Travels in Turkey - Retracing our steps northwards

One of the nice things about this part of Turkey at this time of the year was the relative absence of strong winds – while this did mean a good deal of motoring rather than sailing, not having to duck the gale-force gusts of the Aegean was a huge relief.  We paid the price with the air temperature, however as it was HOT!  Even the water temperature was HOT!  Many Europeans (and Australians) traditionally go home or elsewhere during late July and August as the weather is just too hot, plus usually the place is filled with charterers.  Thankfully the charterers were absent (although plenty of Turkish boats were out and about) but the heat was still present.  It didn’t bother us too much, however, as we could spend the whole day in and out of the water.  We ‘rescued’ a number of pool noodles during the course of the 2 months we were in Turkey and both Tad (and later Patrick and Karl) enjoyed floating around on these in the warm water.

We left Finike at dawn to make our way north to Kalkan, a fairly long day’s motor-sail, and then again the next morning, continued north to just south of Fethiye – a small anchorage known as Karakören.  It’s a fairly small bay with a restaurant and mooring buoys.  You can anchor but there is very little swinging room so you pretty much have to med-moor and tie to a rock. We were happy to pick up a mooring for the night and go ashore for dinner, which was tasty and reasonable.  The water in this bay was beautifully clear and had plenty of turtles to watch – we snorkeled all afternoon watching the fish and the turtles feed.  It is truly a lovely place.  In the same area, but which we did not have time to visit, are a ‘ghost town’ and a monastery but would love to go back.

What you do when it's a long day's motoring (no wind) and no boats to worry about!

Karakören anchorage

The taverna

View of the anchorage from the taverna (great food!)

After another two or three days in the Göcek Korfezi area, revisiting some of the lovely anchorages with Patrick, we moved on to Marmaris where we waited for Tad’s eldest son, Karl to join us. He had been travelling through the Greek Islands for about two weeks and was taking the ferry from Rhodes to Marmaris.  We were anchored in a bay just off Pupa Yat Hotel which we enjoyed for a couple of nights before going back into Marmaris Yacht Marina to re-provision, do some laundry and prepare for our departure northwards once again.

Our last anchorage in Göcek Korfezi (Round Bay)

Round Bay

Last view of Marmaris through Netsel Marina

Our first stop out of Marmaris was back at Çiflik, with its beautiful sandy bottom and clear water.  Lots of swimming and snorkeling in the beautiful water before dinner on board, and an early night.  The next anchorage was just a little further south at Bozuk Büyü (also known as Aplotheka), and was another delightful find.  We anchored towards the head of the bay in fairly soft sand/mud but there were also a couple of restaurants with pontoons to choose from.  In the afternoon, the winds calmed and we hiked up to the ancient citadel (only the walls remain) for some wonderful views over the bay and out to the straits of Rhodes.  We went ashore to the Loryma Restaurant for a drink before dinner as they were flying an Aussie flag and we felt that we should patronize the place.  The host tried to get us to stay for dinner, but we had already thawed the last of my tuna caught earlier in the summer and so politely declined.  We had a few drops of rain overnight but nothing spectacular.

The view of the anchorage at  Bozuk Büyü from the citadel

Drinks at Loryma Restaurant

We woke to an overcast morning the next day, with rain and thunderstorms predicted.  Mid-September is when the weather appears to change and storms become more frequent.  We headed to Bozburun to take a look and anchored outside the almost circular harbour (I don’t know how one manages NOT to have one’s anchor chain crossed in here!).  It’s a cute little town and we bought some lovely fresh fruit and veggies as well as Turkish bread.  Back on the boat we had some rain and a few squalls – the anchorage was fairly crowded and not particularly well protected from the prevailing wind, so we decided to look elsewhere for our anchorage for the night.  The pilot guide showed an anchorage just outside of Bozburun, in between two small islands (Kizil Adasi and Kiseli Adasi) which looked rather nice and should have been protected, however the wind was blowing strongly from the west and it was not a great place to stop.  In the end we med-moored to Kizil Adasi with some other boats in the vicinity.   One of the boys had seen a rat ashore so we made sure we put the rat guards on our lines that night!