Thursday, July 4, 2013
Kas again
But this is the surprising part - now we've come as far east as we'd planned and we're heading WEST again. Feels quite strange. We've had (for many, many years) this target of one day sailing to Turkey - specifically returning to Ali's. What now? Well as a friend in UK said, now we need to set a new goal. (Iain has suddenly been talking about Scandinavia or west coast Scotland?! Think he's just found it very hot here). Anyway, westwards it is and over the next few years hopefully another cruise in the Greek islands, then Croatia, Sardinia, Corsica etc - so many places to see before we sail beyond the sunset and the western isles.
All the best
Helen and iain
Kas
However, Kas is a lovely town - clearly a tourist destination but still a real town and still a turkish town. On our first visit here we stayed in the old port but when we returned we went to the new marina we'd been told about (our pilot book for Turkey is quite old!). The old port was fine and nice to be in the centre of town but it is a bit noisy, busy with dive boats and gulets and as is quite normal in such small harbours anchors get crossed/tangled - although the gulet crews are helpful and relaxed about sorting things out without any stress. Anyway, the new marina was just amazing - easily the best we've ever seen. If Gocek has been voted no 3 in the world then kas is definitely no 1. so we stayed a few days to treat ourselves to a bit of luxury (also the forecast was strong NW headwinds which are normal in summer on this part of the coast - coming down we had 20 to 28 knots which was wonderful for a downwind ride but wouldn't be much fun heading upwind so we waited for a quieter day). This also allowed Iain to watch the second lions v Australia rugby test, some of the Tour and some more tennis from Wimbledon (most importantly Andy Murray's game on Monday). So a wonderful stop.
Kekova Roads
Kekova was spoilt by tourism in a different way - the trade for the few restaurants in the bay (which has a wonderful castle (crusader?) above the village) seems to be tripper gulets and they didn't want small yachts taking up jetty space so we were turned away, and the downside from so many gulets visiting the bay is that the water is polluted - really awfully polluted. It was a wonderfully scenic and sheltered anchorage but we left poo bay at dawn!
Kalkan
Heading east we were now in new territory and wanted to visit Kalkan, Kekova and Kas. Well the first is now 100% tourist (maybe thats slightly exaggerated but the only non tourist building we saw in the whole town was the post office) which is great if you want to watch football, have a lager or a full English breakfast - not our thing although we did watch some Wimbledon tennis so there was a silver lining to wall to wall bars and restaurants);
Ali's Bay
Next stop east was a v small bay with a great restaurant (Ali's) of which we had very fond memories, having visited with both Roy and Jackie and also Terry and Jenny. Sadly, its now frequented by numerous very noisy tripper boats and although the bay is still a lovely spot, both Ali and the restaurant seem to have lost their magic - still OK but just not really special we thought. Maybe that's generally the case re-visiting special places from a long time ago - better to keep the memory.
Gocek
We had some ground to make up and put in a big day (well a big day for us cruisers) across the gulf south of Marmaris, around 60M to Gocek where we'd been a long time ago. Fortunately there was a good breeze most of the way, especially passing just north of Rhodes where the wind seems to be funnelled in the 10M channel between the island and the Turkish mainland. Gocek was much as we remembered it and the marina still must be one of the best in the world. A surprise was seeing a colourful and noisy parade with drummers, dancers and camels - apparently re-enacting a old tradition of taking supplies by camel train from the port up into the mountainous interior. we also ate the same restaurant that we had eaten with Roy and Jackie and Terry and Jenny a few years earlier!
Serce Limani
Having stayed in Sogut several days (delayed by the promise of seeing the rugby!) and then went to Serce Limani.
18 JUNE TO 3 JULY
Well this has been a really surprising part of our journey. We had 2 1/2 weeks on our own before friends Peta and Steve join us in Gocek so we left paradise bay and headed south around the SW tip of Turkey then along the south (Lycian) coast. We wanted to re-visit places we'd been to in this area when we first started sailing and chartered yachts from Marmaris and Gocek and also wanted to expore a few places further east we'd not previously been able to get to.
The journey south was wonderful with good sailing and lovely bays/villages (especially Octopus restaurant in Sogut where they kindly went to great lengths to get the Lions v Australia rugby match on tv! and where we met up again with Michael and Judy from REIGATE!! We'd seen them earlier but hadn't managed to have a good chat. when we met up again in Sogut we spent some time over a glass or two of red to swap sailing tales (as yachties do) but immediately on the usual introductory questions discovered they were from Reigate and so of course discussion developed .....and a few more reds...). Never cease to be amazed by how small a world it really is.
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