25 | December | 2014

B Dock

Netsel Marina

Marmaris, Turkey

Iyi Geceler,

To have been absolutely correct I should have written Iyi Akṣamlar. You say Iyi Geceler when you absolutely won’t interact again that day. But here I am again with the photos from yesterday’s festivities. Today was mostly boat work!

DoraMac

Christmas morning delivery! Connie surprised us with home-made cashew cracker jacks and we surprised her by being away when she came by.

Off to Christmas dinner at Joya Del Mar

I planned to walk the 3+ miles to dinner and talked some folks into going along.

Connie, Jane, Jill, Lisa, and Hannah-Ruth

Greg , Quinn and Roberto were a bit further behind.

The sun fought with the coming rain to make lovely colors.

Stopping to take some photos; we arrived just before the rain came. But it was a brief shower that passed quickly.

The “man in charge” and his staff did a great job! These were the shrimp/avocado cocktail-salad.

Connie and Jane with a glass of pre-meal punch.

Connie and Irene in the dress she’d knitted and Connie in her Black Dog shirt.

Connie and Gwen

(Here’s a Connie, there’s a Connie, Everywhere’s a Connie Connie)

It was beautiful inside and out…….

The wine coolers changed colors. Cool!

Soup, shrimp cocktail, huge egg roll, main meal and then dessert required lots and lots of silverware! Randal and I chose turkey, the other option being lamb so tender it fell from the bones. The bones went home for the marina dogs.

Back deck with a pool for the summer time diners.

The beach

Looking toward Yacht Marine in the distance

Men in Hats, Randal (sans glasses) and Paul with his fedora!

Both lovely men in lovely hats but they couldn’t compete with the woman below!

She wasn’t with our group but would have fit right in. It wasn’t her hat but I’d seen her try it on so asked for a photo and she kindly ( and bravely) obliged.

Cheers!!!!!

Christmas cracker crowns! Connie Jane and Tom.

Ours was the slightly rowdy table !

“Mayor Colin” and the lovely Jane from Hydeaway. Colin handles the morning net fairly ofter, shows the Monday movies, has office hours at the coffee shop every morning; hence the term “Mayor.”

Nadida, the agent who helps us all with the Turkish rules and regulations, Bill and Joan!

They were great and sang lots of crowd favorites.

A very Edward Hopper – ish image of the staff taking a well-deserved quite time.

Iyi Geceler

Christmas Day the weather cooperated beautifully. I took a morning walk to town for the post office, open here on Christmas as it’s only a holiday for visitors. At 2 pm I met up with about a dozen cruisers who walked the 3 miles to Joya Del Mar for the Christmas Dinner Gwen had organized for us. I was certainly glad I’d walked as there was soup, shrimp and avocado salad, spring roll, turkey with stuffing and then a huge chocolate dessert. I skipped the soup and had a few bits of Randal’s dessert and was still daha doldum. “much full!” Much fun!

Today we were ‘back to work’ on the boat though I did take a lovely early morning walk to beat the rain; which actually didn’t come until evening. And we took our first motorbike ride to the big Migros and the Import Shop looking for boxes of Fruit’N Fibre for Randal’s breakfast. It’s imported. At Migros it was 25 TL (divide by 2.25) and still a crazy amount for cereal. At the Import Shop it was 16 TL so we bought 2 boxes. We’d cleaned out the frig and cabinets before we’d left for the US so must stock up again. Hopefully the weather will again cooperate and we’ll motorbike to the Sunday Market for fruit and vegetables and whatever. Always fun. I’ll share few Christmas Lunch photos next. This email is my first visit this year to the Arts and Culture Center.

DoraMac

One of my favorite places in Marmaris is the Art and Culture Center. I love to see the changing exhibits; and the coffee shop is full of people interested in the arts! Not that I can speak with them, but you can feel their energy and interest, their aliveness. (Our time in London cost me much of the Turkish I had learned. Thankfully I still have Peter’s notes from our classes in North Cyprus so if I’m not too lazy I’ll get them out and study!)

Monday morning I walked to the Center for a quick visit as there’s too much boat stuff to be done to linger anywhere. After three months away the whole boat needs a good scrub inside and out so for now that must be my main focus. But as exercise is essential, I do take an hour a day for a walk.

There are two exhibits at the Center now: paintings and photographs. I believe the paintings were all done by students and teachers in the classes offered at the Center. The photographs were from a photo club. Some of the subjects are universal and some are reflective of Turkey.

The former fish market now the Arts and Culture Center.

The galleries are on each side of the building.

Watercolor studies which really look better than my photos convey.

Various portrait studies. Ken, the cello player painting made me think of you!

I instantly thought of the musical Cabaret

I like food paintings

I drove myself crazy for a while trying to draw/paint pomegranates but never thought to just draw the seeds. I think these were colored pencil or pastels. Not sure.