We arrived back in Istanbul to meet Paris and Ford. We are staying at the Four Seasons hotel in Sultanahmet in the old city. This hotel was once a gaol now converted to a very beautiful hotel. While we wait for the boys to arrive we visit several old haunts, the Jeweller, Iznik ceramic shop and the carpet dealer. We buy a new carpet for the boat and some beautiful new ceramics. We have lunch at a small corner cafe we visited four years ago. All of these places a...

We arrived today in a bay north of Bodrum town. This place is booming with a huge amount of houses and hotels. Most of the buildings are white and look like 'leggo'. Saturday we arrive at Bodrum Harbour and Marina. This is huge with many wooden Gulag's coming and going. It is right in the middle of an attractive waterfront, with many good shops bars and restaurants. We both need hair treatment, MB is talked into having the Full Monty, hair do, facial, pedicure ...

The previous afternoon we left Cesme with strong winds and a rough following sea. Our destination is 'Samos', another Greek Island which we are not technically able to anchor at. We try to find an anchorage opposite the island in Turkey but as the wind is so strong we are forced to go to Samos and anchor in a beautiful bay called 'Klima'. It is fairly late when we anchor so before dinner we have a deck coits competition with the crew, won by the captain in a pl...

The wind is still strong and the sea fairly rough. We head off from Turkey to the Greek island of Chios in the tender with captain Paul. It is only about 8 nautical miles but because of the rough sea it takes about half an hour. As we have not legally checked into Greece we find a small Harbour outside the town, then get a taxi into Chios. Our first impression is that this is a bit of a ghost town. The shops are shut and a lot are vacant. We are told that they o...

We left Atakoy marina early with a strong wind blowing and rough seas. We intended to anchor at Canakale but we were forced to take on a pilot at the beginning of the Dardanelles. If we stopped to anchor it would cost us a fee plus the expense of another pilot the next morning. So, we kept going dropping the pilot off at the entrance of the Aegean sea. We cruised into a great sheltered anchorage off the town of 'Ayvalik'. This Turkish town is opposite the Greek ...