Day three

Day three

With a thump on the door I grudgingly opened my eyes to the third day on the boat. I had stayed up a bit later than i had wanted but I was excited about making music on my iphone using garage band and had a solid dubby number evolving by the second, what am I supposed to do? Anyway all my moaning to myself was complete nonsense and Ben had made amazing breakfast of scramled eggs with fresh tomatos and spring onion, that sorted me right out.

A beatiful and suitable sunshine graced my pale face as i poked my head out the hatch, "lardida where have you been then? " said Mick who had found my like for cigar smoking amusing" Who wants to scrape the rudder ? said Doug, I had volunteered yesterday and I kept my word to a degree. I had a snorkel and flippers and after an amazing hot shower I decided to face the cold sea diving and take the plunge, fuck, it was cold but nice and refreshing and not as cold as the Lanzerote sea back in December. I have learned that I am a buoyant mo fo an it was hard getting underneath. I jumped out after a few mins and went back on the boat to warm. The mood was quite tense at this point and with Mick not having the papers we required everything was looking like it was on a back burner till tomorrow. 
A hop and a skip later we were tearing up the marina in the Joker a powerful litle outoard saw this little boat skimmed across the water with no probs at all.
Mick gave Ben and I £400 to get food, we waited on the wave breakers for a bus, i dont like waiting for buses but I couldnt complain this time, the scenery was stunning. We got off in central Marmaris and with a little local direction from a helpful english couple we found out that Kippers was the largest and cheapest supermarket nearby. Ben was very keen to get on with the task but I had to say to him " we are not leaving till tommorow, lets enjoy ourselfs and get a nice lunch" he agreed and we found a great little Turkish food place that did stuffed mini marrows and a melt in the mouth chicken shish, all washed down with a Efes beer it was 44 tl which is about 15 quid for the pair of us!
Dale fucking Winton would of been proud of us if he had seen us shop in Kippers. Everything was needed and we had shit loads of cash, Ben seemed intent on getting lots of basics but I onthe other hand fancied some delicacies so I think we ended up with a good selction of treats and provisions.
       Four fucking trolleys we filled, the poor lady on the till was in chaos I had to tell her to stop piling up more stuff but then he till actually said we couldnt buy anymore? Never heard that one, but I was kimd of releaved that we didnt have to carry any more .We had the manager and two other workers helping us luckily and the cab arrived shortly after a whippy ice cream. There are people who i have seen on the phone drving but this guy was having a full txt chat while driving us home over the rally style dirt tracks, I was a little concerned for our safety at several points and I ended up asking him t drive properly after we nearly hit a a truck pulling over suddenly before us. We got home nice and loaded the dingy to take to the yacht, we had bought batteries and my litlle casio keyboard was running low so i tried to find it, Ben had fucking chucked it away by accident in a major clear up the day before and was very apologetic when I told him how much it meant to me, although i did have a softspot for the thing i didnt want such small thing to reuin thetrip so I told him it was cool and he id he will get me a new one.

Day two

Day two

With a bit of a late night for all of us last night we all slept through the disturbing 6am alarms to wake to the sun beaming through the cabin windows. The dingy needed to get pumped up and the several attempts from last night had been in vain as the valve was broken! We managed to get a compressor and Mick the boat owner was grinning with accomplishment as the small vessel called Joker was inflated. Ben and I took the opportunity to row around the marina laughing about all the rich smarmaris social club reprobates as they sat twirling their thumbs waiting for their servants to serve them breakfast.We got back to the boat with a cigar I had bought from the marina deli and I lit it up to try to create new smell in the cabins, Mick saw it and said "you remind me of a film character" cheers i said, which one he said "Lassi having a shit" cheers so now I'm a stowaway border collie! 
The Gps guy came with a blinging new GPS and all the little odds and ends like water pumps and autopilots got sorted around us. Vince was not happy about the big drink up last night and seemed to feel abit worse for wear, tensions were high over apparent competence issues and mutany on the seemed on cards as Doug realised he could possibly be the captain instead of Vince. Despite the slight change in group dynamic everyone was still having a laugh and we went out for a lovely meal in the Marina restaurant, I chose a suitably sea themed dish of Octopus casserole which had loads of great flavour and although i feel like fucking rick stein saying this it inspired me for my own home cooking project with octopuses, a few beers where had again tonight but boose is band on the yacht while we are at sea so I thought I'd better make the most of our last night on land. I have a new bunk now and the door has a lock so hopefully I can play dead while the ridiculously early wake up schedule tommorow goes ahead

Sailing diary day one

Day one

Ive been asked to help sail a 55ft yacht from Marmaris in Turkey back to south of the river Thames

So after a nice little send off by my friends and my darling Vienna (who i must thank because she was extremely efficient helping me pack and prepare mentally) I was ripe and ready for adventure.

At 5am along came a fish refrigeration van which although the seats were separate from the fridge had let me say a very real 'essence, of what i am about to embark.

And so after a sleepy flight and a creaked neck we arrived with numb knees and a hatred for thomas cooks cramped seating plan. We attempted to aquire a cab, the roads are long and open and coming into Marmaris it almost felt like we were arriving in somewhere as epic as Thailand, with the big mystical looking mountains and ancient looking fishing boats

We met a the owner of the boat at the gate to the marina, he showed us through the colossal expanse of luxury motor yachts, one called the ocean something was matt grey shaped like it was a stealth warship with incredible arc like structures and wooden stairs going from a shallow platform at the stern, the cost must be in excess of 8 million pounds

By this point i was starving, the pontoon was long and vast and I kept thinking; is this our boat? We eventually came to Cleo, with a precarious ramp that didnt look ideal for a roller suit case but with some prince of persia balancing the crew and I presided onto what seemed like a sturdy but abandoned luxury yacht with slightly faded decking and a smell of unaired salt residue which reminded me of bile, nice.

Toby, Vince Doug and Ben are my crew mates and although they are not all greatly experienced sailors they give me the impression they have the skills and strength to complete the trip. The boat on the other-hand had a fair bit of work to be done on it and the guy who was apparently supposed to have been caring for it had not kept charging the batteries or looked after the engines.

We went and got a nice kebab from the marina restaurant with the strange combination of mashed potato of rice and cabbage we had some wine and i managed to get some sleep only to be woken buy the haunts of loud voices from the captains nest. Everyone was having a good laugh and drinking the bottles of double black jonnie walkers we had got half price at duty free, the atmosphere was good and we played some music and carried on with conversatisons of pirates and i didnt know that pirate flag was shown to the french and british navy to show you were not part of neither party, ben had made some great screen printed patches with his girl friend, i was pleased to receive one as a gift.

After figuring out that the strangle triangle bunk i in the bow had been sleeping in previously was meant for two I managed to secure a better bunk in the stern. Tommorow we apparantly wake at 6am to prepare, so i guess i should get my buzzing head down and get some more winks