Not specifically, but they do charter boats out of the Greek Islands on the Turkish coast, and they said they could charter to us from Samos and ending in Rhodes. A one way charter! Perfect!

AND. They said that the boat could be taken into Turkey!

I know that there are some serious regulations that surround doing this, and I’ve looked into some of the procedures. After that first night on our first trip to Greece – the one where we were accosted by crazed Coast Guard with guns pointed at us at 1am – we take the issue of conflict and human smuggling between Turkey and Greece very seriously. But from what I’m reading, the charter companies can help you with the paperwork and if you cross your t’s and dot your i’s and don’t sneeze at the wrong moment – it isn’t too difficult to go back and forth.

Which for us, of course, means a whole new set of misadventures!

It’s just still too far away. I want to go now. But at least this time we won’t be trying to book a boat three weeks before we fly out. Maybe.

The problem with starting at Samos is that it’s sort of in the middle. We’d probably want to go North, and I have to admit, I’d love to visit Istanbul. But maybe we can work that in with the flights. It’s a bit of a haul by boat.

On the flip side, I’m just starting to look through the charts and figure out where Rod Heikell says the good cruising spots are. So perhaps there are enough wonderful spots to explore during 6 weeks of sailing between Samos and Rhodes and both Greek and Turkish environs.

This time, for a change, we have a lot of time to plan and look for recommendations from people who have been there.

Lots of time to dream of that Mediterranean water again…

(Adam Sandler)

So Kirk has asked his employer if he can bank his holidays and he received a positive response. So this means that we will possibly be heading for Turkey and up to six glorious weeks of sailing in 2013! The only issue I can think of will be finding someone (or someone’s) to live in our condo for the period and look after the monsters.

At least that’s the current train of thought!

So, time to haul out the charts and the reviews and start planning when and where! If anyone has any suggestions from past visits, do tell!

Some starting information on the coast of Turkey from sailingissues.com …….

Sailing in Turkey means cruising along the many gulfs and bays of the much indented Turkish coastline. It is also a journey back in time, with a plethora of archaeological sites, castles and temples that reflect its importance in ancient and medieval times. Especially the south-west coast – roughly speaking the stretch of coastline from Izmir via Kusadaşi, Bodrum, Marmaris, Fethiye and Kaş to Antalya – is an ideal cruising ground.

This stretch of Turkish coastline is usually divided into four different yacht charter areas:

• The Ionian Coast:   Izmir – Kusadasi – Güllük – Bodrum, a coastline which claims the to have the best climate and which shores brought forth the rich culture of the Ionians and their great philosophers.
• The Carian Coast:   Bodrum – Marmaris, the most popular sailing ground which includes the two largest yacht charter bases in Turkey: Bodrum and Marmaris.
• The west Lycian Coast:   Marmaris – Fethiye, the pirate coast with its wild, mountainous shores and hundreds of hidden coves.
• The east Lycian Coast:   Fethiye – Kas – Finike – Antalya, rock tombs and solid stone sarcophagi.

Turkey abounds with archaeological ruins dating from the dawn of civilization, inhabited by various Anatolian tribes, conquered, and occupied by Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Ottoman Turks, and finally establishing independence in the 1920′s under Ataturk. Besides the rock tombs and sarcophagi, most relics are of Greek and Roman origin. Many of the ruins are just part of the landscape, not fenced off.

So…maybe three years from now…and five weeks of sailing?

We are thinking that the Turkish coast might be calling us.

We loved the Aegean, and the Ionian wasn’t exactly what we thought it would be, but by the same token, we never dreamed we’d meet people that we would want to travel halfway around the world to sail with again. But that’s what happened. So now we just need to convince them to come to Turkey and hang with us for a vacation….. stranger things have happened…like traveling halfway around the world to meet people we’d met online on a photography site….

Our plane departed a bit late, but we had a tailwind and made up the time and arrived promptly….if there is one thing I can say about British Airways, they are generally punctual. We did have to sit on the tarmac at Vancouver for a few minutes before being allowed to disembark, they announced that someone wasn’t feeling well and had paramedics coming to help the passenger off….not me!

Our luggage all arrived, customs was a breeze and Deb had just pulled in to pick us up when I gave her a call. So grateful to you Deb for the ride home!

When we got home, Charlotte was well, but looking forward to heading to her own home after such a long time away. We weren’t actually sure who was going to be at our condo when we arrived, could be either Mom, could be both… The cats snubbed us for a few moments then decided we deserved a bit of attention. Gizmo was a bit more excited to see us right off the bat. Sunny and hot here, sunny and hot everywhere it seemed.

I’ll have a few more photos to post, haven’t downloaded anything from the camera from England yet. Many to sort through!

So grateful to everyone who helped make this a wonderful trip for us. And so sad it’s over, but the good memories make planning the next trip something to look forward to. Not sure when that will be, for the next while we will most likely be constrained to boating in our own beautiful waters of Howe Sound… postings most likely in the other blog…http://the-philosophical-fish.ca

Thanks everyone for visiting us as we traveled!

Cheers,
Paige & Kirk!

We headed out to find the New Forest. Oddly, it’s neither New nor really a Forest, but we were heading for breakfast with two more Flickr friends.

I have so many pictures since May 29th but I haven’t had time or a good enough connection to load them up….will have to wait until we are home now.

On we go, as we turn out of the hotel we immediately take a wrong turn on the first roundabout…not an auspicious start to the day. But we get sorted out and heading in the right direction and the computer takes us down some odd streets, but we make it out onto the main highway in the direction of the New Forest.

We arrive in Lyndhurst a bit early and start to fret about the fact that I can’t remember if we were supposed to meet Mary and Karen at the cafe (which I can’t remember the name of…) or in the parking lot. We have a bit of time so we grab the laptop and start wandering around looking for an unsecured wifi hotspot so I can check my Flickr mail where I know the answer lies. As we wander along the alley doing a classic “can you hear me now?” move with the laptop Kirk looks back and sees two women in a small blue car waving at us. They have found us! Whew!

The cafe hasn’t yet opened so we take a wander into the New Forest (which isn’t a forest…at least not by Canadian standards….open fields of scrub don’t usually attain the title of “forest” where we come from….did I mention that?). It is very pretty though…. and ponies and cattle wandering about freely add an interesting spin on things. The ponies have the right of way in the New Forest, and we see lines of cars as a pony wanders down the centre of the roadway. Apparently they release pigs in the forest as well at certain times. The pigs eat the acorns that fall from the trees The foals apparently eat them and it makes them ill as they are toxic to them, so the pigs help clean them up. Bit of natural way to keep the system running smoothly!

After breakfast we take a drive up to a pond and there are donkeys! One shaggy little fellow is crying out to have his photo taken but every time I point the camera at him his ears go back and he steps towards me. I know enough about livestock to understand that if I stand still things won’t end well for me…so I keep backing away. The little guy may be small, but I know he probably has strong teeth and I don’t need to arrive home with a donkey bite. We move on to a second pond and visit a swan family, take photos of water lilies and wander around the area. As Mary moves forward through the grass I hear a noise I have a bit of familiarity with and look down. Less than a foot from my foot is a small coiled snake valiantly hissing at me. I let out a surprised cry and step back laughing saying “garter snake”. At least that’s what I thought it was. Mary tells me to watch out, it’s an adder, and although not lethal, my bare toes pose an easy target and a potential visit to the hospital…hmm….don’t need that only hours before a flight. Hard to believe that little thing has such a nasty bite, I didn’t actually realize there was anything that nasty in England. No harm done, four camera geeks try to get a decent shot of him, he slips off into the grass and disappears. And we must take our leave. We say goodbye and offer yet again, should anyone visit Vancouver they must look us up.

As we are heading to Heathrow we make one last silly stop. Wouldn’t you know that there is a small community called Canada. So we did have to go so that we can visit Canada twice in one day! Yes, we are geeks.

We navigate our way to Heathrow, take a wrong turn trying to find the rental dropoff, end up circling around for a bit completely and utterly lost before we see the Car Rental Return sign. YAY! And at the last turn into the National rental lot…Kirk tries to turn immediately right instead of going around the roundabout. He’s done so amazingly well driving us safely around this country…….but let’s make one last attempt at a head on collission before we go… SCREECH!!! That’s me screaming, not car tires.

And now we sit in Heathrow waiting for our plane, enjoying a last pint of Strongbow.

It’s been a long trip, it’s been a wonderful trip. And interestingly enough, while it is usually the sights that make the trip for us, this one turned out to be the people. We met so many wonderful people. While we are tired and happy to go home, we can’t believe that five weeks have flown by so quickly.

We stopped in Poole Harbour and watched the ferry to France leave…quite an amazing sight to see such a large vessel navigate such a narrow channel. It also seems strange that it only takes two hours by ferry to reach France. I’ve been across the English Channel by ferry many years ago, I know it’s not far…but it seems strange that a run just longer than that to Vancouver Island lands you in another country.

Corfe Castle was amazing and the town below simply stunning. Danny was a gem and gave us his and his wife’s National Trust passes for entry and he stayed back while we took about 30 minutes to poke through the ruins. We felt badly that he didn’t come in with us because I’m sure we could have learned ten times more had he done so. But we appreciated it so very, very much!

Danny took us to a wonderful little village of thatched houses, Milton Abbas. The roofs are so cool. It’s amazing to think that there are still thatchers out there who do this kind of work. The town felt like something out of a story book!

From there it was a whiz back into Poole Harbour to meet the rest of the Flickr bunch. Danny dropped us off outside the pub and went to park the car. It’s easy to find strangers when you have a common hobby…just look for the table of people with piles of camera hardware! One fellow looks kinda like you Rae…so Tony was easy to find. I knew Helena was a blonde, and had a fairly good idea what the others look like (as well as one can from a 1cm square icon).It was so much fun to meet Danny, Tony, Helena, Jen, Donna & Mel! Funny how you can spend time on the internet and end up making friends with strangers halfway around the world. And I never would have believed that I could make friends through a medium that I have always considered to be somewhat impersonal…but what an amazing bunch of people!

We hung out and had a blast and compared camera equipment…what a bunch of geeks! The day was clear, sunny, and hot….and of course, we didn’t think to put sunscreen on. After lunch and a few pints 8 photographic geeks wandered the Quay and then took a ferry ride around the entire harbour. Fantastic! I go four weeks in the Mediterranean without a sunburn and manage to get a bit of a burn in Southern England. Not bad really, I just burned my neck a bit…so I can truly claim to be a redneck!

Eventually everyone had to disperse and we said goodbye. Danny was willing to continue to be at our disposal and taxi us about, but we had imposed enough and didn’t want to cause another divorce so we asked him to drop us off and took our leave.

The sun was dropping and we decided to take another shot at Durdle’s Door so drove back out that way and hoofed it down the steep steps, and I mean STEEP! We kept looking back up thinking….”that’s gonna burn…” But it was worth the effort, although we were unfortunately about 10 minutes too late to get the setting sun on the rock itself.

After we clambered back up the steps and back up the hill we headed for the hotel…we were exhausted. I turned the navigation system back on and worked out the route back. There was this one roundabout that we had encountered on our way into Bournemouth the first time….we thought we had it right and when we took what we thought was the proper exit, it slingshot us back onto the highway going the wrong direction. So as we approached it this time we were ultra careful and plotted our way properly…and we got slingshot back onto the highway going the wrong direction….again….I said I could navigate down through another way again but Kirk was insistent….he was going to beat that darned roundabout! So, we found another roundabout and circled back for another attack. And we managed it this time!

Eventually, after one or two more wrong turns, we fumbled our way back to the hotel and stumbled into bed and fell unconscious.

Anyway, today we had a full day. We hung out at Mary and Derek’s until about 10 am and it was really hard to tear ourselves away. They were such amazingly wonderful hosts and we would have loved to spend more time…but it is a short trip and we really did not want to impose any more than we already did.

Once we got underway we headed towards Dartmouth with a few detours on the way (read wrong turns). We took one turn and ended up in some little town where there was a ferry. We parked and walked down and took a few photos before backtracking. We tried to stick to the coast as much as possible and ended up in Fowey first. What a cool little place! However we actually kind of missed it. We took the ferry across and aimed for Polperro…but took a wrong turn and once we were committed…there was simply no turning back since the road was barely one lane wide (my mirror was often in the bushes!). So we ran it to the end and found ourselves in Polruan. We stopped and took some photos since it looked out and across to Fowey. We turned around and found the right road to Polperro…Kirk muttering the entire way about the fact that I seem to find my way onto the smallest narrowest roads on the planet. …. Eventually we popped out near Polperro and when we saw a wonderful Inn with a waterwheel we turned in…unfortunately we both missed the sign that said no cars…but after a few minutes we figured it out and managed to get turned around and find the parking lot. We walked back down into Polperro and loved it! We stopped for Cornish pasties and stumbled back to the car full of meat, potatoes, and pastry.

Back on the road and aiming for Dartmouth. But we missed the right turnoff there too….and ended up taking a ferry to get back across to visit. But it was worth it. Dartmouth is delightful. It’s warm and an ice cream cools us down as we sit and watch the boats drift by. The we have to take another ferry to get back to where we started.

Then it’s on to Lyme Regis. I can’t actually recall why I waypointed this place…I think it was just to force the navigation software to take us on a route along the coast… but are we ever glad I did! What a gem of a town. We stop and buy fish and chips for dinner and eat it down by the water. It’s been a bit of a carb filled day and we have spent the better part of a month eating salads, so the chips weren’t really necessary and we spend some time causing fights between seagulls. The beach along here is stunning. And we look down towards the massive breakwater behind which are some boats. And the sailboats are sitting upright…with their keels firmly entrenched in the mud. Very cool.

We’d love to stay, but we still have a long way to go and need to push on. We drive out to Portland Bill and visit a lighthouse. WATCH OUT FOR THE CHICKEN! LEFT LANE, LEFT LANE!!!! DON’T HIT THE BUNNY! LEFT, I SAID LEFT! NO THE SECOND LANE OFF THE ROUNDABOUT!!! NO THE OTHER LEFT! Apparently I was looking at the computer when we had an almost close encounter with a massive truck (it was apparently an inch from Kirk’s mirror) …glad I was looking down. I didn’t miss the other stuff though. NO NO NO….NOT THAT LANE!!!!

Then on to the Durdle Door…but the light is falling and the clouds are rolling in. It’s just too late to make the hike down to the Door and we think we might have time tomorrow evening to visit if the Flickr friends get tired of us. If not, well, just another reason to come back.

So on to Bournemouth only to discover that our hotel closes at 9 pm…it’s 10:07. There is a phone number so we find a sympathetic person at another hotel who calls for us and the Hotel manager says he will meet us at the front counter if we come back. We do, he does, and we have our room. It’s fine. It’s a bit of a backpackers place, and this neighbourhood is a bit of a backpackers/watersports place…but it’s fine. it’s clean and has a bathroom. What else do you need…arguably I can even live with a communal bathroom, wouldn’t be the first time…but it’s the clean part that is important to us and this works just fine. Tomorrow we meet a bunch more people and will have a fun day I think!

If we didn’t have a GPS navigation on the Mac…we would NEVER have found our way! Period! We weave our way on different levels of roads and highways, round traffic circles (and mostly manage to stay in the right lane) and zip through the most amazing little towns and villages. We make one stop to take a photo of one of the white horses of Wiltshire carved into the hillside. Amazing that they could make them look proportional when they couldn’t get into the air to look down from above. They aren’t exactly the Nazco sand carvings, but they are still impressive. Wiltshire is crop circle country and we had driven up to Windmill Hill earlier before breakfast, home to regular circle activity we understand.

Each town we drive through makes our heads snap around. The buildings are fantastic, the architecture wonderful and all we want to do is stop and explore and photograph each one…but we have no time. Frustrating! We wish we had more time here!

Eventually we wend our way to the M5 and fly down to past Exeter before we finally see signs to the Eden Project. We are about 15 minutes behind schedule and are looking to find a phone to call Mary, but can’t see one so we just push on and when we drive into the parking lot we see two couples replete with camera gear…they MUST be our friends. We’ve never met in person, only exchanges comments on photos and chatted online in a photo group on Flickr. And it is wonderful to finally meet and speak to them!

Bob and Fran have come 2 hours South to visit the Eden Project. Mary and Derek live closer in a small village called Ponsanooth. We have a wonderful time visiting the most amazing biomes imaginable. The Eden project is a massive botanical conservatory built into the belly of an old china clay pit. One biome contains the tropics while another contains the Mediterranean. Funny to be in England and see some of the same plants we left behind 24 hours ago! The project is like nothing we’ve ever seen and we are SO glad we made the trek down this far. No regrets.

Afterwards we follow Mary and Derek back to their home…and we would have been terribly lost if we had not. They have a fabulous little home at the top of a quiet lane with peaceful atmosphere. We spend the rest of the evening sharing the evening with them and they treat us to a fabulous dinner and even more fabulous conversation until we are all exhausted and need to turn in for the night. They generously offered to put us up for the night and we are ever so grateful.

Security took a round out of Kirk, but we made it through in time to grab a last Greek “twinkie” (the chocolate croissants we love) and the plane was boarding.

The flight was uneventful although we did not get to sit together since I couldn’t do a web check in as there was no internet within any reasonable distance from the marina.

On arrival we found out luggage (although it was the last to show…we thought we had lost it) and then found our way to the car rental. That took some time, as did waiting to get the car. Once underway we both tried to adjust to being on the wrong side of the road and that was somewhat harrowing.

We did find the Inn eventually, although and hour later than we thought we’d be there. We drove down to Marlborough for dinner at a curry house and then when we came out….Kirk immediately attempted to drive on the right (wrong) side of the road into oncoming traffic! Scream!!!

OK, let’s not do that again!

Until we make a right hand turn and he does it again a bit later! Other side! OTHER SIDE!!!

This morning we got up at about 5 am and drove to Avebury and walked in among the stones in the fields with the sheep as the sun came up. It was lovely and the cool air felt good! We then realized that we were not too far from Stonehenge, and although it doesn’t open until 9:30 am, we walked around the fence and took a few photos before driving back up to the Inn for a shower and breakfast.

After breakfast we will hit the road again!

1445…still no plane….

Lots of agitated looking passengers and…still no plane….