Yachts and visiting gulets and ferries transport tourists to these 'off the beaten track' locations, placing them firmly on track. The character is still there but...

Tourist gulet

The summer season is coming to an end, and the tourist traffic is reducing, which is great for us. However, in a few weeks, everything starts closing down. The Dogan hotel closes from November to March. We're coming back here in December to haul out for 2 weeks. We've been looking at renting a small local apartment for those 2 weeks. It will be fun living in the village itself, rather than on a pier attached to a hotel. Imagine a bed that didn't rock us to sleep... How weird.

Cruising tourists

Invasion by slow increments

Megan's new sun armour