It was, however, the bad tempered, screaming toddler that we could have done without. What it needed was a good smack. It’s a true saying “spare the rod and spoil the child”. It was clearly used to getting its own way and we all had to listen to it for hours, giving us both a splitting headache. Some people should never be parents!
It was midnight local time before we got to the Hilton Hotel after walking, what felt like miles, through the maze of covered walkways. We were, however, grateful for a few hours of sleep before the next trek to Heathrow this morning, then onto Sky Harbour. A hearty English breakfast started the day off well, but it was somewhat alarming to see just how inane the country was about COVID-19 and necessary precautions that most parts of the world still insisted upon, like wearings masks indoors and in any crowded areas. It was the breakfast buffet, a known spreader of the disease, that highlighted the chasm in thinking between western nations and that of other countries we’ve visited around the world during this ongoing pandemic.
By 0925 we were on the coach to Heathrow Airport, after standing for nearly an hour in the cold, only to emerge from the depth of the concrete jungle to a overcast, dull, rainy day. It had been a while though, years in fact, since we’d seen the beautiful greenery of the English countryside coming in to summer.
By 1130, Legs 2 & 3 had been completed. We’d made it to Terminal 3, Heathrow Airport and, after walking another few miles, we found the departures hall, full of shops, but very few places to sit and have a drink and something to eat. We eventually found EL&N London, where we sat for the best part of 15 minutes after being seated, before Roy went to find a menu. Then, we sat for another 15 minutes before the waitress appeared again to take our order. However, with at least 7 booths vacant when we arrived, they tried to jam us into a completely overcrowded seating area, where people were sitting shoulder to shoulder. Standing in her mask and full face visor, Elaine still had to explain that she needed some social distancing in order to safely remove her mask to eat, at which point we were shown to one of the booths. Granted Elaine feels very vulnerable in this “new normal” world, but at least some sense is applied in other parts of the world. On the other hand, we may well be just so overwhelmed with our glimpse back into a western country, after being out of it for so many years, that we actually cannot believe our eyes; the over-crowding, the tardiness of services, the tattiness of things, including Elaine nearly falling off the toilet in the hotel room because the seat was broken, which she didn’t realise until she sat on it, the bottle necks when just two lifts are the only means of getting to the designated departure area for numerous passengers and their luggage. Compared to airports, or indeed the efficient public transportation systems of other countries like those in Somoa, Fiji, Australia and Singapore, it was difficult not to notice the stark contrast.
The corker was having to drink the very expensive Voss water straight out of the bottle, because the glasses we were promised by the waitress never arrived by the time we were ready to leave. However, our coffee arrived in glasses, making it too hot to handle without burning our fingers. The mind truly boggles! The labour drain after Brexit, especially in the service sector, was very apparent.
We had expected to experience a culture shock coming back to the western cultures, especially during this ongoing pandemic, but it is definitely worse than we envisaged. We’re going to have to take a big breath, count to ten and stay focused on what’s important; seeing loved ones and spending precious time together. “Live and let live” springs to mind!
By 1440 we were boarded on a British Airways Airbus 350, with an empty seat between us, giving us more room than we expected. The clouds had parted too, fluffy white clouds were visible against a blue, sunny sky and we had plenty of new movies to entertain us. Phoenix here we come!
By 1800 we’d disembarked, cleared immigration and customs and we were hugging the grandsons and Keenan. Elaine was fine until she hugged Keenan, then the tears flowed; it had simply been far too long. When we got home, we enjoyed more hugs; this time from Capri and Brooke, who had stayed home to prepare, what was, a delicious dinner, following which William read Grandma, Brayden and Carter a bedtime story, but not before Gunner had smothered Elaine in kisses, we’d seen our beautifully decorated guest quarters and enjoyed a tour of the family’s new home, one which was built and completed just before the pandemic started, but one we’ve never got to see until now. By then we both simply needed our beds; it had been a very long, but wonderful day!
Besides cutting Roy’s hair and catching up on social media, there was little else she did. Roy didn’t do a great deal more either, although he prepared a lovely dinner, which included using the services of the Sunday barbecue to grill a few delicious lamb chops and using the last of our fresh produce with the exception of some fruit and Roy’s butter, reserved for breakfast this morning; barely scrapping in on the latter!
There was also a mass exodus out of the marina yesterday and indeed over the past week, as cruisers set off on their summer sailing expeditions. We’d already said our goodbyes to She San (Angela and Reto), Sea You (Fabienne and Dominique) and Talisker (Catherine and Gari) earlier in the week, as well as Kay, off Mai Tai, but our neighbours to our port side and Eucalyptus (Jill and Shelley) set sail yesterday too, taking with them our furry friends and leaving B Dock rather empty. Fortunately we had just one more sleep until we set off ourselves, but not on Paw Paw this time.
This morning Roy was up early to enjoy the last of his exercise walks for a while, then cooked breakfast, while Elaine started on the last minute packing activities.
By then it was 1000 and the mobile laboratory had arrived to do our PCR tests. With that out of the way, we set about getting the final tasks completed in order to leave Paw Paw unoccupied. These included stowing all the cockpit cushions, clearing the cockpit, stowing all the sunscreens, closing all the throughhulls, giving every head a fresh water rinse, putting Miltons into the water tanks and running it through all the plumbing, shutting off the gas and locking the cockpit lockers, hatches, etc. It was a flurry of activity that helped pass the day. Fortunately our PCR test results had arrived too and were negative as expected. It was all systems go!
Before we knew it, our airport transportation was waiting at the end of the dock for our two hour transfer to Antalya Airport. Our long awaited and anticipated journey had eventually arrived, we were on our way and in style.
After an uneventful trip, enjoying scenery we hadn’t seen before between Kemer and Antalya, we arrived at the airport on time. Leg one of our journey was completed.
At the time of this writing, we’re sitting in the VIP lounge awaiting our flight to Gatwick, where we’ll spend the night. Nerves and anxiety have eventually started to subside a little, but that is not expected to last long, especially when we’re disembarking at Sky Harbour!
We’d also like to wish all those wonderful mothers out there a very Happy Mother’s Day. We hope you all had a wonderful day!
So, rather than permit advertisements to run on our videos, she re-edited it, recreated it and re-uploaded it, all extremely time-consuming, not to mention, frustrating, for 40 seconds of a song which was playing at the time Elaine recorded the footage. It was well into the afternoon, interfering with her nap time, although Roy napped in the saloon to keep her company, before she finally got it uploaded. It helped pass the time, nonetheless!
Of course, the howling wind had also returned after abating overnight, making for a fairly cool day, but at least the sun was shining to keep our day bright and cheerful, although we decided to skip our stroll to the Saturday Market.
By the time Elaine had completed her efforts on the video, it was time to join Jill and Shelley aboard Eucalyptus, one of our floating neighbours, who we met through Catherine and Gari, off Talisker and who are the owners of our furry friend, Albert, who visits from time to time. Deva has occasionally graced us with her presence, but never long enough to capture a photograph of her. She is slowly, but surely warming up to us, though, even “chatting” when we walk passed Eucalyptus, but she’s still not entirely convinced we can be trusted! This afternoon, however, we got a photograph of her, which shows her beautiful markings. We also had the pleasure of spending the afternoon with Michelle and Anthony off Boomerang, who were also visiting aboard Eucalyptus. It was a fun afternoon with plenty of laughter, spent reminiscing about countries we’ve visited and adventures on the high seas.
By the time we returned to the marina, though, the wind was absolutely howling, although it remained sunny and warm, as long as one stayed out of the wind. Definitely not the kind of temperatures we were expecting for this time of year in the Mediterranean, but a number of news outlets have indicated that this is the coldest spring experienced in many years, a view that is held across much of Europe too. However, after the heat and humidity of SE Asia, we’re definitely not complaining, but many new arrivals returning to their yachts in the marina, in search of sunshine and hot weather, are somewhat disappointed. We’re told this definitely changes by the summer, though, when temperatures sore. Guess we’ll know on our return at the end of July!
In the afternoon, while Roy finished a few yacht chores, Elaine repacked the suitcases, given that additional space was needed for the final list of spares and parts that will be returning with us. So, instead of yet another suitcase, she tossed out a few outfits. She’s determined to keep matters as simple as possible on this trip!
Besides informing the marina that Paw Paw would be left unattended for a few months and providing them with the spare key in case of any unforeseen emergency, he flushed both engines with fresh water, which, unfortunately, highlighted the fact that we still had an issue with the starboard engine after 30 litres of water was inadvertently added to the 300 litres of diesel already in the tank; a problem for another day!Other smaller activities included placing a fender at the rear of the stackpack to prevent our furry friend, Albert, from climbing in there; this has become his favourite lookout spot, locking the dinghy; purely required for insurance purposes, stowing all the winch handles below deck, removing the depth sensor, testing all the bilge pumps, completing all the travel information needed by the airlines and washing down the transom area after the “water in the tank” malarkey.
Elaine, on the other hand, had a far more relaxing day as she tinkered with the creation of our latest video and enjoyed a nice long chat to her folks in Ireland.
Before we knew it, it was dinner time. So, after our showers, we took a stroll into town to return to Neseli Balik, the very quirky and festive restaurant we’d visited with Mai Tai (Kay and Lane) last week, where we enjoyed another delicious dinner, following which we had a nice long chat to Keenan on his drive back to Courtney and Garrett’s home from Detroit airport, after he’d spent a few days at home. Of course, the excitement is now mounting on both sides of the Atlantic as the countdown begins.
Catching up on the day’s news before bedtime, however, revealed a rather staggering statistic: "New estimates from the WHO (World Health Organisation) show that the full death toll associated directly or indirectly with the COVID-19 pandemic between Jan 1, 2020, and Dec 31, 2021, was approximately 14.9 million (range 13.3 million to 16.6 million)," the United Nations health agency said in a statement.
The figure calculates “excess mortality due to the COVID-19 crisis”; essentially a count of how many more people died than would normally be expected, based on mortality rates in the same area before the pandemic hit, taking into account deaths which were not a direct result of COVID-19, but instead caused by its knock-on effects, where people were unable to access hospitals for the care they needed, but the WHO indicated that the majority of the additional deaths were thought to be direct deaths caused by the virus, rather than indirect deaths.
Per the WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: "These sobering data not only point to the impact of the pandemic, but also to the need for all countries to invest in more resilient health systems that can sustain essential health services during crises, including stronger health information systems".
The report concluded that, India, with 4.7 million excess deaths, Russia with 1.1 million excess deaths and Indonesia with 1 million excess death, were, in fact, the countries with the higher deaths overall; not the US, although they are still in the top five, recording more than 930,000 excess deaths.
What a tragedy that could have been avoided had China been more forthcoming and world governments more responsive at the outset; a disastrous failure across the board! More disturbing is the fact that most governments have now decided the best approach is to behave like ostriches and the majority of citizens are willy nilly just following along!
After breakfast yesterday, while Roy washed the decks, Elaine decided to pack the new suitcases we’d bought for our visit to loved ones and found a matching, smaller, carry-on suitcase inside each of the larger ones, which explained why they were so heavy. Although these aren’t needed now, they’ll definitely come in handy for our shorter road trips and explorations later in the year. Regardless, at least all our clothes, etc fitted in the larger ones, with some room to spare, given that we’ll be returning with yacht parts and spares, as usual.
Then, after washing the decks, another cruiser in the marina, having seen Roy carrying jerry cans back from the fuel dock, indicated that he had 40 litres of diesel for sale, if Roy wanted it. Enquiring as to where the diesel had come from, how old it was, giving it the sniff test, etc, thereby satisfying his initial concerns, Roy agreed to purchase the diesel, saving himself another walk to the fuel dock. That turned out to be the least of his troubles!
Unfortunately, it was only after Roy had almost emptied the entire jerry can into the starboard tank, that he realised it was water with just a small amount of diesel floating on top. Too late; our 300 litres of diesel already in the tank was now contaminated with at least 30 litres of water. Needless to say, Roy was furious, but the cruiser, who had sold Roy the diesel, had also emptied about 40 litres of this same diesel into his own tanks, not realising. Apologising profusely and returning the money we, nonetheless, had a major cleanup exercise that took the rest of the day and most of today to rectify. Just our luck! The good news is that the diesel has all been polished and Roy managed to get a taxi this afternoon to get the remaining diesel we needed, so as not to leave the tanks partly full while we’re away.
However, trying to set the frustrations aside, we enjoyed a late afternoon walk while chomping on an ice-cream and we also managed to arrange our PCR tests through a service that is coming out to Paw Paw for a reasonable fee, saving ourselves the trek to the local hospital on the morning of our departure and saving us the associated anxiety of whether or not we’d get the hardcopy results before leaving for the airport that afternoon; one less stressor to deal with, since the results at the home service will be emailed to us and we only need them for our flight from Heathrow to Sky Harbour the following day. This also meant we could change our pickup time for our transportation to the airport, so we won’t be hanging around for no good reason.
Today, after Roy had enjoyed his exercise walk and Elaine had completed her stretch exercises on the foredeck, we also received our residence permit cards in the mail, delivered to the marina office; another stressor that we could have done without, but we have them now, so it’s all systems go and the countdown has begun!
To pass the time, which seems to be dragging now, Elaine enjoyed a nice long chat to her sister in Ireland before Roy returned with a number of treats; pain au chocolat and Ferrero Rocher chocolates. We clearly needed some comforting and a few more distractions! For the latter, Roy also hauled out his drone for the first time since July last year while we were in Thailand. In fact, we’d both completely forgotten about it, as it was still hidden away for our Red Sea passage.
Other activities to keep us occupied have included trying to learn a few Turkish greetings, which include “Merhaba” (Hello), “Günaydin” pronounced with a silent “g” (Good Morning), “Tünaydin” (Good Afternoon) and the tongue twister, “iyi aksamlar”, where the “s” and “r” have a “sh” sound and “iyi ak” is joined as in “iyak”, with the “i” sounding like an “e” (Good Evening).
We’ve decided “Merhaba” will suffice for now!
So, leaving Kay at the hospital, we enjoyed a nice stroll back to Paw Paw along the waterfront and then through the gardens, where all the flowers had completely burst into bloom, by which time we both needed a nap; for some inexplicable reason, we were both feeling rather washed out.
By the time we surfaced it was almost time for the Sunday barbecue and, although Elaine could have seen it far enough, we actually had a really nice time, meeting various cruisers who had just arrived in the marina, making for a very enjoyable gathering.
Then, while returning to Paw Paw, we were invited on to Talisker (Christine and Gari), who already had Jill and Shelley, off Eucalyptus, onboard and, with that, another fun night in the company of new found friends ensued. Fortunately, it wasn’t too long passed sailor’s midnight before we eventually got back to Paw Paw, where we had a nice cup of tea, more baklava and headed to bed, given that we were both exhausted by now and had another early start to return to the hospital this morning for our boosters.
Sadly, that didn’t materialise either and we were told to return on Thursday, which, of course, would be far too late for any booster to be effective before we fly. So, instead we’re going with our original plan of getting our boosters in the US, where Elaine can get another Moderna shot, which she’s more comfortable with, considering she already knew how her body reacted and neither of us are out of our “cover” period anyway, although it’s anybody’s guess as to what that period actually is supposed to be.
Enjoying another walk along the waterfront, spotting turtles this time, we returned to Paw Paw for a quiet day, although Talisker had departed by then and our new neighbours, who had just bought their first catamaran, Turquoise, was being shimmed into the open spot, with help from an experienced catamaran cruiser, Anthony, off Boomerang, who did a sterling job of getting the Lagoon 440 into the really tight opening.
We had also woken to an overcast, dull, slightly chilly day, which definitely lent itself to simply staying onboard, but Roy decided to set off on foot, nonetheless, to fill two jerry cans of diesel to top up the tanks before we leave Paw Paw for a few months. Not ideal, but he’d hoped to get the dinghy in the water and complete the diesel run to the fuel dock, once Talisker had departed. However, given the time wasted at the hospital, Turquoise was filling the gap before we knew it; a definite downside to Med mooring. To crown matters, it had also started to rain! That was our cue to climb into bed and enjoy an afternoon matinee. Needless to say, we weren’t even halfway through the movie when we both fell asleep! Fortunately, with the longer days, we still had some daylight remaining when we woke, but it was close to dinner time! Our bodies clearly still need the extra sleep!
