Rumpus back in Turkey

Rumpus is back in mainland Turkey after a wonderful week in Cyprus with Rupe’s daughter Kate, her husband Duncan, and friends Philly and Jonno. They had flown from London for some sea and sunshine, and there was plenty of both! Very hot nights meant that people slept in all sorts of places on the boat; Philly preferring being outside.

We sailed 28 hours from Herzliya in Israel to meet them in Larnaca, a marina in the Republic of Cyprus (formerly Greek Cyprus, now a member of the EU in its own right). Then with the full crew, we went around the eastern end of the island to end up in Girne, a marina we had visited on the rally, with a beautiful little old harbour in the middle of the old town.

There were interesting immigration issues: in 1974 Turkey took the northern part of Cyprus and there is still no formal recognition of this by the Republic; we had to emigrate from Cyprus and immigrate to Turkish North Cyprus, and were told by Cyprus police that Rumpus could not now return to the south if it went to the north.

The peninsula in the north east of Cyprus is beautiful and sparsely populated; we anchored in Monastery Bay and visited the old and largely abandoned monastery; lots of swimming to cool off as it really was very very hot.

We anchored off in another little bay on the north of that peninsula, then on to Girne in Turkish North Cyprus where we had a special dinner to celebrate 4 people turning 30.

The next day we said good bye to them and Rupe and I have just completed the last ( I hope) long overnight passage - 190 miles. Only wind we found was "right on the nose" and a westerly swell made things quite uncomfortable, though fortunately very warm and clear. In the evening and again in the morning we were lucky enough to catch another couple of albacore tuna, making the tally 6 for this season on Rumpus.

Now a new phase: Rupe is travelling home in a couple of days, earlier than planned. This means the adventures of Rumpus will continue with Kristin taking her to Marmaris Yacht Marin where she will spend the winter. My crew for this passage will be Lulu, who is an Australian we met on the rally. She speaks fluent Turkish and used to run a yacht charter business so she is the perfect person for this leg of the journey!