10th December 1998 After almost 1 1/2 weeks of continous rain it finally cleared up a little. But this is, according to the weatherfax Europe of short time.

I try to get AMBERELLA dry and had a big washing day.

In only 2 weeks Nastasja and Nina will come to Fethiye. The family and crew will be together again.

I will send a more detailed report about Izmir soon after the trip starts.

5th December 1998 Nothing special happend the past days. After some boring rainy days there was some nice weather again, but today it started to rain again.

We postponed our planned trip to Istanbul in favour of another journey, We want to go to Izmir now. Probably in the middle of next week. Istanbul will be visited in February, when the a bigger boat show is due. There are many ship chandlers, because in Izmir they dump the big old cargo ships. A lot of second hand gear can be found there. I want to get second hand charts from one of the old ships and as well some bronce fittings.

Progress on AMBERELLA is slow. I could use some help, and its hard to go on with nobodye to share some working success.

I removed the last deck fittings, like genua rails and hand rails and started to make the deck water proof.I fixed the delaminated tiller steering and spend again a lot of time looking for parts and ideas.

Turkish shopping experiences:

When I was once again in Fethiye to look for a cooker, Gonca a turkish friend helped to find one. In Turkey it seems impossible to find a gas cooker. They sell all kinds of electric cookers, and even little gas stoves but the baking oven is allways 220 Volts electric. When we came into a store where someone said he would have what I am looking for in his store I was relieved and happy that I would not need to import an expensive cooker from Italy (which is about 700 US$) But he told me 3 days in a row that he will bring the cooker and show it. After 4 days he turned up 2 hours late for the appointment and he showed me a rooten peace of metal that might have been a cooker some centuries ago..... again a turkish experience.

The next thing happend today when I went out for a simple aluminium string which I want to use below the deck as support for the rails above. The first shop offered 10 meters of 2 mm aluminum string for a price of 15 Million Turkish Lira. (about 50 $) Creazy, I though, and wondered what the price of gold is in Turkey:-) Anyway the next shop asked 8 Million, but I still did not believe it was that expensive. Later I walked into another store and asked again, (this time asking the kilo price) and walked out with 12 meters of the same aluminium string for a price of 1.800 000 Million (= 6 Dollars)... You wont believe it..Inflation turned to deflation...

In the meantime I found a long 48 mm stainless tube for a resonable price, for my wind generator which will arrive in January.

 

Thanks to all that responded to my Kappadokia trip. It encourages me to keep writing more detailed travel stories. I hope to get some news about Ismir and will update asap.

28th November 1998 The moonlike landscape of Kappadokia was not only used for the movie "Star Wars". Its a countryside with valley and rock formations where nature truly played with fantasy. I spent the 3 days in Kappadokia with some friends in the heart of Anatolia and there was a lot to write for my diary. Don't miss it!

22nd November 1998 I finally have a holiday. I will drive for 4 days to Kappadokia, in the deepest Anatolian County : There is a 7 store catacomb city that belongs to one of the 7 wonders of this world. I will have some time to relax and take some distance from boat building. As I said before I progress to slow and need some rest because I seem to miss the trees in the forest, as a German saying would describe it.

I was able to put the Yamaha outborder back together and finish some of the plenty of small jobs.

The good news: I finally found a turkish work shop that can do "veneer". ( Thanks to Bruce Alvarez I have the right english word for this kind of work) Its like pressing and gluing of decorative layers of wood onto plywood.So now I can do all my work with plywood and bring the finished boards into the workshop and glue veneer onto it. That looks pretty. They have teak and mahogany look.

Okay guys I will send some nice travel report from Kappadokia within the next 3-4 days. Promised!

19th November 1998 Annemarie flew back home to see a doctor. She has an allergy, but the doctor here cant help. Thank you Annemarie for your great help on the project AMBERELLA!! You are the best deck the planet! Hope you come back soon. Frank

17th November 1998 The last couple of days were pretty frustrating. Not only the continued rain took its toll, but things turned out not very well with my workmanship.

Two of the new installed plexi glass windows cracked. I do not understand how it happened, because I took on all the good advises from the friend sailors. Bigger holes for the screws as compensation for movements and that I did not even screwed those window tight on were still not enough. One of the windows cracked on 6 areas and they give me the impression that I used the wrong material.

Annemary was not lucky either. She went with Georg sailing, had bad weather and finally caught some bad food or something. She now has a allergic reaction on her skin.

We wait for better days.

13th November 1998 It rains cats and dogs and I could not finnish to glue the windows and hatches back on. My European weather map for sailors is working again. Have a look!

Yesterday I spend another day in Fethiyes work shops and my new rig spanners are ready to go. But as if I knew it, there are at least 3 of them not fitting properly. Now I need a new idea how I would solve this problem.

Another series of pictures is ready:-)