A cultural meeting point described as a bridge between continents, 72 million people call Turkey home. Bordering Greece to the West, Iran, Iraq, and Syria to the south, this is literally where east meets west. We arrived in Istanbul on a cold and rainy April 25^th unsure of what to expect.

Istanbul is massive, 16 million people live here. The airport is serviced by a modern train system and, with no bags to wait for, we hopped on and were on our way in minutes to the heart of Old Istanbul. Sultanahmet. Bordered by the mighty Bosphorus it’s also a very beautiful and historic place.  The Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, Hippodrome, and Grand Bazaar are all within walking distance so it really doesn’t take long to get a sense of the rich history still on display here. We soaked up the cafe culture and reveled in the civility of the city. What a contrast from Cairo!

View at Picasa 27-Apr-2011 00:52, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 5.1, 18.2mm, 0.013 sec, ISO 200

View at Picasa 26-Apr-2011 21:12, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 5.6, 10.34mm, 0.005 sec, ISO 80

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Rooms were plentiful, vacancies were not. What rooms we were able to find turned out to be incredibly expensive. For some reason prices in Turkey are posted in either Turkish Lira (TL), US dollars, Euros or even English Pounds. The closest we came to an answer had something to do with currency stability and the retailers wish to pass along the cost of exchange to the consumer. It always takes a bit of time in a new country to learn how to calculate exchange rates in your head quickly to keep from being ripped off.This added complication didn’t help.

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View at Picasa 26-Apr-2011 23:52, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 3.5, 5.0mm, 0.04 sec, ISO 200

The cheapest room in town was a little hostel that racked and stacked snoring backpackers in bunks separated only by sheets hung between the beds. It was the type of accommodation you might expect to find behind a sweat shop. The 18 Euro per person price tag would have been laughable in any of the last 8-10 countries we’ve traveled through, and indeed that was our first response to the proprietor , but we soon found out that we were in a neighborhood where the average room would set you back 100 Euro so it turns out that the hovel was priced fairly and we came slinking back. We handed over the money, stuffed our bags under our bunk, and went outside to explore.

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View at Picasa 27-Apr-2011 02:23, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 3.5, 5.0mm, 0.004 sec, ISO 80

View at Picasa 26-Apr-2011 21:18, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 3.5, 5.0mm, 0.003 sec, ISO 80

We hit the street and the weather hit back. It was windy, damp, and bitterly cold despite the sunshine. I’m sure it was nothing compared to the weather anywhere in Canada on the same day but context is everything. For the past year we had been sweating it out in tropics and deserts. To us a cold spring night at these latitudes may as well have been the Arctic. We turned around and went back inside to redress and regroup. There would be no wandering around this night. We consulted with some backpackers in the hostel who had been here for a few days and from them we gathered the precise kind of intel we would need in order to minimize our exposure. Our second sortie was an unswerving b-line sprint to our target area; a purveyor of beer, food, and warmth!

View at Picasa 26-Apr-2011 21:58, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 4.5, 10.34mm, 0.003 sec, ISO 80

View at Picasa 26-Apr-2011 21:54, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 6.3, 6.53mm, 0.003 sec, ISO 80

The next day under the warmth of the sun we discovered that Istanbul is one of the world’s great cities. It has a really nice blend of the old, the ancient, the modern, and the kebap’s. Cobblestones and sidewalk cafe’s, fascinating history and funky bars. We would have spent more time there but we received an email from the shipping agent stating that the Everest would be arriving in Marmaris sooner than expected, like in 2 days!

Istanbul is a long way from Marmaris but we managed to find an overnight bus leaving the same day so quickly made the necessary arrangements and hustled off to the terminal. We were met by an airport-like experience; tickets were exchanged for boarding cards, seat assignments were given, clear directions to clearly marked loading bays were issued. There was a pleasant cafeteria prior to the boarding area where we were able to stock up on provisions.

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When it was time to board, we were shown to our seats by a uniformed attendant who then asked if we would like a drink. He folded down our table trays before disappearing to retrieve our order. He returned with our drinks and provided us each with a moist towelette, politely wished us a comfortable trip, and told us to ring the call button if we needed anything. We slept soundly and fully reclined, we stretched our legs during a couple of short ferry rides, and woke up with the sun in Marmaris. If comparing this with our last bus experience (in Egypt), I’m certain that no greater contrast exists.

Marmaris had been described to us as coastal and an “unabashed touristic town”. We could certainly see the potential.  Nice beaches were lined with dozens of bars. This was the end of April though. It was pre-season and totally dead. If our random encounters were any indicator, then the largest group of visitors in Marmaris that week were the other boat owners waiting for the BBC Everest to show up.

We found a place to stay and went down to the water to see if we could spot Palapa. Roger’s boat was bouncing around in a bit of nasty wind that had filled in a couple hundred meters off shore. This was a very exciting moment for us because he had no idea that we were even here. The last Roger had heard from us we were still in Male preparing for passage to South Africa. Now that we had a visual confirmation we could get on with the second phase of the operation; getting him to shore under false pretences.

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We found a cafe with free wifi and I sent him an email. We were in luck! Roger was on line and replied within a few minutes. Over the next 30 minutes or so a complicated flurry of emails went back and forth, me pretending to still be in Male trying to convince Roger that a friend of mine happened to be there in Marmaris and was anxious to meet him. I’m not sure which was the harder sell; persuading Roger that I actually had a friend, or once I did, that he would actually want to meet Roger.

Under my alias I gave directions to the cafe and offered free beer to Roger if he would come to shore. It was a tough sell because the weather was really gnarly by this point. A dinghy ride to shore was not a comfortable proposition. So I had to pour it on thick; free beer, gorgeous women, etc until he eventually took the bait. In the distance we could see a little black speck hopping off the transom and into the dinghy. Watching waves crash over top of him as he surfed down each steep face before being blasted with spray from the next one almost made us feel sorry for him… almost.

We left our table and circled around behind him as he approached. We got so close that we were literally able to bump into him and say casually, “hey Roger, what are you doing here?” Hook line and sinker, and remember, we hadn’t seen the guy since Thailand. Roger was completely speechless and just stood there gawking at us while his brain tried to reconcile the image. Once it did he started hitting me. I’m not sure if it was out of surprise or if it was because I wasn’t the imaginary friend I had claimed to be surrounded by beautiful women giving him free beer, probably a combination of the two. So we bought him a beer which seemed to calm him down enough to fill him in on our previous few months.

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A very wet dinghy ride back to Palapa later and we were running the same charade on Karli who had her Mom out for a visit. While we celebrated she had the challenging job of trying to explain to her Mom who the dripping wet Canadians were and why they were here. We got the feeling that Karli wished we actually were on our way to South Africa instead of dripping puddles of salt water all over the clean dry boat and drinking up all the booze with Roger. We managed to power through it though, and that night Palapa had two additional guests on board.

In our still damp clothes crusted over with salt Roger gave us a lift back to shore in the morning. We met some friends for breakfast and bumped into the shipping crew. BBC Everest would be in later that day and they were here to oversee the unloading.

Despite some people’s efforts to make things far more complicated than they needed to be, all boat owners were eventually matched up with their boats. The unloading went well. Being one of the last boats to load, we were scheduled to be one of the first to unload. The lift down was just as nerve wracking as the lift up but in the end just as smooth. We flicked the switches and turned the key and the boat sprang to life. We could tell that she had missed us, and were in the water just after lunch on April 30^th. She was a dirty girl but in fine shape. We steamed over to the same anchorage in front of town where Palapa had been and spent a few hours commissioning the Slapdash.

View at Picasa 29-Apr-2011 18:47, Panasonic DMC-TZ5, 4.9, 44.0mm, 0.003 sec, ISO 100

That afternoon Palapa returned from a Karli Mom day sail. The Mom left and they sportingly invited us over for round two. Despite our sneak attack we apparently hadn’t managed to wear out our welcome quite yet. With things sorted out on Slapdash we celebrated the reunion in earnest aboard Palapa as the storm clouds rolled in.

The weather had been mostly crap since we arrived in Turkey so the looming black clouds were no surprise. Lightning started crashing all around us though, one so loud and close, with no time between crash and flash, that it made us all jump. Intensity usually equals brevity with these things, and this was no exception. In a few minutes it had passed over and we forgot all about it.

Before leaving Palapa that night we agreed to leave our VHF on channel 10 so that we would have contact between the boats, so once we were back aboard Slapdash Jaime flicked the switch and nothing happened, oh great, we thought, welcome back to boating.

It was late and we were exhausted, not to mention more than a little drunk, so wisely went to bed and left this pesky issue for a more suitable hour and state of mind.

The next morning I looked at the VHF again. Yep, still broken. It had been working fine the day before so this didn’t make much sense. Thinking perhaps there was a battery problem I tried a few switches on the panel. A slow feeling of horror backed up all the way into my throat as my damaged brain cells put two and two together. That particularly loud crash we had heard from Palapa the night before, the one that seemed to strike right behind the boat, the one that made us all jump… oh shit!

Yes indeed, Slapdash had been struck by lightning.

We collected our senses and began a systematic check, tallying up the score. We were still working on our plan to pay for the enormous shipping expense, when within the next hour we learned that before leaving Marmaris we would now need to fix or replace:

• VHF
• VHF Antenna
• Propane fume detector
• Running lights
• Anchor light
• Stereo
• Speakers
• Wind instrument
• Wind transponder
• Depth instrument
• Autopilot
• Battery monitor
• Engine instrument panel (gauges, switches etc)

Looks like lightning took the round.

There was some good news though; a few big ticket items (chart plotter, battery bank) escaped injury. We were anchored beside a town that had every conceivable marine retailer and repair shop. There was no structural damage apart from the VHF antenna being blown clear off the mast. Nobody was hurt. We weren’t in Egypt. The engine started up. Roger is an MIT educated electronic engineer.

A brief interlude so that I can offer up a little advice; if you ever by chance meet someone who’s boat has recently been struck by lightning never use the term you are so lucky in any sentence, even if you just mean that nobody was hurt. Remember, we’re talking about being struck by lightning here, inarguably a very unlucky occurrence. Instead try using could be worse, which is equally as annoying but at least true. Even better try something like; who should I make the cheque out to?

Another good statement to avoid, one that really surprised us is; it’s sure a good thing our boat didn’t get hit, we have way more electronics than you. Seriously? That’s like saying to someone whose house has just burned down, boy it’s sure a good thing your house burned down, we have way more stuff than you!

Back to the story.

We became celebrities in a victims of a car accident on the side of the road kind of way. Cruisers would stop by in their dinghies and fake concern so that they could hear about the carnage. I swear, as we went on about fried and frizzled electronics it was all they could do to keep from drooling. More often than not the aquatic rubberneckers would cheerily decide that they hadn’t quite taken up enough of our time and that we were clearly in the need of a totally fictitious story. They would then begin relating a laughable urban legend (that they heard from a very reliable eleventh hand) about a boat that was completely and catastrophically vaporized by lightning. The characters, location, and boat name always changed but the moral of the story was always the same. After dramatic pause this moral was invariably delivered with strong eye contact and the somber slow voice of a patronizing school teacher, “so as you can see, you are both very lucky after all”.

This was a point to which I generally replied by stabbing them in the eyes repeatedly with whatever sharp object I could get my hands on.

I’ve claimed an “irrational” fear of lightning in several previous posts. At one point the topic even served as conversational fodder for a good Bintang session with Roger, Kirk, and a couple other captains while drinking beer back at the Bali Yacht Club. It was a lively and relevant discussion as most of us (all except Kirk who is now on his way to the Cape of Good luck!) were about to transit the Malacca Straight, infamous for its lightning storms among other things.

We had compared known first hand lightning strikes with the estimated number of boats we had ever had contact with, and then combined our totals. Basically how many boats do you actually know of, and how many of them have been hit? I can’t remember the exact numbers that resulted from this SWAG methodology, but it was a percentage so minuscule I remember saying, “good, I can stop worrying about that now” and then added jokingly, “we`ve probably got a better chance of being pirated!” and then I probably stole some of Rogers beer.

There’s an old sailors superstition that goes like this; once Neptune marks a boat or a sailor for payment there is no way to avoid the debt.  They are marked. Only by taking up the life of a landsman can they avoid this fate, but if they return to the sea for any reason, payment is inevitable. Sometimes at the peril of those unlucky enough to be on the same ship.

If that’s true then perhaps by shipping the boat through the Gulf of Aden we sidestepped some unknown calamity that was waiting for us. This strike was Neptune’s speedy reconciliation.

I don’t really believe any of that of course but you have to admit it is a bit weird… only 8 hours had passed after crew and boat had been reunited before being struck by lightning.

We took little comfort from the local Turkish captains who told us how remarkable and unusual this strike was. On the other hand, I did notice that not one of them told us how lucky we were.

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