Boray

What a night...

Boray Uras, from the other yacht here came past in his zodiac to give us two melons and ask if we needed anything from the village. I'd just walked there to get bread and stuff, so, 'no thanks, but come back, we are waiting'. The first part of our conversation was in Turkish and neither of us understood terribly much, but then he noticed the Australian flag and changed to perfect English, which helped somewhat. He did come back but only to invite us over as 'I have more space'.

What a history lesson for Sabine!! His grandmother was the daughter of an Ottoman commander in Macedonia and climbed down a rope to elope with his grandfather. When they were caught, the doctor inspected and said you can't undo what's been done, better make it right. So the muslim girl married the christian. Then the chetniks came to slaughter muslims, so they had to run, the grandfather driving, and grandma shooting at the chetniks from the back of the wagon.

Climbing and such seems to be in the genes as his 16 y/o son Osman is a champion rock climber, and Boray was a freefall parachute hero when young. He trained as a figher pilot in the airforce, became disillusioned and left. Trained in the SAS and went to Cyprus, most of his company didn't return. His martial arts teacher was from China and somehow influenced him with Bhuddism. Did political science and worked for the government. Lost his daughter and her fiance at the age of 21, on the night of her engagement, mowed down by a street racer. Boray made a protest walk from Istanbul to Ankara overland (a 20 day hike across the mountains), to petition the government and as a result there is a law named after him, raising traffic penalties, and other reforms to try and reduce the road toll.

It's fascinating to hear stories from such a life, but it's another thing entirely to have lived it, to survive the trauma, to make sense of it. Spending time on a yacht is certainly a good move, I entirely approve of that!

Anne though his life so interesting that it should be written into a book, so the next night he took us to the village to eat calf liver and made notes on Anne's life in order to write a book based on hers! He has written a few novels already.

He also introduced us to yet another wonderful Turkish drink. This one is made from almost ripe grapes and a medicinal plant, boiled to a syrup. It's wonderful!

He loaded us up with kind gifts, such as a very large new Turkish flag to replace the rather faded one we were flying, a lot of medicines we just might need on the journey, all the fruit he couldn't use, a nice big lure to catch a tuna, and petrol for our outboard.

I do hope our paths cross again, or that of our children, but regardless, we won't forget.

Fishing took a big turn for the better today as Boray called in after picking up a gift of anchovies from a trawler anchored between us. He showed me how they bait up for garfish and we found a couple of hooks small enough to do the job. I caught a number of little fish which were perfect as bait for 'sea bass', one nice garfish, and my sea bass effort produced a cuttlefish. I should add that the anchovies were not only for bait, more to eat, and we had a delicious lunch of them.