36:15.66N 29:24.87E

Our first visitor, the fabulous Tess who Carol recruited into the Army.  Tess had only sailed once before, briefly, with the Australian Navy and her main recollection was that a lot of rum was involved. Clearly we needed to get back to basics.  So we did, rapidly moving through the safety drills and getting ourselves to an idyllic anchorage for a swim before breaking into the gin that Tess had brought.  As a high calibre QA officer Tess had not only brought the Bombay Sapphire but a large bottle of Schweppes tonic and a lime.  This girl leaves nothing to chance.

Just to backtrack for a moment.  We had mentioned our disappointment over meatballs in an earlier blog in that they seemed to be made using a synthetic mix rather than proper ingredients.  Mike’s sister Lesley in the States recognised our plight and e-mailed a recipe from the book she bought 40 years ago while living here.  Excellent, so we gathered the ingredients and set to work intending to surprise and delight Tess on her first night.  Some interesting ingredients such as cream and cream cheese were required but Carol found them all and set to work.  The mix was duly shaped into the shape of ‘ladies thighs’ for that was the name of this particular meatball recipe.  Into the pan and then the whole lot collapsed.  Tess therefore had a not so traditional plate of lamb mince crumbs; delicious but not entirely as planned.  We will try again but next time leave the mix for at least six hours to firm up. 

We had a tremendous week.  Tess got completely stuck in on the sailing and embraced the lifestyle with ease.  Perhaps not as much wind as we would have liked but when it blew, it blew pretty hard and Tess handled the helm as a pro.

We laid on another encounter with a Turkish warship but threw in the Turkish Coastguard as well just to add to the experience for Tess.  Once again, live firing.  Once again, no clear passage left so that yachts could proceed as we had done the first time.  Once again, just as we were turning back, they announced that the exercise was over four hours before the time they had told us ten minutes earlier.  There was one difference this time however – we actually heard some loud ‘booms’.

We visited Kekova  Roads, Kas and Kalkan, walked to some lovely views, swam every day (sea getting warmer at last) and enjoyed the Gin which, not surprisingly, didn’t last the week.  Thanks to Tess giving up some of her baggage allowance we now also have five new Marks and Spencer pillows and a decent potato peeler which have brought great joy in the bunks and the galley.

Complete control at the helm followed by some navigation practice.