Dalyan River Tranquility

Relaxing at Kas Marina

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

Landing at Kas Harbour next to Alma

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

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!