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Work on preparing the hull did not stop, whatever the weather Hull works nearly complete and covers removed. The deck is next

The road surface was washed away by heavy rain within a week

MARCH 2016 http://www.yachtingmonthly.com 67

not go near it but my tradesmen
carried on regardless.
Getting to the marina from
town on the daily commute was
an exciting experience in itself
with vast waterfalls cascading
from the surrounding hills to wash
way the already hazardous roads.
Whole sections of carriageway
would simply
disappear down
slippery hillsides,
taking any unwitting
travellers along for
the ride. Frequent
mini-landslides would
strew great piles of root-fi lled
rubble across the road, damming
large pools of muddy water.
The fi erce cloudbursts reduced
visibility to zero despite the best
efforts of the windscreen wipers.
It was all worthwhile, however.
The antifouling on my boat
had been curling at the edges,
so I decided to have the hull
brought back to clean gelcoat
and epoxied. My main boatyard
contact, Ali Saygin, gave me
plenty of assurances and showed

me other boats he had worked on

but my nervousness drove me to

be present to see the job done.

The local people are so

hard-working. No slurry blasting

or sophisticated treatments

for them. They simply used

handmade stainless steel scrapers

with 30mm blades and in a

couple of days with

four men working, all

was scraped clean.

The work was fi nished

with an orbital sander

and I could not fault

it. All ready for epoxy

coating and new seacocks. They

repainted all the hull lines and

boat name, polished the hull

and deck and fi nished all those

annoying and time-consuming

GRP repairs to get rid of the

unsightly marks that have accrued

over time. The fi nal fi nish was

done in time for April when the

weather had brightened and the

sea started to warm.

If you want to keep your boat in

the eastern Med, be prepared for

short periods of UK-style winter

weather. Winter fl ights from the

UK are frequent and inexpensive.

Turkish Airlines fl y from London

Heathrow to Dalaman in about

seven hours with a brief stopover

in Istanbul. People use this route

and frequently take time out in

the city for a few days while on

route. You can often get fl ights for

less than £200.

Car hire is very cheap, as are

the hotels off-season. For me,

sleeping on a boat 12ft in the air in

its cradle with half a gale roaring

underneath didn’t appeal. It was

just too cold, when you could

get a quite respectable hotel

room in town for less than a €100

(£75) a week with heating and

breakfast. The car was essential

for the inevitable running around

and also cost barely €100 for the

week. Given that the taxis to and

from the airport alone would

have cost more than that, the

economics speak for themselves.

Once the short winter had

gone, spring rapidly arrived and it

was time to break out the shorts

for the rest of the year. W

Michael (66) has sailed

since he was a teenager. His

fi rst yacht was a Jaguar 21,

which he kept at Tollesbury

on the East Coast. He gained

his RYA Yachtmaster in 1976

and bought a Jeanneau

Sun Odyssey 40 in 2001,

in which he and his wife

have sailed thousands of

miles in the Mediterranean.

He retired from owning a

London-based construction

company fi ve years ago.

Michael Solano

‘We saw fi ve

inches of rain

in one day’

PHOTOS: MICHAEL SOLANO

Julia Too enjoys a more typical summer after a very chilly winter