The first day spent in Esenkoy was spent doing things we take for granted at home.
I got to shower for the first time in 5 days the night before since we filled up with water which was much appreciated. One of our tanks was almost completely empty while the other one was under half way full so we were on water conservation mode. We need the fresh water to drink, brush teeth, do dishes, cook, and most importantly flush the toilet. It is possible to set the toilet up to flush with sea water, and that’s how they did it during the crossing, but everything living in the sea water takes up residence in the toilet and well it starts to smell worse than before.
I woke up and tried to renew our Turkcell dongle online before the internet died at the end of the day on the 15th but was unable to figure out the website. It was asking for a password… I finally figured out how to set a password and then the security certificate wasn’t working and I got stuck. I had Google’s translation site open and was allowing everything to translate as I went along, but I still got nowhere. So after a very frustrating morning we went back to the restaurant we had eaten at the night before and had a great lunch.
I decided to go for a walk to see if I could find a Laundromat or Turkcell place and walked for about 2 miles before deciding I wasn’t going to find anything and walked back to the boat. It was a really great walk along the water front though and I got to see the residential area and two mosques.
When I got back to the boat it was time to tackle the laundry. We hadn’t been able to do laundry in 3 weeks so pretty much everything I had on board needed to be washed (and that isn’t an exaggeration). Hand washing clothes is not an easy task and Dad and the guys crossing had worked out a system using detergent, the mop, and the garbage can… so I washed all of my clothes in a garbage can… with a mop.
Isn’t laundry fun? A cap full of detergent, about 6 pots of hot water, and a small pile of clothes: insert mop and churn like butter. We were lucky enough to have a hose that we could use to rinse the clothes out, but it seems to take forever to get all of the soap out so clothes tend to smell great but are a little crunchy to the touch.
Everything was ringed out the best I could get it, but it still seemed full of water when I hung it out to dry. There was so much laundry we used every bit of lifeline space and I was washing up until around 5:00pm. The sun is only up until 8:00pm so this will be a two day drying process. I could’ve left the clothes up overnight, but there is a population of cats in the area who already sprayed our boat once and I didn’t want all of my hard work to end up smelling like cat.
My day was spent washing clothes while Dad spent his morning cleaning the interior of the boat, fixing the engine mount, and desalting the deck. The deck was so salty that when the sun hit it just right it looked like a Twilight vampire. He was then assigned the task of provision shopping. We managed to not only almost run out of water, but food too. We would’ve never gone hungry because there are so many cans of SPAM and tuna on board, not to forget pasta and what’s left of a 10lb bag of rice. We had a single lemon, a single potato, a single onion, a small baggie of raisins, and a loaf of very stale bread. (There were no weevils in the bread yet, but I’m sure it was only a matter of time) Plus I was out of Coke Zero. Three trips to the grocery store and butcher later and we were fully stocked with some to spare.
For anyone who thinks I am on a great vacation, you are partially right. I don’t have to work in an office and my sleep schedule is a little bit more relaxed. I am getting to see the wonders of the world and have all sorts of cultural experiences. But on days like today I am reminded at how much work really goes into it. The repetition when we are on the water of bringing the fenders and lines in, getting the main sail up and any other sails we want to use, adjusting those throughout the day, taking them down, putting the fenders and lines back out and then docking which includes getting the gangplank out and plugging all of the electronics in… and then doing it again the next day. It’s like camping but we happen to have a toilet, beds, and are floating. Again the simple things like laundry, food, and showers are things we no longer take for granted and when it all comes together in one day it makes a very happy crew.
We are going to take a bus in Yalova to hopefully get the internet taken care of and to check out the town and marina. We will decide within the next couple of days if we want to actually take the boat into the Istanbul area or just stay here. There is a ferry that runs to Istanbul and a bus that runs to Yalova. The Black Sea is pretty much out because of how the weather has been beating us up and because of the cost of fuel. It’s roughly $10 a gallon here to fill up and we use a lot of fuel. As always I will try and keep you posted.
This is Esenkoy, the town we are staying in right now. The sun sets are beautiful, the people are friendly, and the town itself is comfortable. Plus there is a cow up the street from the marina. My vote is to stay here until my Mom comes and we start heading out of the Sea of Marmara, but there are a lot of factors that contribute so we are still weighing the pros and cons.
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