Going through customs is always an interesting process. We chose the right marina though, they do half of it for us, and the other half we have to walk about 100 feet and it’s right at the marina.
We went to the office at around 9:00am and the guy there was friendly and started right away. There are four stamps you need to clear in Turkey to officially be cleared to leave the marina and things of that sort. I’m not sure what each of them were… I’m thinking passport control, customs, immigration, and a health inspection? That’s what it seemed like at least.
The marina takes care of the passport control and whatever we are customs. We paid to get our 3 month visas and they got that taken care of and filled out all of the paperwork for what we were bringing into the country as far as boat type, engine, VHF radio type, very detailed. Then they took us over to the other buildings where we met with a “doctor” and Dad had to fill out a paper saying where we came from and I’m guessing stating we weren’t carrying in any sort of Swine Flu or flesh eating virus and he stamped us on that one. The doctor won’t stamp unless everyone is present and you fill the form out in front of him, but we didn’t actually talk to the man… I guess it’s a first impression. Heh I had an arm covered in welts from a minor mosquito problem we have from Rhodes and he didn’t seem to care. Then we have to meet with the port police who give us the final stamp into the country and who actually stamped out passports. It was an impressive stamp too!
This took the better half of the day because the port police went to lunch or something? So in the meantime I got the internet up and running which took a trip to the office because of some problem with the IP addresses they tend to have here? And I took the best shower of my life. The showers here are wonderful! Clean, super hot… like almost boiling point hot… and the water pressure is border line pressure washer if you want. It felt SO good. While we were camping out on the boat waiting to be summoned by the port police we met all sorts of new people.
When we came in the night before we went up to the Navigator, the marina restaurant, and there was a party going on. It was someone’s 80th birthday and they were throwing him a marina party. So we had a preview then of the people and they looked like fun. We went in for one dance and people said hi, but we were moving so much after being on the boat and it was a tight space, so in lieu of land sickness we snuck out and just came back to the boat to crash. Once everyone saw that our boat had appeared over night, they all wanted to meet the fresh meat. I met more people than I could possibly remember.
So far our first impression of the marina is good. It was described to us as “A playground for adults” and it seems like just that. As Dad and I sat back and watched things it reminded us of my Nana’s retirement community. The average age of the sailors is around 60+, there are all sorts of planned activities that we can sign up for ranging from tennis club to Sunday hikes and outings into the main town of Antalya, which is about an hour away, and everyone was talking about everyone else! We haven’t heard much about other people necessarily, but we had heard about boats and boat placement and can only imagine what has been said about our docking and messy deck.
The people to the immediate right are from Switzerland and speak broken English, but seem really nice. We are right up on their boat so we have seen a lot of them. The lady told me about the hiking trails and things close to here. We are in the mountains so there are a lot apparently. Then the people to our left where they may or may not try to squeeze another boat are from Canada. They are more like my Dad’s age and see super nice. They will be here the entire winter too so I think through time we will make friends with them. Ben and his wife… whose name escapes me right now… have three daughters they are trying to get together for the holidays. They were cleaning their ropes, something we have never done, and have a nice sized boat.
As I was walking back from the office a man named Wolfgang from Switzerland informed me that we were flying the wrong curtsey flag. We had up Tunisia, which is similar to Turkey but not the same clearly, and Dad and I quickly took it down and went to the marina store for the correct flag. Oops! Everyone got a laugh out of it at least, we were lucky the marina didn’t see because they apparently can fine for things like that. Turkey is very proud of their flag and like nothing but the best quality to be flown.
We had heard about happy hour at the Navigator and decided to go up and meet some more people. It was very profitable. We learned Wolfgang’s name, and met people from all over. This is a true melting pot of people from all over the world. South Africa, Switzerland, Norway, America, England, Canada, and Germany just to name a few we have identified. The couple from Norway was cool, Ellen and I can’t spell her husband’s name, and she offered to take me around the next day to show me around which I thought was super nice. We learned that a lot of the couples are leaving for Christmas, but that there is still a nice group that stays throughout the winter and that there is still plenty to do, including a Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and everything. Who could ask for anything more?
I will go around and take photos soon and post those soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment