The month has slipped by pretty quickly and here it is Halloween already. The kids have increasingly faint memories of this pagan North American ritual.
If fact it has not come up at all this year. Nicolai probably would claim to have never heard of it although he was dragged around the neighborhood in HVGB at least once if my memory serves correct....perhaps it was just Galina?
We did manage to make what will most likely be our last trip to the beach this year when we went to Ölüdeniz to take in the 9th international paragliding event. The water and weather were lovely and watching the para gliders is never easy to tire of. Not too many pictures to share since we took mostly video. Here's one though showing the beach and one glider.
It doesn't do justice to the number of kites that were generally in the sky at any one time. Saw two mishaps; one when a pilot managed to land into a steel framed hut near the beach and had to be carted off by ambulance, another when a sail? kite? wing? looked like it started to come apart in the sky and the pilot had to pull his emergency chute and ended up ditching in the water. There were a disproportionately large number of people limping around with assorted casts and bandages. This might lead you to believe that the sport is mostly for the young and foolish however there are many 40+ year olds that are involved and the tandem jumps with a professional are taken by more than a few in their 60's.
Nino and I each did a tandem jump in 2006. Her's was a nice, leisurely 45 minute ride down from Babadağ, with a brief vomitous moment, straight down onto the unsuspecting sunbathers below, brought on by the nauseating ride up the mountain, sitting sideways in the back of a truck. Later in the day I had a scream packed 20 minute ride with a kamikaze style pilot who mistook my innocent question about acrobatics for a desire to do some, and promptly hurled us into tight descending turns which brought on screams from me that are still echoing around the hills I am sure. I would do it again though and watching this year brought on renewed interest to perhaps take the training required to go solo. Who knows and Nino would also not be shy about it I think. ![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi40beLwmlIqUFOs8aO7OJ-zaRFCbuAEDTWY1sJLyLGzRmGLr-zj5aKhZpwN63d0FwDmEfDwo6oESaCXiFLKCL7QwD7IdiuYTWRcYimrERKQCNcVkXpNTNF-Ct8WVHya95WDdMGTrxCDvo/s200/DSC_0202.JPG)
Anyway this year we were strictly observers.
We also spent a bit more time in Fethiye and get a fairly close up look at one of the more famous Lycian tombs which are all around but mostly difficult to get close to since they are carved into faces of the hills surrounding the city. We also drove around the harbour and found where a few 'Bodrum' style boats were under construction. ![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicwmabKxWeDSJn3Fa5fMuJjGd_v-vtbsbATfdFWfQgH3di_2h6-PGjWysx8k1ydHK790gIqKx4VSst4lbzDIoWxZAtueET5V8NYBnY6dHnN8ymIiBVqmr66_tnRLu437mNzoO3kdrDa6Q/s200/DSC03916.JPG)
All in all a nice trip to the coast for that time of year.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWNjkqq07cqR_69kyaGefTgr6JO_A1pVrOgLO0Ndmj6HNfvZFKhJ4LWvLuUGWwF42emL6Qa5xR_Dt7SGVZfa5gXut3aH_09IdJeutaMLYz251G2kORG9Ks0ZERZNhg4WbE05aTaj92nHY/s200/nino_paragliding+certificate+2006.jpg)