Well we're now officially on our way home. We've just left Cold Water Bay in Turkey which is the furthest east we'll be on this whole trip, it's all westwards from this point on.

I don't think I expected Turkey to be just so beautiful. The waters are deep azure blues and turquoises, the steep cliffs and deep gorges are spectacular. We love the deep water close to shore so that we can anchor with a long line ashore which keeps us from swinging on our anchor. Cold Water Bay itself was a very fantastic spot, we anchored opposite the busy part and had the most perfect little bay all to ourselves with high cliffs clear water and a smell of pine trees in the air. We anchored in the middle and you couldn't have fit another boat either side. The peace is only broken by the local boats who keep visiting to try and sell you things (at exorbitant prices) or invite you to their restaurant ashore (often a great experience).

Before Cold Water Bay we stopped for two nights in Fethiye to provision and get some other jobs done. The marina was expensive but we managed to get the password to their wifi without staying. We're getting very good at sourcing free wifi, sometimes though it takes a coffee ashore to get the right password from a cafe then unknowing to them we use our long range aerial on the boat to stay connected from our anchorage (unfortunately we managed to anchor immediately off the local mosque, The haunting call to prayers is blasted over megaphones at high volume all hours of the day, at least you certainly know you're experiencing another culture).

While in Fethiye we also had a Turkish bath, we checked out a very traditional venue in the town but the smell kinda put us off so we opted for the "westernised" version in the Marina resort. It was quite an experience, you lay on a very hot marble plinth and get an extreme exfoliation (after which you can see bits of your skin all over the marble surface), next you get absolutely smothered in soap foam followed by a very slippery but rough massage. We were done by a fairly wirily young woman and it was obviously quite a workout for her as you could hear panting for breath!

Throughout Turkey we keep seeing the most fantastic range of Gullets (local cruise boats that take people on short cruises and sight seeing), I keep forgetting to take a photo but some of them even have water slides from the top deck through the hull and out the side, they look great fun. The gullets captains have the reputation of being quite aggressive over the best spot in an anchorage though (last night one dropped their anchor over ours and then just told me not to worry they'll be going in an hour and we can re-anchor then... friggers!). We do try and avoid them because they charge around at high speed playing loud dance music.

We've about two more weeks in Turkey and now we're going to head in the direction of Bodrum and visit the many small anchorages along the way. The weather is perfect, we've been swimming a bit and the winds are very favourable. Mikes been spending more time behind the wheel and did a fine job berthing us at the last marina.

Mike and I wish a very happy birthday to Emily, Georgia, Anna, Harry and Tina!