Blogs from Marmaris, Aegean, Turkey, Middle East

It was time to start our long journey back to Tsamaya. Our first leg was getting a ride to the Albany airport from our friend Lisa who picked us up at 8AM. Next was catching the shuttle bus to JFK which we have used before. It leaves Albany at 9:30 and arrived at the terminal for Turkish Airlines about 2PM. From previous experience we knew that the Turkish Airline counter would not open until 3:30 PM as the flight doesn’t leave until 7:30 PM. Surprisingly that time actually goes by quite quickly. We got in line at Turkish Airline, checked our baggage which included one of our carry on bags as we have the luxury even as economy ticket holders of being allowed 2 suitcases each. This way we only then had to deal with our ... read more

We made it back to Marmaris after a “little” delay on our Easy Jet flight from Gatwick airport. It was scheduled to leave at 3:30PM but we had gotten a message on our phone that it was postponed for 1 ½ hours. That wasn’t too bad and they notified us about 1:30 pm so we decided to take time to have a combination lunch/dinner at the airport. They actually don’t provide you with the actual gate that you need to go to until close to the time of departure. We were told by one of the staff that we should probably start to go through security about an hour before our flight as they would then have the gate assigned. That would mean we wouldn’t have to go until about 4PM based on this information. We ... read more

Finally, time came to return to Tsamaya. Our original plans were to fly back to Turkey where Tsamaya has been for the winter, but a couple of weeks before our flight, Bob hurt his leg to the point of having trouble walking. Thankfully after checking it out to be sure it wasn’t due to a blood clot, the Dr. figured it was more likely a torn muscle. We are fortunate to have an excellent physical therapist that we have used before and she was able to work miracles on Bob. His leg improved and by the end of May we were comfortable with the idea of leaving and getting back to the boat. It was a long trip starting on Monday, May 31st leaving our house at 8AM with our neighbor, Brian, driving us to the ... read more

Well, the next occasion to celebrate was Bob’s birthday on Oct 25th. As we just got back from our wonderful trip to Cappadocia, I was feeling bad that it wouldn’t be too exciting. Thankfully, as Bob keeps telling me – when we do these trips around our birthdays, they are for both of us! The one thing we did know that would make the day special was getting to reconnect with Darren and Sue. Darren, we got to know years ago (approx. 40 years ago!) when we all lived in Botswana. We were so excited to hear from him before we finalized our trip to Cappadocia so we could coordinate our dates to be sure to be here in Marmaris when he and Sue would be able to visit. Unknown to me, Darren has been following ... read more

Yes, as Tsamaya is a sailboat, we were finally able to leave Fethiye and head toward her winter home f which will be at the Marmaris Yacht Marina. It isn’t that far away, but we decided with the weather forecast we could take a few days more in order to have a chance to anchor out and do a little exploring as well. We not only wanted to enjoy the pleasure of being on anchor for a few days, but with having new batteries Bob also wanted to check out how things were working while away from shore power for a few days. It turned out to be a great first day away from Fethiye, although we could have used a little more wind. We were able to get a sail out which was a great ... read more