Coming to an end

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Well the time has come for us to get the boat on the hard and clean it down. We are now in Turkey at a place called Maramis were the boat will stay for the next 8 months. Our last Greek island was called Simi and was just so neat as a farewell place. We hired moter scooters and whizzed around the island on some incredable roads and swam at various little beaches with small Tavinas supplying us with the required food etc. Magic stay. The day we left this island we had to go and see customs to get passports stamped etc. Off to the port authorities then off to the Police station were they do all the paper work. Took forever but when there we all came down to reality. The station was a large building with a large balgony on the 1st floor and when we went up it was crowded with about 150 people. One of the cops who seemed to be in charge of these people asked if we wanted to have a look at the refugees. What a woeful sight and as I said, reality, and we are reminded of just how lucky we are. These people have come from Syria and other places. They come up through Turkey and then are taken from there, for a payment, to this island and dropped of on the coast then they come over the mountains and suddenly they are caught and are in the police station. We were there for some time so could watch how they just sat in the same place and we were told that they had nothing. No papers no money and the kids didn't have anything to play with and the mothers were beside them selves. We thought it would be good to buy a lot of toys but were told that this may just lead to trouble. They are not allowed to move away from the area unless escorted and it was just such and eye opener. About 30 mtrs away there was large launch that would have been about a $80 million boat. Further down the wharf were a lot more in the range of 10 to 50 million range. Just quite bezar. We were very quite for while. Any way, a good sail into Turkey and then a swim in a magic bay before heading into the marina. Martin and I will clean down the boat for the next few days and then we are off home on Saturday. Looking forward to catching up with every one espeially family.

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Photos

Simi
Beautiful village and island

Simi
On the road out of the village. Just so magic.

Very steep.
Martin and Ross heading down the mountains

Bathing beauties
Martin Robert and I enjoy the water and the surroundings.

Hells Angels
Ready Steady go. Racing along to the next beach. Martin Bruce Robert and Ross

Hells angel by himself
I enjoyed this so much I may have to buy one.

Comments

[Sue]

Scooter Delight
It looks like you put the scooters to good use and enjoyed them. I don't know about the steep downhill part! Lovely photos of the island, it certainly looks idyllic. Have a good trip home and enjoy the final part of your stay. Thanks for the blog its been great.