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| ECE Marina with the town of Fethiye behind |
We are now back in
Fethiye 4 weeks after leaving Cyprus. The reverse journey only took 2
days last October! We like Fethiye very much, not sure if it's
because it was our first Turkish port when we arrived last year and
we spent 4 weeks here then and got to know it, or whether its' the
mix of Turkish and touristy things we like.
We enjoyed the
preceding 4 weeks mooching up the coast and exploring new anchorages
but we had 2 serious missions to sort out now. First was a visit to
our lovely dentist (Mr Seven Stars as his name translates into in
English) He made a crown for Alan last year at a very reasonable
price and now it was my turn as I could feel a cracked filling.
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| Alan had some work done as well. |
His surgery is a brief
walk from the marina and lovely and bright and airy, it has a Zen
calmness about it when you walk in, as does he. This was such a
contrast to the dentist Alan saw in Cyprus for his root canal
treatment. There the dentist was a very young woman with rooms in a
private hospital, there was always a long wait, phones were ringing
and she always seemed to be doing a dozen things at once, people
would walk into the surgery and chat away while she worked on Alans
tooth. We have never had to wait for Mr Seven Stars, in fact we
wondered if he ever had any other patients! He remembered us from
last year and after a quick check up told us he could repair the
filling. 5 minutes later he had finished and charged us $15! We gave
him a $20 note (well actually a Turkish equivalent) but he didn't
have change so insisted on giving us $10 back! We felt awful, so as
soon as we had change we took him back the $5, and yes he did have
another patient:) It almost makes you want to have more dental
problems!!
Our next mission was to
apply for our temporary residents permit. Since last year Turkey has
changed their immigration rules, several time actually. But for us,
the biggest impact was that instead of getting a 90 day visa and
being able to renew it, now you could only be in the country for 3
months out of a 6 month period. They then changed the rules for
yachties and said you could have residency if you had a marina
contract, which is why we booked into the marina in Finike for the
winter. 15 days after we had booked and paid for the marina they
changed the rules yet again and said for yachties as long as you had
a cruising permit (which is compulsory when you arrive by yacht
anyway) you could get a residents permit, no marina contract or proof
of income required! We decided to take advantage of this before the
rules change again and have applied for a 2 year residency. This will
allow us to come and go until 31 May 2014, should we choose to stay
that long.
Applying
for the permit was an interesting process, and thanks to some
yachties who had already done it and documented the process, much
easier than it might otherwise have been. We had to get a tax number
which meant a trek to the tax office, not something we were looking
forward to. However it was a fairly pleasant experience compared to a
similar trip in either Aus or the UK. The office was out of town but
on the water front of the huge Fethiye bay, so nice water views:)
Although the building was typical government issue it all seemed very
laid back, no queues and helpful staff, who were anything but
overworked. Perhaps the Turkish civil service could be a good job?:)
Now
we have a tax number we can open a bank account if we want to, the
banks here are paying 10% interest and that's after tax has been
automatically deducted. We are also now eligible to buy a house, so
watch this space.....!:)
All
we have to do now is wait 2 weeks and return for our passports and
visa! While we are waiting we have retreated to the beautiful bay
area outside of Fethiye to relax and get some jobs done. At least
that was the plan until the weather kicked up a notch. It is once
again in the high 30's with 40 degrees forecast for the weekend.
There is little or no wind so we have no energy for much else except
eating chilled watermelon and jumping in our lovely big salt water
swimming pool several times a day!
It's
too hot to cook inside so the BBQ has been getting a work out, as
have our fans and squirty water bottle at night!!
It's
very tough here, there are always interruptions; the ice cream boat
comes by, the pancake boat floats by with an elderly couple who make
pancakes to order, there is even a floating mini market and as if
that wasn't enough we have to dinghy all the way to the end of our
little fjord if we want fresh hot bread every morning! It's going to
be a long 2 weeks:)
