Wierd happenings and Packing up

18th October 2010 Packing up
We have been thanking our lucky stars that Deep Blue survived and neither of us suffered a direct hit with the lightening. We have no electronics but this is all replaceable and the insurance will cover it. It is an inconvenience because it is now not a simple matter of packing up and leaving but could be so much worse!

Andy has a full list of all the failed devices and it is a very long one! The most puzzling and inconvenient is the fridge and the most disastrous is our total lack of alternator without which we cannot cruise. We need to check our rigging - because of the direct hit at the top of the mast we are worried the shroud terminals may be damaged.

However, having said all the above, I must report that we have had the most weird two or three days - much of it involving rotting flesh. We began to wonder if actually we had been transported to another dimension in the storm.

It started in Bozborun, the place we were making for when we were stuck by the lightening. We had gone there to catch up with our unusual friends Richard and Charles - last seen on Kalimnos buying the worlds annual production of gold after being expelled from Turkey. Charles at the time had something in his foot after diving bare footed and was refusing to go to the doctor. Since then he has had to have his foot amputated and we wanted to see how he was. Well the saga of our friends’ woos continues.

R.... is living on his boat in Marmaris and C...... is staying with a Turkish / Scottish couple Lynn and N who run a small restaurant on the front at Bozborun. Actually they are looking after C... as he has been very poorly and has just come out of hospital. Poor C.... is really not looking after himself. His foot stump has never healed properly after a year and he thought he was going to loose the lower part of his leg. Then he got extreme food poisoning and ended up in hospital only because the Lynn insisted. She said he literally looked like death and was passing out when the ambulance collected him.

He was pumped full of antibiotics, re-hydrated and not only did he recover but his stump also felt the best it has ever been. He continues to take the antibiotics and is now optimistic about his leg. However, he is definitely depressed and Lynn voiced the concerns we felt last time we saw him. “He has no one. No wife, children, parents or home.”

Now we are back in Marmaris - the weather is terrible with continuous storms passing over us making us glad we are safely in port. The insurance company sent us a surveyor and here starts the next chapter of weird things happening to us.

John M-T described himself as looking like Father Christmas but the man who arrived looked more like an emaciated tramp. We already knew that he was 71 but the white haired and long bearded man that presented himself looked 100 years old. He was extremely frail, with filthy clothes, a pipe in his mouth and his left arm heavily bandaged and in a sling. He is very well spoken and obviously 100% sharp but very disabled. We helped him aboard and were immediately hit by a terrible smell. Andy gagged and had to rush below. I took a closer look at the bandage which looked recent but was badly stained from a weeping wound, as was the sling and his clothing. “what happened?” “it is a long story..” and then he proceeded to tell it.

Some years ago he got a growth on his hand. He obviously left it and it grew. Eventually he actually visited a doctor and after being passed around has been told that it is not cancer but a fungal infection. However his fingers have started to “disappear” as he put it. Two weeks ago a doctor told him he needed 15 blood transfusions as his blood is poisoned but as he could not reassure John that the blood was free of HIV and hepatitis, John refused (though it may have been more the cost that stopped him at 150TL each transfusion). We are convinced that he has gangrene and that his situation is very serious.

We had no food on board except biscuits which he ate with relish and he also downed two very strong and sweet mugs of tea. Andy gave him his report of damage on board and loads of photos so he did not have to do too much work but he still insisted on struggled below to have a look before sitting down and there he stayed. Eventually he left the boat after talking to us for 4 hours! I felt bad that we were so pleased he had left but once he had gone we HAD to get off the boat ourselves - it stank so badly I was not sure I wanted to go back on board … ever!

We sprayed the boat with perfume, burnt mosquito coils … anything with a strong smell. We took all the cushions out and beat them clean and stayed off Deep Blue as much as possible for the next day or two. However, we now had a moral dilemma. John was destitute and needs the survey money but he really is not in a fit state to help us properly. We decided that once he had put in his report and the insurance company had Oked the claim we would report the situation to the insurance company. We are sort of helped by the fact that John, as of Monday, does not even have a Turkish residents visa. I have (heroically) offered that he should come back to the UK with me next week (did I really mean to say that to him?) and also offered to lend him some money. So far his stiff upper lip will not allow either but I think our concern has galvanised him into action and he is talking about getting back to the UK. There are many reasons why he is reluctant - he will probably lose his home of 14 years, he may not be allowed back into Turkey, he has no relatives in the UK except a sick 80 year old cousin and two nephews (on whom he could not possibly impose), he has very little money and he never paid taxes in the UK.
Makes you realise how lucky we are! We have our health, our wonderful extended family, some money in the bank and somewhere to live.

I had to ignore most of the advise John gave us as it turned out to be out of date. I also got rather more involved than I wanted with the marina politics (mainly because John was trying to help us) but I have managed to find a good team of workers who are doing their best to sort Deep Blue out before I leave next week. Andy has been tied up with a job on Spirit and then goes to Nice for another job and, although the insurance company has offered to pay him, he cannot be involved very much. His view is that so long as all the wires are chased and the equipment is fixed in place he can sort out mistakes later in his own time.

So our life continues to be one big adventure!