Our days start with the call to prayer at dawn. The Fethiye mosques have the timing almost but not quite synchronized, so the voices of the muezzins echo over the water with a weird warbling effect. It's a pleasant wake-up call, and helps us get ashore early to do some sightseeing before the midday heat hits.

While searching for a garbage can near the dinghy dock, we walk through the small park and what do we find, set into the hillside? An amphitheatre from Lycian and later Roman times.



As we walk across the street to take a closer look, a man wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat and a city of Fethiye polo shirt approaches us. He introduces himself as "John" and launches into a guided tour of the site. We assume that he works for the city and he seems very knowledgeable. After explaining all the Lycian and Roman features of the theatre, he continues up the steps to show us the stone knobs that mark the individual seats, the special seats for royalty and the fire pit (used for light) Above the seats of the theatre, he points out the entrance to what he claims was a tunnel, several kilometres in length, now inaccessible due to earthquake damage. The Turkish government plans to excavate it, he says, and he believes there could be great treasures hidden inside. Further up the hill, he takes us through the winding footpaths and staircases of the old town. He shows us a Lycian burial site carved into the side of the cliff, and a Lycian mailbox where people left messages for each other. Like "Honey, I've gone to the baths, I'll be back for supper." or "Wild animals at the theatre next week" John explains. From this vantage point, high on the hill, he points out the black roof domes of the hamam built by Sultan Selim in the 16th century, now restored and in operation. This reminds us that Jean Francois had advised us not to miss the Turkish baths and we make a mental note to check it out.

John finishes the tour there and expectantly looks for a tip. I start with 5TL and get talked up to 15 TL plus two Canadian flag pins (complements of the office of Alexa McDonough, MP, which gives you some indication of how long it's been since we sailed away from Nova Scotia). John thanks us gratefully, but comments that he usually gets 20TL.

From there we wander through the bazaar, make a brief reconnaissance stop at the Old Turkish Bath ("Bliss and relaxation guaranteed") and then check out the carpets at the Old Orient carpet shop. Here, the proprietor Celal patiently shows us through his stock without any of the hard sell we experienced in Marmaris. The carpets are lovely, but we do not buy one. After a lunch of pide and lentil soup in the bazaar, we set off to find the Lycian sarcophagus that is supposedly near the town hall. Many of Turkey's towns have these ancient pieces of history lying around, and you can easily walk past them without ever realizing their significance. After nearly half an hour of searching, we finally find the tomb, hiding in plain site, in a parking lot.



Now we can finally head back to the boat for a rest. At 6 p.m. we are back in the dinghy with the Turkish baths in our sights.

What an experience! We had understood that we would have the options of male-only and female-only bathing, but no one offered us a choice. Maybe we chose the wrong door, because it's obvious we will be sharing this experience with people of both sexes. When Bonnie appears from the changing room in her bathing suit, the attendants look puzzled. There will be too much fabric for a proper bath. An English couple, heads and torsos wrapped in fluffy towels, advise her to ditch the bathing suit. She looks sceptical but goes back to the changing room and reappears wrapped in a striped towel. I decide to keep my trunks on.

Inside, we are sent to a small sauna alcove for a sweat time, where we periodically dip small metal saucers full of cold water over our heads. The attendants are both bare-chested males, wearing only towels around their waists. They are working hard in steaming heat and cool themselves off between clients by pouring the saucers of cold water over themselves. Bonnie is looking worried and trying to decide whether to go back to the changing room for her bathing suit. But it's too late to turn back now. In order to get the suit, she would have to walk back through the waiting area dressed only in a thin towel, which is now soaking wet. Four young British women are being scrubbed while we steam. With their young and nubile bodies, they are not at all concerned about their missing bathing suits. Bonnie thinks that I must be really enjoying myself, and I should be, but without my glasses (which are useless in the steam) I can only see blurry shadows. Just my luck! We are eventually motioned onto the large marble slab (two people at a time) for a scrub down with luffa type brushes, a wash in mega-bubbles applied with a huge slippery soap bag and then a foot-scrubbing session to remove the calluses from our feet. After another cold-water rinse, we are wrapped in fluffy towels and sent to the massage room. "Wow, my skin feels so soft" says Bonnie. Mine feels just the same as before. Furry. .

I had been dreaming of a relaxing head massage, like the kind you get from some barbers. After I explain my request to the masseuse, he spends 20 minutes poking, squeezing, pressing and trying to move my scalp every which way. He presses so hard on my temples, repeatedly, that I will not be able to open my jaw all the way for two days. I couldn't wait to get out of there. Meanwhile, Bonnie's masseuse is making roaring sounds like a revving engine as he kneads away at her shoulders and neck, ignoring her flinching and exclamations of pain. Why we both stayed and put up with it, I'm not sure. The bath was blissful , but next time, we'll pass on the massage.

Tuesday is market day in Fethiye. The merchandise was mainly the same array of knock-off designer bags sunglasses and t-shirts that you will find in tourist destination around the planet, but the produce section was incredible. The fruit and vegetable stands went on for ever, with the best selection and quality of produce that we have ever seen. We bought peaches, tiny delicious oranges with green skins like limes, bananas, tomatoes, red peppers, cucumbers, a huge bag of green beans...and then we realized we had to stop because we'd clearly never manage to eat what we'd already bought. We have certainly been eating well, and the view of the Lycian tombs from our cockpit table seems to enhance the flavour of every meal.

Our last outing was to the Fethiye museum, which had a surprisingly impressive collection considering the size of the city. Pottery dating back to the bronze age (some pieces nearly 5000 years old , and still reasonably intact!) a fascinating coin collection and a trilingual Lycian/ Greek/Aramaic stone that served as a type of rosetta stone to help decode the Lycian language.

We hadn't intended to stay so long in Fethiye, but there was no shortage of interesting things to see and do there. When Wednesday brought some reassuring news from James and Bonnie's Mom about their meeting with her doctor, our spirits lifted and we decided to venture further east...Kekova Roads, here we come!