So When Are We Going To Go Somewhere?

• Log

We bought Esper at the end of 2004 and now it’s February 2009. In that time all we’ve done is sailed from Bodrum to Fethiye. Big deal. Weren’t we supposed to be going round the world? Anyone else out there get similar remarks from armchair sailors and landlubbers? I heard that a lot on my last visit home to the UK and I bet Jamie’s hearing it right now. Funny how it’s only people without a boat who make these remarks… What non boat dwellers don’t understand is how long everything takes. Well, for those people who wonder what we ‘do all day’ and why we haven’t got very far, here are a few things to think about:

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We’ll Keep the Boat Flag Flying Here

• Log

Is your burgee lower than your shabby courtesy flag, and are they both on the port side? Does your ensign fly freely all night and does your ‘Eng-er-land’ flag fly proudly? Oh my. What about your private signals, or shouldn’t I ask? Find out why the national flags of Libya and Nepal are unique with Millie’s vexillological treatise. She’s been doing a little research and come up with her own slant on flag etiquette. There’s a couple of new photos of her too, but you wouldn’t expect anything less.

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Samsung NC10 Netbook

• Log

This is the first in our new series of reviews, entitled ‘Testing, testing…’. In this section we comment on gear we’ve either begged, borrowed or nicked, new or second hand. In fact it’s less of a ‘review’ and more of a ‘how and why we bought this product and here’s how we got on with of it’. By documenting our experiences we hope to impart some useful user experience. Some of the reviews will be ongoing and we encourage your comments.

Before you non-yotties switch off for fear of our first review being about that handy life-raft for on-board cats we thought we’d start with a cool bit of electronic gadgetry, the Samsung NC10 netbook. If you’re looking for a really portable but fully functional PC, you may be interested to learn about this shockingly cheap laptop. For the yotties amongst you this could just be the solution to your on-board computing requirements. Seriously.

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A Tale Of Two Cities

• video clips

It doesn’t seem to matter where you are this weekend: Turkey, England, Germany… it’s wet wherever you go. If the weather’s not ripping pontoons apart in Marmaris it’s holding up traffic on the M25 and making the autobahn a dangerous place to travel. For those who haven’t seen it we have some video evidence of the damage that wreaked havoc across Marmaris, recorded by Mike of ‘Roam’, hot off the press. In stark contrast to that we have a great movie of ‘Ilios’, ‘Viva Solo’, ‘Esper’, ‘Full Flight’ and ‘Lady Jessie’ all demonstrating what we like doing best. Any opportunity to send Liz off up into the air attached to a bit of string , camcorder in hand, has got to be worth the effort and she captured some fantastic video clips, which we present to you here. A pleasant musical refrain replaces the dirty-mouthed Liz battling with a shaky video camera.

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Welcome To The New FTB Site!

• Log

Welcome to the new Followtheboat website! This complete revamp is quite a departure from our old site and we have spent rather a lot of time rebuilding it. But why? It’s only a silly old travelogue! The fact was it was getting to be rather a handful and were forced to make some essential changes. It’s all for the best!

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In The Summertime

• Log

I was glad to be back in Turkey, but the thing about Alanya is that it also doesn’t have any fish. It does have a marina with no boats in it and a few fairly scary feral cats. That didn’t bother me though. I still managed to trap myself inside the marina boss’s yacht and had a fight or two with the local moggies. I won.

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A Tale of Two Has(s)ans

• Log

We decided to head next door to Hassan’s, where we were looking forward to meeting the owner. Oh boy, did we meet the owner. I’m not sure if he had got out of bed the wrong side, if he’d just had some terrible news, or if he’d taken an instant dislike to us but he was the most unpleasant man we have met in Turkey. The exchange went something like this…

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Dragging Anchors And Scraping Transoms

• video clips

Alanya is an odd place for yotties to visit. On the one hand it is full of German and Russian package holiday makers, basking on the most stunning of sandy beaches (a rarity in Turkey). It lacks local anchorages, suffers sloppy waters and rarely hosts ‘good’ sailing weather, located in the lull that is Antalya Bay. Oh and it doesn’t yet have a completed marina. On the other hand it boasts some stunning views of the Taurus mountains and the ‘old town’ and castle are well worth a visit. Annoyingly it also has a great brewery, which I missed. How the hell did that happen?

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Esper Sails Herself

• Log

Sometimes writing this log is exhausting but it means we really get to examine our experiences in different places around the world, and our time in Cyprus was a real eye-opener. It’s great to see Liz writing more of the log so I can spend more time taking pictures; we’re working well as a team to provide you with a bit of fun and entertainment.

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Lefkosia or Nicosia?

• observation

You’ll also get confused by the fact that none of the borders are sign-posted. One minute you’re driving along, minding your own business, admiring the view, and next you’ve driven into a checkpoint barrier. Probably manned by an angry Greek police officer.

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A Walk Up Ledra Street

• observation

Contrasts again. The richly self-indulgent road south of the line turns into a dusty careworn main road on the Turkish Cypriot side. No Starbucks, Top Shop or McDonalds to be found here. Stepping off the main drag we are in a monstrous slum of poverty and wasteland.

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