Halloween in Finike

October 31 - Halloween Cruising Style

In the weeks prior to Halloween the girls invited some of the local kids to come to our party and I wrangled up some cruisers to participate in the trick-or-treating. In total we had 8 kids participating. We had to explain to the turkish families what Halloween was and how we celebrated. I asked if any of them had dress up clothes to send the kids with so that they would have costumes. We looked for pumpkins and found some but they were already cut up as the turks use them for cooking. So we decided to try one of the green and yellow melons. We brought it at the Saturday market (the week before Halloween) and brought it home for practice. It worked beautifully (easier to clean and more manageable to carve) so Shaun suggested we throw it in the freezer to preserve it for the following Saturdays festivities and to show the kids what a jack-o-lantern is.

During the week before Halloween, I started to purchase treats to deliver to the participating boats. At this point I only knew the quantity of kids (8) and approximate number of boats (which was 4 including us). As the number of boats increased I would buy more treats.

The day before Halloween we met a Norwegian family that came into Finike to check it out (they may choose to come back to Finike for a couple of months). We had dinner with them the same night they arrived and invited them to our Halloween party the following day which brought the kid number up to 10.

As Halloween happened to fall on a Saturday we visited the Saturday market to pick up our weekly produce. Before the market I was up early to start blowing up balloons for Jordan's costume as she was going to be a bag of jellybeans. I even managed a quick Skype call into my former book clubs gathering in Canada. We met Christer, Jenna, Ingrid and Edward (the Norwegian family) at the market before heading back. We stopped at the melon truck on the way back as it was closer to the boat (less distance to lug). We were able to buy 4 melons to carry back (we needed 10 but were unable to lug that many). We certainly got our arm work out. 

pre-halloween shenanigans

more shenanigans

Christer, Edward, Jordan, Shaun, Paige, Patch, Rosie and Little (our dog posse)

The melon carving was to begin at 4:00 PM so I started taking all the paraphernalia for carving melons over to the porthole (our local marina hangout). Paige had printed off a bunch of Halloween colouring sheets as well for the in-between carving and trick or treating bits. At 4:00 ish as kids arrived we got started. We found that the sharpie felt was not able to draw on the surface of the melon so Paige suggested the kids draw their faces onto the blank pumpkin colouring sheet we brought. That was a HUGE success. We had them clean out their melons after they had drawn the face on the paper and then the older girls helped carve all the melons.

Sude, Paige, Sude's friend, and the chandlery owners daughter

snacks and carving (all of the turkish kids had never experienced carving a jack-o-lantern)

Paige helping to carve one of the younger kids pumpkin

a deep discussion on how to carve the face

Jordan and her friend emptying their melons

Ingrid was more interested in the chips

the whole group

another angle of the group

Paige's work of art

another finished masterpiece

aik

almost complete

Paige's shark costume (front)

Paige's shark costume (back)

finished melons

Jordan's costume

Paige and Patch

We had to have one of the front office ladies Pinar (one of the kids mom), who speaks english, come over and explain that the kids needed to say trick or treat all together very loudly. We used the marina office as the test. They all headed over and Pinar, her husband and Ziah (the marina manager) all listened to them and then handed out candies. It was so nice that they all got involved. In fact earlier in the day Ziah gave Jordan a witches hat. Sude ended up wearing it in the end.

heading to the front office for practice

the whole group with Ziah

Faik from Ozturk Marine brought the kids some treats

colouring time before the boat trick or treating

s/v Calidore

s/v Celtic Cream 

s/v Elusive 

pontoon C group shot 

scary monster shot

finished melon jack-o-lanterns

great shot of Paige and the melons

I had also arranged a potluck get together for whomever wanted to join in. I was't entirely sure who was going to show. We ended up having 4-5 cruiser boats appear and bring some wonderful food. We had a great evening. Later on the German family showed up and were saddened by our dismal party.... LOL oh well.

potluck Halloween gathering post trick or treating

Paige and her buddy cuddling up.

Follow our video adventures on our YouTube channel: Video adventures of s/v Element