We went to our favourite restaurant around here last night. It has been redecorated since we were last here 2 years ago, they have some antique skis on the wall. Nothing odd in that you might say.

That is until you realise that these skis would have been current at about the time I learned to ski! We still have a pair of about this age.
Of course the other thing that has changed over that time is how much artificial snow making equipment there now is. I was amazed how much the canon outside or apartment had made in one night.

That is a mound of snow about waist high. A couple of bashers came and flattened it out over the piste.

Until you would never know.

Anyway, another sunny interval that lasted all day saw us head over to ‘Courch’, as apparently we now call it, 1650 via the runs around Saulire. They have reclassified some red runs as blue and black as red… although they have not actually changed the runs or all the signs. I feel for the confused nervous brits, I was one once.
We skied ‘Mur’ which I was assured many years ago by people who really should have known meant ‘blackberries’ which sounded like a nice run. In fact it can also mean ‘wall’ which is the meaning in this case. A reasonably short incredibly steep bit of snow but in good condition. Alarmingly DD1 and DD2 both now find this kind of thing far more fun than my old knees do.
After lunch in the Hotel du Golf we came back over and had one last run in the late afternoon sunshine down Mont Vallon.

A long days skiing but DD1 and DD2 complaining of more leg pain than me by the end. There is life in the old dog yet….

At last some pictures that don’t involve socks.

The weather was forecast to be pretty good so we decided it was time to head over to Val Thorens which, as we first reported 2 years ago, is now referred to a ‘VT’. The first lift took us up through the cloud and by the time were at the top of Mont De La Chambre the view down on to the top of the clouds was incredible.

The sun in ‘VT’ was wonderful and it made a change to be skiing on something you could actually see. We headed straight for our favourite runs from the base of the Peclet glacier. You can see the end of the glacier clearly as you pass beneath it.

The snow is in really good condition as it stays cold, it was -10degrees at resort level and colder above. Here is a video to make you jealous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtsO1lOi_UQ

A huge amount of investment seems to have gone into this resort in the last few years. As well as their double cable gondola things which can cope with the wind high up, nearly all the chair lifts seem to have been upgraded to these 6 man express chairs which allow two chairs to load at once.

There have also been quite a few seriously expensive looking hotels built like this one

(Don’t worry, it is straight, that is just my GoPro lens….)

In amongst all this new stuff the same café with the waffle stall has been there, owned by the same guy for 23 years. He does not work there any more, he lets out the waffle facility to other people to run a business.

The current guy is now in his second season, and this year he has been working since 5^th December without a day off. A better range of toppings than before, so it is even more highly recommended than it was (as if that were possible)

Rather than try and get anywhere specific we spent our time on runs with good snow in the sun, and had a thoroughly enjoyable day. We skied a long way, but by pacing ourselves a bit better I can actually walk this evening…

Not much chance of sleeping in here. They groom the piste outside the window at about 7.30am…

As you can see the weather looks promising….
One mystery from yesterday was the pain in my feet. I appear to have skied all day with my socks on the wrong feet. You’d be surprised how uncomfortable this is. Anyway today I made sure to get it right.

We had 2.5 hours while the slower members of the family we are travelling with were in ski school so we played on the red slopes above our apartment and coming down from the summit of saulire. Legs could barely move after lunch, so very pleased to go and ski slowly with the others below rhodos.

We were surprised how quiet it was. Given this is half term week we expect queues but really not much. Part of this will be the weather, (which deteriorated with no sign of the promised sunny intervals), part will be the huge capacity of all these new lifts but all the same….
The snow is really good, having been built up over a couple of snowy weeks rather than a huge dump it is well packed and level and does not get churned up during the day. The run down to meribel from rhodos is as much of a pain as it was 23 years ago even with good snow…
Decided to go for a fondue this evening, really good.

This year we made sure we managed to be on all the right mailing lists so we were able to book the Eurostar ski train. It went on sale one morning in July and sold out 15 minutes later… but this time I had tickets!

So here we are back at Meribel Mottaret again. A different apartment to the one we have stayed in before but close by. This one takes ski in ski out to a new level.

Ours is the one at the end on the ground floor. We have a door that opens onto the snow….
Weather has been pretty horrible skiing in cloud all day. There was the odd break but it always seemed to be where we were not….

We have been skiing with friends with less experience so taking it easy anyway.

Hopefully something other than cloud to photograph tomorrow.

This morning we woke to find a huge shoal of fish enjoying the shade under the yachts. The picture is just a part of it.

While we were having our breakfast the family who run this place loaded up their boat and left.

This really is the end of the season as they have put a boat up for the winter on the terrace we eat on last night.

Very little wind so we motored around to a bay just south of Bozburun. 

This is a major boat building area and a proper town. You can just see the masts of lots of Turkish Gullets across the bay.

After lunch we had a bit more breeze so we sailed slowly back to Sogut to bring the yacht home before dark.

All of the yachts used by the company will soon be taken around to Bozburun to be lifted out, cleaned and serviced over the winter. The yachts that have not been out this week already had their sails of ready to be rinsed and stored.

Time to head home.

We woke up firmly in postcard land.

We are headed back to Turkey today. The biggest challenge before us is deciding where to stop for lunch. As this postcard has real shops in it we found a bakery to get bread and sausage rolls, and we also found a pastry shop.. it took us some time to work out which of the handcrafted delicacies might survey being thrown around in a boat so we bought some biscuits.
A really nice sail back across and into the first bay for lunch.

https://youtu.be/hdGGi7VuK_E

On the way we saw a very serious looking naval patrol boat. We were right on the border so we changed our flag back and resisted the urge to photograph the patrol just imagine I inserted it here……

Lunch in a nice bay with a few yachts in, then we sailed around a few islands and into our destination for the night.

We are moored up for the night in ‘Sailors Paradise’. The bay almost certainly has a proper name but that is the name of the restaurant at the end. This is typical of the places we have been this week. No road access, in this particular case the village is 30 minutes away by boat and then a drive. They bake their own bread, this place grows most of its own veg, and when it gets dark they start up a big diesel generator.

They provide all a visiting yacht needs. Showers, toilets, although as they have no mains power or water themselves we have to use our own batteries and tanks. It appears to be a family run business and they are no doubt suffering from the drop in tourism around here.
As seems common the place has a large cat population.

The German family at the table behind dealt with the unwelcome guests by throwing water over them.

The cats all seem to have enough to eat. Not sure the 4 boats in tonight spent enough for the business to turn a profit though.

Today we had an option to either stay on the Turkish coast or sail over to the Greek island of Symi. As there was good wind forecast for that part of the sea we decided to go for the Symi option.

No wind at the start so we motored so as not to lose time until we found some wind. It continued to build all day until it was touching over 30 knots as we approached the island. 30 knots is plenty and we were well reefed by the time we arrived. An exhilarating ride.
As we are entering a Greek port there is lot of paperwork to do for us and the boat, but we pay an agent to take care of that. All we are left to do is change our courtesy flag from a Turkish one.

To a Greek one

Surprisingly tricky whilst sailing at speed.
Symi is the first real town we have visited this trip, as all the other places have basically been yacht stops that are only open in the season. This is the last week and places are running down  stocks. Symi is a real town and although clearly tourism is big business here, it exists all year around. You can see why it is a huge pull for tourists. Postcard stuff.

Just after we arrived at motor yacht arrived and caused chaos by making a massive wash nearly causing damage to several yachts. If moored yachts roll and clash masts the damage can be huge. Anyway after a pretty frantic 10 minutes  we reset all our moorings and then the ferry showed up….

No sane person would try and get a ship this size into a harbour this size… but they get it in and out calmly with no wash…
The terminal facilities are nonexistent.

People and cars go up and down the ramp in apparently random fashion as people in uniform blow whistles for reasons that are not clear, then 10 minutes later it heads off and postcard normality returns…

Anyway as we have a choice of restaurants tonight we have gone to the one 10 metres behind our boat.

Today we only had a relatively short distance to cover so we headed off in completely the wrong direction.

The reason for this was to try and watch a bit of a “Marmaris Week” race.

We needed to head off to a bay we had planned to snorkel in so we turned down wind the same way the race would go. The difference between pure racing yachts and our cruiser is illustrated by the fact that the leaders started several miles behind and overtook us within an hour.
After 4 hours great sailing we anchored up for some snorkeling.

We took the obligatory fish pictures….

And some video

https://youtu.be/Fj8B0tokptY

Then 15 minutes motoring to our stop for the night. As you enter this bay each of the 5 restaurants has someone stood on their jetty waving a flag to guide you in. The deal is you get free mooring, electricity and water in exchange for eating in their restaurant and shopping in their mini market. With so few people about at the end of the season  competition is fierce any year but the news of the refugee crisis has hit tourism in the whole Eastern Mediterranean hard so it is probably even more fierce this year.

We can’t change the refugee problem but we can at least help the economy while enjoying wonderful food and the odd beer.

This morning we found some more information about the place we are in on a notice board. Here it is.

Today we have quite a long trip 20 nautical miles. This is a trivial distance if the wind plays ball…

The first hour was brilliant. 18 knots of wind and the yacht sailing at a steady 6 knots, more at times. But then it dropped, so rather than waste time we put the engine on and headed for a bay that had been recommended for snorkeling.
The water is a beautiful colour, I think you’d call it azure… We anchored up and got out the giant inflatable Orca, he is called Bernard.

The only slight hitch was that clearly everybody knows about this bay as about 10 other yachts showed up. Not really a problem as their is plenty of room, but as this is the end of the season most places are deserted so it is a bit odd to see so many people together.

Anyway after a swim and a brilliant lunch in the cockpit we set about the other 10 miles we had to sail. The wind remained fickle so we motored for an hour until it picked up and we sailed again. The route we needed to take was dead downwind but the yacht does not go so well like that so we actually sail about 30 degrees away from the course we want to get a better speed even though we go further. We were going to run out of daylight so when the wind dropped we put the sails away and went for the motor again.
We are now near Marmaris and apparently it is Marmaris week with lot of racing going on. Quite a few fast looking yachts about.

We are moored for the night at Kumlubuku yacht club. A very smart place with a Chinese or Turkish menu. I rather feel I should be wearing a blazer.

Here is our track from today. Winds were fairly light and we had quite a long way to go so we decided not to stop at lunchtime. We are moored up for the night in a place called Loryma. The is a citadel above the bay. Started in 400bc but never finished apparently. Here is the view from the citadel down to our boats.

It was a good place to watch the sunset from.

As well as a restaurant here they seem to grow olives. The place is not accessible by road so the sort them by hand, bag them up and then we assume take them out by boat. They have a couple of days work to do here….

Tomorrow is planned as a long days sailing so let’s hope we get a bit more wind…