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better. Later in the day, when we were moored in the Bodrum fleet and one of the boats asked us to adjust our position, I tried starting my engines and nothing happened.
    Seref asked Ecrem to figure it out, but I said no. I wanted someone other than Ecrem. So Seref called Ecrem’s brother, the “master” mechanic. He was supposed to be the best in Bodrum. And when he arrived, he was at least bigger and older than Ecrem. Literally twice his size. He went down to the engines while Ercan hit the starters from above, and he said immediately that there was saltwater in the engines. It had flooded in through the exhausts because the siphon breaks hadn’t been run correctly.
    Seref translated this for me reluctantly. I couldn’t believe I was hearing it. I had told Seref over and over how important the siphon breaks were, and he had reassured me they were correct.
    Seref could see that I was losing it so he put his hands up and tried to calm me. “I don’t know how this happen, David.”
    â€œNow you’ve destroyed my new engines,” I yelled. I just couldn’t keep from yelling. “Seventeen thousand dollars for each engine, and you’ve filled them with saltwater. How many goddamn times did I tell you to make sure the siphon breaks were right? I’m not a mechanic, I don’t know how they’re supposed to be run, but I told you over and over how important they are.”
    Though I shouldn’t have lost it, all of these things were in fact true. It was very frustrating, especially after the other events of the day. At first Seref yelled back at me, but finally he gave up and left.
    I stayed in the engine room with the mechanic and helped him drain thick white soup from the oil pan. Then we removed the injectors and cranked each engine with a bar on the flywheel to pump out white froth at high pressure. It went all over the engine room. I didn’t even care about the mess. Saltwater in the engines was the worst possible thing we could do to them, and I’d need to rely on these engines for years. I was aware that I had behaved like a child, screaming like that, but I was so afraid. I had borrowed so much money for this boat. I had no safety net.
    For the next twelve days, I was at the boat from 7 A.M. until midnight. We finished the bathrooms with white and green tile, household-style toilets, and even a bit of varnished trim on the cabinet doors. I was pleased with how they turned out.
    For the floors in the staterooms and hallways, Seref found some cheap wood laminate. He didn’t consult with me beforehand. I came up on deck one afternoon, after working in the engine room, and found a huge pile of the stuff already brought onboard. I didn’t have time to fight for anything else.
    Seref and I didn’t exactly make peace after the incident with the engines. We just moved on. There was too much to do. We spent a lot of time with the young guy who was building the air-conditioning units. We weren’t going to have them for the first charter, but he would meet us in Gocek and install them in the twenty-four hours between charters.
    The ceilings took more time than I would have thought. Seref had shallow grooves cut in cheap, quarter-inch ply to mimic planking. This was inserted between braces in each ceiling section, then painted white, and it actually looked good. The contrast between the dark varnished mahogany beams and the white planked spaces looked rich. No one would ever know.
    The compass I had shipped from the States was broken, and because it was specialized, with magnetic arms to compensate for the steel hull, I was unable to find a replacement. I would have to order another one, which meant I would have no compass for this twenty-four-hour trip to Antalya and the first few charters, perhaps even the entire summer. The Turkish crew was nervous about this. They had never been underway at night, or for twenty-four hours non-stop, and now they would