Summer has not ended after all – phew! I have been waiting for a cloudy or rainy day to update our blog, but the forecast is for warm and sunny days for the next week, so I can linger no longer.

We survived the last Meltimi; which lasted three days and were thrilled when Russell’s sister and hubby (Yoga and Boop – great names eh) eventually arrived on board. They have been couch surfing around Europe for the summer and had some fantastic stories and photos to share about their adventures with us.
A wonderful way to meet the locals and experience the community first hand, they stayed with some amazing people. Sadly the day after they arrived Yoga had a nasty fall on the dock and had to go to hospital, she ended up having stitches on her shin and had to keep her leg up for at least a week.

After a second visit to the hospital, and an all clear for Yoga, we left to go south, putting a rain check on touring around Ephesus as Yoga was told to not walk for two weeks. The weather luckily improved, but sadly we had no wind at all and ended up motoring for the ten days we were away – not cheap, but it was worth every penny as the Lycian Coast is gorgeous. We spent most of our time exploring Skopea Limani and Fethiye and came back via the Dalyan River area.

The numerous bays are generally uninhabited, although some are home to the occasional small restaurant. We visited Tomb Bay; which takes its name from the ancient rock tombs embedded in the hillsides surrounding the bay and then went onto Gocek before heading to Fethiye. Fethiye is delightful with a very low-key bazaar; which we thoroughly enjoyed – one could have spent a fortune easily on some of the beautiful plates, rugs, jewelry and handicrafts. We also loved the fish and vegetable market and had a wonderful evening there at a family restaurant celebrating Yoga’s birthday. Here you can buy fish directly from the man who caught it, and then you take it to one of the market restaurants that cook it for you adding salad and garlic bread for 6 TL. Our restaurant helped us chose prawns for a starter and then two big bass to share, all the time making sure we got a cut price and he only charged us 5TL each plus a bottle (or was it two?) of cheap local wine and we were set - yummy.

We then went to Ruin Bay; which is named after the semi-submerged ruined buildings that line the shore and are reputed to be the remains of one of Cleopatra’s bathing houses. We had a beautiful walk ashore, by now Yoga was up and about and we just loved the place. Then it was onto Tersane Adasi; which also has ruins ashore (which bay doesn’t around the area) these ones possibly of an ancient shipyard. We thought it amusing that they use these old ruins for chicken coups and storage, recycling is good I suppose.

We headed back to Fethiye to see the BIG game. We had been following the world Rugby and had to watch the final between the All Blacks and the French. Our friends on Midi met up with us there and after a night of catching up on board Ta-b we all went ashore the next morning to a bar that we knew was showing the match. There were quite a few people there and what a game, nail biting, I could hardly breath in the second half. Tad close, the French played really well, but the All Blacks defended extremely well and won 8-7 and we left the harbour playing the Harka full belt. Must admit we had been playing it a lot, but this time it was extra special.

We had an agenda, hell we hate them, but we wanted to tour the Dalyan River on our way back to Marmaris and there was a plane to catch. Did what we never do and ended up anchoring in the dark, not many places to go between Fethiye and Ekincik, but we were fine as there was no wind and we picked a good spot. Next day we were up early to get to Ekincik and our tour boat; which was picking us up in the morning.

What an awesome trip we had. We had a boat to ourselves with a lovely driver who was the typical charming Turk and as always ready to please. The estuary used to be a huge bay and is now a maze of rivers between reeds, very peaceful with magnificent views. We stopped off at the ancient ruins of Kaunos (yes more ruins) that are stunning and hardly visited, before heading up river to the little town of Dalyan where we had lunch on the river overlooking the major tombs. These big tombs for the kings took 300 men 8 years to build and are pretty impressive carved into the cliffs. On our way back we stopped at one of the crab boats where they proceeded to lure huge endangered Loggerhead Turtles to the surface - stunning. This area is a treasure kept unspoilt because of these amazing creatures, we just loved it.

Back to Marmaris we said a sad goodbye to Yoga and Boop, thankfully we are seeing them again in January. It was wonderful to have them on board and now it is just a matter of when they will visit us again, would be fun to share the Caribbean in a few years.

So back to reality and getting the boat up to snuff. We headed into the Marina and started on the “to do” list tempting as it was to keep cruising, but the nights are getting cooler and we are ready to stay put for a while. This year we are at Yat Marin which is outside of town, we need to put the old girl on the hard so we can do some work that we can’t do in the water, which we were unable to do at Netsel. It is not far into town and if we do not take our tender there is a regular bus (Dolmus they call them here). The community is quite lively and there seems to be something happening every night including happy hour from 6 to 7.30 pm each evening!! We lift on the 21st November and leave on the 8th December (yes we live on the boat high up there on the hard) back to Vancouver for Xmas/New Year before going down under to visit family and friends who we have not seen for a while.

I have added a few photos that I missed out last blog and would like to thank Yoga and Boop for some of theirs; which I have included. They took nearly 1000 when they were with us – yikes - I must start taking more. Enjoy and hope to see you soon.