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