Big Boat!

She tied up at the “Cruise Ship” dock and dwarfed the entire marina.

David and Goliath; Modern and Timeless, chose your own caption.  The perspective makes the sailboat look so much bigger than it really is in relation to Cavour.  Look at the masts behind her at the marina; like toothpicks.

She came and went without making a sound….

About 8 am her horn blasted indicating she’d be leaving the dock.  I was typing an email, but had every intention of watching her leave.  When I next looked up she was gone.

When an American Naval support ship docked in Subic Bay there were hundreds of crew all over the place.  We did see some of the Cavour crew in town: you could just tell who they were though they were dressed in civilian jeans and leather jackets.  They asked if they could pay in Euros!  I guess I’m becoming a “local” if I can tell who’s not.  But it wasn’t the invasion like back in Subic.  Not sure why.

Gwen said it takes very few crew to run this ship because of the automation so maybe that’s why there weren’t hundreds to come ashore.

Visit to the Arts and Crafts Center to see Doḡayla Bariṣ.

Remember when I tried to translate the poster and guessed something about singing and painting.  I was close.  The artist had taken poems and interpreted them in oil paintings.  Her partner had written music to go with the poems.  The group is concerned with protecting the environment and the great sea turtles.  If you go to youtube and type in their name Doḡayla Bariṣ and caretta (sea turtle) you can hear them.  

The poems and corresponding paintings were placed together.

A very interesting personality! 

We ate lunch down the street from the center.  It was wonderful pide…a big flat piece of bread with toppings sort of like pizza but not so heavy. 

They made their own dough and then added toppings that you can see to the man’s left. The dough was rolled through the machine with the roller.   Next time I order one I’ll take pictures before it gets eaten.  I took these photos after lunch.

He looked just like his dad who owns the restaurant and understands my Turkish!

Even during school vacation time there is homework to do.  He was doing maths.

I know most of you have worse weather than we do, some truly terrible weather.  But days and days of rain gets old too.  Most days have periods of no rain so we can get out.  But a full sunny day is rare in February.  Today, Tuesday, we had one and took full advantage to try out my new bike.  Mary, Rick and I biked to Iҫmeler just down the beach about 5 miles or so.  There’s a really nice walking/biking path so you can avoid road traffic.  Afternoons get crowded with walkers even in these off season times so I can’t imagine biking there in the summer unless you get up pretty early.  We had pizza for lunch!

Bike tweaking..

Rick and Mary have fold up bikes and Mary’s really didn’t want to completely unfold which made it tricky to ride so some repair was needed before we left the marina. 

Blue maskingl tape works perfectly to keep your pant leg out of the chain ring. 

Overloaded up and ready to go!

Mary gets lots of points for riding that bike…the seat was pointed to the sky so needed some adjusting and then it needed to go up some..but eventually it was okay. And it has those teeny tires. You can see the wonderful path leading away from Marmaris along the beach.

Flat!

Scenic

When the trail gets to Iҫmeler there’s a separate bike path which, or course, we’re not on.

Iҫmeler really shuts down for the off-season.  We asked some police for suggestions where to eat, tried to follow those directions eventually finding this great little pizza place.  I’m not wearing glasses because I’d taken off my sun glasses and didn’t want to unearth my regular glasses so just went without.  My eyesight is certainly good enough to eat pizza! 

You know you’re in Turkey when not only do you order tea with your pizza but you get to choose between English tea or Turkish tea.  I ordered English because it comes in a mug and Turkish tea comes in a lovely tea glass that is charming but only holds about 3 swallows of tea.  English tea comes in a mug so there’s more. 

After lunch we biked back to Marmaris stopping at the “big” Migros to get cereal since only that shop has the cereal Rick and Mary like.  Then it was back to the bike shop for me as my gears needed adjusting after my first “big” ride.  The fellow at the shop knows his business and all the cruisers go there.  He doesn’t smile much but he messed with my gears and tested the bike and oiled it again and there was no charge.  I love my bike!

Ru

I miss you Randal

Pretty deserted which, even in the off season, is pretty rare. 

Mary blowing in the wind!

The water came over the wall to the restaurants.

One of the few gullets still tied to the public wharf in town.

The wind really was quite fierce.  One of the cruisers recorded 49.8 knots of wind last night.  We could hear it but DoraMac was quite secure at the dock with very little rolling.

Ataturk’s statue stands guard even in the storms.

We walked to the Arts and Culture Center for coffee and saw there was to be a new exhibit.

National Forces Interview Exhibition  and signing by Nuri Kurtcebe a caricaturist who did images of the leaders for independence. (I’m guessing at all but the artist’s name.)  The red one says something about paintings of songs….but I think it’s somehow connected to environment groups concerned with sea turtles…or I could be waaaayyyyy off.

How to survive a storm.

As long as we were out, Mary reminded Rick they needed some gin…I saw these colorfully flavored bottles of Vodka.  But I’m sticking to wine.

It’s 4:24 pm and the boat is pretty toasty and I can see out the windows now.  The sky is a bit clearer, people are walking past the boat, and the weather is quiet.

I miss you Randal!

Hail

One day there’s hail and the next day it’s sunny as can be!

Some days this is a fountain and some days it’s a dog’s swimming pool!

This big yellow lab just trotted over and jumped in.  His shorter–legged pal just looked on.  The strays are often seen in pairs or a group; but they don’t act like a “gang.”  They are all friendly and I want to take them all home.

Cat visitor

Now that we’re close to the restaurants and not far from “fishermen’s bridge,” we’re closer to lots of the stray cats.  We can often hear one during the night and early morning walking around on the boat having  spent the night.  We don’t feed them or let them in because we don’t want them dependent on us or attached to us…or us to them like we were to that kitten in Israel.    I did make the mistake of giving a bit of chicken to the small doggy that followed us to the boat hoping for some of the cooked chicken we’d just bought in town.   I led her away from the boat and put the bits on the ground but shortly thereafter I heard some creature larger than a cat walking around on the boat.  It was the goofy dog.  We shooed her off and she jumped just in time before the boat moved further from the dock as it does in the wind.  None of the animals look hungry as there are feeding places around the marina and town. 

I have a new bicycle!   

   Aydin Motor where I bought my new bicycle                The owners, Father and Son…we guess

Randal is leaving for China on Friday and will be gone for a month.  I chose to remain here in Marmaris in great part because I just don’t enjoy spending that many hours in airports or airplanes.  I will miss seeing our friends in China, but I really wanted to stay here and continue with classes and projects and CLEAN THE BOAT!!!  Our cruising friends here have bikes so I thought I’d get one to join them on bike rides along the coast.  I’ve missed having a bike and this will keep me entertained while Randal is away. 

We certainly didn’t invest lots of money but then I won’t be doing serious mileage over mountains.  Just jaunts around town. 

I love my new blue bike with the wire front basket. 

Chart Plotter Problems

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t!  Our GPS is giving Randal fits.  All systems must be “go” before we move along in the spring.  And we need a new dingy and to get the life raft inspected, and and and….

Swedish Sune returned to Wednesday Morning Group to reteach the knots class and to teach how to make a monkey fist.  A monkey fist is made from rope wrapped around a rock or something hard.  The fist has a long “tail” that can be attached to your heavy dock line.  You throw the monkey fist to someone on the dock who then pulls it in to get to your heavy dock line.  Make sense? Wikipedia’s explanation was more confusing.

That’s a monkey fist from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey’s_fist

My fist and my monkey fist..made with lots of help from Sune and classmate Brigget.

Not so complicated at first…but by the end Sune was finishing it for me to make it all small and neat.

Sune, always patient and encouraging,  helps Mary with her monkey fist

If you think Mary looks confused, multiply that look by 10 and that’s how confused I was.

Viktoria                                               Mary                     Sue M

You put the right rope in, you wrap the right rope around, you put the right rope in and you turn it all around….da da da dada dada and da da dada dada,,,, that’s how to make a monkey fist!

And then there’s Randal’s Corn Syrup Cake

    Remember Randal bought all of that corn syrup in case he was able to stumble across some pecans so he could make more pecan pie.  Our pal Gwen, with her friends and contacts everywhere, got Randal some pecans just today!  In the meantime I’d found a recipe for Corn Syrup Cake

#1336 – Corn Syrup Cake

(by Shirley McNevich)

1/2 cup softened butter

1 cup lite corn syrup

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

2 1/4 cups CAKE flour

2 1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

In a mixer add 2 egg whites–beat until stiff and set aside. In a mixer add butter–beat. Add corn syrup–beat. Add 2 egg yolks–beat. Add baking powder–beat. Add milk–beat. Add salt–beat. Slowly add cake flour–beat. Remove bowl from mixer–add beaten egg whites to the batter and fold them in using a spoon. Pour batter into a greased 9 x 13 cake pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes–test with a toothpick for doneness. Serve with whipped topping or frost as desired.

http://momsbest.blogspot.com/2009/06/1336-corn-syrup-cake.html

Randal didn’t have a mixer or the correct sized pan.  The baking powder was bought in Malaysia several years ago   I liked the cake.  It tasted more like cornbread than cake, but that’s okay.  I think it would be great for breakfast with butter and strawberry jam.  Or clotted cream if one had clotted cream.  Randal wasn’t impressed.

I’m still trying to paint…and have learned just a tiny bit but can’t do even that bit consistently. 

More garlic paintings and more attempts to paint Marmaris; I can’t resisit fanciful colors…..