After Martin left we set sail from Antalya to Kemer and got our first real sail of the season.
It was a typical Med sail, the wind started off in a good direction and then very soon was on the nose so we tacked the last few miles. It isn't very far so we anchored up in 'Moonlight Bay' late afternoon and went to explore ashore. Now Kemer we had preconceptions of which were all blasted away pretty quickly. A lot of the liveaboards in Alanya had eulogised about the marina and wintering in Kemer as if it was some amazing not to be missed place. Granted the Marina looks OK and the mountains in the background were quite nice (when you could see them through the perpetual mist) but the town - it would have been depressing to stay there for a few months. It was grey and dark and the guys outside the shops were even more opressive in trying to get you to buy things than the tourist strip of Alanya. We don't even have any pictures of the place itself as we were so uninspired. We did however find a guy who filled our Camping Gas and a cheap laundry too because as usual we had a pile of washing.
As we went to leave and head south to rendevous with SY Melody we had a total Kemer disaster, our anchor chain was wrapped around what we discovered to be an oil barrel filled with concrete and spikes through it - plus bits of heavy rope attached - you can just about see it through the water in this picture.
Our anchor was wrapped around twice as the wind had changed direction a couple of times whilst we had been there and we had a three hour struggle of strenght and ingenuity to get free. I was on board winching ropes etc and in the end we grappled the anchor chain between the drum and the anchor and managed to get the anchor on deck, take it off the chain and then slowly pull the rest of the chain around the barrel! A tough mornings work especially for the wincher (me!)
The girls and Ali had their first swim of the season here on the 1st April. I don't have a wet suit so I got out of it. We had a nice night at Anne Marie and Lennarts boat and discovered we were an hour late as the clocks had changed.....
The next morning whilst school was taking place Ali went for a hike up the hill............
And then we come to the tale of the Seventy Lira fish....
Although the night's anchoring had been peaceful we had been woken a couple of times by the local fishermen in their shack on the beach shouting or going past in their boats or even shooting off guns. As Ali came back down to the beach one of the fishermen asked if he would like a drink, Ali said no as it was only 11am, then the guy asked if Ali would like to buy a fish. Ali said how much the guy held up seven fingers and said 'seeben' which is German for seven. Ai said he would go and get some money as seven Lira is a good deal for a fish but the guy said it was OK he would come out and get the money when he went past in his boat. Ali came back all pleased with his bargain and set about gutting and filleting it. Then the guy came, I gave Kaylee seven Lira to pass down to him and he said "No No Seventy Lira!" As expected a bit of an arguement followd, Ali said he could have his fish back and the guy said it was really worth 200 Lira?! He wouldn't take the fish back and said he would be back later. We rowed over to Melody and decided that we would go to the beach give his friend 10 Lira and both boats would leave and move to the next anchorage just to save any hassle at night when they were drinking again.
The next bay was nice and once we could bear to eat it my goodness it was a very tasty fish!
We saw this poor turtle on the way round we think it may have been hurt as it always had its right fore flipper out of the water. The girls wanted to get it onboard and help it get better but we persuaded them that was not a good idea!
Another wrecked ship under the cliffs.
The next stop for us was Finike marina as we were running out of water due to a small blonde girl giving her Barbies a very good wash. Finike marina was great because we met Yindee Plus. A yacht with two seven year old boys on board, the girls were in heaven! We actually spent three nights there just so the girls could play with Wilf and Sid their new found heroes. We got to meet their parents too ofcourse and they are a very nice couple called Sue and Chris and it just so happens they hav the same sailing plans roughly as we do this year and chris plays the guitar so a great chance meeting!
As always Ali had ulterior motives for staying in a paying marina...... When he was in the office he saw an advert for a water maker for sale. The price was very attractive, to good to miss, and it was actually the exact same one we had been looking for that sells for around $4500. We thought it must have been completely kaput but Ali went to investigate and found that the guy selling it had bought the boat with it and just wasn't interested in it as they take a bit of looking after. Ali did a bit of research and found that even if he needed the most expensive spares for it the most he would be out of pocket was another 500 pounds so we are now the owners of a watermaker! Ali spent a happy few days figuring out where to put it and stripping it all down etc etc.
Finike itself is a nice town, we could have wintered here quite happily too although I don't think the weather is as good as Alanya and it is a bit smaller but still nice.
Slow- tortoise crossing-!!!!
Finike has a market like Alanya but on a Saturday we went before we left that day and it was pretty good we certainly filled our trolley with lots of lovely fresh fruit and veg to keep us going on anchor for a while.
Taxi??
After a lot of protests from the girls we left Finike for Kekova Roads a fabled yachting anchorage that we had heard so much about and were so glad we went to.
The reason Kekova Roads is such a great yachting place is that it is probably one of the most sheltered anchorages we have ever been in. The island of Kekova runs parallel to the coast with about a four mile channel inbetween and on the mainland side there is an opening just a few hundred metres wide. This opens into a bay with even depths of around 5 metres and really sticky mud for holding the anchor! Which it turn out we really needed just that very same day..... We got in just before dark so I stayed onboard to cook dinner whilst the others went to explore the hillside. The clouds started to build very quickly and next was the rumbling of an approaching thunderstorm. Turkish thunderstorms are not to be sniffed at so I was out the stern with binoculars watching the explorers trying to get back to the dinghy before the rain came on. They failed to do this and I can tell you that the sight of your two kids amd partner rowing as fast as they can back to the boat in the rain when a fork of lightning comes down behind them is just a little more than scary. They did how ever get back before the 1cm diameter hailstones started coming down thick and fast! Yikes! the wind got up for a while but the muddy ground held us firm and ofcourse not a bit of swell gets in there a really great place to wait out a storm.
Kekova has so much more to offer than just good shelter though. The next day we re-anchored at the other end of the bay next to the ancient sarcophagi ( stone coffins ) thought to be of ancient Teimussa. It is a really special place- of course none of the sarcophagi are as elaborate as the ones we had seen in Antalya museum but the fact they are in situ is great. They all have lids that are shaped like upside down boats.
To our relief and the girls dissapointment we found that there were no bodies left inside them!
The next day was a day for a hike up to Kale Koy a castle on the outer shores of the bay. We took our dinghy to the flat marsh to walk up and saw loads of interesting wildlife like this pair of egrets which I couldn't get a clear picture of as they liked to keep their distance.
Nature trail to the castle at the top.
More sarcophagi on the way up the hill!
The blurb!
The view looking towards the western entrance to Kekova Roads you can see a trip boat coming back from the sunken city on Kekova island.
A view of Ali and the northern end of Kekova roads.
The castle has a small ampitheatre inside it and like some of the other aspects of the castle it is actually cut out of the rocky hillside rather than having been built like all the others we have seen.
Looking down at Kale Koy town.
Local boats at Kale Koy
The school kids come home by boat as there are no roads into the small hamlet of Kale Koy.
Kale Koy looking up towards the castle.
And yet another sarcophagus this time partly submerged.
Some sheep we passed on the way back to the dinghy.
Sheep are always tended on by a shepherd, we have never seen any sheep that have not had a shepherd watching over them.
Sheep are always tended on by a shepherd, we have never seen any sheep that have not had a shepherd watching over them.
Reluctantly we set sail the next day for Kas.
It was a bit windy so Kaylee got into her rough weather position with a blanket.....
And I insisted we tried out the new third reef in our sals for the first time and we were still doing over 7 knots but at a much easier angle for standing upright! It was only about 20 miles but we tacked the whole way and so did about 30 making it a longer sea day than we had expected.
Kas is a nice little town. We anchored at the back of the new marina in about 13 metres of water and so our new longer anchor chain also got tested out for the first time that day. Last year we couldn't have anchored safely in that depth of water so it was nice to feel more secure.
Our anchor winch had been misbehaving since last Autumn and Ali thought the brushes in the motor were the problem which he found replacements for and spent the whole day replacing.....
Whilst this was going on the girls and I were ordered off the boat and not to come back until tea time so we wandered around and went to the playpark.
And picked 'crystals' out of the breakwater, Alisha is convinced she will be rich if she gets enough crystal to sell!
The breakwater at Kas is painted with all sorts of frescoes.
Kas is a place where a lot of yachties and others living in Turkey come to regularly to get their 90 day visa renewed as it is a short ferry trip over to the Greek island of Kastellorizon where you can also buy pork and decently priced spirits.....
The new marina at Kas which was to open on May1st. They are allegedly doing great deals like stay one night, get a week free, buy one years berth get another year free. It looks like it will be quite nice although it may have a swell problem in certain directions as it is in a long inlet very open to the west. At least you wouldn't have to make the torturously long visa runs that some made from Alanya to Kas - around 500km! The katabatic gust at night were a little fierce too but that would be OK teid to a pontoon and safe.
Next stop was Gocek to get our life raft back we had a great sail until another dreaded thunderstorm which had me making Ali pack away all the sails. Thankfully we skirted around it and I took the rainy watch so as to make up for the lack of sail.
Our main reason for going to Gocek was our life raft was there being serviced by Blues Marine We had told them we wanted to be present at the inflation so we could see what our life raft was actually like and what was inside it. Blues marine were very good and the guy even explained everything so it was like a safety lecture for us. It turns out that he life raft is almost comercial quality, and in great condition. Ali was so impressed he got them to service the outboard engine too.
The municipal pier was free as it still wasn't 'season' and lucky for us as we had to stay a few days to get the engine back. We really liked Gocek it is a really relaxed little villiage and a sort of yachting mecca. We have been told that in the summer it is unbearably busy and a bit nuts with jetskis, superyachts etc. We met a few nice people whilst there. The first night we invited Eric and Loura off this nice Halberg Rassey over.
It turns out that Eric has sailed to Shetland before and even has a flag in the Lerwick boating club, his father found himself in Shetland during WWII and we have sailed past the island he lives on in Norway too so a very interesting evening all round. Eric turned out to be invaluable to know as my computer got a really nasty virus and he helped me restore the whole system and it is running like a dream now so many thanks for that Eric!
Another great person we met there is Laura, a Londener who lives there on her boat Boudicca. The girls fell instantly in love with her and her two dogs Raggamuffin and Tigerlily.
Laura was telling Alistair that they go out fishing alot at night which he was interested in especially when she offered to catch some for us so Ali said he would supply the veg and cook the whole meal if they supplied the fish. These fish were what Laura came over with, they are like little sword fish and they have have red tipped 'noses' which glow in the dark! Laura says they feed on the plankton that also glow in the dark and that is how they catch them. They set a net then put on some lights above it and go to sleep whilst the fish just jump inot the net! They were tasty little fish but a bit bony for the girls but we all had a couple.
Next it was time for a mini Alanya reunion as to our surprise the Swedish contingent turned up....
Michael and his wife in their motor boat/
And Annemarie and Lennart on Melody once again.
Gocek is a chandlery lovers paradise and as Lennart and Annemarie are heading to Croatia this year they invested in a new 75 metre anchor chain which we would have loved last year in some of the deeper anchorages there. This is Eric helping them get the new chain into the boat.
There was also to be a boat 'expo' along the pier in gocek which they were setting up for the whole time we were there. Setting up and then taking down as the wind nearly blew the whole lot away! It was a very flimsy set up but we felt very sorry for the guys doing all the work. They spent all of one day putting it up and then had to start taking it down in the middle of the night and then put it all up the next day and incredibly after we left they had to take it all down again on the first day of the expo as there was a real gale blowing!
We left Gocek and went to anchor across the bay at the island of Tersane with a view to anchoring for the night and setting of for Marmaris the next morning. This we didn't do as the wind was howling in the morning so we decided to have an adventure walk around the small island instead.
The herd of goats that we woke up to in the morning.
Islay Mist anchored and tied back to a bollard in the bay at Tersane.
Firstly we climbed the hill behind the boat.
It was actually far more of a climb than any of us had bargained for!
A view of the whole bay with us and the other boats tied back. There are a couple of houses in the island and he people raise goats, cows, chickens and go fishing for a living as well as running a restaurant solely for boats in the summer they were just setting up when we were there in mid April. Apparently in the summer there can be wall to wall boats in here, another perk of setting off pre season, you don't have to be into the anchorage before lunch time to get a spot!
The view from the top of the hill. The bay looking towards Fethiye. there are loads of little islands and nooks and crannies for anchoring at all over.
We found a little beach at the other side of the island.
The restaurant 'pier,' berthing at your own risk......
Islay Mist going through one of the channels between Tersane and another island and out to sea as we set off for Marmaris.
A gulet in the channel, you keep out of the way of these guys they are the maritime equivalent of a road hog!
Marmaris bay in moonlight, it is totally protected from open sea too but large enough for a fair slop to set up if it is windy, which it was at times.
We had intended only to stay at Marmaris for a couple of days to meet up with Harald, Natasha and Sil a Dutch family we sailed with last Autumn and head up the coast before signing out of Turkey when our visa ran out. But the anchor winch finally gave up the ghost just as we had decided not to try and replace it as it seemed to be working better with the new brushes! This happened at the anchorage at marmaris town which we had only gone to for a day trip and were going to return to the more settled anchorage at Yat Marine for night time. Now we were stuck unless either of us wanted to pull up 55 metres of chain by hand. Lucky for us, there were quite a few of the chandlers who could supply a new anchor which, so we ordered a much biger and powerful replacement, which would take two to three days to arrive.
We were a little annoyed as anyone we knew was down at yat Marine, 5 miles across the bay.
But fate intervened and we met up with the crew of Wild Bird who were anchored alongside us. Rich, Penny and their daughter Libby called us over as thy had seen our little people and Libby is just as eager for girly company as our two. We too like meeting new people and we quickly found out that Rich and Penny are also haeding the same way as us this year and Rich also plays guitar and sings. He can even remember all the words to a whole song without a song sheet whereas we generally get the chorus and that is! Two days of girly play on both boats followed and of course evening soirees for the adults too. It turns out that libby is a Barbie movie fanatic too so she was in very good company!
A painting session onboard Islay Mist.
Wild Bird
Marmaris town turned out to be a much nicer place than we had expected. I did my last Turkish supermarket shop, Ali toured the chandelries and found a watermaker servicing shop where he spent three happy hours fixing his one with the owner guy and it now works, fresh drinking water from the sea at the flick of a switch! A bargain if ever there was one which was lucky as the saving is just about the same price as........... as the new anchor windlass! Ooh yes and we bought bacon and sausages at 'The Pork Shop' which we were told about by John from Alanya whom we also bumped into in Marmaris, thanks John, that bacon fairly perked up pancake Sunday!
When our anchor winch came a day late but still within our visa dates (thank goodness!) Ali got it fitted and we niped back down to Yat Marine to see Jackie and Rob (below) members of the Alanya Hanse 411 club. It was great to see them and Ali was desperate to show off all the things he had done to the boat over the summer.
Jackie and Rob coming to say goodbye. The girls are really fond of Jackie, she was very good with them in October in Alanya.
We had heard from a lot of people that signing out of Turkey is quite difficult and that you must employ an agent to do it for you. There is no reason for this though if your boat is under 10 ton which our is (when empty!) So on the day before or visa ran out we headed back up to marmaris town and off to the harbour master. Twenty minutes later and twenty Lira lighter, part one was completed and we thought what a breeze. Now it was off to customs and the Passport police at the ferry terminal. We had been there two days before just to check it all out and had been told that yes this was the place to come. When we got there it was 5 to 12 and the lady police officer said closed 1 hour. We decided to wait there as it is a little aout of town and we didn't think we would get the girls back there a second time. We waited outside the ferry terminal building and the girls complained about being hungry for an hour. when the hour was up the lady took our papers started talking at us in Turkish and handed us a little piece of paper written in Turkish and said "Go" We went to the lady in customs who had told us she would not talk English as she didn't know how, but Ali got her to come through to the police lady who was bristling (and scary!) thankfully a nicer policeman finally told us that all we had to do was to go into the ferry terminal to the passport desk and customs in there.... Exactly where we had been sitting for the last hour. We got another policeman who had been standing there all the time we had been sat outside and he was nice. But! then he started saying Problem problem and talking in Turkish. He got out a peice of paper and started writing January Feb and March in Turkish) and from what I gathered he was trying to tell me that in Turkey February has 30 days not 28!! ( which would have meant that we were now over our 90 day visa ) He was quite insistent when we pointed to a calendar with 28 days on it but I think he decided he couldn't be bothered to be nasty and gave up. We were just relived it wasn't the grumpy policewoman who had stamped our passports..... Yay we got signed out. At least Turkey is more reasonable as to when you can leave as you have 24 hours to go whereas in Croatia it was a case of you now have 20 minutes to leave the pier and head out of Croatian waters! So obviously that meant another nip down to yat Marine to finally meet up with Harald and Natasha at happy hour in the marina bar and our last Turkish thunder and lighning before heading the 25 miles to Rhodes the next day...........
We loved Turkey, the scenery is stunning, the people are nice (except nasty police woman and dodgy fisherman but thats only two in 6 months so not bad really!) the food is fresh and we would have loved to stay longer really but we have a lot of miles to sail and we had pottered around for long enough. The next post will be on Greece where we are just now and all I have to say for now is that the last two weeks in the Aegean sea have been the windiest we have had since we left Shetland two years ago!
