Happy Birthday To You!

A week after getting Esper in the water Liz and I stayed in the marina for a few days, a special treat for Liz's big day, or rather big weekend. Dorothy, Liz's mum, and John flew out to help celebrate, as well as Jayne, one of Liz's oldest friends, who stayed with us on the boat.

Liz's 50th began with a trip to the hamam with the girls, whilst I busied myself around the boat. When they returned we had just enough time to put together some snacks and chill the wine before we were boarded by 15 guests for pre-dinner drinks. We've never had so many people on board Esper!

Akan adjusts our courtesy flag

Barbarah & Semih

Yener

Liz admiring Akan's hard work

Vincent & Antonella

Bruce, our regular neighbour in the marina

We then trundled along to Sunger where we sat round a table for 25 people! We were joined by pretty much all our friends we had made over the last few years, both sailing and non sailing people alike. To make the evening more interesting every hour the boys had to stand up and move two seats to the left, which sounds daft but really helped people mix and meet new friends. Try it sometime, it really works!

Bucu, Akan's better half

Birthday girl and Melih

Scottish Gary looking Scottish

Semih, brother of Melih & Meltem

The ever beautiful Guler

Sally & Vincent

Brothers in Arms: Melih & Chris, Liz's brother

Next day we set sail for Bitez (just round the corner) and were joined by Meltem, the sister of our good friends Semih and Melih. Meltem currently works for the American consulate in Ankara (coincidentally she had met our friend Tac at a consulate do some while back) but has dreams of joining her brothers in Bodrum with the aim of buying a boat. She's taking some exams this summer so she was keen to learn a thing or two whilst aboard. We took in Gumusluk before anchoring in Ortakent for Jayne's last night, where we were invited back to Semih and Barbarah's house in the mountains for supper. Semih's mum had been hard at work in the kitchen and produced some fine Turkish fayre.

Jayne, who popped over for the weekend sans family

After dropping Jayne off Liz and I went for a little sail around the Goekeva bay, bumping into a friend from Yat Lift on the way, who joined us in the anchorage at Coketme. This period was a great shake-down for us, doing a spot of sailing and motoring and generally getting comfortable aboard Esper in anticipation for the summer.