The Flying Dutchman, 6 November 2005
Netherlands Hoevelaken

Home, sweet home...

All adventures come to an end and so did mine yesterday. Been away for six and a half months now, and although I haven't joined in with the ramadan, I feel like I've become a proper Turk. I reckon it's the blond hair that will give me away, but apart from that, who would know I am not Turkish? Anyway, saying goodbye to everyone was pretty hard...

Sorry for updating you guys about my happy days here, but I guess there's no excuse. I was either on the water or in the Sah Bar. Quite an exciting life hey? But yeah, the Sah Bar was the place to be later in the season. It opened beginning of October, but still we managed to create fairly amzing tabs. It was the only real bar in Bitez, so both Neilson centres were there all the time. Our staff dominated the place at night time, but at day time there was always time for some nice lunch or some tea and backgammon (great game). I won't tell anything more about the Sah Bar, cause it's one of those thing you should have been to know the real deal.

Another thing I would like to share with you is an absolute classic. Last week teaching, I was absolutely on fire. The guests were loving it!! My boat was anchored up, everyone around the boat and I was doing some demos. After that we all headed off including me. The boat was very slow, but I thought it would be ok. Suddenly it got up to normal speed again...It took me a while to figure out, but suddenly I realized; the anchor line snapped, I had forgotten to pull up the anchor. A whole season and one of the last days. We went diving to find it, but unfortunately... Maybe I had spent to much time in the bar. I got a lot of banter for it though.

A really cool thing was having a proper turkish dinner with a turkish family. Serdar invited me to have dinner at his house. Mate, that was just an awesome villa. The highest one in Bodrum and you,ve got a beautiful view of the city and the castle. Everything was so clean! I left my flipflops outside and got special shoes for inside. Had to wash my hands first and they were so polite and friendly, just amazing!!

As for the windsurfing; all of us boys have found out that we will never be freestyle champions so we started some speedsailing. Me and Sam even organized a speed event!! Speedsailing is something everyone can do. Just go from one point to another and do it as quick as you can. When everyone was on 6 metre sails we were out on 8 and at some stage we even got the seat harnesses out. However we soon got back into our freestyle stuff, but I'm definetely planning to get myself a good old speedneedle and a gps!!! (So Horner and Mr Brown, I expect the same of you boys, go old skool).

Really good to see that a few of my close friends (Andre and Marieke) came out to Bitez in October. Unlucky for them it was the coldest week. We had good wind though and Andre managed to get back into windsurfing again with Marieke as a very keen spectator on the beach. We spend a bit of time together, but unfortunately I was very busy in that week cause I was the social guru, which means you have to arrange 4 evening socials for the guests. I was lucky to stay in the Sah Hotel though, just for a week. The owner invited me and gave me a free stay and breakfast, and the showers there are so nice. I was in the same room as my uncle and aunt were when they visited me; cashback!! They gave it to me, cause I was always friendly and all that kind of stuff. Lesson learnd, friendlyness pays off!!!

Last day of teaching was very funny as well. It was the Jan show. I was the only one teaching and if that wasn't enough the bike guide was on holiday so I did his job as well. Bikeride started at eight in the morning but I wasn't sure if the guests knew about wintertime, so I was an hour early. They knew...I sorted out all the bikes and we went for a trip to the radio masts. Wicked view, but it's quite a high hill/ mountain and it was windy, and one of the guys was from the states and looked like Lance Armstrong!!! I was sweating and suffering, but we made it back at exactly ten o'clock. Straight into sessions, which was awesome. Level ones were planing up and down in force 4, sometimes gusting 5!! During lunch a sweat freestyle session for my self. On my first run a perfect downwind three, a dodgy upwind three, a one handed lay down gybe and an aerial duck gybe. Then I tried a vulcan, but I crashed and was in pain. But I was happy, cause bad things are history and not important where good thing are important and very pleasant to look back at. Anyway, no time for lunch, straight into sessions and after that a short bikeride to Bitez old tow, through the groves. I forgot my repair kit and yes, one of the guys got a flat tire. I decided to swop bikes and I ran the whole way. "Beyond the call of duty" and "this truly is the Jan show today" were the quotes off the day, they loved it! When we were at the icecream shop it was closed and I had to run the whole way back again and we ended our ice cream run where we started. Mado icecream was the dogs though, never had icecream as good as theirs before!!

Lay up was done by four of us; Sam, Tom, Gal (manager) and me and it was awesome. It took us two and a half days to break up the centre. The best bit was when we had to woodern the terrace. All the racks are made of wood and (forgive me, I am not technical) apparantly you have to paint it which protects it against the rain and all sort of shit. Anyway, we all wrapped towels around us and started painting. It looked hilarious and we had some funny looks. Maybe we got into it a bit too when we started splashing each other (see the film zoolander where they have a petrol fight), cause the stuff was pretty vicious. We couldn't get it of for days and looked like absolute idiots...

Time to go home. Head office had problems booking the tickets and asked me if I could book my own ticket from Istanbul to Amsterdam. As long as I would get the money Iwas absolutely fine with it. They were gonna book me on a flight from Bodrum to Istanbul. Two days before the flight we were checking the manager's comp for wind forecast and by a coincidence we saw the email box. Headoffice sent the flight details, but my name was missing!!! We found out that they hadn't booked me on theat first flight. I wasn't surprised, got no stress or what so ever, cause I'm used to the lack of organization in this type of business. Booked the flight my self, got the money for it and we were ready to go. A big last night in the bar and seven in hte morning felt really early and inhuman. I was gonna write topload on my sailbags, but I was so dazed that I started off with "tor"; absolute classic. When we were at the airport we had 100 kg too much, between 6 of us. However, we were late, the plane was already running late because of difficulties with us boys checking in, that we didn't pay too much money. I got away with 30 euro for 3 sails, boom, mast, 20 kg of hand luggage and 26 kg of normal luggage. Not bad I thought...At Ataturk Airport in Istanbul I had to say goodbye to the others who were going to Heathrow. I'll miss 'm, but will definetely see them again. I got picked up by my family which was winner. I have to start thinking about a job now, so if anyone needs me, give me a call. Cheers for reading all my adventures, hope to see all of you soon.

Ta-ta

Jan