This years club sailing holiday took place in turkey.  Paul Sutherland reports....

After a certain amount of confusion due to Sunsail delaying the opening of their Phokaia Club near Izmir, we went instead to Javelin, which is further south near Bodrum.  This is a beautiful part of the world with wooded hills, rocky islands good walks (and bike rides for the energetic).  The pool is large, here are tennis courts, gym, beauty salon - but for me, a large sailing area and two bars.  The selection of dinghies was excellent, Vareos, Omegas, Lasers of course, and several double handed asymmetrics for the more adventurous, plus the usual selection of boards and rigs and the cats.  The day yachts were in better condition than we have seen in the past, maybe our nagging has had an effect.

The first week had 5 boys(?), aggregate age about 350, and the second week 6 couples (no, don't even think about that).  Weather was generally good, that is, we had some. It was mainly sunny in the day, but with some precipitation from the east, and an anticyclone over windy corner. That’s a sea area, not a bar area. The site was well run, but a slight downside was the lack of places where we could moor a boat and go ashore for lunch.  The nearby village was 20 minutes walk along the beach, and there were plenty of restaurants there, although we did notice that Turkish prices are now very much in line with Europe.

Sunsail have closed 2 of their 3 Clubs in Greece, and ours was only half full.  This gave us plenty of choice with boats, but they do seem to be struggling with occupancy.  This is a bit surprising as, away from school holidays, it's very good value.

As usual in the Regattas, MSC was well represented, Nigel and Derrick coming second in the Omega class, loosing in the Limbo Dance play-off to a crew half their age.  Fix.  I won the Laser Regatta.  In the second week, the Grey Gremlin convincingly thrashed the Laser competition with a fine display of creating his own wind.

So now it's back to cold water sailing for another year.

Paul Sutherland.