S/y Mashona

Cesme marina

Mashona left Cyprus at the beginning of April en route to Istanbul for the start of the rally. We had an uneven full night crossing to Alanya marina arriving there late afternoon.

The marina is still being completed but looks really wonderful swimming pool, tennis courts, restaurant and large shower and toilet block.

They have a new 100 tonne travel lift with remote control and a very large hard standing. This definitely looks like the place to winter next year. Hasan and Savas tell me they already have many bookings. The town is only a short Dolmus ride away and is open all the year round they even have a real bear pub ‘The Red Tower Brewery’
We then went on to Finike where it was  good to meet up again with our old friend Tuncay. Their marina is full and they have a new office building.

We had a spell of bad weather then which meant we had to overnight in Kekova not a bad place to stop. Kastelarizo was next fresh calamari but at a price!! 57 Euros for lunch I am afraid there is going to be a lot of cooking on board this year.

We stopped in a Kapi creek and were surprised to see a few other yachts there different from last year when there where only us.

Through then to Simi for a top up on fuel and there we saw Sansipapp also going to Istanbul.

As we passed D marine we spoke to Ed on Tahlequa they will join the rally in Bodrum.

A long 16 hour day saw us in Samos harbour, the new marina is now up and running and we had a sun downer with Karen and Andrew from Creswell jenny participants in 2007,

We are now in Cesme marina with Can, they are going to officially open the marina next year in May and its going to be opened by a friend of the Queen of England!!!
We were on our way when we had a gale warning it didn’t materialise but was a little bumpy on our run into Cesme.

We are working hard with Hasan and Hayal to complete the rally bible and coordinate the tours.

This year the weather is completely different from last year we have had either to much wind or not enough or if it was good it was on the nose, last year we managed to sail all the way to Istanbul.

We are planning to leave tomorrow for Lesbos and Bozcaada and hopefully be in Istanbul for the start.

The prices in Greece we found very expensive and Turkey I think this year will benefit from being out of the Euro zone. Even Lidel our favourite stop for wine and beer had increased.

We hope to see you all down the line as they say.

Dave, Kath and Tilly (the ships cat and Navigator)