Back in the Game in BVI

Hello friends, it has been a long three months since I updated this blog. I apologize for this but I was not sure if you would be interested to hear about my days traveling back to Canada, then to Turkey and finally back to Tortola via Canada. After all they are not really part of the Caribbean odyssey, and could only be side notes.

Nel is coming to join me next Tuesday finally, just before we set sail towards Puerto Rico where we intend to spend Christmas with friends Deniz and Zeynep who are flying in from Ottawa to join us.

With that introduction here are short side notes on the missing three months:
I spent a few weeks in Ottawa in August to tidy up things back home. The house and the car needed attention, the phone, utility and cable companies needed to be dealt with, with difficulty I must add, for suspending services or making auto-payment arrangements for the winter season, and had time for a few business contacts for consulting etc. All boring stuff really, with the exception of getting a chance to spend some time with my son Devrim.

Fun started when I went to Turkey, primarily to be with my daughter and Nel. Nel had been there since the beginning of August. Ayse was still teaching at Sabanci University in Istanbul, and we spend some time with her and at our cottage on Sedef Island, just off the east coast of Istanbul, where Nel had already been staying with my brother in law and his wife. We got a chance to have some old friends and family over for some fun island time.

In the beginning of September Ayse, Nel and I started travelling, zigzagging west to East, south to North around Turkey. We attended a friend’s nieces’ wedding in Eskisehir and stayed in Ankara to see one of Nel’s many cousins.

We continued down to the south coast to Mersin-Kizkalesi, to spend time on beaches and among ancient Roman ruins. We had the most amazing seafood dinner at a restaurant built right on the rocks on shore, overlooking out to an ancient castle which was built on a rocky island less than a mile from the shore.

Then we moved on to south-east Turkey, to Gaziantep-Kilis area, to attend the continuing celebrations of the wedding that took place earlier in Eskisehir; this time at the groom’s home town.

We returned to Istanbul, and after a brief rest we went over to Safranbolu in central northern Anatolia, where a documentary film festival was being held among the most amazingly restored buildings of the old-town. We stayed in one of the old mansions that was restored to be a boutique hotel. One of Nel’s cousins, Suha Arin, who is revered in Turkey as the guru of documentary film making in that country, had made this old town famous and contributed to its preservation through his documentaries some 25-30 years ago. We attended a special ceremony held during the festival to honor him, who had passed away some years ago.

From Safranbolu we continued over to the Black Sea coast to Bartin and Incekum, to visit another cousin of Nel’s.

After returning to Istanbul to close off the cottage on Sedef for winter, Nel and I travelled to western Turkey. We first visited Iznik, the home of the famous Turkish ceramics that once decorated the old palaces and homes across the country and abroad with amazing tiles and porcelain artifacts. The skills of producing dark blue and crimson reds on these ceramics that were prepared with local cobalt minerals in those days had been lost for generations. The art is again continuing currently with local artisans, and the city is promoting the craft by supporting them in every way. (Pics from movie)

Then we traveled to Canakkale, on the Dardanelles, to visit some people we had met in Ottawa, who finally settled back home. We continued down the Aegean coast, to visit my Brother in Izmir-Urla, my cousin in Cesme, and a friend whom you have all met on this blog, Ergin in Mordogan, near Karaburun. To my envy, they are all living right on or very close to the beautiful blue Aegean waters.

By this time it was Mid October, and it was time for my annual South Aegean regatta sail from Fethiye with my high-school buddies. We drove from Izmir to Fethiye, where Nel took a “pension” room in a bed&breakfast place in town in order to do the tourist thing in the region,

while I moved on to a 40ft mono-hull, which would be my home on water in South-Western Turkish coast and on some Greek islands for the next 6 days.

These sailing trips that I take every year in the Aegean are always wonderful, and I will tell you all about them on another day.

Back in Ottawa – A short break of the Odyssey

Hello again friends.

I am sorry it took me a while to update the blog. I spent the last week in Tortola getting Ruyam II ready for the hurricane season and arranging summer storage with BVI Yacht Charters. I also cleaned and repaired the dinghy and designed and rigged a small awning, hanging by the spare halyard, to be used for shade and shelter at anchorage over the trampoline up front.

The boat will be stripped to bare bones, and in case of a “named” storm reaching the BVI, it will be moved to the Paraquita Bay, a “hurricane-hole” two miles east along the south shore of Tortola, which is one of the places approved by my insurance company for hurricane coverage.

So, I packed my bags and head back to Ottawa on August 1st. It was both a welcomed break from the last several solitude weeks I spent stuck at the marina, and a happy homecoming. Unfortunately (fortunately for her) Nel has already took her retirement and went to Istanbul to spend some time with our daughter Ayse.

Ayse is working as a visiting professor at a Turkish university before she returns to Canada to start her new job at McMaster University in Hamilton in the New Year. They are now at Sedef Adasi, (40”51’02.75N:29”08’39.03E) a small exclusive island in the Marmara Sea, just a few miles off of Istanbul’s Asian coast, not too far from Ayse’s work place, where Nel and her brother jointly own a summer house.

I will join them for the months of September and October before returning to Tortola and have a “vacation”, a break from the Caribbean Odyssey.

In the last weeks of October I will be sailing with my high-school buddies in the south Aegean, along the Turkish coast and the small Greek islands nearby. I have been doing this every year in the last few years and really enjoy the mono-hull sailing in these gorgeous waters, and luckily in a quiet season after the summer rush of local and European sailors.

I will continue my blog during this time with occasional stories of our time in Turkey,

Challenges of Single-hand Cruising

While I was waiting for work to be done on Ruyam II, I was mostly docked at the Joma Marina at the Road Town harbour. It gets quite hot, it is full of bugs, and it gets really boring at night and during the weekend since there is nothing or no one around. Besides the water inside the harbour is not for swimming at all. The town is a 20-25 minute away on foot, and it is not very safe to walk alone at night. Since the radar installation was delayed until after the past weekend, I decided to sail out of the marina and spend a night at Peter Island, at the Great Harbour, where there is wonderful swimming opportunity at and around the beach club and the restaurant stays open late during weekends. Saturday morning I left the marina and sailed directly south across the channel. With winds at 15-18 knots on the beam it was a very pleasant 1.5h sailing.

One drawback of the location I chose was that anchoring was not really an option on the beach club side of the harbour. It is a very deep bay and doesn’t get shallow enough until you are literally yards away from the shore; however mooring is provided in front of the beach club. I had never done this before, but I was ready for the challenge and pick a mooring ball without any other crew on board.

Well I tried and missed the first time, stopping a little early and being carried back away from the ball by the wind and the current. The second time I overshot the ball, that was between the two hulls and decided to slowly back onto it and run forward to catch it with the boat hook as it passed forward. The ball was nowhere and I noticed that we were not moving back anymore. I returned to the helm and looked to see where the mooring ball was. It was at the starboard side stern and stuck to the hull. The boat was slowly turning to port, pivoting at the mooring ball. It was obvious I had the mooring anchor line caught at something below. I immediately went to the windlass and started to drop anchor, at around 25-30 feet. I had to, because I was alone and I was going to dive and have a look at what had happened below. I put on my goggles and dove off the starboard stern. It looked worse than I thought. The mooring anchor line was wrapped around the prop. While I was trying to back I must have been a little bit too late putting the engines back into neutral. I could hold on the last step of the stern and inspect the situation. It looked like it was only a few turns and was quite loose, except the last round of loop that was stretched by the pull of the boat with wind and current. I decided to use the port side engine in reverse briefly to actually drive the boat on to the ball to loosen the stretched line and quickly dive to dislodge the last loop from the prop. It worked. The rest of the loops came off easier and after about six or seven dives to the prop all the line was off the prop and we were free.

I took a few deep breaths, a drink of water and started to assess the situation. The anchor was holding at the moment, but I did not have sufficient scope on the chain to spend the night at anchor at that location. I decided to weigh anchor and try again to get the mooring ball. All this time a family of four were watching me from their deck, comfortably tied at the next mooring ball. When they saw me attempting to get the ball again, they offered help. The skipper and her daughter hoped on their dinghy and came over to take the port side dock line, and passed it through the eye of the mooring ball pennant, giving back the bitter end so I could tie at least one side of my bridle. I thanked them and said that I could fix the second line myself, saving a little bit of dignity.

Once the ordeal was over, I had a wonderful weekend at Peter Island. But I don’t think I will try to take a mooring ball singe-handed again, except in absolute calm weather in a very safe harbour.

An Electronics Installation Story Worth Telling (Part-3)

They were back the third day. A one day installation job turned into three days, and I started wondering if I would be asked to pay for the for the lost time due to these technicians’ incompetence and lack of experience. The one, that spent two days at the top of the mast was happy to be finished there, went about his job of drilling through the bulkhead, bringing the cable into the cabin, then working it through the storage lockers under the seats, behind the stairs on the port side, and behind the chart table up to the back of the helm navigation station. In the meantime the second technician, who spent the last three days just hoisting his friend up to the mast, standing by the winch to occasionally lower or rise his position slightly, and once in a while send a tool or part up to him by means of a continuous loop line they had rigged for that purpose, repositioned the cut-out template on the nav-station according to my suggestion. Then he started cutting the fiberglass panel. However, this time he had placed the template’s left edge a bit too close to the existing instruments, such that his power jigsaw would not fit. He had to remove the wind indicator display unit in order to complete the cut. After all was done, they hooked-up the power and antenna cables and tested the unit. Both were very happy with their accomplishment and left with smiles. I was sitting at the helm, looking at a my new toy, also with some joy because it was finally installed, in spite of the fact that the display unit was placed slightly crooked, and the bottom edge did not perfectly follow the bottom edge of the panel.

Two days later Laura, the BVI yacht Charters manager informed me that the invoice from key electronics was in. When I walked into the office she said, “I think you should sit down for this” while handing me the emailed invoice. It was over $4,000. They had charged a total of 2x20hrs of labour at $90/hr. in addition to the cost of the bracket and the extra cable with customs duty added, some small parts and the $250 Fedex bill for shipping the parts express from Florida.

I was outraged, not only at the charge out rate, but also for asking me to pay for the two man to fool around for a day and a half just to figure out how they would do the installation.

The bill is still in dispute, I will let you know when we settle. But the moral of the story is that; never get any work done on your boat by the locals without agreeing on a final total price beforehand.

Well, this was really a frustrating story, but I did not forget about my promise to tell you an exciting and a merrier story. Please wait for the follow-up blog.

An Electronics Installation Story Worth Telling (Part-2)

They came back the next day, immediately started pushing the cable down from top, and pulling from the bottom the line that they had put through the day before by disconnecting the streaming and deck light cable and pulling that cable down with a line tied to the end. After quite a few tries they declared, “your conduit is too small” and offered to de-step the mast!!, or alternatively cut open an inspection hole at the foot of the mast!!! To inspect and find out what was wrong.

I would not allow them to cut a hole on my mast and god knows how much ruin the integrity of the aluminum mast. I would not spend two more weeks and thousands of dollars to take the mast off either. I suggested dropping the line through the mast outside the conduit. Their response was; “That is not something we do. We need the approval of the office, which will probably want to talk to you about the consequences etc.” Then they said we will try a bit more.

Then pulling real hard, the cable started to slide down, encouraged, the two stooges pulled even harder on the line, until they dislodged the conduit from where it was fixed inside the mast, and it came all the way down, out the opening inside the salon, where they were pulling. Of course, without the conduit limiting, the cable also came down all the way. Now, they wanted to pull the end, the terminal of the cable that was taped to the end of the line. It would not budge. It was stuck somewhere at the foot of the mast. After inspection and guess work, and to their surprise, they concluded that; the cable had dropped outside the bulkhead, down below the down-comer tube that is at the bottom of the mast and at the top of the stepping support column, which is inside the boat at inside of the bulkhead where the wires come through. The two-technician crew obviously had no idea about the construction of the mast stepping and the wiring systems of Lagoons. But, happy with their “accomplishments!”, they said “we will drill a hole through the bulkhead tomorrow and bring the cable through a sealed system.” That afternoon they continued to install the bracket and then the antenna on the mast.

The saga continues!!. Look for new blog updates.

An Electronics Installation Story Worth Telling (Part-1)

Hello again friends, it has been a long while since my last blog. I have to apologize, but like I said the last time, I would report back when something exciting happens. Well something exciting happened.

Keeping the suspense and the juicy part for later, I want to first go about telling you chronologically what happened, rather what did not happen in the last couple of weeks.

The installation of the radar unit that I had bought in St. Martin was a painful and very expensive ordeal. According to the nice people in BVI Yacht Charters the “only” outfit in Road Town capable of doing this job is Key Electronics, located in the same area and between the Sunsail and the Moorings charter company marinas. BVI Yacht charters offered to arrange the installation and put the work order for me, (with small mark-up) because the technicians are very busy this time of the year when all charter companies start getting their maintenance and upkeep of boats for the next year. It took them five days just to get a possible date for the installation that was still a week and a half away. Then they informed us that the proper bracket for the Fruno antenna was not included in my package and the cable is probably too short at only 10m, and an extension for the cable and a bracket had to be ordered from the US. They did. On the day they were supposed to come for installation, they told us that they were late finishing the job they were on, and would come the next day. No show on Thursday, nor on Friday.

Finally two technicians showed up on Monday around 10:00h. The first thing they said: Ooh! This is a brand new installation, from scratch!” This was the first sign that may be these guys didn’t know what was going on; they were not prepped, or prepared for the job. One mean was hoisted up the mast right away, with the bracket in one hand, and a cordless drill in the other. He positioned the bracket, marked the drilling positions for the bracket and then started to drill the main hole for the cable to go through before mounting the bracket. 15 minutes later, he said, “I cannot see or feel a conduit inside this mast. There should be one”. Then, after poking into the hole he drilled with some tools plastic ties etc. he announced; “Yes there is something here, but I can’t get to it or grab it” This was the second sign that these guys were not the competent technicians that I expected, with experience on Lagoon boats or installation of electronics on these boats. They tried many things, the BVI Yacht charters technicians had suggestions for them, I had ideas and offered them some of my tools etc. No luck, they could not get the cable through. That day all that was accomplished was that they got a line down through the mast. At 4:30 they packed and left, with the bracket dangling on a short line from the port side spreader of my mast.

Don’t worry I will eventually get to the exciting story, keep checking the blog.

Lazy Summer Days in Tortola

Hello again. It has been a while since my last blog. But there was not much to talk about. I have been "stuck" in Joma Marina for the last 10 days, partly by choice. I wanted to get some of the upgrades I planned for Ruyam II completed, before I take a break from cruising during the hurricane season.

Well, like many things, getting people to look at your boat and give a quote on the work takes some time, island time! Getting the necessary parts and materials, and actually getting work completed takes even longer. I think you get the picture. When they say “we will come to talk to you tomorrow” may mean “someday this week, if possible.” Therefore you are stuck there docked waiting just in case they show up.

Also, they let me dock at the sea-wall right across the road from the main office of BVI Yacht Charters, where I can get on my boat their WiFi that is actually meant only for their office use. I am afraid I will lose the “cyber access” advantage that I have if I leave the dock for a day sail or for a short trip.

The only thing that is left for me to do is take the dingy to closeby shores, for a quick swim, or just drive it along the shore to explore the coastal line of Tortola.

Lately I have been taking the 2 mile daily trips to the Brandy Wine Bay for a swim, which is a fascinating cove so close to Road Town on the east side, well protected by reefs on both side. Coordinates are (18⁰24’53N & 64⁰35’06W) for those who want to explore the bay on GoogleEarth.

I will report back when more exciting things start to happen.