Keci Buku - Turkey

 

Line of boats all trying to stay on the Turkish side

We are just ambling along, making small hops up the Turkish coast.  As we make our way up the coast there are more and more Greek Islands appearing off the port side.  Often there are no more than a couple of miles between the two countries.  And because you have to make sure you stay in Turkish water there ends up being this long line of boats all crowded together and all going the same direction!  Its the craziest thing but necessary as everyone has to stay close to the Turkish shore and out of Greek water.

Greece in the background

 In planning for this trip up the coast I had read several reviews of this little place called Keci Buku (goat area) and decided that I wanted to stop there and see if it was all that.  And I am happy to say that it definitely was all that.  We loved it so much we ended up staying for a week!! 

Keçi Buku

Keçi Bucu is this beautiful little restaurant quay with a nice little beach. The food was great and the service was impeccable.  They served dinner out on the quay every evening.

Dinner on the quay

Folks here do not eat dinner until fairly late.  Usually, not till the sun goes down which is 8 or 9 pm.  Every evening the restaurant sets the tables on the quay and puts on some music (American music😏) and then folks come out and enjoy their meal.  By that time of day it is cooler and just a nice time to be outside.  We made every attempt to conform but we were usually hungry before 8 pm, so at 6 pm we would go to eat.  However, if you eat something at 6 pm they think you are still going to eat dinner at 9 pm!  We had to explain our American habits to them which, of course, they thought were just crazy.

Talaria at Keçi Buku

So we spent our time swimming every day, walking around the village and eating great meals. There is actually a path up the mountain that you can hike but it was way too hot for mountain climbing!  As a matter of fact that was the only real downside to this little piece of heaven.  The wind does not blow much here which makes it incredibly hot.  Even a little breeze makes a big difference.  With much wind there is quite a bit of swell that comes into the bay and the quay can get quite bouncy.  But that only happened once in our time here.

Caretta, Caretta

 

 

 One afternoon while out for a daily swim this sea turtle came to join us.  We know them as loggerheads, but Turks refer to them by their scientific name: Caretta, Caretta.  We actually saw a few in Kas as well.  The turtles nest around here on several of the beaches.  When you go to the beach the spots are marked to protect the nesting areas and folks are very good about gingerly walking around the turtle areas. 

M and M

 Our intent was to keep going up the coast to at least Bodrum.  But we changed our minds as we would not have much time to enjoy the areas due to our time limitations.  We are planning a road trip to Ephesus while the boat is being worked on anyway. And as it turns out you have to go through Datca and Bodrum to get to Ephesus.  So we decided to make those visits via a road trip. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Serci Limani - Turkey

Serci Limani

Turkey is so rugged and mountainous.  It is completely different from anywhere we have sailed before.  When you look at the coast from the sea all you see is mountain after mountain.  You would never know that there are all these little bays hidden away in the mountains.  And as you are sailing in to a bay very often you cannot see the entrance until you are right upon it.  Its a little disorienting as it looks as though you are sailing right into a mountain!

Captain Nemo's

Serci Limani is one of those places that is difficult to see but once inside the bay, its beautiful.  One fellow and his family more or less have control of the bay.  You can just anchor and many folks do just that or you can tie up to one of Captain Nemo's mooring balls, which take up half the bay.  The fee, of course, is that you eat at his restaurant.  Captain Nemo speaks perfect English ... a character from another time.  Jovial and full of himself!  Both Captain Nemo and his restaurant were a pleasant surprise.  We enjoyed the freshest sea bass there that was cooked to perfection.

Talaria on a mooring ball

 

 

 

Once you are all settled (and sometimes before) you will be visited by a "shopping boat".  Little wooden boats that ply the water with Turks looking to sell their wares.  Honey, almonds, evil eyes or Turkish towels.  We always buy a little something whether we need it or not.

 

 

Shopping boat

 

 

 

 

 Once all settled and the "shopping" done we went for a little swim.  We were shocked at how cold the water is in this bay.  Fed by underwater springs it gives you a bit of a jolt when you first jump in. Nonetheless, its refreshing on a hot, hot summer day.  The cold water along with the afternoon katabatic winds coming down from the mountains make this a pleasant anchorage.  Even when the temperature is over 90 degrees!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another treat was watching the mountain goats and donkeys that live on the mountains.  Every evening the goats follow a well worn path down the mountain.  Surprisingly, they come to the waters edge and drink the sea water!  The water in the Aegean and Med is very, very salty.  More so than the Atlantic.  It is so salty it will burn your eyes.  If you or I tried to drink salty ocean water we would soon be dead so I could not figure out how they were able to drink that water and survive.  As I researched, I discovered that they get most of their fresh water intake from the plants they eat but they do love salt.  So they are actually after a bit of salt.  Who knew?

Goats drinking sea water

 We ended up stopping at Serci Limani twice.  The second time we met an American couple anchored here as well.  They have actually been in Turkey for several years.  They keep their catamaran here to sail in the summer.  In the winter, they have a small house in Mexico.  And the next day we met another American couple chartering a boat with their Turkish friends.  These Americans had just moved to Barcelona in 2018. Just living another life for awhile.  Such a small, small world.

Fishing boats and shopping boats in the harbor

These are the places (and people) that you miss if you stay on the "tourist" track.  They are not places you drive to or come to for entertainment. There is no big city allure, as a matter of fact, there is not much of anything here.  Just raw, rugged beauty.  But these tiny villages are little gems that add beauty and enrichment to your life.  Places to remember for years to come. 

Ciftlik Koyu

Rhodes, Greece in the distance

We use an app called Navily as do many folks that sail these waters.  It is an interactive guide to anchorages where folks will comment on the attributes or failings of particular anchorage.  The app itself also "rates" an anchorage which is essentially an overall "protection" score.  Based on information from this app we decided to anchor at a place called Çiftlik Koyu.  Once again upon approaching the anchorage we found that there were several boats already anchored there.  Did I mention that there are a lot of boats in the Med?   So we motored around until we found a spot to drop our anchor.  Before long a small boat came up and asked us to move as we were near a spot where they bring boating toys in and out.  Jet skis and the like.  They felt it was not a safe spot for us.  So... we motored around some more and dropped our anchor again.  This time as we stretched out on our chain we were getting uncomfortably close to another boat so up came the anchor again.  After several more times of drop the anchor, pull up the anchor, drop the anchor again... look around ... pull up the anchor, drop the anchor... look around... drop the anchor, we thought we were finally secure and far enough away from other boats.

Crowded anchorage - boats are pretty close to one another

 Unique to Turkey are the many "restaurant quays" that dot the coastline.  There are a few of these in Çiftlik Koyu.  The way it works is you can tie up to the quay that is owned by the restaurant for free provided you eat at their restaurant.  Not a bad deal at all.  Once we were all settled in we took the dinghy over and made reservations at one of the restaurants for dinner at 6 pm (which is a very early dinner time for them).  Turkey is a very mountainous country and in the late afternoon katabatic winds swoop down from the mountain tops.  As we were getting cleaned up for dinner the wind kicked up to around 25 to 30 knots.  Earlier when we had settled into our anchorage we had taken some bearings so we would know if the boat moved.  Initially, we had set an anchor alarm but thought it might be giving us some false readings therefore we decided to rely on some compass bearings instead.  I had come into the cockpit and looked around at our position and found that we were drifting out to sea.  The anchor was dragging (apparently not a false readings from the anchor alarm) and it was very windy.  So... we again pulled the anchor up and by now we were fed up with trying to anchor there.  Instead we decided to head over to the restaurant quay and tie up.

Talaria tied up at Çiftlik Koyu  - Mehmet;s Place

Just one slight problem - we tied up to the wrong quay!  We thought we were tying up to the restaurant quay where we had reservations but we actually tied up to the quay of the restaurant next door.  The docks are right next to each other so its hard to tell.  As it turned out the initial restaurant was very understanding when we walked over to cancel the reservation.  Instead, we had a great, relaxing meal at Mehmet's Place.  

Mehmet's Place

All night long the wind continued to howl but it did not disturb us in the least and actually provided some much appreciated air conditioning!  As you can tell we are still learning to sail here in the Med and the Aegean.  So now we have learned another lesson - the sand here is very hard and difficult for an anchor to penetrate making anchoring somewhat difficult.  Our old CQR anchor did just fine in the US, we only had an issue with the anchor dragging one time.  But here in the Med our anchor doesn't seem to be up to the task.  Anchors have continued to improve and we have never upgraded but it may be time to do just that.

Michael and the wonderful and extremely hard working Ali

Sailing the Turkish Coast

Turkish Coast

 Two weeks after Michael's second dose of the Moderna vaccine we decided to take off.  That is the mark where you supposedly have full immunity, so now he feels bullet proof!  We have a few weeks to spend sailing the Turkish coast before returning to Marmaris for our scheduled boat work.  So we planned to spend the days sailing, exploring and swimming.  

Gemiler Island Anchorage - where we first anchored

Being prudent mariners we had read the "guidebooks" and in general gathered all the information we could about sailing in the Med.  Therefore, we knew things like "there is either too much wind or not enough wind for sailing".  We knew that the wind there is sometimes compared to an adolescent - always changing direction.  We also knew that they anchor differently than we do in the US.  Typically, they will not swing at anchor but will tie the stern of their boat to a tree or a rock on land.  This practice allows many more boats to share an anchorage.  And that is important as there are A LOT of boats in the Med.  We had never tried this method of anchoring but we thought "how hard can it be".  Well... it is harder than it looks and on our first attempt we failed miserably 😒.

Gemiler Island Anchorage

 Even though we read those guidebooks there were a couple of things they failed to mention: one, the water in Turkey is really, really deep and remains deep almost up to the shore.  We have a comfort level of about 20 feet for anchoring.  Deeper than that and we get a little anxious.  Secondly, folks often do not put out much scope here.  In the US, we typically put out at least 5:1 - so if we are anchoring in 20 feet of water we put out 100 feet of chain or more.  So we approached the anchorage behind Gemiler Island and noticed that there were already several boats anchored there.  After motoring around a bit we picked out a spot between two boats and when we were at a comfortable depth we dropped the anchor.  That was mistake number one - we did not have at least 3 boat lengths between us and the shore.  Actually, we were far too close to the shore but we thought we could not possibly drop the anchor in 50 to 60 feet of water which is how deep it was 3 boat lengths out from shore.  We later observed that was exactly what folks were doing - dropping there anchor in very deep water.  Once the anchor was down Michael rowed the dinghy to shore to try and tie a line to a rock.  The rocks I might add are very, very sharp so it is no simple feat to get to shore while protecting the dinghy and yourself from the sharp rocks.  Meanwhile the boat is drifting further and further downwind.  Now Michael gets back to the boat and we are still drifting  we are not entirely comfortable with how we are anchored.  Again we are too close to the rocks and shore.  Finally, we decide that the solution is to put out a second line.  Michael got back in the dinghy to row to shore again and tie the second line.  Once that was done we put the lines on our winches and tightened them up.  All good 😱.  Now it is getting dark and Michael goes to bed.  I, of course, being more jittery am not happy with the set up so I do one more check and sure enough we have drifted onto the rocks!!  Almost on shore (which is a mountain)!  Quickly, I got Michael up and we decided to move from the anchorage altogether.  We started the motor and threw off the lines with our working plan being to come back and retrieve them in the morning.  Fortunately, the water is always deeper than it appears and we had not damaged the prop or actually hit the rocks.  But they were right under us and we were a mere 6 feet or less from shore!  We motored over to the beach and anchored in front of the beach.  Thank goodness the anchor held and we finally got some rest.  Next morning we decided that what happened is that when we tightened up the stern lines we pulled the anchor loose.  We are at least certain that the anchor was dragging.  Whether by us pulling on it to tighten the stern lines or for some other reason.  

More motoring than sailing this day

The next morning Michael got in the dinghy and motored over to get our lines.  Off we went.  That evening we anchored in front of another beach.  There was only one other boat there and we were able to swing at anchor.  The anchor held well and it was a lovely evening.  Lessons learned😏!

Patara - Turkey

Liman Caddesi - Harbour Street

We are planning to set out tomorrow - June 21st - for our trip up the Turkish Coast.  It is possibly the wrong way to go as we will be sailing against the prevailing winds but it is the way we need to go.  The sail back down to Marmaris will be easier as we will be sailing with the wind.  Since we are getting ready to depart lovely Kaş, Turkey we thought we should take a day and make a trip to Patara - birthplace of St. Nicholas (Santa Claus).  

Inside the Assembly Building

Patara was once a major seaport for the ancient Lycian civilization.  Eventually the port silted up and the area lost prominence.  Like most ruins here there is evidence of the various reigning empires.  And like most cities in the region Patara (along with all of Lycia) surrendered to Alexander the Great!  However, Patara's claim to fame is that the city is the birthplace of St. Nicholas (Santa Claus or Noel Baba).  St. Nicholas inherited a bit of wealth when his parents passed.  Legend has it that he then distributed that wealth to the poor by giving secret gifts.  Definitely seems as though he started something... although our gift giving is not often in secret!

Roman Theatre

The remarkable feature in my view was the Assembly building.  Outside of the building were plaques honoring various important people.  The stones had the ancient Greek wording chiseled into them.  Archeologists had interpreted them and so you could see who they were honoring and why.  Somehow the writing makes it all so real for me.  Remarkable!

Plaque outside Assembly Building

Its always awe inspiring to me to think that I am walking on the same ground that Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and other ancient legends trod.  I have been reading about Alexander the Great lately and to see the place names and battles mentioned at sites like Patara just brings it all home.

Reed Boat replica

 

 

 

 

In addition, to the fabulous ruins there was on site a replica of  a reed boat that would have been common at the time.  The replica on display at Patara was actually sailed to test the viability of the ancient maritime trade routes mentioned in Herodotus writings. 

After an hour or so trudging through the ruins we were really hot!!  So we headed over to Patara beach for a quick dip in the Mediterranean to cool off.   Since we had a car for the day we then went to complete our provisioning for the trip up the coast.  Busy, busy day!

Assembly Hall of the Lycian League