Camel Wrestling

Greetings,
In the early 1990's, I had the privilege of teaching with a wonderful team of 5th grade teachers. Specifically Kay Bernethy, Carol Riddel, Cheryl Mullins, Anne Verburg, Lois Pendly and myself, Dave Sanders.

Around 1997, Anne Verurg and her husband Dick, (Jackson and Rico) retired from teaching and IBM engineering..sold their house, bought a boat...and set sail.

Here is Verburg's latest installment...
Anne Verburg Writes....

Dear All,
It's February 14th, Valentines Day. And there is nothing more romantic in Turkey than Camel Wrestling. That's right. Camel Wrestling. 10 of us rented a van and driver to take us to a town about two hours away to watch the very Turkish event of camel wrestling. Apparently camels go into heat each Jan.- March. The male camels will fight each other to attract the females. So each
weekend along the Aegean side of Turkey, they hold this very local event. They bring in the male camels - all dressed up with flowing scarves, brightly colored rugs draped over their saddles, and bells strung all over them. Very colorful. Then they parade the females, who wear nothing at all, around to get the males all excited. The females exit the arena, and two camels are brought
to the middle. They begin to nip at each others legs, drape their necks overeach other, and do whatever they can to bring the other camel down. Meanwhile there are little bands of drums and horns walking all around the audience playing Turkish music, people are cheering at the camels.

It's a cacophony of sound and a riot of color. Nothing says Valentines like camel love. The only
down side is the smell. It is unbelievable. Luckily they were selling little scented sachets that you could hold to your nose when it got bad. It was quite an experience.

We got back from a grand time in the States seeing family and friends. It was fun, but very cold. We got back to Turkey and our boat had new varnish on the outside and a new bottom paint job. We spent the night on the hard and the next day we got splashed. We are sitting cozy in our new berth dodging the rain.

Last week the wind got up to about 45 knots, but the waves came crashing into the Marina. We were safe in an inside berth, but the bus stop got completely washed away and rocks and mud poured into the entrance. What a mess. The Marina did a great job keeping all the boats safe and quickly cleaning up. Everyone says this is the worst winter they have known for cold and wind!
Jim, Michelle and Chloe got back from Michigan, so it's great to have the team back together again. Wim and Marga, our friends from St. Maarten, are taking the Orient Express train from Amsterdam to Istanbul. They are arriving in Izmir on Tuesday. Jim, Michelle, Chloe and we are renting a car to pick them up in Izmir. We will spend the night and see Ephesus, an ancient Roman city (supposed to be one of the best Roman ruins anywhere) and drive back to Marmaris. Wim and Marga will stay with us until March 13th. Then on March 16th, Jim, Michelle, Rico and I fly to Istanbul. We will spend Three nights seeing the sights, then we fly to Cairo to tour Egypt.

We will spend 8 days touring Cairo, the Pyramids, Luxor, Karnak and Aswan. Then back to Marmaris to get ready for the summer crusing season.

Whenever the weather turns good for sailing sometime in April, we will head north up the coast of Turkey. We need to get somewhere in the northern Cyclades in Greece by June 11th. Mad, Connie and Shelby are coming to visit the Greek islands. Mad and Connie will spend about two weeks, they will fly home and Shelby will stay another two weeks. I hope she won't get too bored with us old
fogies. After Shelby leaves, we will begin to make our way to Gibraltar.

Looking at the weather patterns, we probably need to leave Gibralter in mid- September to get to the Canary Islands. Then towards the end of November we will make another Atlantic crossing back to the right side of the Pond.

Anyway, big plans - hopefully it will all come together. Meanwhile life in the Marina just keeps getting busier. It's time to go bowling - so I'll say good-by.

Take care,
Jackson and Rico