TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

We sailed to ekincik late in the afternoon as we went we kept an eye out for the caretta caretta AKA logger head turtles we didnt see any but we were still happy just cruising along.

When we got there I jumped straight into the water not knowing if it was cold or not. Later on me and my brother jack made a water swing from the boat to the pontoon it was pretty bad but we still used it.

That night we went to a restaurant me and jack had steak and nonie had a fresh sea bass and baz had lamb when we got back to the boat i went for a night swim it was pretty sick.

We have been working on the boat for the last week. We have clean and prepared the boat to be polished by Mustafa. He is repairing all the chips in the boat. The electrician has put some new lights on the cockpit, putting some on the roll bar we are having put on. These will light up the water for our night swims.

The Dingy has been serviced, cleaned and has a new cover made for the sides. it also got new lights!

Yullam from Elstrom Sails has put a a new Sail on for us. we now have three sails. He also is making the new Shade covers so we are not sitting in the sun all the time.

We are having new cushions and seating made by Engin of Star Upholstery which will hopefully arrive before my brother Jack arrives

Today I also went and bought new flags. I put up a new Turkish flag as we would be in trouble if we left our old one as it was torn.

We are bargaining for water skis???

I am off to the pool now with Nonie while the workers finish on the boat…

I also am reading a very good book by a writer called Earnest Hemmingway it is called “The old Man and the Sea”

Hi now I’m in Marmaris it took ages to get here from the air port but  it is pretty cool . The place were staying is pretty nice we relaxed on the first day and went to a cafe restaurant that’s called pineapple today we cleaned the boat then we went to the pool for most of the day .After that we wet back to pineapple and chilled for a while. Later that night we went to my uncle baz’s friends restaurant .

Today baz woke me and my aunty lee up first me and baz went to the boat and we got someone to anti-foul[paint the bottom of the boat in black] then lee went to the gym. After that we went to the pool and had a swim.that night we went to a terrible place called the family restaurant later we got ice-cream

Today is pretty exciting we finally get to put the boat in the water we are putting in with a big crane .I found out that the person who sanded and anti-fouled the boat .His name was mustafa he is a sailor aswell after we put the boat in we went and had lunch at the pineapple then we chilled out on the boat that night we went to a place that we call bread in the box because we dont understand the real name we call it bread in the box because there is a box of bread at each table.

Today we set sail for ciflik it took about 1 hour and 10 mins to get there when we went there we saw baz’s friend fartie we had lunch straight away after that baz taught me how to use baby bella [our dingy] so now i drive it every were. Then we went snorkling around the rocks and we saw a squid.

today we went for a swim straight away it was so hot it was our last day in ciflik so we were in the water for most of the day when we got back from breakfast we set sail to go back to marmaris we saw dolphins in the water when we got back we relaxed for a while then went to pineapple fo dinner then we played on the computer for a while and I noticed that it gets dark at like 9.30 pm .

Flight: Our flights were all so long the first one to Bangkok was 9 hours our next flight to Dubai was 6 hours then our last flight was 4 and a half hours. Our stop over at Bangkok was quick it was 30mins our stop at Dubai was 6 hours when we were there I got a watch and some good headphones and I had an xxxl king burger it was massive. Arrival: When we got to Istanbul we got some lira and euro’s we got our baggage very quick the it while to find our driver but we eventually found him we sat down with the other people when we were waiting for him to find more people when we got to the car it took about 25mins to get to our hotel it was called oceans 7 it was very nice. Day one sites: We didn’t do much really we walked up to the new mosque and relaxed a bit we saw people praying I found out that in turkey instead of euro’s they used lira we were all pretty jetlagged so we just walked around we went across a bridge were if you looked across it you would see about 100 fishing rods it was amazing. Day one night: That night because I had already eaten I was not too hungry but still we went out and had dinner. we didn’t get much so my aunty had kofte [It is minced lamb it is like lamb meatballs] and my uncle had salt and pepper squid as we were having dinner we heard very loud noises and my uncle told us that was the prayers. Day two sites: Topkapi’s Palace the home to selim the sot who drowned in the bath after drinking too much champagne, In the palace there were three court yards the first court yard it was mainly just the grand entrance and gardens .The second court yard was the workings of the palace were food was made and only the sultan and the valide sultan[mother of the regioning sultan] were allowed through the middle gate on horseback .The third court yard is also known as the gate of felicity or gate of white eunuchs ,was the entrance to the sultans private domain .when meetings were held the sultan would listen through a small gate up high in the room .I had great fun looking and hearing all about historical places. Harem, the women of Topkapi’s harem had to be foreigners as Islam forbade enslaving Muslims, Christians and Jews .Girls to be bought as slaves [often being sold by their parents at a good price].The word harem means something forbidden. In one part of the Harem was the place were black chiefs stayed. Day two night: Tonight I was very hungry so we went to a place called ocean’s 7 the same name as our hotel I shared a kebab banquet my uncle had a fillet of chicken in the middle of the kebab banquet was a small fire it pretty cool I thought all of it was pretty nice. Day three sites: Aya Sofya, the Aya Sofya is a very historical place it has been three different things it was a church a mosque and now a museum. It was built in the 6th century it was turned into a mosque in the 15th century and in the 19th century it was tuned into the museum. It was turned into mosque by covering all the mosaics and by building minarets. When it became a museum they uncovered of the mosaics. They were covered up because in a mosque you are not allowed to have faces or sculptures. Egyptian spice market, In the spice market there were many different shops of spices, jewellery, sweets. We tried many different types of Turkish delights. In part of the spice markets was a flower and animal market it had cats, dogs, birds, fish and even Iguana that cost 50 lira. There was cheese that had been wrapped in goat’s skin 1 and a half years. It tasted very nice. Bosphorus River, The river is 32km long on one side of the river it is Europe and on the other side it’s Asia and it’s all in turkey we could see Greece from where it so cool. We saw 4 different palaces they were the summer, winter, administration and hunting .The closest expanse in the river is at the second bridge the water gap is 660m and the bridge is like the golden gate bridge in san Francisco which extends to 1100m. Blue mosque, The blue mosque is like the normal mosque but much larger there is Islamic calligraphy in all mosques on the ground there is a carpet and the pattern is the tree of life which has the tulip which in their beliefs is the flower of heaven. Day three night: Tonight we went to a place 360 it was on top of a building you could see the hole of Istanbul. when we ordered it took a while for even the water to come to come it took ages for the starters to come. I had sashimi my aunty had stuffed zucchinis and my uncle had Zen beef noodles and spicy broth for the mains I had gorgonzola beef my uncle had the same and my aunty had a salad Carpaccio[sword fish] it all took ages but it was ordinary. After dinner I got a bird whistle it’s pretty cool.