And we’re off!

After one week and one day (the additional day due to pouring rain) on the hard standing our catamaran Sunday was ready to go back in the water.

She had been cleaned and anti fouled, given new windows, had her props cleaned until they were shiny as new and special prop anti foul applied, and had a few other small jobs done.

While Sunday was on the “hard” we celebrated our 37th wedding anniversary and to mark this auspicious occasion we put on our glad rags and went out for dinner at the Yacht Club Restaurant at the nearby Crowne Plaza Hotel.

When the waiter found out it was our anniversary he very sweetly scattered our table with dried rose petals and pomegranate leaves and brought a massive candlestick with an even larger candle stuck in it! It was a celebration to remember!

Sunday’s “splash” went really well and it was great being back in the water again. We were on the final count down before leaving but there were still jobs to do.

One of the most vital tasks was to get our depth sounder working! It was fine before we were hauled out but had packed up completely by the time Sunday was back in the water.

We had no option but to call in the agents for Raymarine – the manufacturers of our depth sounder and related technology. They were at the boat for around half an hour and charged us 120 Euros (almost $200 Australian) for the pleasure. This might seem reasonable elsewhere but for Turkey it is an outrageous price – especially as all they did was to test our wiring on a depth sounder they’d brought to the boat and said it was all fine. The depth sounder still didn’t work!

We were chatting to Fatih who had looked after Sunday really well while we were travelling – hosing her down and checking on our batteries on a weekly basis – and who had organised the cleaning and anti fouling of Sunday’s bottom. He immediately said that he thought he knew what the problem was – masking tape that mistakenly hadn’t been removed after the anti fouling had been completed.

At Fatih’s expense, a diver was sent down and after scraping the wrong spot (long story) for some considerable time, went down for a second go the next day. This time he scraped the correct spot, pulled off some tape and bingo – to our great relief, it worked! We were mortified for Fatih as the diver would have been quite expensive but he took responsibility for the mistake and we were very impressed and thankful for that.

Next job was to get our sails back from storage and get them put back on with all the lines and pulleys properly in place. This was also a job well done by Emre Dilbaz and his team from KMH Rigging.

Jonathan was very impressed with the riggers so he commissioned them to undertake a rigging check before we set sail.

The check was very thorough and Emre talked us through how he tested the rigging using different aerosol sprays that would show up any flaws or weaknesses.

Sunday’s rigging was fine but the tests showed the start of wear and advised a rerig before too long. We are now planning a quick stop in Athens to get this done.

Finally after several weeks of preparation we were ready to leave Viaport Marina Tuzla and make our way to Çanakkale to check out of Turkey after almost three years.

We were accompanied by our buddy boat Catabella who had a full crew of four old friends of Sue and John’s.

We were hoping that John and Sue’s son Andrew and wife Lisa would have had their boat Sea Pony ready to sail with us but unfortunately that was not to be. They had done really well to get as much preparation done as they had in just a couple of weeks – especially as they had two samoyeds and a four month old baby on board! The plan was for them to catch up with us in a few days time.