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A day in the life of... A TURKISH GULET CHARTER AGENT


DINA STREET SOUTHERN CROSS BLUE CRUISING


Valley before becoming besotted with Turkey and gulets. She moved permanently to Bodrum in 1990. Her partner, David Stanley is an Australian retired professional motorcycle racer who grow up sailing and diving in Melbourne.


D


David was later involved in building Herreschoff replicas in Ballina, and first came to Turkey on a sailing holiday in 2003. He returned to Bodrum in 2004 to purchase an 18 metre, classic sailing gullet. Together they run Southern Cross Blue Cruising.


Saturdays in the Eastern Med are the predominant turnaround day in the Turkish gulet charter industry. Southern Cross Blue Cruising’s all time record was six embarkations starting on a sweltering, August morning.


ina Street is a dual American-Turkish citizen working in IT in Silicon


DAY BEGINS We’ve sent in the provisioning lists to our suppliers 48 hours prior to the charter dates, putting first dibs on the daily catch of dusky groupers, langoustines, and as per a particular client’s request – fresh goat milk. Fortunately, Turkish and Greek cuisines haven’t fully embraced gluten-free, soy sauce or truffle paste, but these specialty products can disappear quickly off the shelves when high end clients descend into Bodrum or Göcek so we study client requests carefully well in advance.


BREAKFAST TIME We have our shopping procedure nailed. Dave starts on the east end of the supermarket, and I start on the west end side. We meet somewhere in the middle and unabashedly graze our way through the deli section cheese samples, a few open-bin olives and packaged tuna fish sandwiches. Breakfast of champions, and the supermarket staff pretend not to notice. Once all the trolleys are correctly lined up at checkout, it’s vital to oversee that the right shopping gets to the right yacht. The provisioning staff are fantastic, but when one yacht is called Sirma and another is called Smyrna, mix ups can occur. We learned this the hard way one season when we had to pass boxes of rib eye steaks, imported bacon, fresh strawberries and cases of champagne between two gulets in the middle of a choppy sea, fortunately, the clients were none the wiser.


50 | SPRING 2017 | ONBOARD MID-DAY


Once we’ve ensured that all the shopping is being delivered, it’s time to check with our ground transportation company to ensure that the reserved vehicles are ready to start picking up clients from the airport or hotel. Chauffeurs have to pass our stringent, ‘You sneaked a cigarette this morning, didn’t you’ test, and are then immediately administered copious amounts of cinnamon flavoured Listerine accompanied by a severe scolding. Mobile phone tracking lets us know about flight delays, and client pick up times.


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