I signed up for another year here in Finike. I probably will not decide my plans of what happens after that until Spring of 2014. I know and like the Finike marina. And the town and the area in general. Climate, people, the whole package. There is a lot of work to do aboard Alegría and most of it is easy to do here. I very much want to lower my stress rate and this seemed a good way to do it.
If I were to leave Turkey or even just go to a different marina in Turkey. There would be a lot more to do, more decisions, more new problems to solve, and so on. Right now, none of those things seem like good things. There are far too many required jobs. So, I am reluctant to be creating a large number of new optional jobs. I am much too good at thinking of those as it is.
Many thanks for the emails. If you can stand it a few months longer, I seldom answer them, but I do read and enjoy them. Once I am in the water and back from Greece, I will have easier deadlines. Right now, I need to leave Turkey by May 27 if possible. Then, I think that I can go to the nearest Greek Island. About 60km (37 miles) away. It has many names. Google Kastellorizo Wiki
I am still trying to learn the exact rules that I need to follow and how to best do that.
Last night, a friend said, “I was telling them that yesterday it took me 4 hours to put a nut on a bolt. They asked why and I reminded them that it is a boat, and they understood.”
Well, even boat related questions can become complicated.
For example, a complication that I thought did not apply to this part of Turkey is the “Blue Card”. It is the noble idea that part or all of Turkey would be zero discharge. The USA has forbidden black water (human waste) from being pumped overboard for a very long time, and has a few areas that they do not allow gray water. That is shower and sink water.
(Do you see any symbolism in the company that supplies US mercenaries in Iraq to be called Black Water? For most folks, black water it the name for the worst kind of sewage. Hummm.)
There is, for me at least, a lot of confusion about what Turkey wants and how and where it will be enforced. I suspect that many have axes to grind. If you want it to fail, one way would be to make it so confusing and impossibly difficult and it will fail. I think that is what we are seeing.
First, they said that you could not discharge anything, black or gray, in a proposed National Park area. Now it sounds like you cannot discharge anything in the Turkish Territorial waters. Does that mean 200 NM? Nice idea, but I don’t know of any other country that is doing it. In the recent past the popular Turkish tour boats have often been accused of, just as they are getting under-weigh from a beautiful cove, pumping their many hundreds of gallons of raw sewage into the pristine bay.
Most of us are for clean water, but few EU boats have any holding tanks, even for sewage. We built one in for sewage as we were originally constructing Alegría in the mid 1970s. We use it when in close waters, but feel that in open water, black water is not a threat. Where do the whales, porpoise, fish and all marine creatures pee & poop? Actually, may kinds of fish vigorously consume our poops. Like candy. Does that give you pause? If we are not using our holding tank, the norm is for it to be very widely dispersed in all but the tightest bays.
Many boaters say that we can do black water tanks, but gray water is harder, because there is a lot more of it and very few boats are equipped to save it.
There are stories of people being charged 80 Euros to pump out, IF you can find any place that CAN pump you out. So, it is a hot button issue and tempers flare. I need to learn what is my reality.
When we were in the EU, we very often saw towns dumping raw sewage, black & gray both, right into the beach water. At Itea, Greece, there must have been a broken pipe. Because a few hundred yards outside the marina entrance there was a LARGE vigorous boiling of stinky water that was clearly a huge amount of municipal sewage. It was hard to imagine that Itea produce that much. I am sure that it was a temporary problem. To live like that requires a level of stupidity that I cannot imagine. We stopped there to go by bus to Delphi, as in “the oracle at Delphi”. Google it.
Dave
Alegria1976's Blog 
Dave sounds like you are having all kinds of fun. Hope things are beginning to get a little easier for you. I know from experience that it time, it never goes away but does get less hard. Good sailing.
Sorry just read comment meant that it takes time to ease up.
Yes, and I assume that getting over the loss of a loved one, “takes time, never goes away but does get less hard.”
I would say it is not going away, but I am adapting to ways to deal with it better every day. Or, I am learning how as opposed to it leaving on its own accord. If that makes sense.