Serce Limani

Having stayed in Sogut several days (delayed by the promise of seeing the rugby!) and then went to Serce Limani.

Turkish Breakfast

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.

Now we've come to a halt in Selimiye. If this is not paradise then it must be next door. The bay is totally enclosed by hills (which unusually for this region have not been developed at all yet and would seem to be just as they've been for thousands of years) with a small village at the southern end. Although there are a few restaurants, shops and jetties/moorings at the waterfront, behind this the village is beautifully unspoilt - on our early morning run, within a few hundred metres from the boat we pass women working the vegetable fields, putting their milking cow out (tie-ing up to a tree beside the main road through the village!) with the goats and hens, picking fruit etc - they seemed amused (bemused?) by us jogging (or was that they were amused that Helen was way ahead of me going up the steep hill from the village - it was my first run of the summer!). The men of the village seemed to be in the cafes discussing and planning important strategic, economic and political issues - sensibly having delegated the simpler tasks to the women. (This may not get past the editor). There are some parallels perhaps between a cruising life and that of this slightly remote villages - the important things for us are the essentials of water, provisions, toilet facilities etc. Its curious that even though the shower and toilet here at the restaurant are to say the least basic (this is not an interContinental hotel!) and frequently have no light, the shower pressure and temperature vary dramatically and unpredictably, the water is not safe to drink and the wash basin is in an open courtyard (hang your towel on the tree next to basin!) and has cold water only, I still feel a million dollars when I've had a shower in the morning and sit having a coffee in the shade looking out at this beautiful bay, and the restaurant has just had bread delivered to the boat for us (free). We don't have tv or radio but wifi is almost ubiquitous and so we do get uk papers daily for news of the outside world (generally depressing but we like doing the crossword) and of course emails - essential to allow us to keep in touch and deal with the admin of life. Selimiye is such a beautiful, tranquil spot I think we could easily spend the rest of the summer here (maybe many years although the winters are apparently VERY quiet here. The couple who run the lovely Aurora restaurant where we're parked, go to istanbul in winter - Suzanne says she'd go mad if she stayed here in winter! At another restaurant I asked what they did in winter - hunting, fishing and sitting they said!). However, one cloud on the horizon even in this idyll is that we're running out of porridge oatmeal - so we have to move on! (Oatcakes have been re-stocked thankfully by Roy and Jackie). Friends arrive at dalaman in 2 weeks and we did say we'd be in that area to meet them so we'll continue on eastwards - there are several places we are very keen to visit further east. That's all for now. Best wishes Helen and Iain

Dirsek

Selimiye

We continue (slowly) on our way eastwards visiting some beautiful quiet bays. This is a lovely lovely area with many good anchorages, great sailing winds (perhaps a little strong at times and particularly around the exposed headlands), friendly and kind people (we asked a lady and her daughter in one town where the post office was and were aghast when the lady insisted her daughter go with us (it was a few blocks away) to ensure we found it!) and great history. We've had some great sailing (including a super downwind run with the gennaker - although I accept I should have taken it down earlier!). Great to have Roy and jackie onboard allowing us to hand over the helm and take it easy. We were also particularly grateful to another yachtie who helped us moor up after I'd made a real mess of mooring in a strong cross wind. He jumped in his dinghy when he saw we were having difficulty and rowed across, took our stern line and tied it off for us. We'd seen him at an earlier mooring and formed an unfavourable opinion as they had a large dog onboard (too hot, not able to exercise properly etc). However, he turned out to be one of the nicest people you could ever meet. Sadly, it turns out he and his wife were on their last sailing trip as they've sold their boat and are emigrating to Montreal (from Istanbul) where their daughter lives (after studying at McGill). They had got ready to leave the anchorage but kept having "one last swim" before they left - think they will really miss their sailing and the warm weather of Turkey especially in their first winter in Montreal. [ Sailing Note - mooring stern to is the norm in Med sailing and whilst fairly straightforward coming in to a pontoon or jetty (particularly if there's someone capable onshore to get the windward stern line on as then the boat can be controlled with the engine by taking the weight on that line while getting the other lines on), it can be rather tricky in strong winds in an anchorage when trying to take stern lines ashore to tie off to a rock. Key problem is that there are several jobs that need done very quickly - laying the anchor, reversing/positioning the boat and getting ashore in the dinghy with lines to tie off to a friendly well positioned rock. In a strong wind its often very difficult in our dinghy just to row against the wind and if pulling a mooring line may be impossible with the drag of the line in the water. However, we think we've learned a lot about this recently and have some new ideas on a better technique - mostly from making a real hash of it on a couple of occasions! May tell you how it works out in a future blog!]