Sailing Azure

August 29, 2023

Well we are heading back from Kemer to Finike. We were at the immigration office first thing and we were seen immediately BUT the person who had denied us the first time is on vacation till next week so we were told to come back next week. UNBELIEVABLE! Deep breaths.

We had the administrator check our paper work just to make sure everything is in order. She said yes but come back on Monday. So we went to Tax office (of course somewhere else in the city) and paid our tax. In theory next Monday we should be in and out with our Turkish Residency Visa in hand. Inshallah. 

On the way back we had the driver stop at a great bakery so we could buy the marina staff and our agents staff some baklava. When we returned to the car our driver was asking the police car that was blocking us to move so we could leave. The conversation got louder and louder and then we saw a “hand” come out of the police car. Obviously looking for a little pay off. The volume in Turkish increased and our driver (who is a very big man) got out the car, slamming the door and lots of negotiations were happening. Finally everyone went to their corners and stood around waiting. Of course we have no idea why it what for but it was tense. We stayed in the car…

Another police car arrived and a senior officer got out. You could tell because he had the biggest gun. Some more yelling and screaming and slamming of doors then our driver got in and the senior office hopped in our car in the passenger seat and we started driving very fast through the city.

This is when Janet turned to me and said “This is where we die!”. Ten minutes later we pull up at the Kemer Police station and the driver is escorted inside the station. Before he leaves he said in his broken English “small problem maybe 10 – 20 minutes” with a shrug of his shoulders implying he really had no idea how long this was going to take. After about 20 minutes, the driver got in the car and apologized profusely. We are not really sure what happened but we live to travel another day.