Weatherly Sailing Adventures
Oops, sorry, this page's a bit long. Turkey is such a great place to sail along, so I spent a bit of time here.
We arrived in time for a local festival at Finike, midway along the south Turkish coast. The large park was full of stalls selling the usual cheap clothing, sunglasses, music etc, but tractors and farm implements were also up for sale.
Moustachioed ice-cream sellers wearing spangley hats and colourful, striped vests twirled large globules of ice-cream on shovels to demonstrate the (desirable?) stickiness of their product. Every now and again they would gong cow-bells and heckle passers-by to entice them to buy the yummy ice-cream.
After repairs to the mainsail and genoa, and 4 new diesel injectors were installed, I took a bus ride to the ancient port town of Olympos. Being a bit tired from the maintenance, I dozed off on the dolmus. The busdriver didn't want to wake me up, so the next thing I knew I was 40minutes past my stop and it started to rain lightly.
The kind busdriver hailed a dolmus passing the other way, reversed back and walked me across the busy highway to tell the driver to let me off at the turnoff for another bus. Finally at Olympos, I explored the ruins and had a swim at the beach, which was full of Turkish holidaymakers. I hitched back to the main town to catch a dolmus back to Finike, determined not to fall asleep again.
Jo left Weatherly in Finike, after sailing with me up the Red Sea, Israel and Cyprus, to do some overland travelling in Turkey. Clive, who joined in Egypt, continued on to Kas.
Along the way, we visited Kale Koy, a scenic village on a hillside with a ruined fort perched on top, and rock tombs scattered about the landscape. I swam out to some small islands with ruins above and underneath the water. Some poor village girls tried selling necklaces and bracelets but having no-one to give them to, I just gave them some small change for school and for trying so charmingly for business.
We took a slightly illegal detour to Kastelorizo, which is a beautiful Greek island. The harbourmaster was unconcerned, just letting me pay the port dues without all the paperwork and fees to enter Greece. I was surprised to overhear 2 'Greek' girls talking perfect 'Strine' and then noticed most of the town spoke in the unmistakable Australian accent too. Many emigrated to Australia during the 2nd world war, then returned years later. Their children and relatives who chose to stay in Australia, come to visit for holidays.
I climbed a very steep mountain to look at an unrewarding monastery, but the view over the town and across at Kas in Turkey was spectacular.
We briefly pulled into Kas marina, where Clive left to do do some overland travelling to Bulgaria.
I was on my own again and motored to a free anchorage around the corner. Though the crew were helpful and good company, it was refreshing to have my boat back to myself and the freedom to sail at my own pace, without pressure to get anywhere.
Fresh fruit, vegies, fish and meat provided a healthy, cheap diet and I ate very well onboard, provisioning frequently from local markets. The southern coastline of Turkey is a sailor's paradise - generally flat seas, some fresh afternoon breezes to move the boat nicely, stunning anchorages with clear, blue water and rugged, steep mountains with ancient ruins to provoke interest in it's long history.
Next stop was Kalkan, where I rented a moped to see more ruins at Xanthos (great amphitheatre and well preserved Lycean pillar tombs) and Saklikent gorge in the mountains. You have to wade thigh deep through icy water and follow a muddy creek up through the spectacular gorge. I chatted with an Iraqi/Turkish - American family but declined the suggestion to clad myself in mud like their previously beautiful daughter.
The next day I went back to another beach with ruins at Patara, but the bikeride was disrupted by a flat tyre. The rental bikes all seemed to be in very poor condition so I drove particularly carefully, picturing the grim consequences of any accident. There were archaologists excavating a bakery and a well, and I stopped to ask them about their discoveries and take photos of a Roman archway, before exploring other ruins in some sand dunes and having a surf at the beach.
A big highlight for me was to return to Olu Deniz, a picturesque beach sand-spit where I'd backpacked to 16 years ago with an Aussie mate. When there last time it was little more than a small village with a pristine beach. It's now overrun by a new developed town and multitudes of tourists visiting the beautiful scenery, fortunately still intact if you view the pine-clad mountains from the beach.
When here last time, I saw a few yachts anchored off the calm lagoon and thought it would be a great idea to sail here from Australia one day. So here I am, today, in the same spot and it gave me a buzz to think I've actually accomplished that dream. I climbed the wooded mountain, took some pictures overlooking the sand spit and the spot where I'd swum to 16years ago with my friend who'd taken my photo there (See Olu Deniz pic on Home Page).
My mother joined me at Fethiye marina, flying in from London. After some shopping at the worst time of day (very hot) we set off and made it to a calm anchorage on nightfall. In the morning we saw the hills surrounding the bay was full of tombs, living up to it's namesake, Tomb Bay.
We motor-sailed through the day along rocky, barren coastlines past many gullets (large, Turkish tourist yachts) and found a sheltered anchorage in a peaceful setting amongst other yachts. The next morning we backtracked a few miles to a fairly exposed anchorage and took the dinghy ashore and up a meandering rivercourse with many reeds creating a kind of maze. The small outboard had a blockage and kept konking out (since repaired) so a fishing boat towed us, for a fee, to Caunos, another ruined city with a silted up port. The city was built by Carians, but various waves of empires took the city and left different marks and buildings, including well preserved Roman baths and an amphitheatre. It was a charming site to explore and we could have spent more time there, but I was concerned about the wind piping up and wanted to get back to ensure the yacht wasn't dragging onto the beach.
After losing the way a few times, I was relieved to see Weatherly still in the same spot, and we stopped by a fisherman to buy some BBQed and live crabs for dinner. We ate a small crab each on the beach and watched the breakers over the river bar, picking out the best route through and waiting for the waves to abate.
Marmaris was a lively tourist town with music pumping all night and we found it hard to sleep. Mum shouted us a nice dinner at a waterfront restaurant after wandering about the town. The next afternoon we had a great sail across very flat, protected waters to a small tourist village called Turunc. In the morning the anchor wouldn't come up. It was wrapped around a large, disgarded admiralty anchor in 16m water. I duckdived to investigate how to disentangle the chain and after some experimenting, motoring the boat clockwise then anticlockwise, the chain was freed of the snaring hook.
We had a long day sail in freshening winds and were hoping to make it to a beautiful anchorage at the end of the peninsula. Unfortunately, mum felt a bit queasy and stood up for some fresh air at a time when the boat lurched violently on a wave. She came down with a lot of force and cut her cheek on the cockpit coaming. I dressed it with a basic patch, but thought it probably needed stitches. Being very remote, it was several hours to the nearest inhabited anchorage and 6 hours back to Marmaris where there would certainly be doctors and I was in a private dilemna which way to head.
Being very brave, mum said to continue on, but after an hour, her eye started swelling badly and I knew we had to get medical attention urgently. Now it was too late to return and noone responded to my radio requests for assistance, so we pushed on to Serce Liman where a local restauranteer drove us 2hours on poor roads to the hospital in Marmaris.
The hospital did many tests and kept her overnight for observations, allowing her to leave the next day to fly out to London. Osman, the restauranteer kindly offered to put me up in his home and we drove back to Serce Liman in the morning to fetch mum's belongings.
It was stunning scenery in the early morning light - rugged mountains, goatherds mustering their
herds into stone fenced paddocks and high roads overlooking villages and beautiful bays.
But my heart was aching over mum's accident - it wasn't fair that my boat had injured my mother,
who had bailed the yacht out of trouble on major repair jobs in the past few years. I also felt I
had failed her by not advising to hang on tight in the rough seas, and was worried she may have
permanent damage to her vision.
We returned to Marmaris and I stayed and chatted but then let mum rest as she had been kept up during the night for treatments and looked tired. Finally we were allowed to leave and took mum to the Dolmus station to catch a bus to the airport for her flight late that night. She's since been recovering well in London and the doctor said her sight would return to normal in a few weeks.
I took some photos the following day from high up the mountain overlooking Serce Liman, then sailed on to Bozuk Buku which has well preserved ruins of ancient Loryma, of Hellenistic origin. I had a beer at a restaurant near my anchorage and enjoyed the scenery in the sunset.
Anchoring near Bozborun, amongst a wonderful group of islands, I inspected the ruins of a Greek chapel whose congregation today consisted of some curious goats.
I liked the small Turkish village called Datca which still has some charm left, unlike many of the larger developed towns along the coast. At night were some lively dance clubs pumping out Turkish music and I checked out the scene till late one night.
Yet more ruins were explored at Knidos. It might seem monotonous, but each place is interesting and Knidos was an important town once with 70,000 occupants. Merchants thrived due to it's strategic location where ships pulled in to wait for changing weather. I climbed the very large hill above the old ruins, searching in vain for the signposted 'acropolis'. Maybe it means something other than an old stone temple I was expecting because I couldn't see anything after several hours wandering about the small plateaux, discovering only stone wall fortifications. Maybe I need to brush up on my Greek language...
My Turkish voyage ends in Bodrum, a bustling tourist town, with abundant gullets, restaurants and boisterous bars and discos pumping out very loud music till 5am. I found my earplugs which helped me to sleep while at anchor, directly in front of all the action. Oh dear, perhaps I'm getting too old to appreciate all this partying ! (Actually, it was fun).
The castle in Bodrum is fantastic. It's one of the best fortified castles in Europe and has a long and interesting history, which I won't detail here. It has a medieval torture dungeon with signs warning parents it may traumatise their children, but the display with chained plastic dummies was more humorous than scary. The castle also houses an extensive museum on underwater discoveries from many shipwrecks including displays of glassware and amphoras from the coast I'd just sailed along, some dating back to the bronze age.
Now I'm ready for another country. Hmmm, lets see - how about the Greek Islands ?...
