Author: Salty tales from Bali Hai

Cappadocia is famous for its hundreds of hot air balloons but we didn’t see a single one during our stay until the very last day – even then there were only just a few that managed to launch due to the cloudy and windy weather. Thankfully we weren’t hanging out to take a balloon ride!…

Cappadocia – famous for its spectacular “fairy chimneys”, hot air balloons and underground cities is also renowned for its beautiful horses. It is said that the name Cappadocia stems from the Persian word meaning “Land of good horses” (the Persian Empire ruled Cappadocia from 547 BC until Alexander the Great conquered it in 332 BC).…

My brother-in-law announced he had dreamt that he was in a jungle with lions and tigers roaring around him – when he woke up he was surprised to find he was actually aboard our catamaran at Viaport Marina in Tuzla, Istanbul. It wasn’t his vivid imagination and love of wildlife that led him to have…

The short visit my brother and his family had made to our catamaran Sunday, at Viaport Marina in Tuzla, Turkey, was rapidly drawing to a close but we had an excellent last day together seeing some of the sights that Istanbul has to offer before they flew back to England. The day was made all…

Due to the high level of traffic and the strong and variable currents along the Bosphorus Strait sailing yachts are obliged to use their engines when they travel on this internationally significant waterway. For the most part the marine traffic is very well behaved – especially the cargo boats that sweep up and down this…

Almost 20 years ago our daughter Hannah met her great friend Crystie through the Australian Girls Choir (AGC). Hannah was in the brand-new Brisbane chapter and Crystie was from Sydney. Over the years they travelled the world together with the AGC Performing Choir and stayed with each other in the holidays. In the intervening years…

Between us, the crews of Sunday and Catabella have had some wonderful surprises and some other lovely things happening just recently. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves on the surprise front! The first happy event for Sue and John – and by default, for us too – was the arrival all the way from…

While our boat guest, Jonathan’s brother Jack, had a few days stay in Istanbul to see the sights, we stayed on the boat and started the application process to extend our Turkish temporary residency visas. My tourist visa had almost run out and Jonathan’s three month extension of his temporary resident’s visa was also about…

We (S/V Sunday and our buddy boat S/V Catabella) were finally arriving at our destination – Viaport Marina in Tuzla, Istanbul – which is going to be our base until the first half of 2023. With the promise of quite a few visitors arriving in the coming months – after a dearth of guests over…

While we were staying in Erdek, a holiday town on the Sea of Marmara, we were paid a visit by the local Coastguards. As per normal they wanted to see our passports, check our visa status and examine our boat papers, including information on when our black water tanks had last been pumped out. Fortunately…

We had been looking forward to exploring the Marmara Islands but sadly didn’t have nearly enough time to do them justice. Part of the reason was because we had to get to Istanbul to begin the process of renewing our temporary residency visas but a sudden attack of really painful toothache also hastened the end…

Çanakkale wasn’t the most comfortable of anchorages – in fact at times the swell was quite annoying – but at least we were close to all the town has to offer. Being the gateway town to the famous ancient ruined city of Troy and also the much fought over strategically important Gallipoli peninsula, we thought…

The long haul north before heading up the internationally significant Dardanelles Strait – the narrow waterway that links the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara was almost over. The day before we left for the Turkish island of Bozcaada – our last stop en route to the Dardanelles – we moved from the safety…

The Greek island of Lesbos (Lesvos) loomed into view as our catamaran “Sunday” slid gracefully though the water. Ah Greece! Tantalisingly close but Greece was not our destination just yet. Turkey still has a hold on us with many treasures and experiences in store. We were actually on our way to an anchorage in Bademli,…

We all fell in love with Foça – a gorgeous little fishing village with gracious historical houses, old hill-side windmills, lots of open-air waterside restaurants and the remains of a Genoese medieval castle. Formally a Greek village, until the population exchange of 1923, the village has a rich maritime history and the busy little fisherman’s…

One of the windiest spots in this part of the world – Alaçatı – didn’t disappoint. After a great sail from Sığacak we arrived at Turkey’s windsurfing capital to find a good breeze blowing. Alaçatı is in the province of Çeşme, located in Western Turkey and a short ride from the country’s third largest city…

Before we started our new adventure on S/V Sunday in early 2020 quite a number of friends from Australia had said they would come and visit us. And then Covid hit. Fast forward to this year and we have our very first Aussie visitor- our friend Jackie, a former colleague of mine from Sydney in…

After our window drama we felt in need of a bit of rest and relaxation so we stayed put in Çam Limanı, near the Turkish town of Kusadaşı, for a couple of days. Once Jonathan (aka Capt’n Birdseye) had completed his clever repairs we realised there was no harm done accept that his birthday gift…

Our adventure travelling north from Didim to Istanbul had been pretty uneventful so far but that was to change. On our second night we anchored at Port St Paul, a quiet inlet purported to be the spot that was chosen to rest the oarsmen propelling St Paul towards Ephesus. The main anchorage was crowded so…

After the excellent end-of-winter barbecue at Didim marina, we were absolutely ready to start the new cruising season but first we had one more “last time” thing to do – a meal at the amazing Yacht Club restaurant. Our cruising buddies Sue and John had suggested this as they had a guest aboard – Raylee,…

From Turkbuku – the little seaside village with a reputation (“it’s the place to see, and ‘be seen’”) – we headed off to one of our favourite anchorages in the Turkey’s Aegean Sea. Kıyıkışlacık is that delightful village mentioned in previous blogs where time appears to be standing still. On the way there we were…

Freshly back in the Netherlands from my whistle stop family visit of England I had four days to sort out my possessions, repack my bags and spend some precious time with my daughter Hannah and son-in-law Pieter before leaving for Turkey again. It had been only two weeks since Jonathan and I had returned from…

I was in England for just over a week and unbelievably the sun shone brightly every single day. While I was enjoying the warm spring weather and spending time with my family, good old Captain Birdseye was back on our Lagoon 420 Catamaran, S/V Sunday, overseeing last minute projects before we were to leave Didim…

It was extremely hard to say goodbye to our son Ben and daughter-in-law Sarah (and indeed all our family and friends in Australia) when we left Brisbane. Six weeks just didn’t go very far to make up for the long gap of two and a half years since we had seen them last. However, we…

What a great time we had on our short visit to Australia! We did lots of socialising – catching up with family and friends for wonderful lunches and dinners plus some excellent meals out, going on walks and having coffee dates together and attending book club meetings. A big thank you to everyone for hosting…

It was simply wonderful being with our son Ben and his wife Sarah after being separated for two and a half years due to Covid travel restrictions and then being delayed four days longer due to the extreme flooding event along the east coast of Australia. Once we had settled in it was as if…

After being trapped in an airport hotel in Brisbane, Australia, for two days and two nights due to a “rain bomb” event (someone described it as a “sky tsunami“) our beautiful niece was able to come and pick us up on the afternoon of the third day. It had been two and a half years…

We were back in the Netherlands once more and it felt wonderful to be with our daughter and son-in-law again! It was only a short stay this time as finally we were able to return to Australia after an absence of two and half years due to Covid and the Australian Government’s “Fortress Australia” response.…

We left Viaport Marina near Istanbul having paid a deposit for an annual contract, and started the long trip back to the Netherlands in our campervan. After our night on the side of the road in a lonely and rather desolate location, we headed for the Turkish border with Bulgaria. When we arrived there we…

After driving through snow for what seemed like weeks, it was such a pleasure to set off from the seaside town of Side on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, in bright sunshine with a completely dry and ice-free road. We were on our way to Finike where we had wintered over the previous year (2021).…

We woke to a silent world – it had snowed again! This was the fourth day of snowfall in Cappadocia and each morning the blanket of snow became thicker and icier. Although we were very warm inside the camper, outside was a different story – it was minus six degrees Celsius in Göreme and our…

There was so much snow in Goreme, Cappadocia, that we couldn’t find a suitable place to park our campervan for the night. We ended up stopping outside a small supermarket just off the main road in a spot kept reasonably clear of snow by the steady stream of cars arriving and departing. Once we had…

Waking up on a garage forecourt to the sounds of a snowplough clearing yet another freshly fallen blanket of snow was just one of the many unusual experiences that we have encountered on our road trip in Turkey. We were on our way to Cappadocia – a region of natural wonders and probably one of…

We had made it into Konya in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey just in time to grab a taxi from Jan and Jack’s (our friends and fellow yachties) hotel to go to the Mevlana Cultural Centre for the weekly “whirling dervish” ceremony. The whirling dervishes belong to the Mevlevi Sufi order of Islam established…