Well, we were still eating our way through the kilogram of strawberries which Roy had bought at the Saturday Market, so breakfast yesterday was freshly made crumpets with strawberries, bananas, kiwi fruit, honey and yoghurt; an improvised meal to consume some more of the strawberries, which turned out to be a rather tasty meal!
Then, while Roy managed to get his latest release completed on the Anchor Plus application, using our television monitor as a screen, since his laptop screen had completely given up the ghost, Elaine finished work on the video of our Suez Canal transit and passage to Turkey. She had hoped to upload it last night, but an unexpected invite on our return from a late afternoon walk, to join our floating neighbours, Catherine and Gary, for drinks, turned into a night of regaling tales of the high seas over a delicious dinner and more drinks. Although it was a very chilly night, wrapped in cosy blankets, we enjoyed the warmth of their hospitality as new friendships were forged. It was almost midnight by the time we returned to Paw Paw, neither of us realising the lateness of the hour with all the chatter that went on, but we certainly felt worse for wear this morning. Regardless, it was lovely to have been invited over and it was a very enjoyable night.
Roy also walked to the local grocery store earlier in the day and, thankfully, was able to find non-dairy milk for Elaine; something we were starting to run low on since we hadn’t been able to get any after leaving Thailand. Needless to say, he also couldn’t resist purchasing a traditional Turkish pide bread called “Ramazan Pidesi”, a leavened bread shaped into round, flat forms, characterised by its top which is decorated with crisscross patterns or dimples and is sprinkled with nigella and sesame seeds. This was enjoyed for lunch with the local Turkish cheese he’d bought at the market. These fresh quality white cheeses, called "beyaz peynir", are similar to feta and made from sheep, goat or cow's milk depending on the season. While we thoroughly enjoyed the gastronomic delights of Thailand, Turkey is proving to be a strong contender!
Today was a very slow, lazy day, although it was extremely windy for a few hours and we’d had a fresh dusting of snow on the mountains around Finike after a cold front passed over. Elaine slept most of the morning, surfacing around lunchtime after, not only a very late night and battling to get to sleep, but being woken up at around 0300 by a phone call from Keenan, who apologised profusely as he realised the time difference a little too late. Being a little panicked initially at receiving a phone call from him at that time of the night, we were relieved to learn that he was feeling much better and had just wanted to speak to Roy. On top of that, it was Elaine’s weekly Methotrexate day, which is never a good day anyway!
Roy tried to busy himself with tightening docklines, taking a walk to the local grocery store again, uploading a new development environment to his laptop, with no choice but to use the extremely slow marina’s internet connection and considered some improvements to our “passerelle”, given that it was moving around rather precariously with the strong winds; a task, he decided, was better left for another day!
To stave off the brain fog and clear the cobwebs, we decided an afternoon walk was in order and we were delighted to see a huge loggerhead turtle during our wanderings, but neither of us had a camera with us unfortunately. Besides our fury friend, Albert, who visits everyday, we’ve also had dolphins come into the marina, which, of course, we never tire off. We’ll just have to have our cameras to the ready to share these sightings in the future, but we have the memories, nonetheless!
