We arrived in a beautiful anchorage in Kekova Roads where the anchoring is a sure thing as there is a great muddy bottom to secure the anchor. We were not surprised to already see one of our wintering friends, Toucan Tango, already anchored here. This harbor is very quiet and surrounded by many sarcophagiand an old fortess/castle. The tiny village (and I mean tiny) is friendly with a few restaurants, carpet shops, etc. In fact every morning, Ibraham, a local restaurant owner comes by motor boat to deliver locally baked bread to every anchored yacht for free.
While there we purchased a beautiful hand woven Turkish carpet that is part of our international "for sale" items. We are in the process of setting up another web site where you can view personally purchased items that we will offer for sale. Keep a look out for its grand opening.
Our next large harbor was Marmaris which we made by May 22 via Kalcan, Fetieye, and Gochek. We met up with our very good friends Bob and Susan aboard Meg in Gochek where we spent a few days enjoying the anchorages. We were specifically also stopped here for a small dingy repair at a local chandler. Once that was back, the two boats left Gochek and spent a few days in busy Marmaris. Of course, there are always those "shake down" mechanical problems that arise so Terry had a few "jobs" to take care of while in Marmaris. We did however that time to look out for more beautiful Turkish handmade carpets and kilims, once again, we have purchased a few for resale that you can view when our web page is open for business.
We made very good friends with a carpet shop in Marmaris, Tribal Art Gallery. The guys who run this shop have been very welcoming and helpful to us. Savash, Sedat, Mahmut, Benji, Cesar, Hasan have done whatever they can to assist us in finding things, translating, etc. If you ever come to Turkey, stop in their shop and tell them that Marie & Terry from Zelda suggested that you stop in; the Tribal Art folks are such gracious people. They will, of course, appreciate getting a card or photo or something from you as to where you are from, they have started collecting such things and proudly display them in their shop. Needless to say, they will be most happy to show you many of their beautiful carpets.
From Marmaris, we continued heading northwest and anchored in Serge Limani, Bozborun, Datca, Kargi while underway to the fantastic ruins on Knidos. All of these anchorages offer a different view of Turkey, some are lush, others rocky. We enjoy looking out for the local goat and donkey herds that travel freely along the harbor hills. While in Serge, a friendly boatman came alongside to offer us his local handmade items, herbs/spices, etc. He spoke fairly good English. Of course, we loved one of his kilims which we purchased for resale.
After Knidos, we headed for Bodrum Marina where we expected to spend a few days. However, as it turned out, we were there for almost a month due to the fact that Terry developed a large kidney stone that totally obstructed the urethra. After several tries to break the stone via ultrasonic machinery, we decided that he should head back to the University Hospital in Antalya for immediate attention. Luckily our friends from Antalya were visiting us and were more than happy to drive Terry back to the Hospital in Antalya. Terry spent a few days in the hospital where he underwent a 3.5 hour procedure to remove the stone, bit by bit.
After this medical event, we decided to rethink our original plan to sail Zelda all the way to Istanbul. With this, we decided to go only as far north as Kusadasi, Turkey, where we looked forward to visiting the incredible ruins of Efesus Besides the opportunity to sail the entire west coast of Turkey, we were heading for Istanbul with Zelda as we already had tickets to fly back to the US from there in early August. So with our new plans, we knew that we could get to our flight from any reasonable Turkish town via bus service.
After touring Efesus, we started our southerly return and sailed across the Aegean to Greece where we checked into the harbor of Pythagorean on the island of Samos. From Samos we headed south to Pathos to visit the famous monastery of St John. This is the place where St. John dictated Apocalypse of the book of Revelation. From Patmos, we headed for Leros, Greece, then onto Kalimnos. By this time, we parted company with Meg as she continued her northerly treck up to Istanbul.
Our last harbor in Greece was the large island of Kos. This is a popular destination for cruisers as there is good provisioning available and also the opportunity to get food items not reasonably available in Turkey like "pork", good gin, etc. Obviously, we also took this opportunity to stock up. After checking out of Greece and back into Turkey, we started making our southeast track back to Marmaris where we checked into Yacht Marina for at least 1.5 months while we flew back to the US for my son's wedding on August 16. Since the boat was being left for this long period of time, we decided to go ahead and have a new teak deck installed and to have our fixed dodger repainted.
We left for Istanbul via bus (14 hours, whew!) and met up with Meg who by now had made it to Istanbul. We spent a great day of touring Istanbul's beautiful Blue Mosque, the Textile Museum, the Grand Bazaar and Spice Market and enjoying a great lunch. We spent the night aboard Meg and headed for the airport the next morning with a flight via London into Newark, NJ.
We spent 3 weeks in the US visiting our family and friends and, of course, heading to Annapolis, MD, for Cory and Carrie's beautiful Hawaiian theme wedding that was held at Carrie's Aunt Renee and Uncle George's house 'Bella Vista on Cadle Creek' with the Chesapeake as a backdrop. I took over 200 photos some of which are included in this update (Click Here for Wedding Photos - These are the professional photographers pictures). It was great to meet many of Carrie's family and friends. Terry flew out to Oklahoma to visit with his son, James and family. He missed the Blackburn family reunion by one week but got to see lot's of cousins and his Aunt Betty who he hadn't seen in 8 years. He stayed with his e-mail buddy (and cousin), Alberta and had a ball going over the family tree. We went to New York , saw a show and met with Dan and Donna, Terry's daughter. Terry renewed his USCG Master's License. The 3 weeks flew by quickly. After leaving NJ, we flew back through London where we stopped for 5 days to visit with our friends, Barb and Robbie, who we met when we all wintered in Barcelona. This was our first time in the UK and found it to be a sharp contrast from New Jersey. We enjoyed London for a few days where we toured Westminster Abbey, St Margaret's Church, saw the Parliament Building with Big Ben, toured the huge Hampton Palace, took a round the city bus tour of all the important sites in London. We had a relaxing visit with Barb and Robbie in their lovely traditional English cottage along with their dog Dan and their cat Ziggy.
Once again, on the plane, we flew into Istanbul, spent the night there with the next day visiting the beautiful Topkapi Palace and the Blue Mosque. As we were travel weary, we hopped the 8 pm bus (14 hours, whew!) and headed back to Marmaris to check on the deck progress aboard Zelda, to unload all of our huge boxes and duffels and to take a breather after all the air and road miles.
We are unpacked and living in somewhat of a mess as the deck progresses and things below decks are topsy turvy. We are hoping that the deck will be completed by mid to late SeptembEr at which time we will do some local sailing before heading back to Kemer by October/November for the next winter season.
Hope all of you are well and thank you for keeping up with our travels and adventures. Don't forget to sign into our guestbook as we love to hear from you as well (keep it short as we are unable to correct the text problem).. Also, check out the new photos. Wedding Photos | Turkey Photos