Fethiye Fun....

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.

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:)