Photos
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https://picasaweb.google.com/107552894000495672281/GocekToKekovaRoadsAndBackToGocek?authuser=0&feat=directlink
GOCEK TO KEKOVA ROADS AND BACK 3 AUGUST
I have been a very poor with my writing, it seemed so much more interesting stuff to put on paper up North with the refugees, and various other things happening. It is always nice returning to Skopea Lamani, it is all so familiar, and so many safe places to go, very colourful and usually plenty of boats in the distance going hither and tither, so we don’t feel lonely. However in saying that, this year there seem to be much fewer about. In Fetiye when we were at Yacht Classic some of the hotel guests said that in England they have been strongly advised in the media to avoid Turkey because of the incident in Tunisia and the Syrian unrest. Which is very sad for the locals here who suffer. We have seen a much more noticeable presence of coastguard boats in the area, probably because of this refugee thing. The numbers are quite alarming, although down here we haven’t seen them like up north, strangely. One coastguard boat came into Boynuz Buku when we were there, it was an enormous boat, and it hovered behind us, collecting water. It was quite intimidating, and my heart went boomberty boom, they made me feel guilty for what I don’t know. I just thought, I hope the black tank is completely closed off, I just wanted them to move on out, which of course they did.
Our first stop was Deep Bay where we picked up a buoy and tied ashore. Beside us was a yacht with 4 Russian trainees, we have seen a few Russian sailing schools this year. Gocek the town was excruciatingly hot, in the late 40s, we spent quite a lot of time at the beach, and one big night with Burak and his wife in the Sailors Pub, someone has to keep them afloat, once a year it seems to be us.
Back out to the bays, where it was cooler with a bit of breeze, and swimming pool off the doorstep. We had to visit Fetiye for the rugby where we watch it at the Car Cemetary. The market was on while we were there, but it is really just a bit of a bum’s rush, and if you are not skilled at the art of bargaining, which we are clearly not, you end up paying more than outside the market. But we returned to the fish market where you buy your fish, and take in your hot little hand to one of the surrounding restaurants, and we had a superb meal. Our last night we met some trouble, in the form of Geoff and Lynn, their son Kacie and his friend Levy.
Next day we went on around to what they nicknamed Bottle Bay, the moorings are all plastic bottles. We have renamed it Turtle Bay, there were more turtles here than we could count, and floating on top of the water for extended periods, not shyly disappearing. For a couple of hours in the afternoon countless tripper boats came in, so they took the opportunity to have their siesta, returning after the coast was clear again. Lynn saw a baby one, flapping madly with its paddles but not making much progress. I would have loved to have seen that one. We had quite a night with them in the lovely restaurant so it was perhaps with a small amount of relief that we parted ways the next morning, until next time. We headed Sth to Kas, no genniker opportunities today sadly. One of our days here was occupied with a dolmus ride to Kalkan to watch another important game of rugby, fortunately with a much more satisfactory result. Kalkan is nicer than we thought, we had thought that all the British ex pats that moved into Kalkan might have made it lose its mystique, but alas no, it is still very cute, so we plan to stop on our return north. A couple more days in Kas, a lovely town, swimming and enjoying the ambience, then on to Kekova Rds
Again, the lack of boats is starkly obvious, except one night at Gokkaya where the bay filled up with a Sunsail flotilla. Another visitor we had in that bay was a most agitated and annoyed little boat with mum and dad and their very little boy who had been skilled up in looking forlorn when we chose not to have a pancake. When they returned a little too late for our breakfast they were turned down again, this time the father looked completely filthy into my eyes, stared down well and truly. I guess the lack of punters is making all these sort of people a bit edgy and urgent.
When we returned to Ukagiz area we returned to Aperlae to see the family restaurant of whom we had struck up quite a friendship in the time we were there 3 years ago when we were down this way. Joe declares I could write a book about this episode, but I shall keep it to a short story. The first night we pulled in and anchored, went in for our meal, and they instantly recognized us, which was pretty impressive in itself after all this time. There was only the daughter, Sibel, and Hassan the father there. Sibel speaks no English at all, and the father stumbles over a few words, but the bigger picture is much harder to get a grasp on. So it was quite remarkable that as he was chopping up our potato chips over by the fire that he suddenly blurted out UNDABLE. Of course we tried to interpret this new word, when we discovered he had actually remembered my name, Andabel, with a long vowel A. After all this time it was amazing and he looked so very proud of himself. And his pronunciation was simply delightful. We had a lovely meal of Koftas, (meatballs) and a most economical and tasty red wine. Well, while the cat’s away the mice will play, and next thing he was bringing more wine out to share with us, and as we would go Sherefe (cheers) and try to klunk glasses, he would tap the top of his glass on the table rim. Quite unsure of the meaning of this, it became the way it was done from then on. We didn’t learn very much with the limited understanding, except the son big problem, big problem. In trouble with the police, ‘Crikey’ I thought, but it was a car speeding thing, so in the scheme of things not so big, though he was going 130 in a 60 km area and it cost 1000 lira
Next day we embarked on our little walk over to the sunken city on the other side of the isthmus, we did this also 3 years ago. Then, I was convinced my littlest toe was broken after stubbing it somewhere on the yacht, so the hobble over to the sunken village took forever, and seemed like 5 miles, but in actual fact it was little over 1 km and this year a much more enjoyable experience. I made it to the water last year and found some of the village, but this year not so lucky, but the water was a wonderful relief in this relentless heat pounding down on us. Back at Aperlae restaurant, Hassan was very proud to have Sibel show us the new little pension he has had built, and much relief a lovely new bathroom, (last year Hassan’s wife, forgot her name shamefully, directed me to the loo, waiting for me to emerge, I had to stand in it and pretend I was doing what you do in a tiny space like that, hold my breath, and come out looking relieved.) We sat and enjoyed refreshments and tried to ascertain what was going on. It seemed that wife and son were to return in 2 days, so we went into Ukagiz for the night to return to see all the family together next.
In Ukagiz we wandered around the village, and next day went in the dinghy to Kale Koy, just around the corner, but in choppy waters and our droning little 2hp 4 stroke engine the .7 mile felt like 5 miles. It was a hot day but we urged ourselves on past all the side stalls begging us to buy something, and up to the top of the hill, in this heat it was a veritable mountain, to the castle on the top. The view was beautiful I have to say. Back down the bottom we had a most refreshing fresh squeezed orange juice and watched about 4 turtles on the shallow sea floor beside us. We always wondered what they eat, as they are surely far too slow to catch a fish, but when some young boys got in to swim with them, and try to touch them their turbo boost turned on and we learnt they can move at an amazingly quick pace. We also learnt that the sea bed here was knee high in vegetation, and very quickly they munch it down. Now it is just little tufts. Back to the boat to cool down, and then back down to Aperlae restaurant where the plot thickens
Hassan has extended his jetty to an advertised 3 meters depth. He was extremely keen for us to tie up to it, so we thought as we were getting away early in the morning it would give us an opportunity to get the dinghy up etc. And he looked so hopeful, we didn’t want to disappoint him. However as we pulled in my depth reader read 1.7 meters. This wasn’t good as we draw 1.9, so there is the first mystery. He had to go to town to get fresh fish in his speed boat and didn’t want us to come to dine until 8pm. He was going to return with wife and son. As he went past much later he said something about his wife and son coming tomorrow, then he coming tomorrow. Something was clearly getting lost in translation here. Time went by, it was nearly 8pm and no sign of anyone, except poor little Sibel watching TV all on her own. I was preparing myself to whip up some pasta and tomato, becoming more and more convinced dinner was off, when I suddenly said to Joe, ‘Sibel is setting our table, pasta is off the menu tonight’
Then roaring down the bay comes mum and son. Of course nobody at all now speaking any English, so photos, sharades and hugs and laughs (the laughs on our part, quite a bit of tension going on in that family at the moment. Sibling tensions running high. They do know how to eloquently shout at each other to get their point of view across) filled the night. It was Sibel’s birthday as it happened so there was birthday cake. Mother gave me several big sweaty hugs and smiles over the night, as did Sibel. Sergen, to us anyway, a beautiful boy, as Joe said in the morning may be suffering some of the anxiety of having to join conscription soon, and the army in these times would not be a very nice place to be.
We thought they would get a shock in the morning to find us gone when they woke, but another surprise for us, when mum and daughter flew away in their speed boat before we even got out of our bunk.
We felt sorry to have left before saying good bye to Hassan, but we couldn’t keep track of their activities, and couldn’t wait any longer. We had a reasonable 25 mile day to Kalkan harbor. Kalkan sits on the side of quite a steel hill, so to go anywhere out of the harbor required some exertion. But up the hill we went when it got a bit cooler in the day, to get some groceries etc, then a lovely meal at Aubergine, looking over the harbor, to our pea sized yacht amongst all the bigger boys. And the harbor at about 5pm is all action with a line of tripper boats returning for the night. In the morning we had a couple of anchors over our chain, which is par for the course, and we extracted ourselves quite easily, and set off on a real mission of a day, motoring along on very calm waters, and then we had a glorious sail for about 20 of the 45 miles we did for the day.
So that is were we are to date, back in the Gocek region, feels like returning home, and very soon that is exactly what we will be doing. We take Wrighteau out of the water in 2 weeks, and after our 10 lovely days in Italy we will be home.
So until next time, it is still Goroshurus
Our first stop was Deep Bay where we picked up a buoy and tied ashore. Beside us was a yacht with 4 Russian trainees, we have seen a few Russian sailing schools this year. Gocek the town was excruciatingly hot, in the late 40s, we spent quite a lot of time at the beach, and one big night with Burak and his wife in the Sailors Pub, someone has to keep them afloat, once a year it seems to be us.
Back out to the bays, where it was cooler with a bit of breeze, and swimming pool off the doorstep. We had to visit Fetiye for the rugby where we watch it at the Car Cemetary. The market was on while we were there, but it is really just a bit of a bum’s rush, and if you are not skilled at the art of bargaining, which we are clearly not, you end up paying more than outside the market. But we returned to the fish market where you buy your fish, and take in your hot little hand to one of the surrounding restaurants, and we had a superb meal. Our last night we met some trouble, in the form of Geoff and Lynn, their son Kacie and his friend Levy.
Next day we went on around to what they nicknamed Bottle Bay, the moorings are all plastic bottles. We have renamed it Turtle Bay, there were more turtles here than we could count, and floating on top of the water for extended periods, not shyly disappearing. For a couple of hours in the afternoon countless tripper boats came in, so they took the opportunity to have their siesta, returning after the coast was clear again. Lynn saw a baby one, flapping madly with its paddles but not making much progress. I would have loved to have seen that one. We had quite a night with them in the lovely restaurant so it was perhaps with a small amount of relief that we parted ways the next morning, until next time. We headed Sth to Kas, no genniker opportunities today sadly. One of our days here was occupied with a dolmus ride to Kalkan to watch another important game of rugby, fortunately with a much more satisfactory result. Kalkan is nicer than we thought, we had thought that all the British ex pats that moved into Kalkan might have made it lose its mystique, but alas no, it is still very cute, so we plan to stop on our return north. A couple more days in Kas, a lovely town, swimming and enjoying the ambience, then on to Kekova Rds
Again, the lack of boats is starkly obvious, except one night at Gokkaya where the bay filled up with a Sunsail flotilla. Another visitor we had in that bay was a most agitated and annoyed little boat with mum and dad and their very little boy who had been skilled up in looking forlorn when we chose not to have a pancake. When they returned a little too late for our breakfast they were turned down again, this time the father looked completely filthy into my eyes, stared down well and truly. I guess the lack of punters is making all these sort of people a bit edgy and urgent.
When we returned to Ukagiz area we returned to Aperlae to see the family restaurant of whom we had struck up quite a friendship in the time we were there 3 years ago when we were down this way. Joe declares I could write a book about this episode, but I shall keep it to a short story. The first night we pulled in and anchored, went in for our meal, and they instantly recognized us, which was pretty impressive in itself after all this time. There was only the daughter, Sibel, and Hassan the father there. Sibel speaks no English at all, and the father stumbles over a few words, but the bigger picture is much harder to get a grasp on. So it was quite remarkable that as he was chopping up our potato chips over by the fire that he suddenly blurted out UNDABLE. Of course we tried to interpret this new word, when we discovered he had actually remembered my name, Andabel, with a long vowel A. After all this time it was amazing and he looked so very proud of himself. And his pronunciation was simply delightful. We had a lovely meal of Koftas, (meatballs) and a most economical and tasty red wine. Well, while the cat’s away the mice will play, and next thing he was bringing more wine out to share with us, and as we would go Sherefe (cheers) and try to klunk glasses, he would tap the top of his glass on the table rim. Quite unsure of the meaning of this, it became the way it was done from then on. We didn’t learn very much with the limited understanding, except the son big problem, big problem. In trouble with the police, ‘Crikey’ I thought, but it was a car speeding thing, so in the scheme of things not so big, though he was going 130 in a 60 km area and it cost 1000 lira
Next day we embarked on our little walk over to the sunken city on the other side of the isthmus, we did this also 3 years ago. Then, I was convinced my littlest toe was broken after stubbing it somewhere on the yacht, so the hobble over to the sunken village took forever, and seemed like 5 miles, but in actual fact it was little over 1 km and this year a much more enjoyable experience. I made it to the water last year and found some of the village, but this year not so lucky, but the water was a wonderful relief in this relentless heat pounding down on us. Back at Aperlae restaurant, Hassan was very proud to have Sibel show us the new little pension he has had built, and much relief a lovely new bathroom, (last year Hassan’s wife, forgot her name shamefully, directed me to the loo, waiting for me to emerge, I had to stand in it and pretend I was doing what you do in a tiny space like that, hold my breath, and come out looking relieved.) We sat and enjoyed refreshments and tried to ascertain what was going on. It seemed that wife and son were to return in 2 days, so we went into Ukagiz for the night to return to see all the family together next.
In Ukagiz we wandered around the village, and next day went in the dinghy to Kale Koy, just around the corner, but in choppy waters and our droning little 2hp 4 stroke engine the .7 mile felt like 5 miles. It was a hot day but we urged ourselves on past all the side stalls begging us to buy something, and up to the top of the hill, in this heat it was a veritable mountain, to the castle on the top. The view was beautiful I have to say. Back down the bottom we had a most refreshing fresh squeezed orange juice and watched about 4 turtles on the shallow sea floor beside us. We always wondered what they eat, as they are surely far too slow to catch a fish, but when some young boys got in to swim with them, and try to touch them their turbo boost turned on and we learnt they can move at an amazingly quick pace. We also learnt that the sea bed here was knee high in vegetation, and very quickly they munch it down. Now it is just little tufts. Back to the boat to cool down, and then back down to Aperlae restaurant where the plot thickens
Hassan has extended his jetty to an advertised 3 meters depth. He was extremely keen for us to tie up to it, so we thought as we were getting away early in the morning it would give us an opportunity to get the dinghy up etc. And he looked so hopeful, we didn’t want to disappoint him. However as we pulled in my depth reader read 1.7 meters. This wasn’t good as we draw 1.9, so there is the first mystery. He had to go to town to get fresh fish in his speed boat and didn’t want us to come to dine until 8pm. He was going to return with wife and son. As he went past much later he said something about his wife and son coming tomorrow, then he coming tomorrow. Something was clearly getting lost in translation here. Time went by, it was nearly 8pm and no sign of anyone, except poor little Sibel watching TV all on her own. I was preparing myself to whip up some pasta and tomato, becoming more and more convinced dinner was off, when I suddenly said to Joe, ‘Sibel is setting our table, pasta is off the menu tonight’
Then roaring down the bay comes mum and son. Of course nobody at all now speaking any English, so photos, sharades and hugs and laughs (the laughs on our part, quite a bit of tension going on in that family at the moment. Sibling tensions running high. They do know how to eloquently shout at each other to get their point of view across) filled the night. It was Sibel’s birthday as it happened so there was birthday cake. Mother gave me several big sweaty hugs and smiles over the night, as did Sibel. Sergen, to us anyway, a beautiful boy, as Joe said in the morning may be suffering some of the anxiety of having to join conscription soon, and the army in these times would not be a very nice place to be.
We thought they would get a shock in the morning to find us gone when they woke, but another surprise for us, when mum and daughter flew away in their speed boat before we even got out of our bunk.
We felt sorry to have left before saying good bye to Hassan, but we couldn’t keep track of their activities, and couldn’t wait any longer. We had a reasonable 25 mile day to Kalkan harbor. Kalkan sits on the side of quite a steel hill, so to go anywhere out of the harbor required some exertion. But up the hill we went when it got a bit cooler in the day, to get some groceries etc, then a lovely meal at Aubergine, looking over the harbor, to our pea sized yacht amongst all the bigger boys. And the harbor at about 5pm is all action with a line of tripper boats returning for the night. In the morning we had a couple of anchors over our chain, which is par for the course, and we extracted ourselves quite easily, and set off on a real mission of a day, motoring along on very calm waters, and then we had a glorious sail for about 20 of the 45 miles we did for the day.
So that is were we are to date, back in the Gocek region, feels like returning home, and very soon that is exactly what we will be doing. We take Wrighteau out of the water in 2 weeks, and after our 10 lovely days in Italy we will be home.
So until next time, it is still Goroshurus