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| 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!
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| 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....
