The Land of Cats (and Dogs)

Another beautiful sunset

Our first week back on the boat was spent just trying to locate items.  Captain Andrea had re-arranged items for his trip so we were hunting and pecking till we located the previously re-located items.  Every day we would get up and walk to the marina which was fine as it was all downhill.  But in the afternoon we would have backpacks full of groceries and now had to climb uphill!  After that first week, our neighbor, who had been watching over Talaria for us, loaned us their scooter since they had just bought a new one.  Michael was one happy camper!

The scooter

As you can imagine, sixteen months of neglect left us with a maintenance/repair list that is quite long.  Item number one on the list is to put fresh anti-fouling paint on the bottom.  Boats bottoms are painted with special paint that keeps the growth of barnacles at bay - at least for a season or two.  The bottom first had to be sanded and cleaned.  Then one coat of primer was applied followed by two coats of anti-fouling paint.  The whole process took a little over a week.  This is now week four and the painting is completed.  Hoorah!  Talaria is scheduled to go back in the water on Friday - February 12th!

Putting the primer coat on

Needless to say we have been working on the boat so much that we really have not seen much of Kaş - we go from the apartment to the marina and back.  But we did notice that there is a very large population of cats here!  Kaş' approach to "pets" is unusual.  No-one owns the cats, they are communal pets.  Most everyone feeds them and leaves them water.  And some folks go so far as to build them little cat houses. They wander in and out of buildings and no-one seems to care. They will wander into your apartment too if you aren't watching!  Apparently, the prophet Muhammad liked cats, so the people of Kaş also like cats.  There are dogs also but they are significantly outnumbered by the cats.

New bottom paint

We are told that there is a fund that takes care of the animals needs.  People in the community monitor the cats (and dogs) and if one seems ill they scoop it up and take them to the vet.  The vet then treats the animal and gets paid via the "community fund".  The animals are routinely taken in and neutered or spayed.  The vet then clips off a corner of the cats ear to mark it as having been "fixed"- I am not sure how they mark the dogs.  Dogs just lounge around all over town as well and no-one cares so long as they are passive.  But one aggressive move gets them removed.  They have no tolerance for aggressive animals - no second chances.  The dogs seem to know the rule as they are the most passive dogs I have ever seen😊

Just a few of the many, many cats

 They have even tied their recycling program to the animals (or at least the dogs).  There is a clever little recycling bin that will release dog food when you put in items for recycling.  So the dogs get fed the more you recycle!  Now how clever is that!!  I haven't tried it yet but a friend and I are saving up our recycling so we can go check it out.  I will be sure to report back.

Kaş

Tomorrow we have a road trip planned to some nearby towns as we are on the hunt for a new starter battery.  Our batteries were another casualty of our sixteen month absence.  We have already purchased new batteries for the house bank but we need to replace the starter battery as well.  The paint and batteries are the small projects... much bigger ones are on the horizon.  Stay tuned!

Welcome to Kas, Turkey

Finally, finally, finally!  It is good to see Talaria again - its been a long time.  Although, we are grateful that we were able to get to our boat as many other people are not able to return to their boats.  Covid, Covid, Covid!   Kas is a lovely little town with a population of around 7000.  We rented an apartment for a month while we work on Talaria and it is about a 15 minute walk from the apartment to the marina.  

The front of our apartment building

The walk to the marina is pleasant as its all downhill but coming back...😏.  Lets just say our legs are getting a much needed workout.  No complaints however ... the temperature most days is high 60s or 70s and sunny.  The locals think its winter and cold but we are very, very comfortable.  

One of the many hills to climb

 Life is apparently not the same in Kas, as with the rest of the world they are trying to mitigate the spread of Covid.  That means that restaurants are carry out only and on the weekends and week night evenings there is a curfew.  Masks are mandated and you will be fined for non-compliance.  Hopefully, things will get better soon.  Overall the Covid risk in Kas is low but we are still being careful.  

Downtown Kas - by the harbor

 We just walk to the marina and work all day, then walk back to the apartment to cook dinner and collapse!  Boats are like houses and need constant maintenance (maybe even more maintenance than a house) so a year of neglect really shows.  But after a week we are starting to see maybe a trickle of light at the end of the tunnel😊.   Life is good!

View out our window/balcony.  Island to the left is Katellorizo, Greece

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hadrian's Gate - Antalya, Turkey

Antalya, Turkey (in ancient times called Attaleia) was once surrounded by large, defensive stone walls.  There were gates to pass through which could be closed off if attacked by invaders.  Hadrian's gate is the only remaining gate and likely the most ornate. Built in 130 AD to commemorate and honor a visit by the Emperor Hadrian it stands amazingly well preserved today.

The stones over which countless carts passed for centuries are also well preserved.  Their deeply grooved footprints remain in the stone as evidence of the traffic in and out of the ancient city. 
 

The towers on either side of the gate were actually built later and then attached to the gate - still ancient they seem "modern" compared to the gate itself.  They date back to the 1200's!  Hadrian's gate continues to serve as the entrance to Kaleici (Old Antalya).  Back in the day Kaleici was all there was of Antalya.  Now it is a preserved historic district filled with little shops and hotels down narrow, winding roads.  The larger city of modern Antalya has built up all around "Old Antalya".

Sadly, we are still in the middle of a pandemic.  And there is currently a curfew in Turkey on the weekends, in an attempt to mitigate the spread of the virus, so none of the little shops were open.  

 We will have to visit again once the Covid-19 crisis has passed and we can visit the shops.  For today we simply enjoyed a stroll around Kaleici and the nearby park.  Tomorrow we leave for Kas. 

Not the 3rd or the 4th or the 5th time... but finally the 6th time was the charm!

Proudly displaying the Turkish Flag in Antalya

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four flight cancellations and one false positive Covid test for Michael later we have finally made it to Turkey.  I had to change our flights, hotel, taxi and transport to Kas so many times I was sure the folks on the other end thought we had lost our mind.  We tested on the 10th of January for our flight on the 12th and were quite surprised when on the 13th the results came back positive for Michael but negative for me.  So... we had to make a flurry of phone calls to un-arrange all the arrangements we had made... including the flight.  We went and got the camper back out of storage and set it back up.  But Michael was not ill and I tested negative (even though we are together all the time).  It just did not make sense so I asked if we could re-test thinking that it could be a "false positive".  Of course, health care workers now have such blind faith in the PCR Covid test that they believe it can't possibly be wrong.  Regardless, they agreed to re-test after 48 hours.  On the 12th we re-tested and received our results on the 13th which now showed us as both being negative. - guess the PCR can be wrong after all.  An expensive lab error for us but at least we get to leave!  Another entire day of phone calls in order to re-schedule our flight for the 14th and make all the other arrangements yet again.  We did manage to rent a car to drive to Chicago at the last minute - so we packed the camper up yet again and dropped it off at the storage place.  We drove to Champaign, Illinois that night and then on to Chicago the next day.  Phew!  What a week.

An array of water tanks, satellite dishes and solar panels

 As we had to arrive on Friday night instead of the Wednesday night that we had planned we have to stay in Antalya for the weekend.  There is a curfew on the weekends (for Covid) so the fellow can't let us in the apartment until Monday.  Its all good though as we have serious jet lag and just want to sleep anyway.  We are on the 11th floor of the hotel so we can see the rooftops of all the apartment buildings.  As in other countries we have been to they store and heat their water on the rooftop.  Most of the roofs have an array of water barrels, solar panels and satellite dishes.  

The Mediterranean out the window

 

We managed to get up and walk to the grocery today but otherwise we are just taking a day to rest - its just hard to sleep on a plane and hard to re-set your internal clock for a new time zone.  The day is lovely - sunny and warm.  And we can see and hear the Mediterranean  What more could you want :). 
 
 

Fifth time is a charm??

 Rend Lake - Southern Illinois

 

STILL in the US... Our flight to Turkey has been cancelled four times so far!  After the first cancellation I decided to work a bit longer so that I could get both doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine before leaving.  We are still not sure when Michael will be able to be vaccinated but our hope is to have him vaccinated when we return (provided we actually leave)!.  After the second, third and fourth cancellation we decided that we needed to find a direct flight from the US to Turkey, as it was often the last leg from somewhere in Europe to Turkey that was cancelled.  We managed to book a flight direct from Chicago to Istanbul BUT we have to drive to Chicago to catch the flight.  That is about a 6 hour drive.  And to make it even more complicated Turkey now requires a negative PCR Covid test 72 hours before your flight.  That means we have to test tomorrow - January 10th and pray that we get the results back the morning of January 12th.  We then have to drive to Chicago to catch our 2130 flight.  Fingers crossed :).

 

Rend Lake
 

 The good news is that the latest flight (so far) has not cancelled!!!  There is hope.  The timing on the test results is dependent on the number of people being tested.  As of yet we are not seeing the Christmas/New Years surge of Covid cases so maybe we will be lucky and there won't be many testing tomorrow.  Again - fingers crossed. 
 

 The community left us all kinds of nice messages at the hospital - Pandemic Art

 

 Sidewalk leading to employee entrance at Good Samaritan Hospital

With any luck the next post will be from Turkey.  Stay tuned!

Return to Talaria

 

Purple sunset

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our flight for Turkey is booked for January 1st, 2021.  We will arrive in Antalya and spend one night there to catch up on sleep.  The next day we will take a shuttle from Antalya to Kas where we have rented an apartment for one month.  Our fervent hope is that the weather will be nice and we can get the bottom painted in January.  

Rend Lake sunset

 Our list of repair and maintenance tasks to complete keeps growing... unfortunately.  It will be a busy winter but we will manage to make time for exploring Turkey.  We have some friends that will be arriving in February so we are excited about seeing the sites with them.  A trip to Cappadocia is planned!

October sunset

 In the meantime, we have been enjoying some spectacular sunsets from our campsite at Rend Lake.  It has become a bit of an obsession each night.  Just beautiful!

Pelicans in flight

 And it was an added and unexpected treat to be at the lake when the migrating pelicans arrived.  There are well over a hundred pelicans at the lake right now as they make their way south.  Majestic creatures.

At present Greece is not allowing any travel from Turkey to Greece.  This is largely due to the refugee crisis which in turn is due to the humanitarian crisis which is due to the war in Syria (Turkeys neighbor).  That could present a problem as our plan is to get boat work completed over the winter and then sail to Greece in April -ahead of the crowds and the harsh meltemi winds.  I have written to the Greek consulate in Chicago and am waiting for some response.  Always something.  What was it Ben Franklin said "change is the only constant in life...".  So things change and we adapt to the change... life goes on :).
 

Arrival - Kaş, Turkey

Checking in - Kaş, Turkey

 Its been a long, long spring and summer.  Just amazing how quickly and completely Covid-19 disrupted everyone's life.  But I am happy to report that after 1600 nm Captain Andrea and his lovely daughter have arrived in Turkey with Talaria.  Sadly, they were held "hostage" for a bit in Greece as the harbor master in Rhodes was feeling particularly cantankerous.  So even though they were only checking in and immediately out he would not give them the necessary departure papers.  They were 70 short miles from Kaş but unable to check out of the EU due to insurance technicalities. So frustrating!  I literally had to have the insurance company write up a certificate stating that all coverage was in accordance with Greek law.  So... another 52 dollars and that was done.  Bureaucratic nightmares are not exclusive to the US it seems!

Captain Andrea and his lovely daughter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 All is well that ends well.  We are exceptionally happy that we were able to locate such a competent Captain to sail Talaria out of the EU for us so that we did not overstay our welcome there.  Captain Andrea reports that the marina is very nice so that was great news.  In addition, fortunately for us we have a friend of a friend there that will be watching the over Talaria until we arrive - another plus!

Talaria in Kaş,Turkey

So the next morning after arrival Talaria was lifted from the water and is now in "dry dock".  It is much safer for her to be out of the water until we arrive as there is no chance of sinking!  It is likely that she will be on the hard for a bit longer even after we arrive as we have a considerable amount of maintenance work to do.  This is the longest we have ever been off of Talaria.  It has been an entire year!!!  At most we have been off of her for a few months but never, ever this long.  Maintenance on a boat is a constant thing so she is in need of some love.  Currently our plan is to fly to Turkey the 1st of January.  But... if the virus gets bad here and they close the OR again then we will just leave sooner.  We are ready to leave today - but I need to honor commitments.  More later.