Getting our Ikamets
Because we’ve decided to stay in Turkey for 12 months while the world sits out Covid and we discover how Brexit will impact our time in the Schengen zones of Europe, we have needed to apply for a Turkish Residency Card – or Ikamet. Travelling on our UK passports, we automatically received 90 day visa, but they were only valid until the middle of October.
We began the process early in October, getting our biometric photos taken at Photo Ali which is situated just around the corner from the tomb on the roundabout at the bottom of the main street in Kaş.
After that we walked a few blocks across town to the insurance office where we got 12 month insurance with one of the two approved insurance providers for Turkish residency. We went with Allianz this time (AK Sigorta being the other provider). We’d heard Allianz is a more flexible insurance provider and for those interested it does cover covid related hospital treatment.
The next step was to see Umit in the office at Setur Marina because as part of our contract, the marina offers to complete the online residency application for you at no extra cost. It did take a while because there were quite a few questions and the server was very sluggish. However, eventually we had our appointments for the middle of November and printouts showing what we needed to pay in the tax office in town.
We drove to Kemer on the 13th of November which was the date for my appointment hoping they’d also see Barry (whose appointment was on the following Monday) and we didn’t want to hire a car for the extra time, nor drive nearly three hours each way for a second appointment if that could be avoided.
As it turned out they were quite happy to collect our paperwork together although we did have to pay a one off residency payment each as our previous ikamets had run out and so our ikamets this time were new applications rather than renewals. That meant running quickly to the tax office in Kemer before they shut at 4.30pm. We also didn’t have the correct amount of cash as we hadn’t anticipated the extra fee, and they only accept cash there so Baz (at 4.20pm) had to run into town to an ATM (praying our account had enough money to cover the withdrawal) and drive back to where I was stoically waiting.
Baz arrived right on the dot of 4.30pm and very relieved, we took our stamped receipts back to the residency office where we were given our temporary residency pieces of paper by the nice young man there.
We will have to wait for about 2 months before the actual cards arrive from Ankara as it’s a bit of a slow process. It also means that we don’t have use of Turkish SIM cards in our phones because they were cut off once our 90 day visas ran out.
The phone shop can’t accept our temporary paper ikamets as the computer system needs a photo of the actual card before it will allow our SIMs to be reactivated. So for now, we’re at the mercy of Setur Marina’s internet which is probably the one thing that doesn’t get a 5 star rating from us.
The temporary piece of paper however will allow us to travel out of Turkey so long as we return within 14 days, so that is useful in an emergency. Obviously with the almost daily changing conditions throughout all countries due to covid, we intent to stay put in Turkey.
Engine Strip Down
If you’ve been following our YouTube channel you’ll know that we’re taking our engine apart for the third time but this time completely stripping it down to see if there are any fragments from the imploded turbo in the engine that could basically wreck it completely.
Thank Gawd for Kev, our friend and buddy boater, because he knows about stripping engines down and putting them back together again. Baz was extremely nervous about doing it on his own so when Kev offered his invaluable assistance Baz jumped at the chance.
This week in our video we show the engine being stripped down to exposing the pistons in the cylinders and thankfully Baz was able to confirm that no metal fragments had found their way into the engine meaning no damage had been done. Again, thank Gawd.
If you’d like to see the video that accompanies this blog (that contains costs for the residency application), just click here.
And until next week, I wish you a very pleasant week, taking action to bring your dreams to life.
