The village was a little touristy but kept its charm of Turkey. It is a large boat yard for gulets with hundreds ashore there for the winter, they still build them there with plans to build the largest gulet over 120m long, starting later this year. Gulets were coming into the tiny harbour to get maintanence work done before they're season started. It can be quite nerve racking when a large gulet, they're passerelle is as long as Crazydream, is mooring the side of you into a space that just doesn't look big enough. They certainly know how to handle their boats. We were pleased we choose to check in here and not Marmaris. A slow intro to Turkey.
We headed off round the coast with Rassy Lady stopping in anchorages before entering Marmaris Bay. Rassy Lady were again glad to have G close by as this year was their year of failures - alternator, halyard snapping, broken batterns in the sail...... G was happy to help and rewarded well for it.
Marmaris town is a haven for yachties, chandleries galore, workshops that will make anything but the downside is its full of tacky tourist places, and late night loud music clubs. If it was this loud in May we can only imagine what August will be like!
We were glad to leave the noise of the town but we were also moving on from Rassy Lady, they were heading back to the UK for the hot months.
We managed some sailing on our journey east along the coast but the weather was still unsettled and the thunderstorms when we were in Tomb Bay cleaned the boat nicely! The bays in Fethiye Korfezi have original names, Ruin Bay because there's a ruin, Tomb Bay because there's tombs, Wall Bay because there's a wall - you get the idea. All idyllic but dropping your anchor in 15-20m of water and tying back to the shore, fine if the water is warm enough to swim ashore!
We continued onto Kekova Roads our goal for the season before it got too busy in the height of the season. Sadly we were a little dissappointed with Kekova, its very pretty but very similar to the rest of the coast. It does however have lots of ruins and remains of Lycian settlements, some sunken and submerged, some dating back to beyond fouth century BC. The whole area is now commercialised with tripper boats and gulets taking over the popular sites and anchorages, some do dissappear in the evening but not all and those that stay leave their generators on and turn up the music. Still we did find some lovely places and managed to walk some of the Lycian Way, a long distance trail which runs along the Turquoise coast taking in places of interest from Roman and Byzantine times. The whole trail in theory takes up to month to complete, with an asortment of surfaces to walk on. Needless to say we only completed a short part taking in the sites of Teimiussa and Aperlae, swimming over the now submerged ruins, enchanting.
We felt we had seen enough and were not going to go any further east and decided to head back west. We had been told of a new marina that was open but not charging yet as they had not got their licence from the government and therefore couldn't take any money. We arrived in Kas marina where they even gave us 5€ of electric to use and we could stay as long as we liked, seemed rude not to. We stayed a week taking in the delights of Kas and the surrounding area. Taking the advantage of a free spot and eating out in the town.
We were very close to the furthest point of Europe, the Greek island of Kastellorizion, 70 miles east of Rhodes. It seemed silly not to go especially as there may be the chance of some cheep beer and pork - there wasn't. The island was enchanting with much history from shipbuilders in the 19th century stuggling on with sail boats and not converting to steam, WWI saw its relations with Turkey (a mile away) dry up when the Turks joined the Allies. Kastellorision then joined the Dodecanese group of islands at the time being run by the Italians. In WWII when the Italians surrendered to the Allies it was occupied by the British for a year, just before they left a fuel dump caught fire and exploded distroying half the town. Many of the islanders emigrated after this to Australia or America and alot of the houses remain abandoned today but many have been beautifully restored by returning emigres.
A long motor, the wind that was forecast didn't happen, and a change of flag saw us in the beautiful anchorage off the island of Gemiler. With the improved weather the water was now warm enough to swim and take lines ashore although this is where we first met the "ice cream man", he kindly helps you with your shore lines and then gets you to buy one of his ice creams at highly inflated prices - bartering is a must or you just say no but they became tiresome bothering you most of the day. A walk ashore before he tripper boats was interesting, a ruined Byzantine settlement with many buildings intact enough to appriciate them. Four churches on a island less than a half a mile long and quarter of a mile wide and a superberb covered walkway to the highest point, sadly mostly collapsed but we were early enough to still have shade!
A late sail thus more wind saw us back in Fethiye to stock up and do a little sight seeing. Amphitheatre, Sarcophagi and Rock Tombs dating back to 4th century BC. There were thoughts of a walk (7km or so through pine forest) to KoyaKal, the abandoned Greek village of 1922 which is the setting of the Louis de Berniers's novel Birds without Wings which describes events leading up to the Greek/Turkish population exchange and the birth pangs of modern Turkey under Ataturk. A painful knee and the heat put a stop to the thought and sadly since then we heard it would have been very worthwhile, something to go back for! We needed to be somewhere we could swim, not advisable off Fethiye town and so we headed off just after midday to suffer out first engine failure of the year. Overheating caused by a broken impeller. Engine off, P maintained a course under sail, whilst G replaced the impeller for a new one and cooled the engine down. It only took 20 minutes then original course was resumed to an idyllic anchorage with more ruins, tripper boats were there during the day but left late afternoon leaving a peaceful anchorage. We visited other bays in the Gocek area before a dash to the town to stock up and sit out yet another thunderstorm and torrential rain. Apart from the rain its an area that we'd recommend to cruise especially if chartering for a week or 2, sailing across the bay to a different anchorage each day all in green surroundings because of the rain!
We headed back west to have a new sprayhood made for the boat, the old one was only just holding together. We avoided Marmaris, too touristy and noisy in favour of some new anchorages where we could swim. We were also planning to meet up with some "ex-cruisers", Ian and Yvonne from the boat Nichola Jane, who we'd met in our first year out, who were chartering in the area.
