3 December ’04. Friday. One of the problems that I am having now is the short days… It seems that we no sooner get out of bed and then, it is evening, dinner is done and it is almost time to surrender to the comfort of our bed again. I know this will get better as the days start to get longer, but right now…. Another problem that I am having, is getting behind this computer and keeping this web page up to date. Since we moved into the apartment our daily “adventures” have most often been no more than a nice long walk, a day fixing or re-upholstering the van, laundry, or just sitting by the sea and feeding the fish. Now there is nothing wrong with any of this, but it is much different than what we were and will be doing once we get back on the road of our journey. Yalikavak is not only a small resort village that is filled with people from all over the world during the “peak” season, it has a small fishing fleet as well. Each morning anywhere between 3 to 6 am you can hear the small diesel engines start up and head out around the rock jetty in front of our apartment. Wednesday, Louise and I were out for a walk around the boardwalk and feeding the fish from the piers, and we came across one of the fishermen sitting around a basket loading the fishing hooks that surrounded the basket with strips of squid. He was telling us that each line with hook was 3 meters long and 3 meters separation from the next hook. Overall, there were 500 hooks and bait in each basket and he has 4 baskets. He was baiting each hook the afternoon prior to the morning launch. Yesterday we just happened to be there when he came back in….he did really well. All up and down the boardwalk and the jetty, we see people of all ages with a fishing line wrapped around a spool, twirling the line in a large arch, and catapulting the hook and bait out into the water. The bait is just bread. The fish that they are after, are what we would call, “fingerlings”. They range from 2-3” long and are small. They are prepared whole (without cleaning ), dropped into flour, and pan fried. Each serving is about 12-18 fish, and they are really good. You must eat them head first !!! The fish “mongers”, sell most of the fish whole and again, they again are not “cleaned”. It is the responsibility of the buyer, to clean their own fish. We now have just 9 days left here. Soon, we will once again be on the road and not only seeing new and amazing sites, but we will be searching for that allusive winter campground. I’m looking forward to it…