My Storks are Back – It’s spring ! The nest on top of the nearby telegraph pole is being repaired after the storms and and soon we will hear the batter of tiny beaks. It is the best time of year. In the marina boats are being hauled out and scrubbed and painted, steel stanchions are being polished, hulls washed down and the smell of antifoul and polish pervades the air. The Scorpio bar is getting busier and Grace is getting stressed.
I am still exploring Marmaris and I have just found a perfect spot. I saw it first from the sea. A little beach nestling under a large rock outcrop called ‘White rock’ just south east of the marina. Lucydog and I went for lunch at a nice beach restaurant and then we went for a walk along the waterfront. After you leave the restaurant it becomes a shingle strip. The green of the pine trees contrasts with the red of the earth and the blue of the sea. The sun glints off the beer bottles strewn over the pebbles. Some broken and some intact. The gentle breeze rustles the plastic bags left after picnics. Plastic cartons and containers bob up and down in the gentle swell. The earth in places bears the scars of fire, some with the remains of the food packaging parcelled in them to be removed later by the wind and sea.
There is an enormous amount of debate and press comment at the moment about whether or not a woman should cover her head with a bit of material ?? Why isn’t there a thousand times more debate about the way in which the environment is treated ? This wasn’t the fault of tourists, they aren’t here at the moment. The people leaving the mess; the people whose children will cut their feet on broken bottles; the people who will swim in the litter strewn sea; the people who have to put up with the despoiling of the natural beauty of their country; are the same people who can’t be bothered to pick up their litter, put in the bags they bought the picnic in and take it away to be disposed of in rubbish bins. And they are Turkish people.
Some of the tourists coming here aren’t any better, but local and national government should get its priorities right and start to educate people in how to take care of the gorgeous natural environment entrusted to them. After all it is why tourists, Turkish and foreign, flock here in vast numbers.
I have now done my offshore yachtmaster exam, under the eagle eye of Admiral Tim. As well as sailing the boat in all sorts of situations, It also required the carrying out of lots of very involved calculations – secondary ports, tidal heights, dead reckoning, EP’s, UT,LAT, PMT ?! I am sure it is all important and necessary to make me a good sailor, but I am writing this listening to the Irish folk group the Dubliners. They sing old-time sea shanties, written to give seamen, real seamen, a rhythm to man capstans, weigh anchors and sail ships in appalling conditions. There is a line in one song - ‘The leaving of Liverpool’ that says ‘If a mans a seaman he’ll do right well. If he’s not he sure is in hell’
They didn’t have plastic in those days and I bet they didn’t know what ‘UT – 1’ meant. They couldn’t tell a secondary port from a grog of rum. They were ignorant and uncivilised, but they did respect the environment in which they lived, and in which they died . Take a walk along your local beach and look at it ! You think that’s civilised - Rubbish.
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