It all started very early Tuesday morning at Gatwick when I was half asleep. We boarded our flight and woke up due to excitement. After landing in Turkey we had a 3 hour drive ahead of us so we stopped to pick up some necessary resources including lots of crisps, oranges, olives, honey and salad dressing! After eventually arriving in Bodrum we realised we had missed registration, the practice race and the opening ceremony! But we had a whole jar of olives so we were OK. We checked into our accommodation and hit the hay ready to race the next day.
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| Getting ready at Bodrum |
After an early start we headed down to the sailing club and received our boats. Once again they weren't up to our usual standard!! I had to contend with a slipping sprit, kicker and outhaul! We set out for a day in about 16 knots. In the first race I got a 7th however my kicker snapped in the next race resulting in a 29th. I then pulled back a 16th. We then got lost on our way back to the hotel which resulted in an hour of driving when it should have been 15 minutes! Dinner was incredible - our hotel provided us with an enormous buffet to feast on. White coffee is my new favourite along with honey mixed with cucumber. What has Turkey done to me?
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| The view from our room |
We left early again the next morning predicting that we would get lost again which we did! We followed a motor-bike down a one-way street, he then turned off onto the pavement and we were lost! Eventually we arrived at the sailing club, only just beating the bus which left 15 minutes after us! We had another delay in the morning again which gave us time to warm our our voices with some top quality singing! The day brought 16 knots again and I had a 4th and 17th. We then went back to the hotel where we had the best game of pool which resulted in lots of banterliscious moments!
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| We survived the Turkish bath! |
The next day was very windy so we headed down to the yacht club. As expected we had a delay in the morning so we weren't hopeful. All the sailors kept their sails in the hanger and because of an overload, sails were being knocked down and arguments could be heard. It got so bad a security guard had to be alerted so he was positioned on standby! After hours of waiting and hours of singing, sailing was finally cancelled for the day. We headed back to the hotel, quickly got changed out of our sailing kit and headed into town. We walked down to the front and met lots of stray dogs who followed us everywhere. We then went to a Turkish bath which was surprising to say the least. And we saw some interesting sights! After a quick tour round the underwater museum which was massive and very interesting, we then got a quick Ice cream before heading back to the hotel for some scrumptious dinner and hit the hay early for another windy day to be followed.
We woke up to the same wind strength so once again our thoughts were that we wouldn't be sailing. We had another delay in the morning however we occupied ourselves well with orange cricket and orange catch as we had excess oranges! The committee were desperate to sail so they sent the seniors out to test. It was very windy over 20kts so I didn't do as well as I hoped. I got two 47th and 40th. Not the best evening followed as well due to a headache and being very disappointed.
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| A sailors lunch |
We woke up the following day to completely the opposite day - almost no wind, mine and William's favourite wind! We had ANOTHER delay in the morning so once again we occupied ourselves with intense singing which I'm sure everyone loved! Thankfully we managed to launch however the racing for the day was unfortunately cancelled which upset me a bit. However I had to quickly get over that because we had a short deadline for the flight back. We all managed to completely strip our boats in about 5 minutes so we were off early for our 3 hour drive ahead of us. Luckily we left earl because we got lost on the way back which meant we were behind by about an hour. But the flight was delayed so it didn't matter. We all slept on the plane so it went very quickly and soon we were in England at back home (if you discard immigration!).
Overall I came 36th. It was not the best ever result however I was still happy with the weeks racing. Along with Bermuda it was the best international event ever so far!
