The day finally came when Baz and I took A B Sea out for an engine test. Oh boy was it great to be back on the water! I have to admit I had a ‘moment’ at one point, I was just so grateful. We both enjoyed the little trip and Baz kept a careful eye on the instruments and the engine’s vital signs along the way.
Ramping her up to 2,400 revs produced a little white smoke but nothing Baz was worried about. He pulled it back to 2,000 revs in normal drive and A B Sea’s rejuvenated engine purred like a big satisfied kitten. And the smoke lessened to almost nothing.
While Baz was at the helm, I took lots of footage of our short journey up the channel from the marina and around the nearest and very small Turkish island of Germenli. It’s about 2 nautical miles from the Greek island of Ro, so we were far enough away not to motor into Greek waters by mistake. We didn’t want any international incidents that day!
When we returned to the marina, Baz checked the oil and it was lovely and clear and at the same level as when we set out, so he was happy with that.
All in all, it was a great trip and proved to us that A B Sea is back to fully fine fettle and ready for new adventures on the water! Baz summed it up well when he said that we’ve come full circle since discovering the rusted through hole in the exhaust mixing elbow, which led to the discovery of the seized turbo in Greece – actually pretty much exactly a year ago. So after all of the trials and tribulations, delays, concerns, setbacks and breakthroughs, we are both happy that A B Sea is in ship-shape condition. Woo hoo!!
I can feel a holiday coming on…
After this week’s YouTube video, we will be taking a four week holiday. This will allow us to sail (weather permitting) and hire a car and go on day excursions (within lockdown restricted hours). During that time we’ll get lots of extra footage to bring you more sights and sounds of Turkey in 2021.
Also, at the suggestion of one of our patrons, we’re going to use the time to sift through all of our 150 back episodes and pull out footage to make a new, and we think interesting and informative, playlist on our YouTube channel. In itself that project will take a while, because as you can imagine, there are many hours of footage to go through! But when we put out our next video on the 16th January 2021 we will have lots of goodies for you to watch.
Festive season
It’s fast approaching the festive season when many people celebrate Christmas and pretty much all of the world welcomes in the New Year. Of course, Turkey is a secular Muslim state and Christmas isn’t really a thing over here. Although New Year generally is. However, because of lockdown restrictions which are forecast to be upheld through into the beginning of January 2021, celebrations will either be a very different affairs, or postponed to when bars and restaurants are open for business again.
Regardless of whether we get to eat a roast in Turkey on the ‘correct’ date, (which let’s face it evolved from the ancient Roman pagan festival called Saturnalia, held in mid-December, and celebrated the solstice and honoured the agricultural god called Saturn), I’m going to enjoy time with Baz and friends. Even if it is just nibblies and drinkie-poos on deck (or down below, weather dependent).
Star of Bethlehem revisited
Currently, I’m much more interested in watching the alignment of the planets Saturn and Jupiter, which according to this article, means:
“...the two will appear to [be] separated by just one-fifth the diameter of a full moon – or 0.1 degrees – an occurrence the world hasn't seen since the Middle Ages.
"… The last time Jupiter and Saturn came this close was 1623, but that conjunction was too near the sun to be seen by Earthlings. So 1226 is actually the most recent time such a close conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn was visible to humans.”
That’s very similar to what some astronomers believe - that the “star of Bethlehem” was a conjunction between Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. Cool hey?
Anyhow, I’d like to wish you and your loved ones a very merry season’s greetings, and may 2021 bring you freedom, fun and fulfilment in bucket loads.