Lifted at Yat Lift and Home at the Merhaba Otel

July 31, 2012  HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAR !!!!!

Merhaba,

  We are just about ready to call it a day here at the yard.  We’ve been here since about 7:30 this morning so it’s time to go.  But I wanted to get off this first photo email of our Bodrum sojourn.

Ru

www.yatlift.com

We came to Bodrum to get work done on DoraMac. She needed to have the old ant-fouling paint sanded off and new paint put on. Our zincs needed to be replaced. Zincs keep the steel hull from rusting. That is a totally simplistic description of the process; but you’ve been with us before when we had the bottom done. In Batu Maung, Malaysia where we were with Patrick, and Elizabeth of LaBarque and the Little Brown Dog. Batu Maung was fun because P and E were there and E and I went off to the local wet market or took the bus to Georgetown. And we were parked in the shade of a huge building. Rebak was more work but Peter and Kathryn, Hans and Fien and Jim and Julia Parker were there. We’re by ourselves at Yat Lift, but it’s okay. We have taken a cheap, clean, quiet room in town at the Merhaba Hotel. It is Spartan, but the room has great AC, looks clean and smells clean, and the owner and managers are very friendly and helpful. It’s a two minute walk to the main beach restaurant/bar promenade but far enough away not to hear the noise. After our night passage to get here, we were asleep by 8:30 pm and didn’t wake till about 7 am. We are in a room for 4; a double bed and two singles because that’s what was available when we arrived. Today when we return we’re going into a “nicer” room with one double bed. I’ll take photos. And the view from the rooftop breakfast area; Super! http://www.merhabaotel.com/index.php?lang=en

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Lowering our motorbike from the flybridge to the dock is one thing; but to the ground from our hardstand: yikes! But it all went smoothly with the help of some nice Yat Lift workers.

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White walls, stone streets, bright blue doors and windows: exactly what an old street in Bodrum should look like. In the evening residents of the street come out to sit and pass the time.

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Our room was on the second floor and looked on to the street. Unusual for me, the window stayed closed because of the AC which is truly essential. During the night I actually got too cold and had to take a blanket from one of the other beds. Tonight I’m bringing some flannel pants to wear so my sciatic leg won’t start to hurt. It doesn’t like AC.

Breakfast is served at 8:30 am but we didn’t wait for it this morning. Maybe tomorrow. When we got back to the boat we ate our usual breakfast, checked email (the yard has great wifi) and then I put on my walking shoes and went off up the hill behind the boat yard. At 9:05 am it was already really hot. Dolmus (small bus) go buy regularly so if I pooped out I could catch a ride. I think their destination was the small residential area and resort further along the coast.

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Hotel where we are Not staying.

Introduction to Bodrum http://www.frommers.com/destinations/bodrum/2903010001.html

840km (522 miles) south of Istanbul; 240km (149 miles) south of Izmir; 180km (112 miles) west of Marmaris (by land about 80 miles by sea); 25km (16 miles) south of Bodrum Airport

When Turkish people wax lyrical over Bodrum, they are often describing the heavenly bays of the Bodrum Peninsula, namely Torba and Türkbükü. But even the center of Bodrum, with its Greek-style whitewashed houses dotting the hillside overlooking twin bays, is something to write home about.

Imagine that in 1925, shortly after the founding of the Republic and at a time when feelings of nationalism were high, Turkish writer (and Oxford-educated) Cevat Sakir Kabaagaçli was sentenced to 3 years of imprisonment in Bodrum for penning an article for which he was accused of "alienating the public from military service." Okay, so he was sent to the dungeon of St. Peter’s Castle, but having made a friend of the local governor, was released after a year and a half and found a house overlooking the sea in which to live out his charmed period of exile. (His publisher wasn’t so lucky; he was sent to Sinop, on the Black Sea.) The view from his home was so picturesque that it inspired him to pen piles of essays on the beauty and allure of life in what was then a backwater fishing village. It was these writings that attracted the intelligentsia of Turkey to Bodrum, a slow trickle that transformed this tiny fishing port of fewer than 5,000 inhabitants to Turkey’s most popular seaside destination.

In spite of the hype, Bodrum strikes the perfect balance among whitewashed stucco hillside houses dripping in bougainvillea, magnificent vistas, historic imprints, and blowout nightlife. St. Peter’s Castle dominates every corner of Bodrum from its spot at the middle of the resort town’s twin harbors. The crumbled yet enduring remains of the Mausoleum, one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World, also resides in Bodrum. And although it’s Turkey’s most popular "party destination," by day Bodrum is a quiet but thriving holiday beach resort, albeit with minimal actual beach. In the summertime the city’s twin harbors become densely packed with hundreds of the wooden gulets offering trips to the nearby islands or for the Mavi Yoluculu (the "Blue Cruise"), Cevat’s romanticized weeklong journey along the glorious coastlines of the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, Bodrum’s nightlife — an all-night party organized by club owners each trying to outdo the excesses and spectacle of the others — is infamous throughout Turkey. Bodrum’s popularity seems to have no limits, and as fast as the Turkish jet set can lay its claim to a secluded cove or sandy bay, tourism follows, spurring the entitled class to seek new unspoiled hunting grounds. Examples of this can be seen all along the Bodrum Peninsula, in the boutique hotels and beaches of Torba and Türkbükü; in the expansive coastlines at Yalikavak, Turgutreis, Ortakent, and Akyarlar; and in the poetry of the sunken ruins and waterside fish restaurants of Gümüslük. Bodrum is much more than the twin bays, and it still has quite a long way to go before becoming just another one of Turkey’s overbuilt seaside resorts.

The Maltese Falcon — After Süleyman the Magnificent’s conquest of Rhodes, Charles V ended the Knights Hospitalers’ 8-year exile in 1530, granting them Malta and Tripoli to block Ottoman presence in the western Mediterranean. The annual fee was one falcon, the namesake of a famous American classic, The Maltese Falcon.

Our lift from the water…

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Most yards use these straps under the keel. When we were lifted in the Maldives, they used our lifting rings.

This was just about the smoothest entry we made into a yacht lift area. The wind and sea conditions were really calm and I could just about hand the lines to the 4 men waiting to take them and attach us to cleats. In Batu Maung it was absurd. The wind and current were so strong it took almost an hour to get us in, even with a small motor dingy pulling our bow around. Thankfully there was a yard worker on our boat who threw the lines. He missed the first time and the tiny Malaysian man on the dock couldn’t hold the boat and there was no cleat. It’s a long ridiculous story with a happy ending so that’s all that matters.

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Man driving the lift. Man watching the man driving the lift.

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The bottom is a mess but the wax job Randal did in Rebak still reflects like a mirror.

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Kind of looks like a whale with crustaceans: the water is crystal clear.

You can see a crusted over oblong zinc and the whole where our bow thruster propeller is located.

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We didn’t quite fit as is; so the front sail had to be taken down.

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Getting the bolts out wasn’t so easy.

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Finally the sail could be put aside.

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Amazingly those little stands hold these big boats inplace.

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Though the yard is doing the work, Randal couldn’t resist working at the zinc to see its condition.

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Looking back at DoraMac on the hard during my morning walk. You can see Bodrum town in the background.