If it's Tuesday, it must be Turkey.
Tuesday 30th May

Unbelievably, we are sitting under cover in the rain, in a fjord-like inlet in Turkey. Not that the location is unbelievable, but the rain is. Normally, around early May there is a storm: after that the weather clears and it is hot, sunny and cloudless from then on. A very strange year and we are hearing tales of thunder & lightning storms from fellow sailors all over Britain, France and the rest of Europe.

We have, in better weather, been island hopping and hiking. On Tilos, we climbed up to an abandoned hilltop village, currently inhabited only by goats. There are traditional houses, lots of grinding wheels and stones littered about and stone paths - I suspect its inaccessibility in the day of the car rather than donkey did for it. Apparently there is a nightly "rave" that goes on up there in the height of the season, it didn't look very rave-like to us!

Further south to the island of Khalki - we have been here before and enjoyed a little local Folklore and Traditional House museum. This time, it looked a bit subdued and tattier than we remembered (it is earlier in the season). The bays are all deep, the holding is poor and the pontoon in the harbour is rickety in the extreme. No-one's anchor held; we were alongside as was another visiting yacht. We ended up helping a poor charter boat at about 5am (that had arrived in the middle of the night) to re-berth as they too had dragged. So time to move on to Symi, just off the Turkish coast.

First we tucked into Panormitis, or Monastery Bay, an almost land-locked Lulworth Cove-shaped bay. Here there is total shelter, the active Monastery and not much else apart from goats, butterflies and the constant call of wild peacocks or peahens. We did see something dark and sleek in the water, definitely not a dolphin or anything with a dorsal fin, so it might have been one of the elusive monk seals that can be found here. It was here that I was either stung, bitten by or scraped my knee on something - within a day I had a large, very itchy blistery-looking something on my knee. Out came the antihistamine creams and antiseptics. We sailed from here up the coast to Pethi, from where you can catch a regular bus into Symi town. We prefer Pethi as being quieter and easier to anchor than the town. Symi town itself is very smart with a few expensive shops, designer local produce and catering for large yachts and gin-palaces. It is very attractive with pastel-coloured buildings more Venetian in architecture than Greek. We stocked up on some key bits from the butcher and local shops: hams, prosciutto, bacon, etc. as Turkey doesn't do pork.

We slipped out of Greece with our new Dekpa intact and sailed across to Bozburun, just at the bottom of the Datça Peninsula. We clocked into Turkey properly, getting our Transit Log, six pages of stamps for everything from Customs to Health, Port Police and Passport control. I am "Captain" here this time, so if we fall foul of anything inadvertently, it's me who pays. Richard had that pleasure last time.

I visited a local pharmacy as my knee was no better - the young pharmacist recommended a cocktail of hydrocortisone and anti-fungal creams, both of which we had on board, and to see a doctor if the problem persists or worsens. Nice, helpful man. Also helpful is Osmans Restaurant, run by a Turk (Osman no less) and his Scottish wife Lynn. She is a real character and has recently been appointed the HLR (honorary local representative) for the Cruising Association. We had a lovely meal there, friendly service and took advantage of the showers and information they provide for their guests. Bozburun is a great little place, currently full of gulets getting spruced up for the coming season. There are little bays, islands and a good anchorage as well as a little marina - good value at TL50 per night (£10) including electricity and water. We had an argument with a chap about our pump-out blue card, but that's another story…. One for the CA forum.

After yet another little stock up, we are now in Dirsek, an inlet in the Datça Peninsula. It has one restaurant with free range chickens clucking about and whose owner comes out to our bay by boat to bring water for his donkeys on the beach. Lovely swimming yesterday under blue skies. Today, we were going to head for Datça which has the most fabulous market. But it is raining, we're hiding inside and I can write this instead. The sun's due out tomorrow and it's forecast to be hot….

So for a while, we are exchanging the sounds of Greek bells and intoning Orthodox monks for the evocative calls of the Muezzin.