At home in Finike, southern Turkey.

Finike Marina

We are enjoying our sojourn in Finike. It is a lovely Turkish country town with little or no tourist trade. It doesn't even rate a mention in Lonely Planet! This is a bonus for us as it doesn’t close down in winter. It does have a long beach outside of town and several hotels which seem to cater to local holiday makers. Otherwise it is just the locals, most of who seem to make a living from agriculture. Finike is in the centre of a huge citrus growing are, mainly oranges and there are acres of greenhouses in the hills growing tomatoes, cucumbers and eggplant all year around.

Finike has a small river running through to the ocean from the mountains and as it runs through the centre of town there are numerous little pedestrian bridges across it. At first glance they look to be made of wood, but are in fact concrete, carefully moulded and painted to look just like tree limbs. There are pergolas made the same way and festooned with bright bougainvillea.(real) Benches are all along the river front, also wood look alike. There are several well tended parks all with a water features and more 'wooden' benches with plenty of leafy shade to sit under. The median strips are also lovingly tended and feature many giant oranges(fake):) OK it's all a bit kitsch, but still shows a town proudly maintained and tended by the local council and inhabitants. It is spotlessly clean and of course the locals are all friendly as usual, although far less of them speak English here than in the more touristy areas. Altogether we find it a charming place.

There are several restaurants all within a stones throw of the marina and much cheaper than we are used to. The price of the main course usually includes a large bottle of mineral water, hot bread and a few dips and cheese and after the main meal,tea coffee and sometimes fruit. The main courses are around 10 lire ($5 or 3 pounds fifty) If you want to splurge you can pay 15 lire! It is almost cheaper to eat out than to cook. For 10 lire I have had a whole grilled sea bass complete with salad and chips including all the extras mentioned above! Delish and no washing up!

The Port Hole - cruiser's club house

The marina couldn't be more different to last years in Cyprus. It was brand spanking new, almost too new, as lots of things weren’t actually working yet:) Finike marina is an older well established marina, and we have heard several cruisers disparage it because of that and they head for the newer marinas in Kas and Antalya. While the newer marinas might look spiffy we have heard that both of these new marinas have issues during winter storms with inadequate breakwaters and poorly fixed pontoons, both of which can and have caused damage to boats left there over winter.

At least with a well established marina like Finike all the kinks have been ironed out. The docks are concrete not floating, so they won't be wobbling in a storm! The breakwater is substantial and we have met boats who have wintered her for the past 14 years with no issues. We can also haul out here and leave the boat on the hard if we want to. The other nice thing is that there is a real mixture of nationalities here, not just Brits who seem to have dominated the Med so far in our experience. There are French, Germans many Swedes and a couple of Russians which makes it very interesting as most of them speak English. There is also a well established club house for cruisers called the Port Hole with a huge TV, kitchen and book swap. Activities over winter include regular coffee mornings, pub nights, several different exercise classes, walking clubs, cycling clubs, trips to concerts in Antalya, quiz nights, regular Sunday BBQs and the marina is even putting on a 'welcome to winter' party at their expense. It all sounds lovely, excerpt we won't be here for most of it!

When we arrived here and were coming in through the breakwater we had to motor past the big fuel dock. We were surprised to see a bride and groom in full penguin suit and meringue frock having photos taken there! Wedding photos by a fuel pump? Each to their own. However all this paled into insignificance as the other day, while we were sanding in the cockpit, another happy couple came marching down our dock, photographer in tow. They selected the boat next to us, belonging to a bewildered looking Frenchman who was in the middle of checking his rigging and after exchanging a few words proceeded up his gangplank where they posed unabashedly on the bow of his boat! A slight improvement over the fuel dock we suppose:) Maybe it just beats a giant orange!

The weather has been glorious, warm (27-29 degrees) and sunny, until yesterday when we headed out to the local market. It looked stormy and we had just stopped at a supermarket when the heavens opened and stayed open and gushed while the water level on the ground rose to well above the foot high kerbs and then it hailed! Not exactly golf ball sized, but grape sized at least. It was rather a shock to see balls of ice bounce off the roof of our rental car after the previous warm weather. The storm lasted a few hours, although the hail abated after about 15 minutes, today the sun is shining again:)

We have completed the varnishing in the rear cabin and have decided to leave the galley until another time. To make sure we don't forget her, Sunflower has decided to block the front loo so the captain gets to do one of his favourite jobs (not), unblock the toilet:) We only have a week before we complete on our villa purchase and move in for the winter, so this will be the last chronicle from Sunflower for a while:) The next news will be 'tales from the villa'! So this week will be busy cleaning and sorting and deciding what goes with us and what stays here, and then we're on to an adventure of a different kind....

At home in Finike....

Sunflower in her winter berth. (ignore neighbours red dinghy)

 We have been settled in Sunflowers winter home for over a week now. Our friends have returned to Australia and life has resumed it's usual calm pace. We have spent the past week exploring Finike which is a lovely Turkish agricultural town with nary a tourist in sight!

The beautiful beach at Olympos

The marina is centrally located so all shops and services are within easy walking distance. Well they are once you get out of the marina, which is huge! A far cry from our last winter marina in Cyprus! There is a large breakwater around the marina and those cruisers that have been returning for many years, say that there is barely a ripple in the marina during winter storms. It should be a safe place to leave Sunflower for the winter.

Ducks on the freshwater stream in front of waterfront property

Before our friends left we hired a car for a couple of days to explore the local area. On the first day we drove to Olympos (no, not the Greek one!:) Which is a very ancient settlement (dates back over 3000 years) at the foot of the mountains. The location is stunning as a freshwater stream runs right thought the ancient town almost right on to the beach. So there was a harbour out to sea and a good supply of fresh water and the most glorious setting surrounded by sheer rock faces and the Taurus mountains. Many of the buildings are now in ruins, but it was still possible to get a sense of the place and there were still some sarcophagi and tombs mainly intact (apart for the holes made by tomb robbers centuries ago) 

Lycian Sarcophagus

The freshwater stream at Olympos

The ancients certainly selected a magnificent spot for their town and fortunately the setting remains as it was all those millennia ago, as the only buildings allowed near the site have to be made of timber and are only granted 5 year leases by the government. This has led to the unique development of 'tree house' hotels (although many of them are actually built on the ground:) There are no high rise hotels or permanent structures to mar the beauty of the place.

Although our trip to Olympos was dogged by the threat of rain and thunder storms the day remained clear and bright. We weren't so lucky the next day when we drove to Myra to see more ancient ruins, an amphitheatre and more rock tombs. The drive was interesting along a twisting coast road as were the local drivers overtaking techniques! Double unbroken lines in the centre. What lanes? They happily overtook on blind hairpin bends while we all held our collective breath! No surprise that Turkey has one of the highest rates of road traffic accidents in Europe! Sadly it began to rain half way there, then it started to pour and then plain bucketed down! The streets were awash in water as the drains failed to cope with the sudden torrent of water, so even getting out of the car was impossible. We did manage a glimpse of the ruins through high speed wipers and decided to call it a day and head back to the boat to curl up and read our books!.

Ruins getting some help with gravity

Naturally the next day and the trip to the airport was glorious! We stopped at the half way point in a town called Kemer. We were interested to see this place as there is also a marina there and we had heard good things about it. However we were really shocked at the amount of development in this once small fishing village and for once it was not signs in pounds and offers of a full English breakfast! The signs were all in Russian and rubles accepted everywhere!We decided we were glad we weren't spending winter there!

I don't thinks it's an elephant foot?.....

After we dropped John and Christine at the airport we did a bit of exploring. Antalya is the capital of this region and one of the biggest cities we have visited for a long time. It is home to a million people, high rise hotels and blocks of flats , motorways and dual carriage ways, traffic lights and traffic jams. All quite novel!

Lycian Lintel

We also discovered several huge shopping malls. First stop was the first big mall we came to for a loo and coffee break. It was an outlet mall complete with cinema and food hall. We appreciated the novelty for an hour or two, had coffee followed by a mooch, followed by lunch (very expensive compared to the local restaurants we had become used to!) then off to find the one store we really wanted to look at. It's called Koctas and is part of the British B&Q hardware/ homewares chain. It was located in an even bigger mall!! We had a good look around took notes and photos of things we might need for the villa and then decided we were shopped out and headed back to the marina.

Another lovely if slightly hairy drive back through the mountain roads back to Finike where we said goodbye to the car and have now been on Sunflower for over a week, trying to get revved up to start the varnishing project!

We really need to get this done before we move into the villa. Our military clearance came through a month early so we are now free to finalise the villa purchase. However we did a 'buy forward' deal with a currency trader to fix the rate of exchange (we didn't want any nasty surprises!) and fixed the transaction date for mid November. This was inline with the original estimate of the date the clearance should come through and also suited us as it gave us time to sort out Sunflower. Now however I am itching to move in and survey our new domain:)

Still we can't neglect poor Sunflower and I am sure once we start the varnishing the time will pass very quickly. All we have to do is get started.....!

Now back to Cruising.......for a while!

Sunflower tidy and ready for visitors

My goodness it's been a really busy month. We are still getting over the excitement of buying a villa in Turkey and after a frenzy of looking at furniture shops and second hand cars, have managed to calm down long enough to get Sunflower ready for visitors.

John and Christine visit a carpet shop

A floating shop has everything that you need in the bay.

We went for a drive in the mountains

However we have managed a couple of extra sneak peaks at 'our villa'. With guests arriving and not having had visitors for so long, the V berth and Sunflower generally were getting very full of 'stuff'. So we asked if the villa owner would mind if we stored some things in the basement. She happily agreed ( the sale of her other property, a small apartment had recently fallen through and I think she felt we were more committed if we had our belongings in her house:) So we got all the spare sails and boaty bits together and took them up to the villa to store them (and have another look around!)

While we were there we asked the tenant if we could bring our visitors up for a look as well, so we managed another visit with John and Christine. Luckily we still love it as much as when we first saw it. After agonising about names for it we have decided on Yelkenli Villa, which means sailboat in Turkish. There were several Sunflower Villas in the area already and this way we can have a slight nautical theme going on.

Well that's enough about real estate. Our Aussie friends John and Christine arrived in Fethiye a few weeks ago, we are the end of a huge trip they are doing. They spent 3.5 months in Canada before arriving here and travelled all over the west coast including Alaska, then taking a train to Halifax on the east coast and then flying to Istanbul. It is their 3^rd visit to Sunflower, so they know the ropes.

Babadag from about 20kms, just over 2000m high.

We left Fethiye after a couple of busy days including taking John to our favourite dentist! His filling came out for the 3^rd time just before they arrived so we knew just who to take him to:) John was so impressed he also got a quote on some major work he needs to have done including dental implants and numerous crowns. He may return to Turkey next year to have the work done, as even flying here and back it still very much cheaper than having the work done in Australia.

Jumping off the top of Babadag.

Shopping was on the list for both Christine and I so we dragged the guys along to our friend Mustafa who owns a carpet shop! John and Christine bought a lovely one to hang on the wall and we bought 3 small floor rugs and a one for the wall. (the shopping spree has started!)

We went back out in the Bay for a week or so, enjoying some lovely autumn weather, warm sunny days and cool comfy nights. We even managed to sail most of the way! We returned to Fethiye at the end of the month to meet up with our English friend Trudi who joined her husband Simon on his boat in the big marina there. We managed one evening all together and went for dinner to the top of one of the highest mountains around, called Babadag (pronounced Babadaa) We were met at the marina and driven for an hour to the top of the 2000 meter summit. There are plans to build a cable car, but until then the drive is up a tortuous gravel road which hugs the mountain side with no safety barrier and barely enough room for two cars to pass. Usually the only people to make the trip are the loonies who like to jump off mountain tops and para-glide down to the beach at Ouldeniz. We're told the trip down takes about 45 minutes!

Simon, Christine,Trudi, Dee and John

We arrived at sunset, and luckily it was a lovely clear evening. The views along the coastline and the sunset were stunning. We watched the last of the paragliders take off into the orange sunset and then dinner was served. It was standard Turkish fare, mixed mezze and a mixed grill, but very nice. They then bought out lovely new snugly wraps as everyone was a bit chilly and lit a an open fire we could sit around. It was a really fabulous evening, and we will definitely be going again.

Then it was time to start wending our way east. First stop Kas which is a lovely little town and picturesque harbour. We went into the new marina there and experienced our first storm this year! We had 35 knots on the beam and poor Sunflower was getting blown back onto the dock, so we were all out sorting lines out and trying to get our big canopy down. Not much rest that night!

The para glider flight takes  25 - 40 mins

It got cold after sunset.

We are now in Kekova Roads another very picturesque spot and will spend our last few days of 'freedom' here before going into our winter marina, in a very non-tourist town called Finike, on Saturday. We will get settled in and celebrate John's birthday before hiring a car for a few days to explore some of the numerous ancient sites nearby and then dropping John and Christine at the airport in Antalya.

Then it will be all hands to the varnish brush to get Sunflower sorted before we move into our villa for the winter and start renovations of a different sort!

We didn't mean to do it, it just sort of happened.....

Well, we have got into a bit of trouble here in Turkey. We didn't mean to do it, it just sort of happened.....

So now we are the proud owners of a villa! Yes, we have bought a gorgeous 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom villa with it's own pool in Ovacik, a 10 minute drive from Fethiye, up in the mountains. We were looking through a free English language newspaper and there were some classified ads for property and they seemed very cheap. So for a laugh we rang an agent and asked to look at a few properties to see what you got for your money. We started looking at apartments in Fethiye (really cheap ones) and while they were really perfectly fine, they were nothing special. Then the agent took us out to Ovacik and showed us some villas, and we were really hooked. It hadn't occurred to us we could afford anything this nice. So we started looking in earnest and found Kedi Villa. Kedi means cat in Turkish, and we thought we should own Sunflower villa, but Sunflower is Ayçiçegi in Turkish which is a bit of a mouthful, so we may have to re-think that one.

  Click here for more photos

There is a lot of new development going on at the moment and the trend here, as with developers everywhere, is to cram as many villas on to one plot as possible. So there were loads to choose from but the new places had tiny bedrooms, shared pools and no privacy. Then an agent showed us Kedi villa which was built by an English couple in 2003 (foreigners have only been allowed to own property in Turkey since 2002) They lived in it all year around as their permanent home until the husband died and the wife returned to the UK. It had been on the market for about 18 months and the garden had become very overgrown and as the house had a long term tenant (friend of the owner) it wasn't looking it's best. It is also a bit dated looking with all the pine cupboards in the kitchen, but otherwise in excellent condition. The agent told us the owner was desperate to sell (music to our ears) so we did a deal and bought it a bargain price! It is nice and private but has buses at the top of the street to Fethiye and Oludeniz beach (the most famous in Turkey). It has a lovely garden with mature trees including; peach, lemon, olive, mandarin and orange trees. We plan to rent it out as holiday lets for a few weeks in the summer to cover running costs and will live there during winter while we are in the Med.

No, we're not giving up Sunflower. We will carry on cruising but at least we will have a base in Europe. We love Turkey and the people, so would be happy to live here one day when we're too old and doddery to sail. So the past few weeks have been a bit manic, organising money and opening Turkish bank accounts etc. As we are foreigners, the military have to do a police check on us which can take up to 3 months, so that would have us settling on the property at the end of Nov. So we plan to spend Christmas in our new home!

We admit that poor old Sunflower has taken a back seat while all this has been going on and to voice her displeasure she decided to cause a problem with our water maker! She now has our full attention once more, especially as our visitors will be arriving in a few weeks! Luckily the spare parts for the EchoTec water maker are covered under a 5 year warranty, and they even payed the Fedex to the UK as a friend is coming out to his boat in this week.

Having got that sorted we got distracted again and rented a car for 2 days to go window shopping for furniture and second hand cars! Although the villa comes furnished, it is not the best and not really to my taste, so we thought we would see what was available. Some of the lower end furniture shops were very funny as the furniture was so hideous it was hysterical! Diamante strips along table edges and chair backs, purple velour sofas with silver cushions and silver metal curly bits on the sides. All very 1970's! We did manage to find a couple of shops with reasonable lounge suites, but a wooden dining table seems to be impossible to find, although Formica abounds!

Next it was on to cars! We don't want to waste money hiring a car for 6 months or more each winter so have decided to buy. Cars are very expensive in Turkey, even old ones, but they do hold their value well. Importing a car is possible, but extremely difficult and involves paying a bond to customs. You can only sell the car on to another foreigner who has to be prepared to take on the bond. So it was off to the car dealers. We had decided on a 4x4 as many of the mountain roads are not sealed. We plan to do some exploring and also want to go to the snow fields. A new ski resort has opened about an hour  from Fethiye, so we would like to see the snow again this winter. (it was Newfoundland last winter) We test drove several types and are going to see another today (Alan is picking up our rental scooter as I type!) That's going to be fun in 36 degrees! We shall probably have heat stroke this evening!

While we had the car we also drove up to Marmaris, which is about 50 kms by car or a 9 hour motor in Sunflower,assuming wind on the nose. We had been planning to head that way before we got caught up in the villa purchase, as it is a Mecca for boaty bits. However as a Westmarine store has recently opened here, some of the urgency disappeared. Still we wanted to see the place, and very disappointing it was too! All modern buildings, even the 'old town' was just a collection of covered walkways with 100's of tourist tat shops! Tourists seemed to be a mixture of Russian, German and English and prices were much higher than we are used to here. We stopped for coffee, and a Turkish coffee was 4 lire, here it's 1.5 lire or free with a meal. While we are only talking a dollar or 2 it is still a big price hike on a low cost item! We left the town centre and headed for the famous chandlery alley where all the boat shops are. There was certainly a good selection and plenty of workshops making everything from wooden items to canvas and stainless steel. Looks like we may have to go there after all next season if we want anything made for Sunflower. For now we will settle for fixing the water maker and getting her into her winter berth in Finike and worry about everything else next spring.

We are still finalising our Turkish bank account and hope to have debit cards and internet banking sorted today, then it will be back out into the bay for a week to carry on with getting ready for guests. I have made all new cushion covers for the salon with fabric I bought in Newfoundland! But there's still lots to sort out. It has turned a bit cooler (33 is cooler than 41!) and we have become acclimatised, but it's still nice to be able to hop in for a dip in lovely clear water! Then we'll be back in a week to collect our guests!

Exciting times around Fethiye....

Yes we seem to have spent a lot more time than we planed around the Fethiye- Gocek area.

We have been moving between Fethiye and Gocek Bay (Skopea Limani), with the occasional day trip to the anchorage in Gocek, to pick up supplies and boat items.  There is a fully stocked floating shop (including ice creams) that comes around to all the anchorages so in theory you would never have to leave the bay!

The temperatures have still been in the mid 30's but with a large swimming pool out the back it has not been too uncomfortable. I think we are getting acclimatised. It helps that the humidity is generally below 50%. Now towards the end of August the nights are getting cooler and we often don't need the fans.

Just another day on the water....

 We have spent quite a bit of time discovering the delights in Fethiye and surrounding areas. It is an amazing area, surrounded by high mountains (snow covered in winter) and with a very wide cultural mix. It is possible to experience everything from tourist beaches (mainly white, tattooed British) through to a small Turkish farming village, all within a few kilometres.

Our phone finally 'ran out of water!'!!

Gocek from the anchorage

Our phone finally 'ran out of water'! We had bought a Turkish SIM for our mobile when we arrived and you may remember they told us in the shop it would 'run out of water'. Well 2 weeks later it did indeed run out of water or at least stopped working. We took it to a Turkcell shop in Fethiye where a woman spoke good English and apparently the Turkish phone system won't allow a non Turkish phone to work for more than 2 weeks unless you pay 100 lire tax to have it registered, or you could buy a local phone for 120 lire which is what we did!

We have been attacked by boat gremlins! and have been through a spell of things breaking down. First it was the propeller on our outboard motor (rubber isolator slipping), so we had to order a new one. Then the regulator on our engine alternator broke down, we have ordered a new one of those too. Meanwhile Alan has fitted an old spare we had,  we ordered a  new one from Blues marine in Gocek, the next town along from Fethiye and at the head of our beautiful bay. Then last Saturday as we were coming into this anchorage our engine over heated, luckily we had just attached to a mooring ball, so the next day Alan was able to check it out and discovered a broken water hose. It was lucky it broke when it did and not on a 9 hour motor trip to Marmaris! The temp in the engine compartment was 50 degrees C so we had to wait 24 hours for it to be cool enough to work on!

The next day the water maker sprung a leak! It soaked the carpet in the store room but luckily none of the stored clothing got wet. We store all our winter clothes next to it. We had to remove everything stored on top and luckily the problem was some loose connections, easily fixed, and it's so hot that the carpet dried out in no time!

Today we have to replace a broken zip on the cockpit curtain, so I hope nothing else breaks down! Luckily we are in a place where we can get spare parts. It's just strange that all these things seem to happen together!

We have had some respite from the intense heat. We have a bit of a breeze which doesn't feel like it's coming from a hairdryer! So while it's still in the mid 30's it feels more comfy. The water temp is 30 degrees so it's like getting into a warm bath! Not all that refreshing, but at least you can stay in it for ages and not get chilly!

We went to Gocek a few days ago for fresh supplies and to collect the spare parts we had ordered. It's a quaint little village with loads of marinas and more boats than I have seen together in a long time! It's very pretty as it isn't built up, and it's surrounded by wooded hills. We went ashore and discovered loads of supermarkets including a Kipa (Turkish Tesco!) as well as a myriad of chandleries including a West Marine store that had only just opened. West Marine are a huge US chain of chandleries. We knew they had branches in Istanbul and Marmaris and that was the main reason we were going to head for Marmaris, but now we don't have to unless we want a change of scenery.

Connecting the new Rocna 25

Before we left the US we bought a new Rocna anchor from West Marine. This is a New Zealand anchor which we had been lusting after for a while. We then discovered that some Rocnas had been made in China and were sub standard. We saw the 'made in China' on our anchor after this had come to light and after we had left the US. We contacted Rocna as they were offering to replace all sub standard models. 

The new, 'improved', anchor

However as we are now in the Med they told us we could exchange it at West Marine in Marmaris. Alan spoke to the manager at the new shop in Gocek and we forwarded the relevant emails and he said no problem he would change it for us. This is so much more convenient as the dinghy dock at Gocek is a trolley trip from the shop, whereas in Marmaris the WM is a taxi drive from the waterfront. We are also on a mooring ball at the moment to it's easy to take our anchor off and replace it with our spare while we do the exchange.

The propeller arrived but they shipped the wrong regulator, so we will have to return in a few days time!

 

Meanwhile we have discovered an easy anchoring option which is not anchoring at all, but picking up a mooring ball! Because the water is so deep close to all the shoreline and islands, the Turkish method is to drop anchor in deep water then reverse at a high rate of knots, hoping the anchor snags something on the way then tying a long line ashore. This allows more boats to anchor together as you are not swinging around. However it does have some disadvantages; with only 2 people it is tricky, especially if its windy as once the anchor is down the boat will swing into the wind and possibly away from the shore. One of you (OK Alan) then has to hop in the dinghy quick smart (or swim with the rope) and clamber over rocks to tie on the line. The council has installed bollards on shore to tie a line on or else use a rock. It is forbidden to tie to a tree as they were being damaged by the ropes. Also because the boat is not pointing into the wind, you don't always get a breeze or you get wind gusts on the beam which heel the boat over.

The line from the stern to the peg on shore

The mooring balls eliminate the need to anchor and it's possible to swing into the wind. However this is a bit anti social as that takes up more space than tying up. We usually try and find a ball that means we will point into the wind anyway as at this time of year the wind comes from the same direction most of the time.

We have been gorging on all the wonderful soft fruit that is available now. Turkey is a major cherry grower and their cherries are fantastic; huge, black and sweet. We bought a couple of kilos from a farmer who sells to Marks and Spencer, although at about $2 a kilo I think we were getting them a bit cheaper than M&S customers! Peaches and apricots are also in season so we are getting plenty of vitamin C. The fruit is so flavourful, I expect because it is just picked and hasn't had to travel in refrigerated trucks for weeks.

We have a list of projects to do before our guests arrive, but the heat does rather sap our energy. So I expect we will have a hectic time just before they arrive doing all the things we are too hot to do now! Speaking of which, time for a dip.....

Fethiye Fun....

ECE Marina with the town of Fethiye behind

We are now back in Fethiye 4 weeks after leaving Cyprus. The reverse journey only took 2 days last October! We like Fethiye very much, not sure if it's because it was our first Turkish port when we arrived last year and we spent 4 weeks here then and got to know it, or whether its' the mix of Turkish and touristy things we like.

We enjoyed the preceding 4 weeks mooching up the coast and exploring new anchorages but we had 2 serious missions to sort out now. First was a visit to our lovely dentist (Mr Seven Stars as his name translates into in English) He made a crown for Alan last year at a very reasonable price and now it was my turn as I could feel a cracked filling.

Alan had some work done as well.

His surgery is a brief walk from the marina and lovely and bright and airy, it has a Zen calmness about it when you walk in, as does he. This was such a contrast to the dentist Alan saw in Cyprus for his root canal treatment. There the dentist was a very young woman with rooms in a private hospital, there was always a long wait, phones were ringing and she always seemed to be doing a dozen things at once, people would walk into the surgery and chat away while she worked on Alans tooth. We have never had to wait for Mr Seven Stars, in fact we wondered if he ever had any other patients! He remembered us from last year and after a quick check up told us he could repair the filling. 5 minutes later he had finished and charged us $15! We gave him a $20 note (well actually a Turkish equivalent) but he didn't have change so insisted on giving us $10 back! We felt awful, so as soon as we had change we took him back the $5, and yes he did have another patient:) It almost makes you want to have more dental problems!!

Our next mission was to apply for our temporary residents permit. Since last year Turkey has changed their immigration rules, several time actually. But for us, the biggest impact was that instead of getting a 90 day visa and being able to renew it, now you could only be in the country for 3 months out of a 6 month period. They then changed the rules for yachties and said you could have residency if you had a marina contract, which is why we booked into the marina in Finike for the winter. 15 days after we had booked and paid for the marina they changed the rules yet again and said for yachties as long as you had a cruising permit (which is compulsory when you arrive by yacht anyway) you could get a residents permit, no marina contract or proof of income required! We decided to take advantage of this before the rules change again and have applied for a 2 year residency. This will allow us to come and go until 31 May 2014, should we choose to stay that long.

Applying for the permit was an interesting process, and thanks to some yachties who had already done it and documented the process, much easier than it might otherwise have been. We had to get a tax number which meant a trek to the tax office, not something we were looking forward to. However it was a fairly pleasant experience compared to a similar trip in either Aus or the UK. The office was out of town but on the water front of the huge Fethiye bay, so nice water views:) Although the building was typical government issue it all seemed very laid back, no queues and helpful staff, who were anything but overworked. Perhaps the Turkish civil service could be a good job?:)

Now we have a tax number we can open a bank account if we want to, the banks here are paying 10% interest and that's after tax has been automatically deducted. We are also now eligible to buy a house, so watch this space.....!:)

All we have to do now is wait 2 weeks and return for our passports and visa! While we are waiting we have retreated to the beautiful bay area outside of Fethiye to relax and get some jobs done. At least that was the plan until the weather kicked up a notch. It is once again in the high 30's with 40 degrees forecast for the weekend. There is little or no wind so we have no energy for much else except eating chilled watermelon and jumping in our lovely big salt water swimming pool several times a day!

It's too hot to cook inside so the BBQ has been getting a work out, as have our fans and squirty water bottle at night!!

It's very tough here, there are always interruptions; the ice cream boat comes by, the pancake boat floats by with an elderly couple who make pancakes to order, there is even a floating mini market and as if that wasn't enough we have to dinghy all the way to the end of our little fjord if we want fresh hot bread every morning! It's going to be a long 2 weeks:)

Hot n Cruisin at last!

 

A fan and a squirt - heaven

Wow, who turned the heating up!!! One minute we have a pleasant 26 degrees and a nice breeze at night then all of a sudden it's 40 degrees, day and night!!! It was so awful, when the breeze blew it was like standing in front of a fan heater! The last time I experienced heat like this was in Ayers Rock and it was a really dry heat, so the sweat evaporated instantly ALSO we weren't actually out in it that much as we had air conditioned vehicles and hotels and restaurants! Here the only escape was to jump in the sea which was about 29 degrees. That was fine until you had to get out then it was suffocating heat again, it was hard to breath! at night it was brutal. Impossible to sleep even with nothing on and fans at full bore. We resorted to a squirty bottle of water and were spraying ourselves every 5 minutes to get some evaporative cooling. It was far too hot to do anything and everything inside the boat was really hot too. I picked up my shampoo bottle in the shower, it was hot and the normally thick creamy contents just ran out.

In retrospect our anchorage probably didn't help as we were surrounded on 3 sides by steep rocky hills which as well as blocking the breeze were also storing all that heat and radiating it out at night. We couldn't stand it any longer and left to go to Finike where we have booked a marina for next winter. It was such a relief to be out on open water where although there was no wind to sail at least we had a bit of airflow from the boat moving through the water.

We anchored outside our next winter marina and we dingoed ashore to look around, have some lunch and get supplies. The temp had dropped to a survivable 33 degrees although it felt hotter on land. The marina is fine although not as shiny as the Cyprus one since it was built in 1992. Finike seems very pleasant and is definitely not a tourist town, very much a working town although there are a few hotels and a beach around the bay. At least it won't close down during winter! The supermarket gave us a free lift back to the marina with all our shopping including an 11 kilo watermelon!! (the smallest one they had) I think I need a bigger fridge!:)

We were very hot and sweaty when we got back to Sunflower so decided a quick dip would cool us down. We were anchored in shallow water and the water temp was showing a respectable 27 degrees so we both jumped in. The water felt lovely and warm going down but as I bobbed up it suddenly became icy cold. This is odd because normally the water is colder deeper down. We were a bit puzzled and then realised we were anchored in front of a river outlet which was pouring it's icy water (from the high mountains surrounding Finike) into the ocean, and fresh water floats on top of salt water, so we had about 3 -4 inches of icy fresh water on top of the normal sea water. It was a very odd sensation having a warm body and very chilly top bit in the water. We had a very bracing but brief dip and emerged quite quickly!

A Tewksbury in motion

That night I had a lovely sleep and didn't sweat (or squirt)at all! The next morning we went on to the fuel dock and then headed about 15 miles east to a place called Kekova Roads which is very picturesque with lots of lovely anchorages and then next stop Kas. We decided not to get our residence visas here as it takes about 10 days,( we didn't want to wait here that long as we will be spending plenty of time here in the winter) so we will return to Fethiye and apply there and also go back to the nice dentist we found there as I have a toothy problem. No pain but a bit has broken off.

It is still hot, in the 30's, but bearable, especially if you're not ashore. The spike in temp wasn't local either as we heard from a friend in Fetihye it was the same there. They also just had an earthquake there, apparently they're very common in Turkey!

We have been in Kekova Roads for several days now which is very beautiful. Kekova is a 4 mile long island which acts as a wave barrier to the coastline behind it so it is very calm in here and there are lots of little inlets and anchorages with only a few crumbling ruins and goats for company.

A ruined castle at Kekova Roads

We had arrived and got anchored and only had one other boat for company. But by evening time the anchorage had become very crowded and lots of Tewksburys were around the place. They have the silliest little anchors and usually drop miles out and reverse ashore where they tie a rope to a rock. It had got very hot and steamy again and lightening was flashing in the distance. I hoped a storm would cool things down a bit. However we didn't get any rain but about mid night the storm was passing by and we got big wind gusts from all over the place and mayhem in the anchorage ensued! Boats were dragging all over the place particularly the Tewksburys! Their method of tying ashore means they don't swing to the wind, and they are such huge behemoths with high sides and lots of windage, we assume being hit by a wind bullet of about 30 knots beam on might have caused their ropes to break. Anyway there were about 4 of them lumbering around in the pitch black with this gale blowing, an Italian and Norwegian yacht were tangled together and we had an English boat who had anchored far too close to us now nosing our rear end.

We were swinging in all directions as the wind swirled around the hills on all sides of us. The English boat kept shining a spotlight on us in case we got too close and a poor Swiss boat was yelling at a Tewksbury who had decided to anchor inches away from them, the next morning we discovered all aboard this particular Tewks were drunk. The wind kept up until about 3.30 am so nobody got much sleep, to make things more uncomfortable the really hot wind was blowing so even at 4 am it was about 39 degrees outside and even hotter in the boat, impossible to sleep! Last night we almost had an action replay as we were surrounded by thunder storms, although this time we got some rain and minimal wind and thankfully the temp dropped to a positively chilly 25 degrees! At last a good nights sleep:)

Next morning there was a coast guard boat in the anchorage and they were boarding all the Tewks, so we wondered if the Swiss had reported the drunken captain.

We are moving today a few miles down the road to another anchorage and then Kas, Fethiye and Marmaris. We are wondering if it might be a bit cooler further north, also the prevailing winds in summer blow from north to south so it might be best to motor north before we have strong winds on the nose and then we can get blown back south. Can't believe John and Christine will be here in 3 months time!

First weeks in Turkey....

It is now about 2 weeks since we left our marina berth in Northern Cyprus, and we are now relaxing on anchor in Turkish waters! We had good winds and were able to sail for 6 hours out of the 9 hour (40 mile) journey, the only problem was our steering was so stiff the auto pilot wouldn't work! (we hadn't set up the windvane self steering as we had not anticipated being able to do much sailing!) The steering usually stiffens up after not being used for a while, but this was really hard and showed no signs of loosening up. So we had to hand steer for 9 hours! Very tiring as we were hard on the wind and it was all a bit frisky! Poor Alan ended up doing nearly all the work as it was too hard for me. Anyway we made it to Turkey and the anchorage just as it was getting dark, and slept really well.

Next morning we had to complete the entry formalities into Turkey. We were anchored off the small town of Tasucu which operates a ferry service to Kyrenia in Northern Cyprus and so is an official port of entry. Checking in involves going firstly to the harbour masters office to purchase a Transit Log, then you have to take the Transit log to the health service for a stamp, then customs for a stamp, then immigration/police for a stamp and return all stamped copies to the harbour master! Money also has to be paid to immigration for your 90 day tourist visa. Fortunately being a small town the distances between all the authorities was not huge, although we did take a taxi to the hospital as it was uphill and very hot and we would probably have got lost anyway. We managed to complete all formalities in about an hour, which seems to be some sort of a record from what we can gather from other cruisers.

We had lunch and then caught a Dolmus (minivan public bus) to the next town inland called Silifke where we understood there was a Turkcell shop. We wanted to buy a SIM card for our phone and to buy time for our Turkish dongle so we would have internet. The Dolmus are fantastic, they are a fixed price, run every couple of minutes, stop anywhere you want and are very cheap! We had used them in Fethiye last year, but mainly for short trips, this journey was about 10 kms and cost about $1 each.

This area is very much off the beaten tourist track, although Tasucu caters for local Turkish tourists, hardly anyone speaks English, menus are all in Turkish so one has to muddle through. In the Turkcell shop their English was not much better than our Turkish, so Google Translate was resorted to with some hilarious results. We are still trying to work out what “your phone has run out of water” means:) Still we managed to do what we wanted and now have internet on the boat and a working phone (although we will need to top it up with water obviously!) Everyone was very friendly and did their best to be helpful, so after a quick ice cream it was back on the Dolmus.

The rudder stuffing box gets a little grease.

We got back to Sunflower, and the afternoon breeze had come up, so trying to get aboard as she was pitching back and forth was a bit of a challenge especially as we are somewhat out of practice. Still we made it and motored to a lovely calm anchorage where we chilled out for a few days. This was after poor Alan had to dive head first under our bed, to grease our stuffing box! Your guess is as good as mine! In the hope this would fix our steering problems, luckily it was a stuffed stuffing box and after greasing, oiling, lubing and swearing at it, the steering now works like a dream.

This part of Turkey has been home to civilization for about 5000 years. There are ruins everywhere and even some of the ancient names evoke thoughts of myths and legends. Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Taurus mountains. Our cruising guide gives a quote which says:"when God created Hell he wasn't happy, so he created Mesopotamia and added flies"! We have had a few, but not too bad and it certainly isn't anywhere near the 40 degrees it can reach here in summer.

Sunflower anchored in Aydencick harbour

We have spent the last week or so taking our time to meander around the coast stopping wherever we could, the landscape is mountainous down to the sea in most places so finding safe anchorages can be a challenge, but we have found some lovely spots. One which was especially nice was Aydencick it had a most delightful little harbour, where we anchored in the middle and rowed dingo ashore. The harbour was a really pretty little place full of local fishing boats and seating all around with a covered rotunda and palm trees and flowering plants. 

Dee, Mehmet and the mosque

At night it had lovely blue lighting. We were met by Mehmet who spoke English and directed us to a lovely cheap restaurant, the bank and a proper supermarket.(supplies were getting quite low) It was only a very small town but the locals were very friendly and mostly farmers. We bought the most fabulous strawberries, so sweet and tasty. 

There is the most amazing mosque which dominates the main street and with its twin minarets and shiny silver roof can be seen from quite a way off shore.

 When we asked Mehmet about it he offer

ed to show us around inside.

 We were very surprised as in Morocco only Muslims were allowed inside mosques. He seemed shocked by this and said anyone was welcome in a Turkish mosque. 

We were introduced to the Imam who was proud to show us around. It was gorgeous inside and Alan took some great photos. So having done our bit for Christian/Muslim relations we pottered off to lunch!

Despite enjoying the small harbour, being so small we felt like we were in a bit of a goldfish bowl, so left to find a more deserted anchorage nearby so we could prepare for our overnight voyage and to find out why the water maker has ceased to function! I had planned to do laundry but will defer that until we solve the water maker issue!

Luckily the water maker was an easy fix (loose wire) Blame the chap who installed it, (oops no that was Alan!:) I prepared some meals and we left at 6 am for our 140 mile leg across the Gulf of Antalya. 

We could have cruised around the top of the horse shoe shaped bay, but it would have taken a long time and we were keen to get to Finike where we will be spending the winter to check out ourmarina choice and sort out our residency visas.

We knew we would be motoring most, if not all of the way, as unfortunately this time of year there are set wind patterns so we are battling wind all the way as we travel west. The trick is to motor while there is no wind so the seas are flat and you are not battling into the wind. We must have timed it just right as the seas were dead calm. We decided to put out our fishing line (having, a) located it and b) dusted the cobwebs from it:) We then promptly forgot all about it. I was on watch at dusk ( about 8.30 pm here) when the line went off, I quickly roused Alan and he started reeling the line in. It took about 15 minutes and we wondered if we had snagged some rubbish (or a body?) but it was a fair sized tuna! I was ready with both the camera and fish catching towel (a patented Sunflower fish catching technique:) I managed a very bad shot of Mr Tuna before he made an amazing escape, got off the hook (literally) and we watched several yummy dinners swim back into the deep! Very disappointing, but I at least have photographic evidence of the one that got away!

We managed to motor for 24 hours of our 25 hour trip! A wind aberration around 1.30 am allowed for an hour of sailing before the wind died off again. We are now anchored in stunning surroundings, in a lovely bay with mountains all around. There is even a cable car going up to the highest mountain, Tahtali, this is the longest cable car in Europe and the second longest in the world! We plan to visit it while we are in the marina, although it snows up there in winter, so maybe spring might be a better option!

We had our first swim yesterday as the water temp had reached an acceptable 25 degrees. It was lovely. Just as we were getting ready to dive in, a local boat with a single chap who spoke some English came along side and handed over a big bag of tomatoes, peppers and an unknown herb, as a present from his garden:) How lovely! They went very well with the BBQ steak we had for dinner last night. What friendly locals, how could you not love it here:)

We have never seen so many turtles as we have since we arrived in Turkey, their little heads bob up everywhere. We saw a big one dive down as we were anchoring yesterday and have seen him bobbing around the anchorage during the day. We will have to see if we can find him when we go for a snorkel. There are a lot of turtle nesting grounds around here and it is lovely to see so many of them, maybe it's because the Turks don't eat them like they do in the Bahamas and the San Blas, which are the only other places we have seen the very occasional live turtle.

A couple of  Tweksburys

We have company in our anchorage of at least one or two Gulets, the local Turkish 'pirate boats' ( well they do look a bit like it) Which bring out tourists for 2-3 day charters. We have been wondering how to pronounce Gulet, we had been calling them 'gullets' which doesn’t sound very nice so we decided to check it out properly. The u has the German umlaut or 2 dots over it which means it's pronounced like 'ewe', or as our phrase book puts it, like in Tewksbury! For some reason we both thought this was very funny, so from here on in Gulets will be referred to as 'Tewksburys'!