Merhaba,
Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone….tomorrow. My Valentine is off in China so I’ve bought my own chocolate and white wine. This morning was Art Group and we two special guests. One was Sune who came to show more knot work. The other was Jane from Hideaway. She had made a gourd lamp and it was lovely. I’ll write about that next. I wanted to do this particular story today as today is Gwen’s birthday. I took lots of photos of the event and here’s the story.
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Gwen’s Birthday
The heart and soul of Netsel Marina is located on F dock on a boat named Kornwerd. “Gwen on KW” as she is known to cruisers, came to Marmaris in 1994 so there’s not much she doesn’t know about living here as a cruiser. Gwen’s always happy to share that information. And plan the bus excursions, the Happy Hour buffets, the pot lucks at Sailor’s Point, and lots of other activities that make marina life feel like home rather than just the place you park your boat.
http://cruisingtips.net/mbc/ is Gwen’s website. Below is her own description of “Gwen.”
“Several years ago when newly arrived cruisers and liveaboards checked into Netsel Marina, they would ask a question at reception. Sometimes it was more than just one question. The answer from staff was “Go see Gwen.” (Gwen has been in Marmaris a million years!)
These questions were the start of this web site and the answers developed over the years became the every growing FAQs document within the site. Every question and answer from A-Z resulted into an 80+ page document. That is Objective # One.
Objective #Two relates to the many trips, excursions, parties, events in this site for those cruisers, liveaboards and friends who stay in Marmaris Bay, sheltered from Mediterranean and Aegean storms and gales, between September and the end of May every year.
Requests for friendly, small group, non-tourist, most popular, off season and inexpensive trips were received. And happily for me, I had contacts to help us out with transportation, an English speaking guide, a driver and places to discover and people to meet.
Some excursions are offered twice — fall and spring. Other excursions and events are one time annually only, such as the invitation to only Marmaris Bay Cruisers to Pamukkale Winery, the 8 days to the Black Sea, Eastern Anatolia, Southwestern Turkey, and others. The problem with Turkey is that more than a mere winter is needed to unveil her secrets. But we do our best to visit the more interesting and off-the-beaten places.
From one day mystery tours, farmhouse luncheons in the countryside or riverside trout BBQs in mountain villages, shopping days in Izmir and Bodrum, overnight trips, and 8 day explorations not offered by commercial travel agencies now make wintering in Marmaris an exciting, educational, unique experience.”
Randal and I have signed up for several of Gwen’s day trips and this spring will take advantage of two multi-day trips to visit the Cappadocia area in March and the Ankara area in April. And whereas Gwen is the Queen Bee, Mary, Rick, Randal and I are among those who are willing to be the worker bees. It’s fair and it works.
So when word got out that it was Gwen’s 70th February 13th everyone wanted to help celebrate. Kerstin and Mary did most of the planning with bits of help from other folks including Zehra, Lee and me. There were hand-made gifts, flowers, and wine. There was a birthday cake with singing candles. There was even a “diamond” tiara and a magic gold wand.
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6 am this morning I got the inspiration for Gwen’s birthday card; a cake decorated with garlic cloves. Gwen loves my garlic paintings. There was no trial run so the garlic look a bit like strawberries. I used the glitter paint my Roanoke Art Buddy Sarah had given to me so it did shine! Mary, who has good penmanship, wrote Happy Birthday Gwen in the left-hand corner. My gift to Gwen was a small garlic watercolor painting in a little frame. It looked like a garlic. |
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I was skeptical, but Mary spied a glittery tiara in a shop window and suggested we buy it for Gwen. I went along with the idea, but it was brilliant…no pun intended. And since she would have a crown, a scepter was needed…hence the golden wand. |
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Mary crowning Gwen “MS Netsel Marina” and placing the diamond tiara on her head. |
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Gwen knew they were garlic cloves and who painted the card….everyone at the lunch signed the card so there were lots of languages as we cruisers come from all over the world. |
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Lee, Zarah and Gwen hiding behind her beautiful flowers. |
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Roasted, glazed onions and arugula were some of the pre-meal meze and then folks ordered from the menu hoping they would recognize their dish’s name when it was called out. I missed mine as I was expecting it in Turkish but they were using the English names for the dishes.
This was Joanne’s choice; minced, spiced meat wrapped in bread with tomatoes and a yogurt cream dip. I had eggplant mush and steak kebabs. It was okay. I like eggplant in any form and the meat was flavorful and tender. But I thought I was getting eggplant kebabs, not eggplant and kebabs. But, as the saying goes, “You pays your money and you take your chances.” Gwen tells the story of ordering a truck load of cooked chickens and receiving a truckload of frozen turkeys. Things can get lost in translation but almost anything you do get tastes good. |
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There were about 40 folks at the lunch party, some from Netsel Marina, some from Yacht Marina, and many expats who live around the Marmaris area. |
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The cake candles sparkled even from behind the water bottle! See the gold wand!! |
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Dishing up the cake which was really good with real whipped cream and mashed banana filling.
Jane and Ginny were had designs on Gwen’s tiara. It was very sparkly. |
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This is Gwen from her life as a State Department employee gallivanting around the world. Gwen brought it to show off how cute she was, but we think she looks great now! After all if 60 is the new 40 then 70 is the new 45! |
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Links to what other cruisers have written about Gwen.
http://hr48enki.blogspot.com/2012/11/off-course.html (our friends Diana and Alex’s website.)