A Day In The Life: At Anchor In Turkey

0500
Wake up to the anchor dragging. That disturbing slapping noise is very definitely the sound of Esper’s hull gently smashing the rocky shore we anchored too close to last night. My gut knots with panic-stricken terror and I try to get out of bed, only to find that the cabin is knee deep in water.

0530
Wake up again, this time realising that I hadn’t woken up at 0500 and that, just like Alice, it had all been a dream.

0545
If there’s a mosque near by the Wailey Wailey man penetrates my disturbed sleep, his call to prayer adding to the horror of Esper’s anchor-dragging nightmare. Evil bearded clerics point and guffaw at my lame anchoring efforts; Esper drags so much she floats into the town bazaar where market traders beckon us into their carpet emporiums, offering us apple tea and hubbly bubblies whilst showing us magic carpets and other theurgic modes of transport that don’t require anchors.

0550
Wake up to find Esper is in exactly the same spot where we’d left her before going to bed. It is now light.

0555
Eventually fall asleep after finding a third pillow to hide under.

0600
Wake up as some furry woodland creature bounces across the bed, hits me square in the ding-dongs and disappears through the cabin porthole. It’s our cat in annoying mood; probably means she’s gone for a poo, so I get up to flush said poo from forward heads (we’ve trained her to use the toilet). Nothing there. Go back to bed.

0605
Wake up to the smell of poo. Woodland creature has done her business and is now hassling me for fresh food as I flush the forward heads. Realise after five minutes of flushing recycled poo that the flushing mechanism is broken and the poo, and the smell of poo, won’t go away. Go back to bed in the hope that the magical poo flushing fairy will visit by the time I get up again.

0630
Wake up to the nightmare of our bilges overflowing with cat poo, but quickly realise that this daily recurring nightmare is just a dream and so I go back to sleep. I manage another two hours because I know the anchor hasn’t dragged and the magical poo flushing fairy has indeed visited.

0830
Wake up to Liz moaning that tomorrow it’s my turn to flush the cat poo. *Sigh* If only she knew.

0900
Fresh coffee by the bucket-load and my day has begun. Ponder on jobs to be done around the boat and stuff to be purchased in town. Turn off the anchor light, something I should have done three hours ago.

0930
Turn laptop on and spend the next hour cursing technology and the fact that the wifi spot I was using quite happily last night has disappeared off the face of the planet. Somehow I manage to waste 2 hours doing nothing constructive at all on my computer. It reminds me of being back at work.

1130 – 1800
Potter. Do stuff that seemed constructive at the time but now, looking back on it, have nothing to show for it. Unless of course we’ve donned our walking boots, gone ashore, explored the local scene and taken lots of snaps. Otherwise it’s another day of doing very little apart from fixing the flushing mechanism, electrocuting myself on the boat’s 12 volt system by installing a new gadget very badly, or scraping the hull of barnacles. Pottering includes cooking of course, finding new and interesting local recipes to practise in the galley. It might also include spying on people through the binoculars: the young, naked buxom woman I spotted skinny dipping earlier is, upon closer inspection, a fat, aging German man with large gut. I flex my hands John Candy style.

Evening
Either thrash Liz at Rummicub cos it’s the only board game I can beat her at, or watch a horror film in a remote anchorage, volume full blast, just to scare ourselves stupid. If we’re feeling sociable and friends are close by we’ll  invite them over to drink all my cold beer.

1100 or 0300, depending upon above
Hit the sack after a really hard day’s work, telling myself that, in life, worse things happen at sea.

Hey, wait a minute…

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